To Win A Wallflower

She couldn’t untangle his words. They just didn’t make sense to her.

‘Make a fist properly and use it properly.’ His chin lowered. ‘You can leave after punching me. Fair enough?’

‘Not fair at all.’ She stared at the beast in front of her.

‘A fist,’ he commanded.

She did.

‘Thumb out.’ He stepped forward.

She did.

‘Not like that. Your thumb is in a straight line.’

With two steps and keeping his body to the side so he did not block her exit, he moved closer. His eyes locked on hers for a moment, no threat, and a softer question behind them. ‘May I?’ He raised his hand level with her side as he spoke.

With one fingertip reaching out, he rested it at the base of her fist. Then with his other hand, he slid her thumb down until it rested against the outside space after the second knuckle of her hand, making sure her fingertips folded in, and her hand had a square shape to it.

This beast of a man touched her as lightly as if she were made of silk. His fingers, so tender against her hand, shot bolts of awareness into her. She couldn’t move her hand.

‘It might save your life some day.’ His voice rolled over her, reaching deeper into her than the touch had.

‘I doubt that.’ She took a step back, causing his hands to fall to his side. ‘I am careful. To have you in my house is an aberration.’

‘True.’ His eyes registered the jab and lightened. ‘But aberrations happen and sometimes more than once. You may still shout if you wish. As many times as you like.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps someone would come instantly to your rescue. Perhaps you would see how much longer it takes for someone to rescue you than you realise, or perhaps I would truly see how safe you are. Convince me of how well you are watched.’

‘What kind of game are you playing?’

‘I want you to see how much your survival could depend on you and how much fighting back is the best, or even only, friend you may have at hand.’

‘I am coddled. Every moment of my life.’

‘Which makes you a perfect victim.’

His gaze lingered on hers. He held up his hand, fingers splayed, but curved inwards. ‘Hit me. Hard.’ His voice softened. ‘Just don’t hurt your hand.’

‘No.’

He brought his hand closer. ‘Hit me.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I hardly know you. And though I don’t like you at all, I don’t have any wish to hurt—much wish to hurt you.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve hit men I didn’t know at all. And men I knew quite well.’

‘I will not hit you. It’ll only hurt my hand.’

The tension in his face relaxed. ‘You’re right.’ He moved to the sofa and pulled a pillow into his hands and raised it. ‘Hit gently, then. Just to feel the movement. Not the windmill, but the direct hit.’

‘I said no.’ She looked at him. ‘It’s as if you like to fight.’

‘I do.’

He shook his hand sideways, emphasising the location for her punch. ‘I’ve never not hit anyone who asked me to.’ His lips curved. ‘Chaperoned Miss who cannot even scream.’ His face moved closer. His breath burned at her cheek. ‘You may hit me any time you wish, buttercup.’

His face not moving away, chin so close she could almost feel the bristles.

‘A woman designed to do nothing but wed well.’

The words jabbed her skin.

‘You’re a sweet confection only to look at, a well-designed form to display jewellery. If you’ve a thought in your head, you bat it away with your eyelashes so it will not confuse you.’

He moved around her, circling. ‘You’re dandelion fluff. The feathers in this pillow have more of a brain than you.’

She swung, straight to the chin.

His left hand moved up, his fingers trapping her wrist before it touched him. With a soft clasp, he moved her hand away from his face.

Then his eyes flinched and he tensed. He snapped his fingers back from her.

She touched her skin, to cover the heat his grasp had left behind. ‘If you only did that to show you’re stronger than I, you proved it. To yourself, I suppose. But I already knew it.’

He threw down the pillow. Again he raised his hand, palm to her and fingers open to clasp her punch. ‘Hit it.’ His voice now had the raggedness of anger. He shook the right hand again. ‘Don’t be scared, Miss Fluff. Don’t be afraid.’

Again she refused.

He leaned in. His eyelids dropped, humour and venom mixed, even as his voice softened. ‘Pretend I took your favourite doll.’

She punched out, force behind her arm. He didn’t clasp his fingers around hers, but moved back with the hit. ‘Better.’

All movement of the room stilled while their eyes locked.

‘Again,’ he commanded. ‘And don’t look at where your fist is going. Your eyes tell me your plans. Before you tried to hit my face, you looked at my chin. I saw your movements before they were made. Watch my face. Read my actions. Lie to me with your eyes.’

‘Why?’ She let the word flow with her breathing. ‘Why are you doing this?’

After gazing at her for a second, he dropped his arm. ‘Because everyone should know how to protect themselves. I was taught it by my father.’

Thoughts raced. Yes. A father might teach his son to box. But why was he doing this to her?

‘Apparently you did not hear that my mother died from falling down the stairs. Breaking her neck.’

She nodded. ‘Well, yes—I think.’ Perhaps she’d heard it. But it was a very long time ago. ‘My condolences on her passing, but what has that to do with—?’

The glare from his face would have stopped a horse from rushing ahead.

She said nothing, stepping back.

‘I was in the house that night.’

His sigh was silent. He waited long enough to blink. He frowned, shrugging away the words. ‘Servants carried her upstairs and put her on her bed. My grandmother instructed everyone exactly how Mother’s hair should be prepared and what clothes she should wear and told them to be quick about it. For the first time, she seemed to want my mother to be beautiful.’

Annie tightened her arms around her midsection, imagining Barrett watching his mother’s death. His eyes showed no reflection of the memories. In fact, he seemed more interested in how she would respond.

Annie remained stationary, hiding in herself as best she could.

Annie’s father had told her when her grandmother had passed on. That afternoon, her parents had asked her sisters if they wished to say goodbye. She and her sisters had held hands and walked into her grandmother’s room. Her grandmother had seemed to be sleeping with her prayer book in her hands and her favourite miniature of her husband placed against the book.

‘My mother was gone,’ he continued. ‘Grandmother was dancing around her and saying what a shame one so beautiful died so young. I didn’t realise Grandmother considered my mother beautiful.’ He touched his upper lip. ‘Mother had a broken tooth and all my grandmother had ever called her was Snaggletooth.’

‘That is a cruel name.’

‘She had her own version of endearments.’ He moved his fingers from his lip, twitched a shoulder and held out his palm for a half-second before his hand fell to his side.

‘At least she realised at the end that your mother was beautiful.’

‘I suspect she realised it all along.’ He stepped away, touching the lamp, and turned the wick higher, as if trying to get more light on Annie. ‘I often had a lot of time in my childhood to do nothing but think and listen. I don’t think the servants realised how their voices could carry or that I might be nearby.’

His head tilted a bit and he gauged Annie’s reaction, and she didn’t know exactly how she was supposed to react. Or what he watched for. She didn’t know what he expected from her. She didn’t think he wanted sympathy, or platitudes. But she had nothing else to offer and she didn’t know what he was looking for.

She couldn’t really take in what Barrett had said to her. He was talking about seeing his mother’s death. Every word had the resonance of truth in it, but it sounded cold. Unfeeling. As if he talked about a Drury Lane performance that bored him.

She truly didn’t know how to respond. She grasped for words that seemed right to say in a situation where someone talked about death. Nothing seemed to fit, but she had to say something.

‘I am so sorry. To lose a loved one in such a way... But you couldn’t have saved her from an accident.’

‘I might have—helped her. Somehow. I pacify myself with the thought that I was only six.’ He parted his lips slightly. ‘The last thing—’

She’d already started her next words and they rushed out of her mouth. ‘That is much too young to lose a mother.’

Then she realised she’d interrupted him. She’d spoken a moment too soon. His shoulders relaxed. Whatever he’d been going to say next was lost to her. She wanted to hear it and she didn’t think he’d known whether he should say it or not.

‘My mother told me that I had been a gift that she claimed had been found inside a big heart-shaped pie served to her for breakfast. She said she’d been quite surprised to poke her fork inside and hear a baby cry. She said the fork is how I got my navel.’ He touched the buttons of his waistcoat over his stomach. ‘She repeated the story several times. A strange thing to remember of her.’

Now his words moved in a different direction and she couldn’t pull back time to find out what he’d meant to say earlier. But she wanted to know. She wanted to ask, but it was his mother. She couldn’t interrogate him. ‘A mother’s loss would hurt anyone.’

‘I did not shed a tear then or in the year afterward. I was six. I had to be a man.’

She moved back. Her heels touched the wall, she gripped the curtain, but she looked him in the eye. ‘You didn’t shed a tear. For your mother?’

He looked at her. Just looked. ‘Fine, then. Years later, on the thirteenth of June, I cried buckets and buckets.’ His voice held no emotion. His head tilted a bit. ‘Feel better now?’

‘Her birthday?’

‘No.’ His eyes narrowed in thought and he took a second before answering. ‘I just realised I have no idea when her birthday was, or even the day she died. I wonder if the man of affairs knows. Not that it matters.’

‘What of her parents? Her family? Couldn’t you ask them?’

‘I have no connection to them. I met her brother when he arrived a few months later to give condolences, but Father saw that the visit was short. Neither she nor her family were a match for the world.’

‘I don’t live in the same world you do.’

‘You think that. You think it now. Even your father with all his nonsense knows—’

Her mouth opened and she rushed her words again.

‘Do not insult my father. You are a guest in his house.’ She’d thought him respectful, but now she wasn’t sure. She knew her father’s stories carried on and wandered, but she hoped her father had not joined his business with a viper.

‘My pardon.’ He moved, a bow of dismissal, and turned. ‘I made an error and I know I will not change a path a person is determined to take. You do as you wish and so do I. Parents can only delay or detour. Pity.’

His shoulders relaxed and he stepped to the door.

‘I wish you well.’ Now he said the platitude, but mixed it with a condescending air.

‘Wait,’ she said. Temper pushed her voice.

He stopped and, without wasted effort, rotated to see her face. She wasn’t used to someone dismissing her so easily. She could ask him questions.

‘Why didn’t you cry for your mother?’

He didn’t answer. He studied her face. His eyes didn’t criticise, they just waited for his thoughts to form or for him to choose his words. She didn’t know which.

His voice held the gravel of someone who might be ready to doze off. ‘I may have been only six, but I understood the world around me even then. Mother and I lived in the same house, but just as your parents seclude you from strangers, I was secluded as well. Mother played with me for half an hour a day before the governess took me away. Before I had the first solid bite of food in my mouth, I was slated to learn the family business, in all ways.’

She could see past the orbs of his eyes. Her chest tightened. He meant it.

‘Mother was a gentle spirit. Tirelessly in over her head at the choice of whether to ask for a peach or apple tart.’ He laughed, but the sound had a darkness mixed in that she’d never heard before.

‘Father probably chose her for what he saw as a lack of spirit.’ He put his head back, looking towards the ceiling, and a jesting rumble came from his lips as he moved his eyes back to hers. ‘Just as you are protected by your parents and aware of only the sugar plums in life, I was in a world not of sugar plums and I knew no other existed. Innocents were merely easier to move about as one wished.’

‘So you have...changed?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said and then his eyes locked on to hers in a way that let her know she’d be daft to believe him. ‘I now even believe in good-hearted pirates and that one can stop droughts by putting a nail under a pillow. It just has to be the right pillow. A pirate’s pillow. On the right day. Which is the day before a rain.’

‘If your mother had lived, perhaps you would not be so cynical. Six is hardly an age to be without a mother.’

‘I was an old soul in a child’s body. I just had to wait to grow. It just took a bit more time to fill out and for my arms to gain strength. Now, that—that was a considerable wait.’

‘Did you have brothers, sisters, your grandmother?’ She could not imagine herself in his world.

He turned his head, staring at the wall. ‘My grandmother was an addled witch who kept a fire poker at her side to gouge people with. My father was her shining star.’

No wonder he spoke so coldly of his mother’s death. The one person who’d been gentle in his life had been taken from him and an uncaring person had been put in her place. From childhood, he’d been forced to live without compassion.

She loosened her grasp on the cloth of the curtain. ‘At bedtime, who told you goodnight?’

She imagined a little boy in a huge bed and a grandmother whispering an evil cackle of goodnight from the shadows in the darkened room.

He turned his head sideways but kept his gaze on her. ‘I didn’t need anyone to tell me goodnight in my own home. That was for innocents.’

After speaking those words, he walked through the doorway.

She took a step sideways and dropped into the chair. No wonder her parents did not want her around others.

A tap on the door frame caused her to raise her head. Instantly, she fell back into her way of dealing with and soothing her parents and sisters. She smiled.

Surprise flickered on his face. His knuckles fell away from the wood. ‘Goodnight.’

She thought of the six-year-old boy he had once been. With all the softness she could put into a whisper, she spoke. ‘Goodnight.’ She looked at him. ‘See. It is a rather pleasant way to end a conversation among friends.’

‘I wanted to see your face again. The words were an excuse.’

The eyes. Tortured.

The barrier had fallen away from him.

‘Don’t let yourself be moved by easy words, Miss Carson.’ He lowered his chin. ‘All words are easy. Friendships can be more dangerous than blades.’

She shook her head. ‘The most important words aren’t easy.’

Her heart thumped louder in her chest and it took all her strength to keep it inside.

He nodded to her. ‘Pleasant dreams.’ He waited a moment. ‘Don’t let your guard down.’ And then he walked away without making another sound.

Chapter Four

Annie’s mother took the last sip of her tea and placed the pink rose teacup on the saucer. The pink rose meant it was Tuesday. Wednesday would have had the gilt-rimmed ones. Thursdays were for the silver vines. One could always tell the day of the week by the teacups.

‘I hate that your father didn’t have tea with us this afternoon, but he has had to lie down. This is our only time as a family. Even though it’s not quite the same since your sisters left.’ The grey curls bobbed as she spoke. ‘He has been touring the shops with the man who has all these ridiculous ideas about updating them and it has exhausted him. I think it may have tired Mr Barrett, too, as he is with the physician. But Mr Barrett will be on his way tomorrow. He upsets your father—all that talk about commerce.’

Mr Barrett did not seem someone who might be exhausted about talk of commerce. Not if he roamed around in the night and could speak so easily about fighting.

‘Are you sure you are not feeling distressed from the air last night?’ her mother asked, patting the strands at her forehead. ‘You look pale.’

‘Not at all.’

‘I will call the physician to look at you again.’

‘I don’t need a physician, Mother. And why is he here so often?’

‘It’s my bile again. You know how it is... He is so thoughtful. Not at all like Mr Barrett.’

Annie’s cup rattled when she placed it on the saucer. ‘I don’t quite understand why Father invited him.’

‘Mr Barrett does have a good man of affairs and seems quite interested in helping your father manage the shops your grandfather left him. But stay far away from your father’s guest. His eyes. Something about them. It’s as if he’s thinking all the time.’ She moved her hand, waving a napkin as she spoke. ‘He stares. I don’t like people who stare. It’s just not polite to look at people and think. It distresses the head so. The physician said it causes wrinkles as well.’ She patted her cheek. ‘I suppose that is why I look so youthful.’ She looked at Annie. ‘He says he can hardly tell we are not sisters.’

Annie smiled. ‘While you are quite the beauty of the family, Mother, I think the physician is full of his own miasmas and spreading things a bit thick.’

‘Nonsense.’ Her mother’s eyes darted to Annie’s face. ‘He’s a true scholar. He studied at Oxford and the Royal College of Physicians.’

‘Who are his people so that he could pay for his education?’

‘I believe he had a benefactor. When our last physician left after receiving the post with one of the Prince’s brothers, he recommended Gavin. He is well respected.’

‘Then I suppose he is qualified.’ She dismissed him from her thoughts, but she couldn’t keep Barrett from her mind.

It was so unlike her father to invite anyone like Barrett into their house. But he was a viscount’s son and her father knew how important that could be. Her father spent more time befriending people from the aristocracy than he spent doing anything else.

The memory of the Granny Gallery flitted through her mind. The man had tried to teach her to hit someone. She didn’t doubt he pulled his punches.

She would like to see him in the daylight hours. She touched her cheek again. ‘I do want to check with the physician to see if he can note an improvement,’ she said.

Her mother’s gaze wavered. ‘But not if he is with that man. You should wait. I’ll summon him. Ring for a servant to collect him.’

Annie stood. ‘But, Mother, the physician is close. It will only take a moment.’

Her mother shut her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. ‘Well, just be quick about it. And don’t let your father know if you see Mr Barrett.’ She whispered to Annie, ‘Your father says the man was seen about at a b-r-o-t-h-e-l when he was young. It’s said he visited every day. Not even waiting until the proper night hours.’

‘Oh.’ Annie went to the door. She stopped, looking back at her mother. ‘Do you think he thought it safer during the day?’

Her mother fanned her face. ‘Men do not go to a b-r-o-t-h-e-l to fight.’

‘Just a thought.’

Her mother shut her eyes and shook her head.

Annie wasn’t really looking for the physician. Walking down the hallway, she moved to the library, but Gavin wasn’t there, and then she tiptoed to the Granny Gallery. No one.

She would have thought the physician would have consulted with Barrett in the main rooms.

Then she moved to the room across from her old one. She could hear male voices.

She stopped, listening. The physician and Barrett talked. A rumbling sound. She wondered if Barrett had an ailment.

A few minutes later, the door opened, but the physician still looked back into the room as he spoke and stepped forward. ‘I cannot be in three places at once, but I’ll see what I can do.’

‘You’d best.’ Barrett said.

Annie stood, her mouth open.

‘Oh. Miss Annie,’ Gavin said, seeing her, then he smiled. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘My mother requested you.’

Gavin nodded, head turned to the side. ‘I’ll see to her.’ He walked away.

Annie didn’t follow him. Barrett stepped into the doorway, eyes dark.

‘Were you teaching him to fight?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘He looks like a soft flannel, but I’d say he can hold his own.’

‘I heard that,’ Gavin called over his shoulder, but didn’t stop walking.

‘Are you ill?’ she asked Barrett.

The creases at his eyes deepened, but his lips didn’t really smile and he seemed to be waiting until Gavin got out of earshot. ‘Miss Annie, might you be concerned for my health?’

‘No. You don’t seem to need any sympathy.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Or even someone to tell you simple pleasantries.’

He paused, watching her face, his own headshake nearly imperceptible.

‘You may know how to fight,’ she added, ‘but you could learn a thing or two about being pleasant.’

‘For me, pleasantries—’ his chin lowered ‘—were much more difficult to master than a simple punch. But I think I do rather well.’

‘Is it all a pretence?’ she asked.

‘Most of it.’ His eyes challenged her to make what she would of his words.

Her gaze mirrored his. ‘For most people their pleasantries are real.’

He gave one quick head shake. ‘It’s all a game. Quid pro quo.’

She raised her brows in question.

‘You do this for me and I’ll do that for you because some day I may need something else or you may and then we’ll work together because we are both working separately for our own interests.’

‘It’s a shame your mother died when you were so young. You might have believed in goodness otherwise.’

‘I suggest you do not leave your chaperon’s sight for one heartbeat.’ Then he stepped back, nodded to her, said a goodbye and gently shut the door.

Somehow she felt she’d been thrown under the wheels of a carriage.

She turned and walked back to her mother’s room.

‘Oh, my dear, we were just going to send for you.’ Her mother looked up, her pale dress flowing softly and pooling around her slippers. ‘The physician wishes to examine you so he can see how the treatment is going.’

He stood, the look of a schooled professional in his face and the monocle in his hand.

She waited, her demeanour that of a perfect patient, yet not looking at his face. She couldn’t get Barrett from her mind. Ever so politely, he’d shut the door in her face. The beast had shut the door in her face. No wonder he did not believe in kindness. He had none in him.

The physician touched the monocle to her skin. She didn’t move at the brush of the cold glass. Barrett’s eyes had chilled her more.

‘Oh. This is amazing. Amazing.’ He peered. ‘Her skin is perfect. After only one night of treatment. She’s cured.’ He stepped back.

‘After one night?’ she squeaked out the words. Relief. Disbelief and relief again. And then a memory of their guest, who seemed to know the physician, and then that Barrett had found her alone in the room the physician had sent her to.

Her mother clasped her hands in front of her. ‘How wonderful. Wondrous. Gavin, you are a physician without compare.’

‘Odd.’ She dotted her hand over her cheek. ‘I still feel the epidemeosis.’

‘Well, you may have a lingering trace I can’t detect.’ Gavin put the monocle back in his coat pocket. ‘If you wish to sit alone in the night air a few more times, I see no harm in it.’