For a moment, she believed that no matter what he’d said, their marriage might become real. He was going to change his mind. She could taste it in his kiss.
But then he pulled away. “As you can see,” he said hoarsely, “this is nothing more than selfishness on my part. There’s no room for you in my life. But this way, at least I’ll know that you’re safe.”
He was fooling himself if he thought she would settle for a half-marriage. She’d vowed to win him from Clermont. She’d be damned if she stopped with less than full victory. She’d brought him this far. He would change his mind.
“I see,” Serena said softly, setting her palm against his cheek. “There’s no romance at all.”
“None.” And this time, his eyes didn’t drop from hers.
Chapter Eight
SERENA HAD LEFT HER SISTER this morning with everything between them unsettled. She hadn’t known what would happen to her, what Hugo Marshall intended, and whether Freddy would ever speak to her again. And so when she pushed the door to her sister’s room open, she held her breath.
Everything appeared to be back to strict order. Freddy’s gloves were neatly laid atop one another on the table in the entry; her half boots, dry and unused, stood underneath. When she peered around the doorframe, there was no sign of the clothing that Freddy had flung at her, nor of the valise that had landed at her feet. It had all been packed away.
Serena stepped cautiously into the front room.
Freddy was sitting at the window, her hands full of linen that seemed far finer than the usual charity work she did. The fabric was a golden-orange, with a subtle damask pattern woven into it.
“Frederica?” Serena asked.
“There’s bread in the box and fresh milk,” Freddy said. “And apples—I had Jimmy bring up some apples from the green grocer. I thought we might make us a supper of that.”
Jimmy was the boy who lived downstairs; Freddy paid him to fetch things. But even thirteen-year-old Jimmy was sometimes too much for Freddy. If she’d been willing to talk to him…
Serena had almost hoped that Freddy would stay angry. Instead, she was hiding behind a façade composed of the commonplace. She had already retreated inside a thick shell built from these rooms. Nothing Serena said—nor anger, nor tears—would coax her out.
“Freddy,” Serena tried, “I’m sorry.”
Freddy looked up from her work long enough to frown. “You should be. I’ve told you not to call me Freddy time and time again.” She glanced down sharply and smoothed out the fabric she was working on. “It’s not ladylike. I don’t wish to answer to such an appellation.”
“You were right. I put you at risk, and—”
“You always put things at risk. If you fell out of a tree as a child, I’d clean you up and bandage your knees, and next I looked you’d be out climbing again. You never learned your lesson.”
Oh, she’d learned her lesson: Climb harder.
Somehow, Serena didn’t think that was the lesson Freddy had expected her to learn.
“It’s always the same thing,” Freddy said. “You fall, I catch. And before you’ve even healed up properly, you’re out looking for a new way to fall.”
Freddy clucked her tongue disapprovingly, and Serena stared at her.
Here she’d been thinking that Freddy was damaged beyond repair, hiding from the world. Freddy thought that Serena was unprotected. Was that how she seemed to Freddy? Some strange, impetuous creature, launching from disaster to disaster, simply because she refused to give up? The vision this invoked of herself was so alien that Serena was robbed of a response.
How could they be sisters? It seemed impossible that they should view the world with such fundamentally different eyes.
And yet there was Freddy—Freddy, who hadn’t stirred from these rooms since she met Serena at the inn where the stagecoach had deposited her—shaking her head as if Serena were the one on the brink of commitment to Bedlam.
There was no way to give voice to her thoughts.
No, Freddy. You appear to be mistaken. I am not mad; you are.
“What are you working on?” Serena finally asked instead. “That fabric’s beautiful.”
“It’s one of Mother’s old dresses,” Freddy said calmly. “I’m making it over. I thought it would do for a wedding dress for you.”
Serena choked. “How did you know?”
“I’m your sister, Serena.” Freddy spoke with a smile that was as annoying as it was mysterious. “I know everything.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Your Mr. Marshall paid me a visit this morning. Just after you left. He told me he was going to ask.” Freddy pulled a face. “I suspect you’re going to say yes. It’s the sort of fool thing you would do—trusting your entire fate and future to some man you scarcely know, when you could stay here in perfect safety.”
Safety? Immobility seemed a better word.
“In any event,” Freddy said, “when it all falls apart, I’ll be here to catch you and pick up the pieces. Again.”
Freddy would never shatter. She couldn’t; she’d never ascend to any great heights. One day, though, she’d come to the plodding end of her resources. She would suffocate in her tiny room.
“What if it doesn’t fall apart?” Serena asked.
Freddy stared at her, her gray eyes narrowing. “How you can still ask that, when—” She exhaled deeply and rolled her eyes. “Never mind. Now are you going to try this dress on, so we can see where it needs pinning?”
There was no winning this one.
“Thank you,” Serena finally said. “Help me with my buttons, please.”
THE WEEK BEFORE THE WEDDING flew by in a frenzy of licenses and leases. Hugo found it better to keep himself busy with details, rather than ponder the impenetrable mystery of his impending nuptials.
Whenever the thought crossed his mind—you’re getting married—he thrust it away.
Marriage was an entanglement. This was simply a business commitment.
To a woman.
Just your everyday, average business arrangement—except this one gave him the right to take her to bed.
That was the reason why he didn’t dare think about what he was doing—because once he thought of Serena Barton as his wife-to-be instead of as a partner in an arms’-length arrangement, his imagination wandered.
It wasn’t the thought of bedding her—repeatedly—that most caught his fancy.