The Governess Affair (Brothers Sinister #0.5)(31)

“I see the governess is gone,” he said cheerily. “And the duchess is back, and in a few months, assuming all is well, I’ll have another payment from the trust.”

“Yes,” Hugo said tersely. “Good.”

But the duke was in a voluble mood today. “What do you think I should buy, first thing?” he mused. “Horses? Or a mistress?”

He couldn’t believe the man was still talking that way—not after all he’d been through.

“I have a better idea,” Hugo heard himself say. “You could go on a journey.”

“A journey? Now, there’s a capital idea for escaping my wife. Brighton, perhaps? Or France?”

“None of those,” Hugo said. “I was thinking that you could go to hell.”

He didn’t curse. He didn’t. And yet he could not make himself regret those words. A fierce sense of rightness beat in his chest, alongside his awakening heart.

His pronouncement was met with flat silence. Clermont cocked his head in disbelief, and then slowly—ever so slowly—shook it. “I’m not—I’m rather certain”—he spluttered—“I don’t believe you should address me in that fashion.”

Hugo stood. He wasn’t taller than the duke, but still the other man took a step back.

“You told me that you wanted me to take care of an employment matter. An employment matter. Do you have any idea what I might have done to her?”

“Oh, come now, Marshall. You’re not going and getting a conscience on me, are you?” Clermont pouted. “It’s so inconvenient, and I’ve had to listen to Her Grace harping on and on for the last three weeks about this and that and morals and love. My head is sick of nodding to the tune of nonsense. I have had nothing but lectures for days and days now. Is it never going to end?”

Hugo gritted his teeth. If he wanted those five hundred pounds, he had to work with this man for the next few months. He had to.

He clenched his hands and stood, turning away.

That sense of his own worthlessness had wormed its way under his skin until he believed it. In his mind’s eye, he saw the silhouette of his father looming over him. He felt the solid weight of the broom smashing into his ribs.

You’ll never make anything of yourself, you useless bloody bastard.

“There,” Clermont was saying behind him, “I’m the better person. I’ll forgive you for that unkind remark, and you’ll forgive me for my little falsehood—and we’ll be even, won’t we?”

He’d never been able to get those words out of his head; his mother’s intervention had driven them deep into his flesh, buried them where he couldn’t touch them.

You’ll never amount to anything.

And because of that, he was…what, going to walk away from the woman he loved?

No.

All the logic in the world could not stand up to one fact: He simply could not stomach Clermont’s presence any longer.

“We’re not even,” he said in a surprisingly calm voice. He turned back around.

Clermont was watching him with those ice-blue eyes of his—clear, and yet all too confused.

“We are not anywhere near even. Tell me what you did to her—admit it aloud, you coward.”

Clermont licked his lips in confusion. “She wanted it.”

Hugo reached out and grabbed the other man by the collar.

“The truth, Clermont.”

“She was a hot little—”

He hit the man in the stomach. He didn’t bother to pull the punch, and Clermont, who had likely never been struck before in his life, went green. There was a time for subtlety. There was a time to hold back his anger. But right now, he couldn’t see the point of it.

“The truth, Clermont, or next time, I’ll rip your stones out with my bare hands.”

The duke whimpered. “I was so bored, and she was the closest thing to a woman around. What would it hurt?”

Hugo struck him again.

“What was that for? I’m telling the truth, now!”

“That wasn’t for what you said. It was for what you did.” Hugo let the man go, but only long enough to grab a piece of paper and a pen and set it in front of him. “I want you to admit that on paper.”

“On paper? But—”

“On paper,” Hugo said. “I want you to write on paper that you forced her to it, and that in reparation for your crime, you agree that you will send your son to Eton—or sponsor your daughter for a Season.”

“But—”

“Do it,” Hugo said, with every ounce of menace he could muster. “And stop sniveling about it, you worthless buffoon. Think for one second about what I know about you—what I could do to you. You more than anyone know what I’m capable of. This lets you off rather easily. If you keep your end of the bargain, the paper need never be made public. If you don’t…”

He could see the duke making his sordid calculation. If the duchess found out… There were, after all, forty thousand pounds on the line. Perhaps, Hugo imagined the duke thinking with his typical cowardice, he might keep the whole thing quiet long enough to fool his wife and guarantee himself funds for years to come.

With a nod, the other man reached for the paper and wrote his confession. When he was done, Hugo sanded it carefully and folded it in half.