The Postilion (The Masqueraders #2) - S.M. LaViolette Page 0,28
was dead. The new head of the firm was Norris’s grandson, a man barely in his twenties, who’d never even met Benna’s father.
Second, Mr. Ridgewick the elder had passed on to his final reward almost twenty years earlier.
And third, the firm had once managed Benna’s trust, but hadn’t done so since a few years before her brother David’s death. The clerk had no information about who oversaw the trust now.
Benna’s grand plan—such as it was—had been to present herself to the older Norris and hope that he recognized her. After he’d gotten over his shock and anger at learning the Duchess of Wake’s guardian had forced her to work as a servant, they would confront Michael and wrest the dukedom from his evil clutches.
Benna now knew that her plan was actually more of a child’s fantasy, something that kept her going on days when she wanted to just give up. For several months after her depressing visit to London she’d been … desolate.
It had occurred to her, for the first time ever, that she might never regain her name, her title, or her life.
It had also occurred to her that this—what she had now—was her life: she would be a servant until she died.
And finally, it had occurred to her that she should kill Michael. That was the only sure way to stop him. The longer she waited, the more he would establish himself. If she waited for her legal age, or until she had enough money to hire somebody, or—God forbid—even longer, until she came into her trust, there might be nothing left.
In the months after London she'd thought of killing him every single day.
On some of those days she’d had to fight hard against the impulse, fully aware that it would only end in misery for her.
But a person could only live on the outside of their skin for so long without going mad.
The banalities of daily life had a way of dulling the sharp edges.
And so, almost without realizing it, Benna discovered that she'd resigned herself to waiting.
After all, what were her other choices?
Besides, her life with Geoff was, in general, easy enough. There were anxious moments here and there when a card-player questioned Geoffrey’s astoundingly good fortune. But her employer had been supporting himself at the gaming table for too long to ever respond to goads or challenges.
Instead, when a situation became too unfriendly, they would pack their bags, slip out of town, and pop up in a new city.
It was now Benna who packed their bags, settled their lodging bill, and arranged for transportation to Geoffrey’s next destination of choice.
She had, without quite realizing it, become Geoff’s only servant since her third month with him, when he’d decided to discharge his expensive—and demanding—valet.
Benna not only learned to valet him and manage his affairs, but Geoff taught her the finer points of fuzzing the cards, to use the vulgar parlance.
In addition to gaming, he also earned his living at the various races scattered around Britain. Wagering on horse races was something Benna was quite good at, given her family’s history of breeding more than its fair share of winners on the flat.
Last, but not least, was the income Geoff derived from fleecing the wealthy ladies who fell before his charms like wheat before a scythe.
Rather than diminish over time—as she had hoped—Benna’s jealousy of Geoff’s lovers seemed to grow with each month that passed. She was rapidly concluding that struggling against physical attraction was a losing battle.
It didn’t matter that she knew Geoff was rotten to the core. Nor did it matter that she’d watched him use and then ruthlessly discard dozens of women when he was finished with them.
If there was a God—something Benna was no longer sure of given how much ugliness she’d seen in the world over the past year—he must have spent all his efforts on polishing Geoff’s perfect appearance. Because the man had nothing inside him other than a bottomless hunger for money.
The more Benna learned about him, the more amazed she was that he’d ever put himself out to save her that night in Durham.
“Sometimes I stun myself with how wretched I am,” Geoff had admitted one evening when Benna had lost her temper and confronted him after he’d sharped a lady so old that she could scarcely see the spots on the playing cards.
His uncharacteristic admission had stopped Benna in mid-scold. “Well,” she’d finally managed to say, “You can’t be all bad; you did save me that night.”