Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

T he streets of London were deserted at eleven o’clock at night.

At least, they were in that part of London. Beatrice had heard horror stories about the poorer areas—Whitechapel, for instance—where ladies of ill repute stalked the streets, along with murderers and thieves of the worst order, all looking for victims.

Beatrice had read her fair share of penny dreadfuls, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine the dark, quiet streets that they trundled along filled with all sorts of villains, all waiting to leap on the unsuspecting carriage and the naive lady inside. Soon, she found herself wrapping her cloak around herself a little tighter and pressing back into the corner of the carriage, her eyes fixed on the window.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so terrible if Anna had come, after all.

When Beatrice slipped out of her quiet home at five minutes to eleven, she had half expected not to find the carriage there at all. When she did see the familiar black lacquered coach with the crest on the side, she was entirely sure that Anna had come anyway, regardless of her wishes.

Well, the carriage was empty, and the coachman clearly had his orders.

“I’m to wait for you,” he responded, sounding bored already, “and take you home after. Her Grace said so.”

“Thank you,” Beatrice said, feeling like a child on a forbidden jaunt.

And now here she was, bowling through the deserted streets, on her way to meet with a famously scandalous man who had earned the name Blackheart for himself.

A man to whom she owed a favor.

What on earth have you done, Beatrice?

She pressed her head back against the carriage upholstery, closed her eyes, and tried not to think too much about anything.

Her reasons were all too clear in her head. Her future was bleak, but her disgrace would also affect her parents and John. Her father, perhaps, bore some blame for it all, but it was her mother and her brother who would suffer the most.

It must be nice, Beatrice thought miserably, to be the sort of woman who couldn’t care less about her family, and could simply go on her way with a sort of bold, devil-may-care attitude, acting first and then seeking forgiveness later.

There had been a number of ladies like that in the penny dreadfuls she’d read and in a few more risqué novels.

The carriage took a sharp turn to a street lined with huge, expensive houses, the sort of houses to which Beatrice and her family had not been invited in quite a long time.

We’re nearly there.

She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering the last time she came here.

In a hired cab, can you believe it? What a fool I was. If I could have a do-over, I would do things differently. But then, would I be married to the Marquess by now?

That was an unpleasant thought, and Beatrice was in the middle of shuddering in revulsion when the carriage abruptly lurched to a halt. The carriage bounced ever so slightly, and then the coachman wrenched open the door, smothering a yawn.

“We’re here, Miss,” he said, almost apologetically. “Like I said, I’ll be waiting.”

She hesitated, glancing past him to the large, forbidding front door.

For a moment, Beatrice considered telling him that she had changed her mind, that she wanted to go home, and that all of this was a mistake.

Then the door began to creak open, revealing the Duke’s tall, serious butler. It was far too late to go back now.

The butler—his name was Mouse, if Beatrice recalled correctly—led the way down a seemingly endless carpeted hallway. This area of the house was different from the one she had visited last time, and she was already hopelessly lost. The tall man kept glancing back at her as if to check that she was still following.

“His Grace is waiting on the terrace,” Mouse intoned, quite without a warning. “It is a cold night. Shall I fetch you a shawl, or perhaps a coat, Miss Haversham?”

She swallowed hard. “No, thank you. I’m not feeling cold.”

“Very well.”

After a few more minutes of uncomfortable silence and too-fast walking—for Beatrice, at least—the hallway abruptly opened into a large conservatory.

Even at night, residual heat lingered in the room, but that was not what caught Beatrice’s attention at first.

It was, of course, the plants.

Every inch of the massive space seemed to be crammed with greenery, ranging from rows of tiny, spiky plants on bookshelf-like structures to huge, swaying shrubs at least twice as tall as her, with leaves she could have used as parasols.

There were long frames scattered here and there, with more plants suspended in midair from twine hammocks, long tendrils trailing down almost to the floor. There was little light in the place, giving a gloomy, otherworldly feel to the conservatory. Beatrice could almost imagine that jungle-like monsters and creatures lurked behind the broad leaves, watching them with curiosity and, perhaps, hunger.

There did not appear to be a straight path through the green maze, and Mouse took a zig-zag route, plants brushing against his shoulders and clutching at his sleeves as he went.

At one point, he paused, glancing over his shoulder, and gave a wry, narrow smile.

“His Grace is fond of plants,” he said, which, to Beatrice, was the understatement of the century.

“Does he grow fruits and vegetables?” she managed.

“Yes, but not here.”

“Not here? Then what is the purpose of… of all this?” She waved a hand vaguely at the greenery. “There aren’t even flowerbeds.”

“Oh, His Grace grows flowers elsewhere on the grounds. I would not say exactly that there is a purpose to these plants, other than the enjoyment His Grace gets from maintaining them. He does a great deal of work here, you know. I imagine that there are no other gentlemen in England who know as much about plants as His Grace does. He is quite the botanist. He wrote a book on the subject, I believe.”

Beatrice felt as though she were in a dream. One of those strange ones, where nothing was the way it should be.

“A book,” she said flatly. “He has written a book.”

“Yes, Miss Haversham. A rather good one. I shall procure you a copy if you like.”

Before Beatrice could say a word, they reached the end of the green maze. A pair of tall, wide French doors—glass, of course—appeared almost out of nowhere. Mouse threw them open and stepped out into the darkness.

The cold air was something of a shock after the balmy heat of the conservatory. Beatrice blinked, fighting not to shiver, and tried to regain her bearings.

The terrace was wide, lit by lanterns placed here and there. A tall brazier burned in the middle of the patio, casting irregular, flickering lights over the scene. A cold breeze started up, and Beatrice barely managed to suppress a shiver, pulling her cloak tighter around herself. She hoped that Mouse had not noticed—he might think that she was simply being stubborn, refusing his offer of a shawl.

A thought occurred to Beatrice.

“You offered to fetch me a shawl, or a coat,” she said abruptly.

The butler glanced down at her. “I did. Would you like it now, Miss Haversham?”

“No. I was wondering, though, why His Grace has shawls and ladies’ coats in his home. Why would a woman leave her clothes here? If I’m to be the latest of the Duke’s victims, then I can assure you that…”

Mouse smiled wryly. “They belong to the Dowager Duchess, I believe. She visits sometimes and leaves some of her clothes here.”

“Oh,” Beatrice mumbled, feeling her face turn red.

Her implication must have been noticed—she hadn’t been subtle—and it turned out that, instead of a cellar full of dead women, or perhaps spurned lovers, the ladies’ clothes only belonged to the Duke’s mother.

“Not everything is a penny dreadful, Miss Haversham,” the butler remarked, seemingly unruffled. “Ah, I believe His Grace is over there, by the edge of the terrace. He has been waiting for you. You may go to him whenever you like.”

With that vague, slightly ominous remark, Mouse bowed and melted back into the conservatory.

That left Beatrice alone.

Although, not quite alone. She was now alone with a gentleman whose very presence might ruin her reputation worse than ever before.

And, of course, she had just accused him of… Well, she wasn’t entirely sure what she had accused him of, only that it was not polite.

The Duke of Blackwood stood beside the brazier, his back turned to her. His evening suit was, as far as she could tell, black velvet, allowing him to melt into the dark garden beyond. A plume of smoke rose from his cigar.

“There you are, Miss Haversham,” he said, his voice carrying easily. “I must say, I wasn’t expecting you to come through the conservatory.”

Drawing in a deep breath—it was too late to flee, of course—Beatrice moved towards him.

“How else should I have come?”

She stood beside him, careful to stay out of reach. Not that he would grab her, only that the memory of his hand on hers and his arm around her waist when she fell from the carriage had troubled her for a while.

It was only the impropriety of it that bothered her, of course, as well as plain, old annoyance.

“There is a much quicker way to here from the front door,” the Duke said, taking a long draw on his cigar and blowing out a plume of smoke. His lips pursed around the smoke, and Beatrice noticed uneasily that he had very full lips, for a man. She wasn’t entirely sure why this had come to her attention, only that now she could not stop noticing it.

She pointedly turned away. “Oh?”

“Yes. Mouse might have taken you through the Blue Parlor and along a little corridor, and then you would have been here, on the terrace. Much quicker.”

How did they get into this subject?

“Then… then why did he not?” she managed.

The Duke flicked away his cigar. It glowed for a split second, then disappeared into the darkness.

“I believe Mouse was trying to impress you. He’s remarkably proud of the conservatory, you know. I did mention to him that you and I might take a jaunt down the aisle together sooner or later. Don’t fret, he won’t gossip.”

Beatrice pressed her lips together. “Do you generally confide in your servants?”

“Of course. Don’t you?”

“I like to keep my secrets to myself.”

“Hm. Fair enough, I suppose. I hope you don’t mind my bringing you out here, Miss Haversham. It is such a fine night that I thought it a pity not to breathe in the fresh night air a little. Although, perhaps you are one of those ladies who believe that night air is injurious to their complexion.”

Beatrice shot him a look. “No, I am not.”

“Excellent. My father believed it, you see. He would not let my mother step outside once the sun had gone down. She would have to go through the stables—which could be reached through the servants’ quarters, by the way—to climb into the carriage, if we were going out to a ball or party. It was most irritating for her, but it was far better than defying him. He was not a man who liked being defied, you know.”

“He sounds awful,” Beatrice said bluntly. But then she realized she was talking about the Duke’s father and felt the color rush to her face, despite the cold night air. “I’m sorry, I?—”

“No apology necessary,” he said, waving one elegant hand. “He was awful. So, Miss Haversham, unless you are here to be seduced…”

“I absolutely am not.”

“… I suggest we get down to business. I was surprised to get your note, and more surprised still when a white-faced, terrified boy delivered it. Your brother, I guess?”

She bit her lip. “Did you speak to him?”

“No, Mouse dealt with him. I thought it must have been an important message if the only one you could truly trust was your brother. And now, here you are—sans maid, again.”

“Well, my reputation is already shredded,” Beatrice said, with a little more bitterness than she had intended. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”

The Duke shot her a long, thoughtful look. Beatrice kept her gaze fixed on the garden. She couldn’t make out much, beyond tree-like shapes that swayed in the wind, and the occasional white glint of a raked-gravel path. She could feel the Duke’s gaze on her, though, those sharp green eyes roaming over her face and form.

What does he see when he looks at me?

At once, she gave herself a small shake.

It doesn’t matter what he thinks of me. It only matters what he is willing to do for me.

It only matters if he can help us.

“If you say so,” the Duke said, at last. “Nobody will know that you are here, I can assure you of that. My servants are well-paid for their discretion, and I assume you were not foolish enough to hire a cab to come here again.”

“No,” she said quietly. “I borrowed one of Anna’s carriages.”

“There you are, then. Theodore’s servants are well-trained and will not gossip. You could leave now, Miss Haversham, this very moment, and your reputation would remain intact. I suspect, however, that you will not.”

She let out a long, slow sigh.

How did I get here?

“I wish I hadn’t come.”

Beatrice risked a glance up at the Duke just in time to see his face twitch with something like annoyance, his lips pursed.

“Then why did you come, Miss Haversham?” he snapped. “Do you believe that I have nothing to do but sit around and wait for you to call? I believe I have made my requests very clear. If you came to bargain, don’t bother. If you came to be seduced, well then, perhaps we can talk.”

She rolled her eyes. “Goodness, Your Grace, I don’t believe anyone could love you as well as you love yourself. No, I am not here to bargain, and certainly not to be seduced. Or to do the seducing.”

He looked away, the firelight playing over his profile.

At least I’ll have a handsome husband to look at for the rest of my life.

“You are an intriguing young woman, Miss Haversham.”

“Don’t you mean infuriating?”

He smiled wryly down at her. “No, I do not.”

“Hm. Anyway, I came to tell you—in person, as it seemed more polite—that I will accept your offer. I will marry you, Your Grace.”

He stared down at her for a long moment.

“I see,” he said, his expression neutral and giving nothing away. “Well, what a development. I think perhaps we should go indoors. You are clearly quite cold, Miss Haversham, and we have a great deal to discuss.”