Page 8 of Sir Hugo Seeks a Wife (Cinderellas of Mayfair #1)

The winter wind blows cold and drear.

I wish, I wish my love was near.

My love who stays so far away.

But he’s my love, let come what may.

Hugo couldn’t doubt that Miss de Smith meant what she said, although he took encouragement from the fact that she was yet to say that she found him unappealing.

That gave him a weapon or two in this war between them.

What he needed right now was information.

He was fighting blind until he knew more about her. “Why?”

She frowned and tried to sound like the dragon from Sweet Little Nothings. But too much had happened for the repressive tone to deter him. “Surely that is my business, sir. We are, after all, strangers.”

“You don’t feel like a stranger. You feel like the other half of my soul.”

He straightaway knew that he’d said something wrong. She went rigid, and that queenly face turned as disdainful as a duchess offered a rotten egg. “Stop it,” she said, sounding just like a duchess, too. “I don’t need flattering lies.”

His brain had been whirling. Now knowledge struck him like a blow. The man who had brought her to build all these prickly defenses had been a silver-tongued Lothario? It was something to go on. Hugo had already guessed that an unhappy love affair lay behind her thorny reaction to his wooing.

“Aphrodite… Damn it, I can’t call you that. It sounds all wrong.”

Her stern expression didn’t ease. “Miss de Smith is perfectly fine. There’s no need for us to use Christian names. In fact, it’s inappropriate when addressing a mere acquaintance.”

He ignored the scold. Rather liked it, in fact. She was like a beautiful governess. “We need to talk.”

“No, we don’t.”

He ignored that, too. “We’re only a few minutes from my house. Where there are too many nosy servants.”

He’d let the horses drop back to an amble and he’d taken the long way home, but Mayfair was a small area and he was running out of options for prolonging the drive. “Shall I go around the block again? Although Fogg will have my guts for garters if I let his hot mash go cold.”

Miss de Smith watched him with a puzzled frown. “You worry about upsetting your staff?”

“I worry about upsetting Fogg. My head groom is an artist and as sensitive as a blasted star soprano.”

She gave a reluctant laugh. “You’re a strange man, Hugo Brinsmead.”

That sounded like a compliment, so he didn’t complain. “And it’s as cold as a witch’s tit out here. Not conducive for nutting out the details of our wedding.”

She went back to looking stern. “There’s not going to be a wedding.”

He was getting rather good at ignoring things that he didn’t want to hear. “If this was Yorkshire, I could find somewhere. But London’s a different kettle of fish. Unless you know a place.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“Yes, we do.” Hugo eyed her. She looked determined, but he’d learned that was a defense mechanism. “If we go to Madame Lebeau in a hackney, do you think she’ll give me some time alone with you to state my case?”

Miss de Smith’s lips firmed in a way that made him think of kisses. But then, that generous, expressive mouth always made him think of kisses. “Not if I ask her to refuse you admittance.”

“That would be unfriendly.”

She flashed him an annoyed glance. “To the devil with you, it would be wise.”

“But unfriendly all the same.”

She didn’t argue. Perhaps she’d decided to start ignoring what she didn’t want to hear, too. “And I’ll be perfectly safe alone in a hackney. There’s no need to escort me.”

That he wasn’t going to ignore. “Whether you agree to hear me out or not, I’m going to see you to Madame Lebeau.

That’s not up for negotiation. Or we could go back to the shop.

We’d have privacy there. Plunkett must have gone by now.

I doubt his lustful impulses could survive this cold snap anyway. ”

Her eyes narrowed on him. “I don’t know about that. Your lustful impulses seem to be alive and well.”

She had no idea. In his opinion, given the provocation, he was acting like a perfect gentleman.

Her room wasn’t a bad choice of destination. He’d like to see where she slept. It might offer up a few clues about her. It also might give him a chance to touch her without the impediment of winter coats. It was torture having her so close without holding her in his arms.

Lustful impulses indeed.

He turned the curricle into the lane leading to the stables behind his house. Paul ran out to take the horses’ heads. “We thought you’d got lost, Sir Hugo.”

“Yes, well, I’m not used to Town, my lad. Is Fogg up in the boughs?”

Paul gave a gurgle of laughter. He was a smart boy, the son of one of Hugo’s tenant farmers. The lad had been beside himself with excitement when Hugo offered him a place for the London visit. “Aye. He’s fretting something horrid.”

“Heaven help us. I’d better get my team in to him quick smart. then. Will you find a hackney and ask the driver to wait at the top of the lane? I need to see Miss de Smith reaches home safely.”

“Aye, Sir Hugo.” Paul raced off toward the road.

“A closed carriage, Paul,” Hugo called after the boy. “It’s too cold in the open air for a lady.”

His stablemaster Ebenezer Fogg loomed out of the stables. He looked lugubrious. But then, he always did. “Sir Hugo.”

“Fogg, I’ve brought them back for some of your magic. They’re cold and ready for bed.”

“I’ll see them right, master.”

“I know you will.”

Since they’d reached the stables, Hugo had been aware of Miss de Smith’s concentrated attention. He wondered what she was thinking. Probably how she meant to turn him down in a way that forestalled further offers.

Fogg already held the horses and talked to them in the low croon that made any equine into his acolyte. He paid no attention to Miss de Smith. Humans held little interest for him, unless they failed to treat fine horseflesh with appropriate respect.

Hugo stepped out of the vehicle and lifted a hand to help Miss de Smith down. “Madam?”

With more of that instinctive grace, she descended to stand beside him.

Every masculine urge rose to bundle her into his luxurious London house and see how things progressed from there.

But it was too early for her to trust him.

He was smart enough – and experienced enough with women – to recognise that his problems with Miss de Smith stemmed almost entirely from trust issues and not a lack of desire.

While she did her best to dampen his pretensions to become her suitor, he hadn’t missed how she couldn’t keep her eyes off him. He felt the same.

While that boded well for his eventual victory, strategy favored patience and care.

Nonetheless he kept hold of her hand. “Shall we seek our conveyance?”

Fogg led the horses and carriage away, leaving Hugo and Miss de Smith alone. “There’s no point pursuing me, Sir Hugo. You’ve had my answer. Better to send me off to Sylvie and forget we ever met.”

He wasn’t going to argue with her in the middle of his stables. So he responded with deliberate casualness. “I said I’d see you safe and that’s what I’ll do.”

She took that at face value and accepted his arm as they walked up the alley to where Paul waited with a decrepit closed carriage that looked like it had seen service under the first George. “Best I could do, Sir Hugo.”

“It will be fine, Paul. Thank you. Go now and help Fogg. I won’t need you again tonight.”

“Aye, sir.” He bowed to Miss de Smith. “M’lady.”

“What’s the address in Blackfriars?” Hugo asked Miss de Smith.

What she said meant nothing to him. He hadn’t ventured much beyond London’s fashionable quarter. But the driver seemed to know it, and once Hugo and Miss de Smith were on board, the horses set off at a cracking pace.

“This isn’t necessary,” Miss de Smith said in the teacher voice that always whipped him into a frenzy of desire.

Hugo smiled at her from where he sat opposite her, with his back to the horses. “You’re ravishing when you’re annoyed.”

Her expressive dark eyebrows rose. “Pray don’t patronize me, Sir Hugo.”

He laughed more in appreciation than resentment. “You don’t intend to give me an inch, do you?”

“Why should I?” In the light of the lamps affixed to the outside of the conveyance, her stare was uncompromising. Hell, she was uncompromising. What a wife she’d make. He didn’t want a hothouse lily. He wanted a woman who seized life by the scruff of the neck and gave it a good shake.

She meant her frosty manner to frighten him off. But very little deterred a stalwart Yorkshireman. Instead, her indomitable character only made him want her more. When he already wanted her more than a drunkard wanted his next brandy.

He rubbed his chin in thought. “Now there’s a question.”

She avoided his eyes and glanced around the carriage. “This must have once belonged to someone grand like the Duke of Devonshire.”

“Maybe. In 1650. It’s seen better days.” He wrinkled his nose. “And something died in here around the 1700 mark.” Although at least the vehicle was warmer than his curricle, however stylish.

She didn’t smile. “Stop it.”

Startled, he regarded her. “Stop what?”

“Trying to charm me. It’s not working.”

“Pity.” He folded his arms and settled back against the worn leather upholstery, stretching his long legs out into the well between the benches. “Things will be so much easier if you find me as irresistible as I find you.”

She frowned. “I’m not that appealing.”

Whoever had broken her heart, he’d done a job on her. Hugo wished that the fellow was here so he could beat the living daylights out of him.

But then if the bastard was here, Hugo wouldn’t have Miss de Smith to himself. “There I have to disagree with you, madam. If you aren’t appealing, I wouldn’t be in such a lather to kiss you.”

Her eyes rounded with surprise, wiping away her haughty expression. “K-kiss me?”

“Indeed. I’m hoping you’ll invite me to sit beside you and take you into my arms.”

It was his turn to be surprised when she laughed. “I’m impressed you’re waiting for me to ask.”

He didn’t smile. “I don’t want you confusing me with Lord Alfred.”

“He’s an arrogant swine who doesn’t understand the word no.”

“Then I definitely don’t want you confusing me with him.”

She turned and stared out the window. They’d reached the river. In the uncertain light, her profile made him think of a queen on an old coin. Pure lines of forehead and jaw and chin. That imperial nose. An air of wistfulness around the lips.

The silence was charged with all the desire he felt for her. And he hoped a trace of her desire for him.

She still didn’t look at him. When at last she spoke, her voice was so low that he had to lean in to hear her. “Damn you, Sir Hugo Brinsmead.”

She sounded genuinely angry, and her hands clutched in her lap.

He wasn’t sure how to reply. She didn’t sound frightened. And despite her words, she didn’t sound like she hated him.

She drew in a shaky breath, audible in the confined space. “If I kiss you, you’ll just go on pestering me.”

Her voice held a hint of rueful humor. Hugo sat up straight, every instinct on alert. He’d prepared for her to tell him to pull his head in when he mentioned kisses. But while she might be hesitant, she hadn’t yet said no. “I’d leave you alone if I believed you had no interest in me.”

“I’ve said I haven’t.”

“Yes, you have.”

“But you don’t believe me.”

Heat churned in his blood, making a mockery of the arctic temperature. “Perhaps I’m an arrogant swine after all.”

At last she looked at him. Her eyes were brilliant with what looked like excitement. “So why am I thinking of kissing you anyway?”

Hugo fought the urge to leap across and seize her. “Because I don’t desire alone?”

He waited to hear her deny his claim, but he underestimated her. “Of course you don’t. But you already know that, plague take you.”

It was beyond human strength to resist touching her. He shifted across and lashed his arms around her. “I hoped.”

Bold black eyes dared him to do his worst. She was splendid, by God. “Don’t pretend to modesty now.”

He laughed, drunk with the dazzling woman he held. “You’re a peach, Aphrodite. Or whatever the hell your real name is. How the devil could I stay away?”

“And you’re the last thing I should want,” she said, close to growling.

Before he could argue with that description, she plunged forward and jammed her lips against his.