The Postilion (The Masqueraders #2) - S.M. LaViolette Page 0,35

they stayed in hotels—or, when fortunate, at various country estates—which left her with only Geoff’s person to tend.

Since arriving in Ascot she’d been responsible for everything from drawing his bloody baths—he took one every damned day—to emptying his goddamned chamber pot and making his breakfast.

Yesterday, after Geoff—shaved, bathed, and dressed by her—had wandered off for an early afternoon liaison with his current lover, Benna had stood staring down at the mess he’d left in his dressing room.

It had struck her—with considerable force—just how far she had fallen during her short life.

Benna had discovered early on—perhaps her second month away from Wake House—that she had to forget who she used to be if she was to survive. The whole point of hiding was so that nobody knew she was a duchess. If she behaved like a duchess, or expected to be treated like one, then she had taken this extremely uncomfortable fork in the road for no reason.

Whenever she became despondent—which she allowed to happen more often than was safe or wise—she allowed herself to think about Michael, and what he had done to her brother and wanted to do to her. That led, logically, to pondering the way she was living now. Which led to the realization that she would be forced to live this way until she could hire a solicitor and demand access to her trust.

If she thought about all the years—and all the obstacles—laid out before her she became frantic and insane with despair.

And then she did foolish, dangerous things.

For example: one night, perhaps two months after she’d started working for Geoffrey, she had been engaged in some grim, domestic drudgery when she’d suddenly realized—with blinding clarity—that she would likely spend her life working as a servant until she turned twenty-five.

She had wracked her brain for ways to stop Michael—to seize control of what was legally hers—but there was nothing and nobody that she could turn to or trust. Only herself. And to be of any use to herself, she needed to have the legal authority to act on her own behalf.

Before that could happen, she had to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Years of waiting stared her in the face that night.

And, for the first time since overhearing Michael in the priest hole that night, Benna had felt despair.

Despair had led her to the decision that her life, the way it was, was simply too much to bear; she couldn’t do it. Death would be better.

Benna had been alone that night as Geoff had been out with one of his lovers. She had taken his pistols, gathered up her few possessions and the small amount of money she’d saved, and booked a seat on the next stage headed for Scotland.

Her plan was simple: she would kill Michael before he could kill her. That was the only way to put a stop to the nightmare that was her life.

She hadn’t given any thought to the where or the how, all she’d thought about was ending the interminable waiting and stopping the fear.

She had not come back to her senses until late in the morning on the following day, somewhere around Bradford.

By the time Benna had purchased a seat on a southbound coach—which ate up most of the rest of her paltry savings—and returned to whatever town they’d been staying in, it had been late in the evening.

Benna had expected to get a thorough bollocking from Geoffrey—perhaps he might even sack her if he noticed that she’d taken his guns.

As it turned out, he’d stayed with his lover and hadn’t come back to their hotel. He never even knew that Benna had been gone for a day and a half.

That was the last time she’d given in to such bleak despair.

Today she was angry—furious, even—at all the work she was shouldering, but she had not fallen into despair.

Life with Geoffrey might not be the life she wanted, but it was tolerable. As demanding as he could be in some ways, she had plenty of time to herself. She also had enough money that she could keep herself in books, and also rent the occasional hack to ride. She’d even purchased a book about the law of trusts and wills. It was cluttered with words and phrases that were incomprehensible, but she had nothing but time to learn what it all meant.

Benna stopped her pacing and looked again at her watch; sometime over the last five minutes her temper had cooled. That was just as well because being abrupt with Geoffrey only