“Promise me you’re not sending us away and that we’re going to stay together.Promiseme.”
“Of course, I promise, darling. I would never send you away for good. Where did you get such a silly thought?!”
Lucy sniffed, hanging her head. “I heard Camilla talking about the workhouses. She said if you can’t find a rich husband, Coraline might be sent to be a scullery girl in some lord’s kitchen, and I-I’ll have to —“
Her blood boiled. She was going to have a sternly-worded talk with the part-time cook upon her return.You won’t have need of a part-time cook when you return. You’ll be going to live with your new husband.The thought had made her stomach tighten, a nervous braiding owed to the fact that she knew she could not fail in this, and the simultaneous quiver at the thought of marrying some stranger and not the lord with whom she had been spending all of her time.
“Lucy, I’mnotgoing to let that happen. Listen to me; this is very important.“ Eleanor lifted her sister’s chin, forcing her to raise her tear-filled eyes. “You are not going to wind up as someone’s maid. We have a good name, Lucy. A good, respected name. Everyone loved father. But that name is all we have left. It’s our only card left to play. That is the whole point of the marquis’s assistance. I’m going to come back from the Monster’s Ball engaged to some lord, and we’re all staying together, all four of us. I promise you. And in a few years, when it’s your turn to debut in society, no one is going to remember these hard times.”
When the gilded blue carriages arrived, Eleanor was unsurprised to find Cressida, the mothwoman, in the one taking the girls north.
“I expect my sisters will receive closer chaperoning than I have,” Eleanor said in a voice that borrowed some of Silas Stride’s coldness.
“Yes, miss, of course. I’ll likely sleep in the carriage in the afternoons so that I’m able to watch over the young ladies all night. But if we slow or stop foranyreason, you’re to wake me at once,“ she directed to Lucy and Coraline. “You don’t have to worry, miss. My entire family serves the marquis and his household in some capacity. We take our duties to his lordship seriously.”
The carriages had followed each other out of London, and the girls had practically hung out the window waving their goodbyes when they parted at last. She’d experienced her first Highland gryphon flight once they’d reached Nottingham, the gondola strapped to the beast’s belly not being terribly different from the carriage they were exiting.
“Watch your step, ladies, and welcome. My name is Hectorn, and I’ll be your conductor this afternoon.”
The towering orc had a gap-toothed smile and a cheerful air, and Eleanor smiled automatically at his greeting.An orc might make a very good match.After all, Uncle Efraim and his sons were handsome and strapping, stoic but kind, and there weren’t any special accommodations to consider regarding their anatomy or sleeping habits.And they’re probably capable of dressing themselves.
“The take-off is the rockiest bit, I’ll give you fair warning now, but Lemuel is one of the marquis’s finest gryphons. We’ll be in the air as soon as you ladies get settled and then touching down in Ballymena. His lordship’s carriage will be waiting to take you the rest of the way.”
Her grandmother and Hettie whooped and squealed like schoolgirls when the gryphon bounded across the empty meadow that stretched before them, and all three women shrieked when it leapt into the sky. Once they were airborne, she was forced to admit, the ride was very smooth. It took no time at all to cross the whole of England and the narrow sea, the beast’s touchdown was far more graceful than the bounding leap had been. She had met men who were gryphon-born, with leonine haunches and wide, feathered wings, but this creature was as tall as several of its orcish conductor, laid end-to-end.
She wondered if there were women who lay with beasts like this, producing their monstrous, human-sized progeny.Well, obviously? How else would they exist?She wondered what the result of a human mating with a gargoyle would look like, if it was even possible for her to bear a child with horns and Silas’s dragon-like wings.Would your baby turn to stone each day?She shook away the foolish supposition with a blush. It didn’t matter. She was diligent about tracking her blood, and her last menses had been the week after the Marquis of Basingstone had first come to tea. She would be bleeding again soon, and she’d not fret until then.And besides, if he’s gotten you with child, he’ll be forced to support you and you won’t need to marry anyone.
Their traveling party had stopped to take tea at a small tavern once they were back on solid ground, as the coachsmith readied their horses, and her grandmother had let out a triumphant yelp, scooping up an abandoned High Tea as they sat. She and Hettie exclaimed over the High Tea supposition that some unnamed countess had been spotted in a compromising position with some roguish baronet, and an entire section of marriage announcements, the ton’s most sparkling diamonds of the season landing within their comfortable settings, just as they’d planned.
As her grandmother read aloud the story of some slithering Viscount who was embroiled in a property dispute with his former wife, Eleanor considered that it was rather lucky that the High Tea primarily focused their attention on members of the peerage and gentry. How gutting it would have been to have read of her own family’s financial ruin in the gossip tattler.Bad enough that you’ve begun to recognize whom they are referring to in the blind items.She’d just picked up the column while Grandmother finished her tea, perusing the blinds when she saw it.
We’ve previously served up a surprisingly serene cup of reformed behavior regarding one of London’s favorite rakes — reliably wicked, taking wing from bed to bed, leaving many horned husbands in his own horned wake – but as of late, those predawn dalliances have curiously died down. We’ve spotted his carriage coming and going from an unknown London address, and our keen eyes have taken note of an escorted visitor making her presence known at this lascivious libertine’s lordly London home. None were as surprised as us by this devil’s domestication . . . but it seems we were premature in taking this pot from the heat. The very same night his escorted visitor left this past week, our stony-hearted rakehell was seen leaving a house of ill repute. It seems that reformation is not in the cards for this marquis.
The High Tea had fallen from her hands.
The Marquis of Basingstone didn’t give a whit about her, but she had, she was forced to admit, begun to care very deeply for him. It was ridiculous. It had been only several weeks earlier that he was sneering at her from across the tea table in her father’s library, scoffing at her in his exaggerated way of speaking, rudely interrupting, and implying she was up to no good. How could she come to care for him in such a short amount of time? How could she fool herself when she knew what he was like? The marquis didn’t care for anyone but himself, himself and his own lustful desires.He’s a rake. An unrepentant scoundrel and you’re behaving just as foolishly as every other naïve noblewoman he’s bedded.
Eleanor felt numb. She felt hurt and humiliated, foolish for the hurt, and an extra compounding of humiliation for having felt anything at all.Lessons, that’s all it was. Of course, he agreed to help you. You were foolish enough to let him between your thighs. She’d allowed herself the rest of the day to be upset. It hadn’tfeltlike a mere lesson. Dancing with him felt like flying, kissing him felt like singing, and she had already let him take more liberties with her body than she had given to any other man in the past.And he left to spend the night in some brothel the minute you were gone. You’re a fool for thinking he felt anything but lust.
She had spent the subsequent day of their journey to Basingstone hardening her heart. She was not finished with the marquis. She would let him have her again, she decided, let him have her every day she spent in his home, as long as she was the recipient of the pleasure he had to give. These were lessons, and she intended to learn to her best ability.All the better to seduce your husband and put every thought of the Marquis of Basingstone behind.
With each bucolic little village they passed, she shed another layer of her vulnerability. This was a business transaction. That was all. He was executing a favor for another titled nobleman, likely so that he would, in turn, have a favor owed, or else, he was already on the repayment end of the equation. Lord Silas Stride saw her as some tatty little plaything, a temporary diversion while he frittered away his time in London. That he could earn favor with the earl in the process was likely his sole impetus for completion. The fact that his success would be life-changing for her and her family was inconsequential to him, and that was fine. She would make him as inconsequential to her in return.
And, after all, wasn’t that the point? Wasn’t the entire reason for soliciting his help because he was a rake? A philanderer? The one person who could prepare her to fall in love with a stranger within a weekend, or at least learn to tolerate them well enough to win a proposal of marriage? Lovemaking without consequence, that was the name of the game.Look how well he’s done his job — you’re half in love with him already! He’s playing his part. Start playing yours.
“Welcome to Basingstone, miss.” The mothman who greeted them at the top of the circular carriage lane before the manor bore a striking resemblance to her permissive London chaperone, and Eleanor remembered what the mothwoman had said about her entire family being in service to the Strides. “If there’s anything you ladies need in your time here, Miss Winswode will see to it.”
The woman who stepped up beside him was sylvan, her warm brown skin accentuated with curling gold around her eyes and down her long, graceful fingers. “I oversee the daytime staff, miss. You ladies will have your own chambermaid, and if there’s anything I can do to see to your comfort while you are a guest here, please do not hesitate to ask.”
“His Lordship has already arranged for flight transport for you, Miss,” the mothman went on in a bored-sounding voice. “More details will be provided once I have confirmed with our gryphon provider.”
They were left alone then, Hettie already giddy over the accommodations. Eleanor lingered at the cracked open door, listening to the two servants as they departed down the hall.
“You ought to get to bed now,” the sylvan woman hummed, “sleep while you can. He’s been in a wretched mood since he arrived. I don’t envy you lot on the night shift.”
The daytime staff. The qualification ofdaytimeclearly meant there was also a nighttime staff. She thought that made sense. After all, the manor itself and its grounds would need to be kept throughout the days, but the lord in residence was only awake at night and would have need of a full staff to dress him and feed him and ferry him from one illicit affair to the next. Hettie and her grandmother both announced that they were going to take short naps. Grandmother was weary from a long carriage ride, and Hettie was positively gleeful at the thought of sleeping on such a fine featherbed.
They are the worst chaperones in all of England.Hettie and her grandmother would clearly not adjust to a life nocturnal. They were not used to staying up until all hours and had never experienced stage life, one that necessitated sleeping during the day and being alive and alert after the sun went down. She would likely have no true chaperone for the duration of her time at the marquis’s residence. He’d likely known that.All the better, she thought to herself firmly.Fewer interruptions for when he puts his tongue between your thighs. She was furious with him for toying with her heart, even if he hadn’t meant to do so, and she couldn’t promise she wasn’t going to beat him with her fan the instant she saw him . . . but she intended on making him pay her back in pleasure.
