Chapter Two #4
Fear and loathing expanded in her chest. She had so far accomplished nothing unless it was gaining an enemy. She consoled
herself with the conviction that not a tactic in the world would shift this man if he didn’t want to be shifted.
He was studying her. What do you see, Mr. Marchand? She longed to know. His expression remained inscrutable. And yet she’d never felt so thoroughly looked at.
“Miss Woodville . . . How many women do you suppose have visited Lucifer’s Fall for the purposes of haranguing me over the
past five years?”
“Eleven,” she hazarded.
“Close.”
Distantly she heard men’s voices and the clink of what sounded like bottles. And was that a woman’s giggle? Perhaps Martine,
whoever she was, had at last arrived.
Mr. Ogden breezed into the office and placed something in front of Mr. Marchand, who glanced at it, snatched up his quill,
and dipped it.
“More than a few women, Miss Woodville. And while I do have some sympathy for their predicaments”—he scrawled his name across the bottom of the paper and sprinkled sand—“they, like you, inevitably come up against the uncomfortable conclusion that, despite any initial impressions to the contrary, I’m actually a .
. . Mr. Ogden, what was it Lord Gramercy called me the other day? ”
“A thoroughgoing bastard, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ogden.”
Mr. Ogden left again, gingerly balancing the freshly signed invoice, blowing sand from it.
Mr. Marchand regarded her evenly.
She was proud that she didn’t even flinch, although that “b” word entered her like a dart. She thought yearningly of the Epithet
Jar in the sitting room at the Grand Palace on the Thames, presiding over civility.
“How efficient of you to delegate your epithets to Mr. Ogden.”
“Are you complimenting my business acumen, Miss Woodville?” he said softly.
“I suppose I am,” she said carefully. “Imagine what a triumph you’d be if you’d decided to farm sheep instead. I suppose your
experience with hells necessarily consigned you to . . .”
She gestured broadly to the establishment at large and almost poked herself with her hidden knitting needle.
“Indeed,” he said silkily. “We all play the hands we’re dealt, Miss Woodville.
Just as women are so often consigned to using tears, swoons, or seduction to get what they want, because those are so often the only resources at their disposal.
Women have, in fact, done everything from threatening me with bodily harm to offering the pleasure of their bodies to me in exchange for forgiving a debt or for persuading their husbands to stop gambling.
No one, least of all me, faults any woman who attempts it. ”
Ginny had the strangest sensation that she was slowly being backed into a corner.
That he’d in fact been herding her neatly into a particular position during this entire conversation.
“I am generally disinclined to accept such proposals. However, given that your letter mentions your desire for the two of
us to reach a mutually satisfactory solution to resolve your brother’s debt, I have decided to offer that last option to you.
Despite your contempt for the way I conduct my life.”
Ginny’s breath seized in her lungs. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’ll call off your brother’s debt to the house if you spend a night in my bed.”
“In your . . .”
She stopped just in time. Because she had the horrible suspicion that if she asked what that would entail, he would tell her
in no uncertain terms.
The silence was so total it was as though sound had never existed. The air seemed to cease circulating. Surprise obliterated
her ability to form thoughts.
His polite expression was more surreal than any dream.
He simply waited.
Because he knew she was imagining it, and he wanted to witness her doing that.
And she was imagining it. How could she not?
It was her first realization that senses and sense were not always in accord. Because while her mind reeled in shock, her skin hummed and heated, as if coming alive in anticipation of being covered by him. A strange thrill mingled with queasy fear and unseemly yearning pooled low in her belly.
She could not look away from him.
And that bastard knew.
Just as she knew what she ought to say right now.
Perhaps driving her away had been the point of his proposition. But it was already several seconds past the time she ought
to have shrieked in outrage and stormed out in a huff.
The longer she waited the more she incriminated herself.
But she would never again have a chance to ask the question that burned.
“Why me?” Her voice was hoarse.
“Because . . .” He leaned back in his chair and studied her again, as if he wanted to get his answer precisely right. “You
have the look of a woman who has long yearned for someone to tell her what to do.”
Her vision flickered in shock.
It was the worst thing anyone had ever said to her.
It was as if he’d casually rummaged through her soul and plucked out into the daylight her most painful, shameful fear: That
for eight years, she’d been inadequate to the task of raising her siblings. To carrying out her mother’s wishes. That she
had been faking it all this time, and she had mostly failed. That their lives were merely shambolic, and if she’d been better
at it, perhaps Hogarth wouldn’t have gone crazy and gambled when the inheritance arrived. Perhaps he simply would have ordered
his own engraved calling cards.
She had never hated someone more than in that moment.
“Well,” she said brightly, at last. “ ‘Thoroughgoing’ doesn’t begin to describe it.”
His smile was small, weary, and patient, as if, at long, long last, a slow pupil had grasped a concept.
“Shall I construe from your silence that you aren’t amenable to that particular solution? Or were you simply taking a moment
to imagine the evening we might share?” He said this appalling thing distractedly, whilst consulting his watch.
He was brilliant in a way foreign to her experience and terrifying in a way she could not have anticipated. None of her paltry
weapons were equal to it.
“The former,” she assured him coolly, struggling to match his hateful insouciance with as much aplomb. She was likely fooling
no one, given every inch of her skin was on fire with outrage and her bright pink face was currently pointed right at him.
“Ah, well. We can’t all have brilliant business acumen.” He smiled sympathetically. “I’ll just leave that offer on the table,
shall I? Meanwhile, I’ll await Hogarth’s repayment. And, of course, his immense debt doesn’t preclude your brother from enjoying
his membership, should he choose to visit Lucifer’s Fall again.”
She wanted very much to tell him where he could leave this offer, which would require him to bend over and dexterously but
roughly insert it into a narrow passage on his person.
She gave a start when he pushed back his chair abruptly and stood.
As if on cue, two liveried footmen bustled through the door. One settled a splendid many-caped greatcoat over his shoulders
while the other thrust a gold-topped walking stick and hat into his hand. Marchand tucked the stick under his arm and began
pulling on his gloves.
“Though it will no doubt astonish you to hear that other people seek my company, Miss Woodville, I’ve an engagement.
Mr. Ogden, if you would kindly escort Miss Woodville off the premises and hail a hack for her.
But as a token of our esteem, take her out through the special visitors’ exit, not over the alligator moat. ”
The bastard winked at her.
“Oh, and Miss Woodville? You’re not left-handed. The knitting needle should be tucked in your right sleeve if you want the
slightest chance of actually skewering someone. Though of course you’d never have a chance of besting me.”
He bowed, ironically. And in a flourish of coat and a glint of walking stick, he strode from the room and swiftly around the
corner, flanked by the footmen, out of sight.
She stared after him.
She finally rose to stand on shaky legs, feeling as though she’d been swept up in a whirlwind then dumped ceremoniously on
the ground.
She smoothed her hands over her skirts. They were clammy and damp inside her gloves. She had never changed temperature so
often in so short a time in her entire life.
Mr. Ogden cleared his throat. “If you would be so kind as to accompany me, Miss Woodville,” he said gently.
“Are there really alligators?”
“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say, miss.”