She’d spread out her drawings and was examining the placement of his right foot when a loathsome voice penetrated her concentration.

“Ah, here you are, sweet cousin!”

Serena swung around, even though she knew who the voice belonged to.

Etienne Bardot stepped out of the shadowy corridor into the big stall, his eyes darting about her person. “What is that? Are you going to hit me and dump my body down a hole?”

Serena glanced down, surprised to see her hand has seized the bigger of her mallets from the table.

“I must admit your idea is not without a certain appeal.” She spoke to him in French, as she always did. It was the only thing she could do to protect herself from eavesdropping servants, not that it would protect her from members of her husband’s family, who all spoke French. Serena tossed the heavy hide mallet onto the workbench where it landed with a dull clatter. “What do you want?”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. So rude. I’ve been looking for you for weeks, my dearest Serena.”

“For what, Etienne? I told you I would receive my pay at the end of the quarter. I have nothing now.” She held out her empty hands, hatred that threatened to choke her pulsing through her body.

“You would reduce our relationship to nothing but pounds and pence?”

“I would rather reduce it to nothing at all,” she shot back.

He merely laughed at her heated words and hate-filled glare. “We are bound by ties that are much stronger than money. I have come to see how my son goes on.”

Serena let out a string of curses in three languages.

He came toward her, his fashionable Hessians and expensive, but somehow tawdry, clothing enflaming her even more.

“Don’t act like you care about him.” She raked him with a look that held every ounce of loathing she felt. “If you did, you would not be dressed like a peacock while your own flesh and blood wears patched and too-small rags.”

He reached out a hand to caress her chin and she jerked back. His mouth hardened and he moved with the lightning speed she recalled from all those years ago, knocking her against the workbench and pinning her against the wall.

“You’ve forgotten who holds the whip hand, Serena. Do you need me to remind you?” He lowered his mouth over hers, stabbing into her cruelly and repeatedly. She did what she’d always done and remained still and limp.

He pulled away and grabbed her jaw in a crippling grip. “Serena the Statue, eh?” He squeezed her until her eyes watered, but she refused to make even a whimper. His dark gray-blue eyes, so like Oliver’s, glared down at her. He wanted to hit her, but love of his own hide and comfort held him back. After all, how could she go about fashionable society and get the work she needed to pay his crushing blackmail if she looked like a battered serving wench?