Page 6 of Desperately Seeking Seduction

Mother had been just like them. Fawning over Father and lying to his face every single day since Winston had been born. All Mama had cared about was her ambition to get her hands on more of his money, relish the prestige of being a rich man’s wife, and equally determined to keep utter control over Winston’s future. She’d made a mockery of Winston’s entire existence with a pretty smile on her lips all the while, and little regard for honesty.

Winston was more interested in the gentlemen, their actions, and the way they carried on around each other. She studied men in order to emulate their behavior.

Her gaze caught on her employer, standing slightly back from the others gathered below her. Lord Stratford was handsome, as many young lords often were, and he had excellent taste in clothes. She’d seen enough of passing travelers to notice how he was different. He watched others, similar to the way she always did, but he talked far too much to a servant whose opinion shouldn’t ever be asked for so often.

Unfortunately, there was something odd about Lord Stratford that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. From their first encounter on the stairs at the inn, the night before the valet Cuthbert had taken his fall, she’d found him…familiar. And not in a good way. She’d not truly liked him on sight, believing him indolent and spoiled upon first hearing one of his many rambling speeches to his valet. But aside from his constant blather, she had no clear reason to have taken such an immediate set against him.

Yet, once the valet had fallen afoul of the stairs, she’d seen another side of the man. The goodness. The consideration and kindness he’d shown for the injured valet was far and away more than most employers ever showed for a servant’s welfare at such a time. Lord Stratford had sat with the valet as his broken arm had been set, feeding him liquor from his own luggage to numb the pain, and talking to him to distract him from the doctor’s work.

And his reluctance to leave the poor fellow behind, warring with his need to be on his way, had been palpable, and the reason she’d finally approached him to offer her services as a temporary replacement until Cuthbert could resume his duties.

She could not have stayed too much longer at the inn and hope to escape detection anyway. The innkeeper kept wanting to get drunk with her, and when he did, he tended to forget his amorous inclinations were not welcomed by a supposedly male servant.

Winston noticed Lord Stratford glance up at the house—and it seemed he was looking directly at her. She quickly stepped farther back from the window, lest it seem she was shirking her new duties as his new valet. It wouldn’t do to appear lazy in front of the man who would pay her the generous wages he’d promised. Tomorrow was soon enough to get the lay of the land outside, but today was for learning how to navigate the house so she could avoid crossing paths with anyone who might look too closely at her face.

Winston brushed her fingers over her smooth jaw, cursing her gender yet again, and turned to the fireplace. She scraped her fingers through the soot and went to the mirror to apply a small amount to her smooth jaw and un-whiskered upper lip. Her skin was the only thing about her that was soft. The rest of her was strong. She’d built muscles by boxing alone in her chambers, keeping up the training begun in childhood, so she could tote luggage at the inn.

She was alone in the world. She would fight anyone who dared try to take advantage of her small stature, or her gender, should it be discovered. Over the years, she’d hardened her heart never to care about anyone she’d met, too, no matter how kindly disposed they might have been to her in the beginning. It had been ages since she’d let her guard down, and she vowed she never would again.

Satisfied with the slightest darkening of her jaw from the soot, a mere hint of stubble to be shaved later, she prowled the room, stoking the fire and fluffing all the pillows on the bed. Lord Stratford would return to his bedchamber to change before dinner. She had to prepare for that. To finish the unpacking. To shave him, comb his long soft hair, dress him in his fine clothes without touching him, and make sure he was not at all late.

She would not waste this opportunity. A fine home like this, a duke’s residence, would also house a most interesting library. There, she might for the first time in a decade do a little digging into her own family. It would be nice to not look over her shoulder constantly, always wondering if her father was still alive and looking for her still.

CHAPTER 3

“I thought Uncle Henry would never stop talking tonight,” Stratford said by way of apology as he entered the duke’s study late in the evening after supper. It had been a long and annoying day, for all of them. The family members were relentless in their pursuit of winning the duke’s favor, and his ear for a quiet word or ten. Stratford had even physically put himself between Algernon and the worst of the shameless hussies they called cousins. Each woman eager to catch the duke’s eye and win herself a husband in him. Algernon would never marry a cousin, much less a poor cousin such as they all were.

He noted two of his brothers leaning over the ducal desk with serious expressions on display. “What’s to do now?”

“We’ve been strategizing again,” Jasper murmured with a tired smile as he left the desk to sit down, nursing a glass of brandy in his hand.

Nash removed his spectacles, his expression grim as he polished them on a cloth. “We have to decide who the duke will set his cap for.”

Stratford glanced around for his eldest brother and found him reclining on a long couch near the fire, nearly out of sight, legs crossed at the ankles and one dark-clad arm thrown casually over his eyes. “Truly?”

“The decision could have waited until tomorrow, surely,” Ravenswood murmured without looking at Stratford. “Thanks to you all, I have a year to decide on an alternate bride.”

“A year at most, brother,” Nash warned. “The quicker it’s done, the better. For us, too.”

Ravenswood sat up at the softly spoken rebuke. “Yes, of course. I cannot have you put your lives on hold forever.”

“We don’t mind,” Stratford murmured. He and Jasper had talked a little during the surprise wedding celebrations for their cousin Amity and his best friend Crawford. It was bound to be a rough few years ahead. Their elder brother hated that he needed their help, let alone taking money from them all. It had not been his idea, but he couldn’t refuse such a gift. Nash had decided on his own to hand over his fortune and hatched a plan to support the duke until the estate was turning a profit. Jasper had taken a day or two to decide it was a good idea, too. “What help can we be, though?”

“Other than moral support?” Ravenswood asked.

“Being married isn’t that much of a chore,” Nash murmured.

They all turned to look at him. Only Nash was married. Had two young sons upstairs in the nursery somewhere, but no one had seen his bride, Laura, since just after the birth of the second son. She’d had enough of the family and run away.

Ravenswood stood and drew close to Nash and asked the question Stratford had pondered from time to time. “Do you even know she’s still alive?”

Nash frowned and looked away.

Stratford winced and looked away, too, as an awkward silence descended over them all. There was no love lost between Nash and Laura. He’d married her for her money years ago, and she’d known it. As soon as she’d done her duty and delivered up two healthy sons, she’d escaped her husband and the suffocating life they’d all endured under their late father’s tight rules and endless interference. As far as Stratford knew, Nash had not even tried to bring her back.

The rest of them had, at the time, no choice but to stay, of course. “So, who do you favor?” Stratford asked, changing the subject back to Algernon’s problems as he strolled toward the ducal desk.

Ledgers were spread across the usually clean surface. A piece of paper topped each one. Each note was scrawled with an amount in Nash’s hand or corrected by the duke’s. Five thousand pounds on one. Twelve thousand pound on another. Each ledger detailing yet more debt than the last until Stratford’s knees grew weak. “Dear God,” he whispered. “It’s worse than you made out.”