The Governess Affair (Brothers Sinister #0.5)(19)

Hugo exhaled and tried to imagine the duke taking responsibility. He tried to imagine the duchess understanding. No use; it would never happen.

He tried to imagine himself driving Serena away—but that was an even more futile prospect. He was trapped between an improbability and an unlikelihood.

He frowned. “I’ll need to look into a few things,” he said. “But we’ll talk tomorrow—let us say at eleven in the morning. And this time I mean it. No threats—not from either of us. This is a problem.”

He reached out and set his hand over hers on the walking stick. She raised her eyes to his, wide and luminous.

“I solve problems,” he said.

FREDDY HAD BEEN IN BED when Serena arrived last evening; she was still sleeping when Serena awoke, early in the morning.

Serena was just slipping into her shoes in the entry when a querulous note sounded behind her.

“Serena? Are you sneaking out already? Where were you so late last night?”

Serena’s heart skipped a beat. “Out,” she said.

“Out doing what?”

“Out being…out.”

There sounded the thump of feet hitting the floor, and then Freddy turned the corner. Her countenance was screwed into worried little lines.

“You arrived in someone’s company,” she said. “I watched you.”

And she’d thought Freddy asleep. Her sister had likely been too upset to speak. There was no use denying the accusation, though, so Serena simply picked up her cloak.

“A man. Haven’t men caused you enough trouble?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Don’t you know how men are? It is always like that with them. Is that how you got in trouble? Walking out with a man after dark?” Freddy grimaced. “You’ve never learned your lesson.”

“What lesson should I have learned?”

Freddy straightened and set her hands on her hips. “I scarcely said a word when you flaunted your problems before all of Mayfair. And now I’m being forced to vacate the home I hold dear. I am made homeless, and you are out at all hours of the night cavorting with men.”

“I wasn’t cavorting. It was the Wolf of Clermont, if you must know. I have to speak with him. And even if it wasn’t, what do you expect me to do? Hide for the rest of my life, because something bad happened to me?”

Freddy’s lips compressed.

“If you’re worried about where to stay, I’ve a few leads on rooms. I’ll have us a new place by nightfall. I was just headed out to—”

As she spoke, Freddy reached down and picked up a pair of slippers. “Us?” she said. “We won’t have anything.” And then she threw the slippers at Serena.

They were made of wool and therefore bounced ineffectually off Serena’s forehead. Still, she was aghast. Mild-mannered Freddy, tossing things at her?

“How dare you?” Freddy said. “How dare you bring me into this?”

“Freddy—it’s just a place to stay. We’ll find a new one, just as good.”

“You don’t understand!” Freddy looked about the entry. “You’ve never understood. I have only ever had one safe place—these rooms—and now you’ve taken them from me.”

Freddy reached down and picked up the tired valise that stood next to the table.

“Listen to yourself,” Serena said. “You want me to hide, just like you do—hurt once, never risking anything else again. You won’t be satisfied until you’ve brought me down to your level.”

Freddy’s eyes flashed. Her lips pressed together, and in that moment, Serena had the horrible, awful feeling of having said too much. Freddy hurled the valise at her. It traveled only a few feet, lacking the basic capabilities to sustain long flight, and landed in a discordant crumple of leather and buckles.

“Do you not understand what happened to you?” Freddy glared at her. “You suffered a fate worse than death, and still you—”

“I am alive,” Serena said. “My child is alive. I intend to carry on living. Can you say that much?”

At that, Freddy swiped her hand across the side-table, tipping it over. It fell with a resounding crash.

Serena stepped forward and bent awkwardly to right the furniture. Her sister let out a sniff. “Oh, don’t bother,” she said crossly. “I’ll clean it up. I always do clean up after your messes. You would do it wrong, anyway. Go and dally with an entire company of men. I don’t care.”

Chapter Seven

AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK precisely, Serena was met at her bench by a man she had never seen before. He looked precisely the sort of man she would have imagined as the Wolf of Clermont a month ago—tall and muscular, eyes set close together, neck disappearing into broad shoulders.

“Miss Barton?” he asked.

Serena stood, folding the list of housing advertisements that she’d been perusing.

“I’m to show you around the back.”

She followed. It was foolish to be nervous. She’d talked with Mr. Marshall before. But not since he’d kissed her. Not since he’d discovered she was pregnant with another man’s child, and he’d drawn back.

He led her around the street and into a mews in back. From there, they ducked into the servants’ entrance in one of the white stone houses. The door opened onto a cellar. This he passed through swiftly, taking her up several flights of a narrow stair, and from there, into a richly carpeted hall, paintings on the walls.