The Lady and the Bricklayer Read online

  The

  Lady

  and the

  Bricklayer

  (Ladies & Strays 3)

  Lisa Torquay

  Copyright

  The Lady and the Bricklayer

  Copyright 2022 Lisa Torquay

  Published by Lisa Torquay

  Edition License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Editor

  Bob Ross

  Cover Art

  Jo Singleton

  Table of Contents

  The Lady and the Bricklayer

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  About this book

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Brand-New Series

  Preview of The Jilted Gentleman

  Sharing a Little Secret

  About the Author

  Connect with Lisa Torquay

  Other Books by Lisa Torquay

  About this book

  Revenge is a dish best served hot. Very. Hot!

  Lady Millicent, the daughter of the Duke of Haddington, is shunned by the ton for her father's renown sadistic tastes. Weary and disillusioned, she's counting the days to her twenty-second birthday, when she'll receive her mother's inheritance and escape London's mockery and cruelty. Before that, though, she's tasked with the refurbishing of the garden's folie. The bricklayer in charge of it stirs her like no man ever did with his brawny and brooding looks. Torn between the need to protect her heart and the pull he exerts on her, the temptation to taste all those bunched muscles might prove too much to resist.

  Martin Baker's fury at what the duke did to his sister when she was a maid at his house knows no limits. The work at the rapist's own townhouse affords him the chance to wreak revenge on the lecher. And why not use his haughty daughter to achieve his aim? He, however, is in danger of becoming a slave to her allure and the crave she awakens in him. But as he finally exacts his vengeance, he realises that he is the one going under. In ways he'd never imagined.

  Dedication

  To the victims of all kinds of abuse.

  You’re survivors.

  You’re the real heroes and heroines!

  Chapter One

  London 1822

  Martin Baker was one wretched creature this world should have spared itself from. But didn’t, and he’d not ask why. As though it wasn’t enough to be born in the rookeries in St Giles, he came into this rotting town in the worst hole of it. His mother had been a washerwoman whose husband had died from too much gin. Well, it had been a tavern fight fuelled by too much gin in any case.

  Most of his equally wretched mates had perished one way or the other. From the fevers that raided the crowded, filthy rookeries. Or from the wars waged in the streets between the miserable pickpockets and the nobs who paid their henchmen, the constables, to fight it for them. Or from the vices that ran in his world; from the pox the patrons regaled their prostitutes with, you name it. He could count on the fingers of one hand the children he grew up with that still roamed the surface of the planet, instead of inhabiting somewhere seven feet under. If they were lucky because many of them found their graves in the slimy waters that crossed the city in its famous river.

  He had no cause to bring to mind the life he struggled with back in that shit hole. He'd just stepped in the fairy tale lies of Mayfair heading towards Haddington House, the pristine abode of the not so pristine Duke of Haddington. Martin’s neighbour had said that the esteemed duke needed a bricklayer to fix some useless part of his useless house. Needs must, as he had other mouths to feed in the real world, meaning the one he returned to after each backbreaking workday.

  Even a decaying soul like his knew of the untouchable duke’s unspeakable crimes. The unspeakable crimes that rendered Bertha… No! He wouldn’t think of that. He’d strive to keep his eyes on his actual goal.

  And nothing else.

  This opportunity had fallen on his lap out of nowhere, and he wasn’t about to squander it.

  His walk brought him to a four-story house boasting Grecian columns on either side of its cream-painted front at the corner. As a bricklayer he understood a few facts about architecture. The parish school his ever-tired mother insisted he go to, gave him little more than his numbers and letters. The rest he learned either at work or in the streets that nursed him when his mother wasn’t around.

  Martin knew better than to climb up the marble front steps to knock on the noble wood front door. And meet a butler's severe disapproval as he dared show his sooty face where only a selected number of nobs were allowed to call. So, he rounded the house, searching for the service entrance. And found it at the far back of a side terrace with a wrought-iron railing. As his knuckles rapped the much simpler wood, a scullery maid flew it open as though she didn't have even a few seconds to do it.

  At the girl’s inquisitive gaze, he spoke. “I’m Martin Baker, the bricklayer Lord Haddington said he needs.”

  Understanding widened the maid’s glare, the name of the duke crumpling her brow as she allowed him in. “I’ll tell Palmer of your arrival,” she said, probably referring to the butler.

  A starchily dressed butler came in Martin’s direction. “His Grace isn’t home at the moment, but his daughter will talk to you.” And turned, implying Baker had to follow him.

  Martin nodded at the other man’s back. He wondered why the butler tried so hard to deport and speak like his employers if he remained a servant all the same. These underlings paid a high price for a roof over their heads and food in their bellies if they had to ditch the ways they were born into. Though Martin couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t sell his rotten soul for the privilege.

  He followed Palmer through a maze of hallways, narrow stairs, and more hallways until they reached the garden. The butler halted and turned to a woman standing in the middle of it. “Lady Millicent, Martin Baker, the bricklayer.” Then bowed and left.

  The moment the lady had pivoted to the servant, Martin froze. Every single pore in him stilled, except for his blood. The latter sped, no, careened through his veins. Not a lady stood before him, but a vision, a nereid, more, a goddess. Tall, slender, and alabaster skin that only a woman who didn't toil in the open-air afforded to have. But that did no justice to her. She displayed the darkest hair he'd ever seen, so black and glossy it might blind him with the garden sun splashing on it. What made his eyes drink and feast on was her striking features. His rapturous gaze slid down the most perfect nose he'd ever encountered in his thirty years.

  "Baker." Those lips uttered, attracting his focus to them. And caused his careening blood to rush in an entirely improper direction. Full upper and lower lips, brimming with a sensuality that evoked a vulgar torrent of explicit images he'd not confess even to the most seasoned whore in St Giles. The wet strawberry hue, as if she'd only bit into the fruit, promised exquisite torture no paradise ever offered.

  “My lady.” Martin gave a slight bow, more to wrench his eyes from her decadent delicacy than to acknowledge his non-existent place in this society.

  “The folie needs repair.” Her inflectionless voice ripped him out of his carnal trip to refocus on her eyes. They were wide with an indefinable colour between brown and grey that defied any hazel description. As he met her gaze, he collided with a bleakness belonging only to a man destined to the gallows. Not that they seemed cold, no, just… expressionless. “Allow me to show you the work.” She continued with no intonation.

  And turned. Fuck the sinners in hell. She didn’t move, she glided, better, floated like a nymph descended from the Olympus to grace poor mortals with a beauty that fairly twisted his guts. Her skirts flared and caught the sun in their pewter-coloured folds of a fabric that had to rival her skin in silkiness.

  Martin couldn’t help his wandering appreciation, which made him want to bite his own head off. Usually, he didn’t even spare a glance to the ladies who commissioned his services. They sat too far up for one. For another, they hadn’t ever appealed to him on any level. Self-important and capricious, they didn’t see him, they saw through him, an invisible pair of hands as expendable as any individual of his rank. But this one? There was no telling why she breached his impersonal professionalism.

  “My father left it to me to conduct this refurbishing.” The cut-glass remark came devoid of intonation again even if the melodious cadence of it brought
the most explicit ideas to his head.

  The mention of the duke functioned as a bucket of icy water on him. If there was one human being on this planet that Martin hated with every fiery cell in his body, it was him. That piece of nasty work didn’t deserve to be called human. Well, perhaps he did, because animals didn’t have in them to be cruel for the sake of cruelty.

  Martin forced himself to bring his unruly body to a semblance of decency. And his runaway imagination to shut down. Her spectacular beauty wrapped in the dazzling nob’s dressing fashion proved to be worth nothing. The daughter represented another one of them. Another one to presume that the lower ranks were there to serve, to exploit, to tear to shreds on a whim. That’s what her father did. She, the daughter? Trees and fruit came to mind. A serpent could enchant its prey with the express aim to attack and kill. He’d do well not to forget that for a single minute.

  And suddenly, the means for his long-awaited revenge seemed to have materialised right before his eyes.

  Millicent neared the folie which had been built together with this house a hundred and fifty years earlier but had received little attention since. Back in the days when her mother still lived and the dinners, balls or soirees gave a drop of life to this mausoleum. The reproduction of a small Greek temple used to play a central role in the gatherings, attracting admiration and praise from the rarefied guests.

  No one visited this house these days, not even her friends. There were no gatherings in the sunny gardens, only shadows and gloom after her dear mother passed. And left Millicent alone in the hands of a father loathed and feared by the ton. Loathed not because anyone gave a fig to what the duke did, but because what he did became public knowledge. It sent the message that the upper crust was allowed anything provided it remained private, pushed into the dark corners of the dynasty and the sumptuous houses they lived in.

  Before she reached the first step, she turned to the bricklayer, and did something she seldom did, looked up. Few people were taller than her, causing her to glance down rather than up. The movement made her notice the lean lines that his threadbare clothes didn’t hide. On the contrary, the thin fabric rather revealed his fine constitution.

  “Parts of the plaster is so damaged that needs reapplying,” she said as she pointed at the structure and met his gaze. In the sun, his eyes projected a shade of russet shot through with light. She’d never seen the likes of it.

  His head lifted as he studied the run-down folie, those russet globes absorbing the sunny rays. "Before doing the plaster, I'll have to check if the structure is still solid." As he moved his head, the light fell on his dishevelled hair a shade darker than his eyes.

  Then his attention came back to her. When he first entered the garden, he'd looked at her with that same mixture of wonder and raunchiness she was used to seeing in the men who met her. But now, there seemed to be a hardened quality to his gaze, as though he had reduced her to something found only on shoe soles.

  Millicent scoffed inwardly. So, he too had heard the tales about her sire. Well, good for him, she didn't care one way or the other. Lady Millicent Ursula Hilton, the only daughter to the Duke of Haddington, cared nothing for men or what they thought, even less about what they wanted. Her father's sins splattered on her by association. The lords she rubbed elbows with either saw her as corrupted as her father, giving themselves the right to utter slurs and try to get their share of it. Or avoided her as though she was as soiled as her father's victims. From the moment she came out, a year after she lost her mother, she'd been contending with the rumours. Fast, she learned that no nobleman in his right mind would risk a match with damaged goods or having Charles Hilton as a father-in-law and grandfather to his offspring, duke, or no duke. Conversely, she wished nothing to do with any of them. They were bound to be as selfish and hard-hearted as her father.

  "Naturally, we must ascertain if the structure is strong enough to stand," she agreed as she climbed up the few steps, passing the circular row of Corinthian columns to the door. The folie had been locked up for years and lacked receiving the same attention the servants dispensed to the other parts of the townhouse. A bunch of keys in her hand, she unlocked the scarred wood and pushed. It wouldn't budge. She tried again with more force and no success.

  "I can do it, my lady." The raspy voice sounded so close that the air accompanying it almost ruffled the hair on her nape. The sound spread goosebumps not only on her nape but all over her skin.

  Her torso swivelled to him standing less than three feet from her. Millicent’s glare rose to him at his dare, to collide with a scorching glare of his own. The goosebumps turned to heated skin. This close, the scent of him, clean sweat, dust, and something else she had no ability to detect, lay siege to her airways with tantalising pleasantness, for lack of a better word. For a few seconds, neither moved. At last, Millicent gave a step back, more out of habit than anything else.

  Baker neared the door and gave it a violent shove with his shoulder. As shoulders went, that one was way larger than the average lord’s. The wood resisted just a fraction of a second before it obeyed the man’s will. The panel flew inside, yielding to the lean muscles that coaxed it.

  The bricklayer motioned for her to precede him. The interior held that musty smell of a place locked for too long. Bits of plaster and dust littered the marble floor and curtained the air. Through it, the sunbeams found passage through the windows on the top of the inner wall. The round structure displayed about eight feet in diameter, surrounded by the wall. Ten feet above, the elaborate dome reigned over the temple. Three sculpture replicas stood inside. At the centre, Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, sided by the two unlikely gods connected with her. Hephaistos, the ugliest god in the Olympus, her husband; and Ares, God of war, her lover.

  “One of your ancestors had a predilection for tempestuous relationships,” Baker commented as he inspected the folie.

  Millicent’s eyes widened. “You know Greek mythology?” He didn’t seem like the learned kind.

  His hands bracketed his hips, drawing attention to his leanness. His gaze shot at her with a drop of contempt at the fact she considered him dense. “It’s my job to discern what not to tear down.”

  The sun rays played light and shadow over his face, sculpting it with a hard jaw, high forehead, and deep-set eyes. For a moment, Millicent imagined him as one of the statues housed in there. The hands on his hips tightened his shabby shirt and waistcoat to show a wall of muscles over his torso. Somewhere along the walk to the folie, he'd lost his coarse woollen coat with no care that a man didn't undress in front of a lady.

  Millicent lifted her chin unwilling to admit to her stereotype of the lower ranks. “No bricklayer showed this kind of knowledge before.” The admission felt like grit in her mouth.

  His dark brows rose in surprise. “I don’t only move books when I refurbish libraries.”

  A bricklayer with a taste for reading. Now, that appeared innovative. Though when he found the time to read those books, she had no idea. “An advantage in this case,” she replied, the grit making her voice dry.

  “A rare occurrence in the place I come from,” he quipped.

  He probably meant that the underprivileged fell far behind when it came to the tools they had at their disposal to fight for their survival. No schooling to speak of, no healthy housing or food; families disrupted by poverty and early death. These were disadvantages they struggled with while making their way in the world.

  When she'd attended many of the Worcesters' progressive soirees, Millicent acquired basic awareness of the social and economic traps posed for the majority of the population. Traps set by the higher echelons to maintain the status quo. She'd had no chance of coming up close and personal with it so far. The servants lived in the house in relatively neat conditions. Which meant that those soirees consisted abstract notions that happened far from her. Her father and Palmer used to manage the people coming from outside. But Charles Hilton travelled to the country on short notice, leaving this task for her to handle.