“So you admit the story is sordid.”
She wagged her finger at him. “I am guessing as to your own thoughts. There’s no need to prevaricate. I know what people are saying about me. Secretly, you’re judging me, and you’ve already found me wanting. You’re all saying that I’m no better than I should be.”
Hugo shrugged. “I’ve never understood that saying—no better than you should be. Why would anyone want to be better than required? I only behave when it counts; I wouldn’t begrudge you similar conduct.”
She stared at him a moment.
He was misleading her enough as it is. He had no intention of outright lying to her. “You don’t believe me,” he said. “I can’t help it—it’s my face. It makes everyone think that I’m quite friendly, when anyone who knows better will warn you off. I’m entirely ruthless. Quite without morals.”
The smile she gave him was patronizing. “Is that so? Well. I’m sure you’re a very, very bad man. I’m so scared.”
Hugo looked upward. “Drat.”
“Drat?” She hid a smile. “Surely a man as awful as you could conjure up a ‘damn’ in mixed company.”
“I don’t swear,” he explained. “Not in any company.”
“I see. You are bad.”
He glanced at the sky in exasperation. “I am aware that this fact in isolation hardly proves my point. Which is this: If you wish to speak to me in confidence, if you wish to tell your tale without fear of judgment, I’m your man. Nobody would dare to gossip with me.”
She stared at him. “You’re very convincing,” she said, in a tone that implied she believed anything but. “But you are…what, an accountant? Someone who keeps the household books?”
He nearly choked. “You could say that,” he finally said. “I suppose I make sure the books balance at the end of the day.”
She gave him a patronizing nod of the head. “All that ruthlessness, and only the books to balance. Poor Mr. Marshall.” She smiled at him. “I consider myself a good judge of character. And you, sir, are safe.”
Safe.
It had been so long since someone hadn’t taken him seriously that he’d forgotten what it was like. But here she was, dismissing him.
He sat gingerly on the edge of her bench.
“Maybe I am safe,” he said. “I don’t swear. I don’t drink spirits, either.” He took a deep breath. “You’re sitting here for a reason, though, Miss Barton, and I doubt it’s for your health. Is it so wrong of me to want to help?”
All the latent humor bled from her face. “Help,” she repeated blankly. “You want to help.”
“This is no triviality before you. A lady does not risk the wrath of a duke without reason. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“Why not?” she asked. “If you’re so ruthless.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “Ruthless doesn’t mean that I survey the available options and gleefully choose the cruelest one. It means that I solve problems, whatever the cost. I’m good at that.”
“And so out of the goodness of your heart, you’re offering—”
“No,” he said, leaning in. “You misunderstand. There’s no goodness in my heart—that’s what I keep trying to explain to you. You are a problem. It distracts me from my work to think of you here. To wonder…”
She sucked in her breath and pulled away from him slightly. Her eyes seemed round and very gray. She scarcely moved. The air around them seemed suddenly charged. He couldn’t look away from her, and he could almost hear his words echoed back at him.
It distracts me to think of you.
It was almost nothing, that faint sense of attraction he felt. It was no more than the scarcely-heard hum of an insect. Insignificant enough that he waved it away. But she had just noticed, and that small hint of interest, mild though it had been, had washed the smile from her face.
“Go away,” she said, her voice flat.
No, she wasn’t here because of an employment dispute. Clermont had a great deal to answer for.
Hugo reached down and plucked a spare twig from the ground and set it on the bench between them. “This,” he said, “is a wall, and I will not cross it.”
Her eyes fixed on that piece of wood, a few scant inches in length.
“I don’t believe in hurting women,” he said.
She did not respond.
“I do a great many things, and I’m not proud of many of them. But I don’t swear. I don’t drink. And I don’t hurt women. I don’t do any of those things because my father did every one.” He held her eyes as he spoke. “Now I’ve told you something that nobody else in London knows. Surely you can return the favor. What is it you want?”
She shook her head slowly. “No, Mr. Marshall. I will not be browbeaten, however nicely you do it. I am done with things happening to me. From here on out, I am going to happen to things.”
She raised her head as she spoke. And that annoying hum—that gnat-like buzz of attraction that he had so easily brushed away—seemed to swell around him like a growing murmur of wind.
Her features seemed so crisp, outlined against the cool air. She had not a hair out of place. Still, she made him think of a bear, strong and certain, claiming her territory at the top of a mountain.
Here, he thought, finally, was a match for him.
There was no point being fanciful. What use had he with a bear? Still… Surely he could appreciate one when he saw it.
“Brave words,” he said softly. “That’s what it means to be ruthless. After all, I happen to other people on a regular basis.”
She glanced pointedly at the twig between them.
Hugo made no move toward her. “I don’t suppose you know why they call him the Wolf of Clermont.”
“His ruthlessness.”
“But the specifics. You know how he came to work with Clermont?”
She shook her head.
He steepled his fingers and looked away from her. “Clermont would never have hired a pugilist as his man of business. But he always did like prizefights. And drinking; all dukes love to drink. He became inebriated one day after a fight, and spilled all his troubles to the champion.”
“Dukes surely have a great many troubles.” She rolled her eyes.
“It was the usual litany: old title, nothing but bills to show for it, and a less than sterling reputation to boot. The Wolf wagered him one hundred pounds that in six months, he could rearrange everything so that he’d have no more bill collectors hammering on his doors.”