Courtney Milan - Unveiled

She had never felt that sort of ardor about anything—or anyone—in her life. The table seemed even tinier in that large room, a tiny craft adrift on a wide sea of parquet. Behind her, the stares of her painted ancestors bored into her back.

She drew in a deep breath and turned to his younger brother. He looked a little embarrassed at that out-burst—but not surprised or uncomfortable. Just as if his brother had ruffled his hair.

“So, Mr. Mark Turner. What is this book you’re writing?”

He leaned back in his chair. “Just Mark will do. It’ll be confusing enough if you have to call us both Turner.”

Both the Turners were rather too casual. But as a servant, Margaret could hardly object. She inclined her head in acknowledgment.

“I’m writing about chastity.”

She waited for him to guffaw. Or even to give her that mischievous grin again, signaling this was another of his schoolboy pranks.

He didn’t.

“Chastity?” she repeated weakly.

“Chastity.”

He hadn’t said it as one would expect to hear the word—with serious overtones, in a humble, reverent voice. He said it with a sparkle in his eye and a lift to his mouth, as if chastity were the best thing in the world. Margaret had met a great many of her brother’s friends. This was not an attitude that was common among young gentlemen. Quite the opposite.

“You see,” he continued, “the focus in all the works on chastity to date has often been so philosophical that it fails to engage the general populace on a moral level. My goal is to start with a practical approach, and…” He trailed off, with the air of someone realizing that his enthusiasm for a subject was not matched by those around him. “It’s enormously exciting.”

“I can see that.”

Mr. Mark Turner was the same age as Edmund, a few years younger than Richard. She couldn’t imagine her brothers—or any of their friends—writing a philosophical defense of chastity. They likely couldn’t even speak the word without laughing.

Her lip curled in memory.

“Chastity,” said the elder Mr. Turner in a dry voice, “is not one of the things I’d planned for my younger brother to embrace.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over the table. The two men exchanged level glances. What was encoded in those looks, Margaret could not say.

“This isn’t a conversation for mixed company,” Mrs. Benedict put in.

Mark shook himself and looked away. “Too true. Alas, my work is by necessity aimed at men. If I were to write about chastity for women, it would no doubt slant towards a different sort of practicality.”

“Oh?” Margaret asked.

“Don’t encourage him,” Mr. Turner warned. “When he has that gleam in his eye, no good can come of it.”

Margaret turned to Mark. “Consider yourself encouraged.”

Beside her, Mr. Turner made a noise of exasperation.

“I was thinking more of a compendium. ‘Places to strike a man so as to best preserve one’s virtue.’”

“What?” said Mr. Turner. “There’s more than the one?”

“Gentlemen,” pleaded Mrs. Benedict, but to no avail.

“What do you say, Miss Lowell? Would ladies have any interest in such a guide?” Mark smiled at her. “Ash tells me you’ve no family to speak of. Does that mean no brother has ever taught you to defend yourself?”

Edmund had taken her aside when she turned fourteen and advised her that if she kept her legs and her mouth clamped shut, she might land a marquess. That had been the end of his helpful advice. She shook her head.

The lines about Mark’s eyes softened. “Well, then I’ll have to show you.” He shot a glance at his brother across the table and smiled again—this time, more impishly. “After all, I have no problem if my brother is forced to embrace chastity.” He picked up his fork, applying himself to the meat in front of him as if no further conversation were necessary.

Perhaps he’d not fully realized what he’d implied with those careless words.

By the dour look in Mr. Turner’s eyes, and the slow shake of his head, his brother was not amused.

Margaret heard both the words and the meaning behind them. So much for Mr. Turner’s vaunted honor, his claim that he wouldn’t prey upon a woman alone. The realization turned the bite of turnip in her mouth to charcoal. They’d talked about her already, as brothers were wont to do. In the space of one day, Mr. Turner had already made plans to seduce her—plans so firm, he’d shared them with his younger brother. She’d heard Edmund speaking with his friends often enough, discussing this widow or that willing wife, when they didn’t know she could hear their conversation.

No doubt Mr. Turner thought she would fall into his bed. Women probably did, for him. That relentless pull tugged her now, even when she wasn’t looking at him. Women laid their hearts at the feet of men like him—a man so ruthlessly intense as to take one’s breath away, and cheerful enough to make one laugh while he did it.

But then, for all his cheerful intensity, he’d aimed that ruthlessness at her before.

A year ago, she’d been the belle of the ball, the toast of the town, a diamond of the first water, engaged to a peer of the realm. She’d been the closest thing to a princess that there was.

Then Ash Turner had intruded in her life. She had been nothing but an afterthought to him, if that. Still, the toast had been charred by the fire; the diamond had turned out to be carved ice, destined to melt in the first heat of gossip.

He’d robbed her of her name, her dowry, her everything. If after all of that, Mr. Turner thought he would get one scrap of affection from her, he was badly mistaken.

ASH NEEDED TO HAVE a conversation with his brother about discretion.

After that first frozen stare, half horror, half betrayal, Miss Lowell had simply stopped looking at him. And that, Ash decided, was a very, very bad thing. The pudding came—a mercy to kill the conversation—and she sat in place at table, moving the mixed fruit and cream about with her spoon. Her lips pinched together and her complexion went from pale pink and animated to gray and closed.

There was a gold chain around her neck. The necklace disappeared into the high neck of her gown, weighted into a narrow V, as if there were some heavy locket suspended on it. He felt a hint of jealousy, wondering who had given it to her, and what she might hold inside it.

No doubt she was wondering how to fight him off. That made him feel like some sordid roué, thinking of nothing but his own pleasure. But as little as he’d been in polite company, even Ash knew better than to issue a clarification. “No, Miss Lowell,” Ash could imagine himself saying, “I would never force myself on you. I mean to seduce you into willingness. That’s all.” That would get him a fork stabbed through his hand, by the black look she gave her pudding.

Thank God the knives had been removed along with the beef.

She finished moving the fruit around her plate. Supper was breaking apart—Mark made the customary excuses on behalf of the gentlemen—and still she’d not met his eyes. This was wrong. He couldn’t let it continue.

When she left, he followed her. They had barely reached the landing of the stairs before she turned on him. There was a ferocious light in her eyes, and he held up his hands to show he intended her no harm.

“Miss Lowell. I’m afraid my brother has given you the wrong impression.”

She let out a puff of air. “I know how gentlemen talk when they are amongst themselves,” she said dismissively. “Don’t imagine you can hide it.”

By “gentlemen,” she likely meant men like Richard and Edmund Dalrymple. Ash could just imagine what those worthless parasites would have said about a too-pretty nurse, with her too-kissable lips and that alabaster skin. No doubt there’d been other indignities visited upon her when they’d been in residence. That was likely the reason Mrs. Benedict had thought it necessary to establish rules of conduct from the beginning. Neither of those worthless boys had ever understood concepts like honor or consent. Ash felt a current of anger go through him, just imagining the importunities that might have been visited upon her. He wasn’t like them.