He followed Thad to the study, noting how it had changed since Sebastian had left—the surface of the desk was spotless, no random stacks of paper on it. The letter opener was at a perfect perpendicular angle to the edge of the desk, and the chair was pushed carefully under the desk, not as though someone had just popped up out of it.
“Have a seat.”
Nash sat in the chair opposite the desk, crossing his legs.
Thad busied himself pouring the drinks, squinting at the glasses as though making certain there were precisely equal amounts in each.
Nash took his, raised it to Thad, and downed it all in one gulp.
Thad lifted his eyebrow, then took a sip. He sat in the chair, placing the glass carefully on top of a leather coaster.
The two sat in silence. Nash always appreciated that about Thad—he didn’t make conversations when there was no conversation to make.
And now, oddly, he felt like talking.
“You met my grandmother the other evening.”
Thad nodded. “I hadn’t realized you and she were friendly.”
“We’re not,” Nash said, getting up to pour another drink. “She’s here because of my father.”
Thad hesitated, as though unsure of what to say. “Your father.”
“Yes,” Nash said, returning to his seat. “It seems she disliked my father as much as I did, and for the same reasons. She’s here because she believes my heir is like him in some important respects.”
Thad grimaced. “Oh. I see.”
“Yes, you do.” Nash sighed. “She insists the only way to prevent my cousin from inheriting is for me to marry and produce an heir.”
A pause. “She’s correct.”
Nash scowled. “I know.”
“So—you’re going to get married?” Thad sounded skeptical. Likely because Nash had told him and Sebastian he would never marry, and Nash suspected they knew why.
Nash grunted.
“And your grandmother is here to assist?”
Another grunt.
“Ah.”
Thad swallowed the rest of his whiskey in one gulp. “How will that happen?”
Nash frowned. Wasn’t it obvious? “I’ll meet some lady, we’ll dance a few times, and I’ll speak to her father.”
“You’ll dance. And speak?”
Why did Thaddeus have to sound so skeptical?
Nash scowled even more. “I can dance and speak, you know. I just prefer not to.”
Nash leaned over to the bar cart and poured another serving of whiskey into his glass.
“You say that.” Thaddeus did not sound convinced. “And you’ll spend the rest of your life with this person you danced with and spoke with a few times.”
Nash nodded. It was precisely what he planned to do—the less he cared for his future bride, the better it would be. For everyone. They’d marry, have an heir or two, and then go their separate ways.
Thaddeus shook his head. “I wish you luck.”
Nash tried not to take it personally that Thad sounded as though he would need a lot more than luck.
“You’ve—what?” Finan asked, dodging a blow.
Nash growled. “I’m going to train her.”
Finan rocked back on his heels, an exaggeratedly shocked expression on his face. “You. The one who you insisted is just like a sister to you. That you won’t marry, but you’ll train in the art of self-defense?” Finan shook his head in woeful regret. Nash wished he had already managed to land a punch, that way Finan couldn’t keep making those rueful expressions.
“I can’t have her unprotected.”
“What about your protection?”
“That’s what I have you for.” Nash bounced on his heels, his fists up in position.
Finan sighed, raising his own fists. “You’re still an idiot. And she’d still be the perfect wife for you.”
“Not going to happen,” Nash said, before launching a blow that narrowly missed Finan’s jaw.
Finan danced back, his eyes gleaming. “I suppose you have some ridiculous reason that makes sense in your brain why you won’t even consider her.”
Nash landed a hit to Finan’s side. He staggered, then popped back up, still bouncing on his toes. “Good one.”
Nash shifted to avoid Finan’s fist, which landed in the air instead of in his stomach.
“And what will any of your prospective brides think about you spending time alone with Lady Ana Maria, the lady you’ve known since childhood who is not at all related to you?”
“They won’t know.”
Finan’s eyebrows rose. “Ah! So this self-defense training will all be conducted in secret. Even better.”
“Shut up.”
Finan held his hands out in a smugly satisfied gesture. “You’re making my point even better than I could. And all without saying a thing.”
Nash advanced on Finan, who held his hands up in surrender, his eyes laughing as he stared Nash down.
He wished he’d exhausted himself into oblivion in his boxing salon. Because if he had, he would have been passed out in his bedroom by himself instead of taking tea—tea!—with his grandmother in the largest of the receiving rooms.
“I’ve made a list.”
The paper wavered in her hand, as though she were trembling. He knew she wasn’t frightened of him. Perhaps it was old age? Was she ill? Was that why she was so determined to see him settled? So she could die in peace, knowing that the dukedom wouldn’t be passed on to someone like his father?
Not that he could ask her any of that. She would likely refuse to answer, and then he’d be left having revealed how he did not want her to die, not when he’d just found her. Or her him.
And who would have thought he’d have wanted even more family? Given he was employing all the ones he’d found in his house already.
She held it up to her lady’s maid, who stood behind her chair. The woman brought it to him, giving him a look that seemed to warn him: don’t disappoint my lady, or you will be sorry.
He admired that loyalty.
He took the paper, his thoughts churning as he read the names, none of which were familiar to him.
“Well?” the dowager duchess said in an impatient tone.
“I don’t know any of them.” He tossed the paper on the table between them, narrowly missing the sugar bowl.
Her mouth curled into a supercilious smile. “And that is why you are so fortunate as to have me here.”
“You forced your way in.” He hadn’t realized he’d spoken until he saw her look of surprise. And the lady’s maid narrowed gaze.
“I did so for the good of the family.”
He felt that impotent anger rise in his throat. “The good of the family would have been doing something about my father in the first place. The good of the family would have been twenty years ago, when my mother left me alone with that monster. You knew who he was, you said so yourself.”
The dowager duchess’s face crumpled. “It is my profoundest regret I didn’t do more at the time. I wish I could have ensured your mother was able to take you. But your father would absolutely not have allowed that. For that I am sorry.”
She sounded sincere.
“But I can’t change the past,” she continued in a stronger tone of voice. “I can only help you to correct the future. And the future lies with that list,” she said, pointing to the paper on the table.
He picked it up again, scanning the names. Lady Mary Arbuthnot. Miss Grace Collins. Lady Felicity Townshend.
“Lady Felicity—the one I met the other evening?” When he’d danced with Ana Maria in her silver gown, and punched that oaf, and wiped brandy from Ana Maria’s face.
“Yes. Which reminds me, we should add Lady Ana Maria to the list as well. I know she has Spanish heritage, but other than that, she is of impeccable breeding. The daughter of a duke, the cousin to another.”
“No.”
“And . . . ?” she said, raising one supercilious brow.
Beca
use I already care for her, and we both know what happens when a man from our family cares for a lady. I can’t risk that. I can’t risk her.
Not that he could share any of that with this woman, the one who was determined to see the proper thing done rather than the right thing. What the right thing was he wasn’t entirely certain, but he suspected it would be to eradicate all the possible rotten men in his family by any means necessary.
Was that why he was so quick with his fists? Wanting to eradicate evil?
Hm. Far too much deep thinking for teatime.
“Lady Ana Maria is like a sister to me.” A lie.
“At least you know her, unlike any of these other ladies. And she is not actually a sister.”
Excellent logic, if one weren’t determined to stay away from the lady in question to protect her. In which case, it was probably not the smartest thing to have insisted he teach her how to defend herself.
Why couldn’t he have kept quiet then? He had no problem being sullenly silent most of the time.
Oh of course. Because otherwise she would be manhandled and worse. He had to say something. He had to do something.
But he couldn’t think of her in that way.
“I’ll consider the ladies on the list,” he said, snatching it up and stuffing it in his pocket. Anything to keep her from pursuing that line of questioning.
“Good.” She leaned back in her chair. “Now please ring for more tea. This has gotten cold.”
Nash had never been more grateful for the British aristocrat’s obsession with the perfect cup of tea as he was at that moment.
Chapter Eight
“You’re going to the Duke of Malvern’s home. For—?”
Jane sounded as skeptical as Ana Maria felt. Though it was likely Jane wasn’t also feeling a frisson of excitement at the prospect of punching said duke.
Not that Ana Maria felt that way, of course. It was purely her anticipation of a new and unusual experience, not the thought of seeing Nash in his shirtsleeves, or less, for God’s sake, as he demonstrated how best to fell an opponent.
Was it possible to swoon over just a thought?
She should not be discovering the answer to that question. Not in front of Jane, doubtful expression and all.
“The duke has said he would show me some things that will be necessary if I am to—” But she hadn’t said anything to anybody about traipsing about London. Not now, not that she was a lady.
“If you are to—?” Jane prompted.
They were in Ana Maria’s bedroom, the two of them discussing just what, precisely, one wore to a gentleman’s home when said gentleman would be wearing the aforementioned shirtsleeves.
But that wasn’t a response.
The problem with people who’d known you since you were young is that they knew you. Ana Maria had never said anything about her conflicted—one might say “oxymoronic”—feelings about Nash, but that was probably because she hadn’t had to. Jane had likely figured it out long before Ana Maria had begun to catalogue his kindness, his fierce protectiveness, and those strong arms.
Swooning is not allowed, she reminded herself sternly.
“If I am to visit the fabric places I wish to go to.” She spoke as though it were entirely reasonable that a young lady, a daughter of one duke, the cousin to another, would want to frequent fabric merchants. Some, shockingly, even from countries other than England.
Not for the first time, Ana Maria wished that she could have stayed in her previous role as servant. It was a ludicrous wish, and she did not miss a bit of the actual work—she wasn’t a self-sacrificing idiot—but she did miss the freedom associated with being someone nobody thought much of.
Why couldn’t she have been the daughter of a country squire, the cousin of another country squire?
Though those ladies were likely even more constrained, given that they knew far fewer people and didn’t have the luxury of a bustling city like London to travel around in.
Fine. She would begrudgingly accept who she was, but that didn’t mean she had to accept its limitations.
Which made her think about just those limitations—things like not spending time alone with a gentleman when one was an unmarried lady. Not acting on one’s impulses either. Impulses such as kissing said gentleman when one had the . . . impulse to do so.
He was the perfect candidate for kissing, even if one discounted the fact that he was extraordinarily handsome. He would never speak about it, since he didn’t speak in general, and he was exceedingly loyal, and would never do anything to damage her reputation.
Not that she was necessarily going to kiss him. But if the impulse occurred to her—which, of course it was going to occur to her given how swoony she was about his entire form—she might indeed act on it.
“Why haven’t you hired a chaperone? That would solve the problem and you wouldn’t need to bother the duke,” Jane asked in a reasonable tone. “And why do you need to go to those places, anyway?”
A chaperone was the obvious solution. But even without the allure of Nash, she did not want to hire someone to be her shadow, not when she was so determined to be who she wanted to be on her own. She was twenty-eight, not eighteen. Other women her age, less fortunate women, were deemed spinsters, and therefore not required to answer to anybody.
Ana Maria had been expecting both of Jane’s questions, though she had thought it might be Thaddeus who asked first. But Thaddeus was in over his head with being the duke, and he’d spoken only a few words to her since reminding her—as though she needed reminding, she reminded herself of it all the time—that Nash was not to be thought of in that way.
“I’ve been thinking about what I would like to do.” She held her hand up as Jane’s mouth opened to ask the inevitable questions. “I would like to help people such as Miss Octavia in their decorating needs.”
When she said it aloud like that, it sounded ridiculous. And small. And meaningless.
But she knew for herself how crucial it was to surround oneself with things and colors and items that brought pleasure. Her mood had improved dramatically as soon as she’d redecorated the small salon, and she was already itching to tear everything apart in her bedroom.
So she couldn’t let her own, or anybody else’s doubts, subsume her.
If she couldn’t do something as ridiculous and small and meaningless as control her surroundings, what was the point of being a lady of privilege in the first place? If she couldn’t then share her abilities with others who just needed a respite from the drab browns and grays of their world, then she might as well just give up and accept Lord “I Won’t Do Anything for Myself” Brunley.
“That’s an excellent idea,” Jane said, entirely surprising Ana Maria. Thankfully forgetting about the chaperone issue as well.
“You really think so?”
Jane nodded. “I don’t know if you recall, but there was that time a few years back when the head gardener miscalculated something for the duchess”—the last two words said in a growl—“and the house was overrun with lilies. Her Grace was livid about it, since she thought lilies were vulgar”—at which she rolled her eyes—“but we put them everywhere. They made even polishing the silver more pleasurable.”
Like Ana Maria, Jane had begun her life in the house as a scullery maid, working her way up to lady’s maid after the duchess had died.
“I do remember,” Ana Maria said with a smile. “Fletchfield tried to keep himself from reacting, but even he was a trifle more joyful during that time.”
“So it stands to reason that a person’s surroundings would alter their mood.”
One thing Ana Maria had always appreciated about Jane was her ability to cut right through to the heart of the matter.
“I’ll start with Miss Octavia’s club, and perhaps—if I can manage it—I’ll try to find some funds to help beautify the local schools and orphanages.”
“Those children aren’t going to want flowers and pretty wallpaper, my lady,” Jane said drily.
“They want food, and a solid future.”
Ana Maria’s resolve faltered at the accuracy of her friend’s words. But it returned as she considered the ramifications of what she might be able to do. “They do, and I’ll see what I can do there. But I know myself that presenting a situation in a certain way makes it more amenable to the viewer.”
“What do you mean by that?” Jane asked. She gestured for Ana Maria to turn around so she could remove her gown.
“I mean,” Ana Maria said, her voice muffled by the fabric as Jane slid it up and over her head, “that if we want to get these children a promising future we have to show there is promise within them. There are very few aristocratic people, unfortunately, who will see a grubby urchin and think they should be welcomed into their home, even as the lowest employee. If we clean up their surroundings and make it appear as though they fit within those people’s homes, they’ll be far more likely to take a chance on them.”
She herself was proof of that—prior to six months ago, nobody paid attention to her. But give her some nice gowns and even people who did not want her dowry wanted to know her.
“This one?” Jane asked, holding a gown up for Ana Maria’s perusal. It was one of the ones she’d worn back when she was the duchess’s maid of all work, a castoff from the duchess that Ana Maria still had a fondness for, likely because it was one of the gowns she’d worn to sneak away and spend time with Sebastian, her younger half brother.
“That one is perfect,” Ana Maria beamed.
“Huh, I’ve finally been able to choose something you want to wear,” Jane replied in a wry tone. “And it looks like something you’d clean the grates in. Since you used to do just that.”
“Oh, hush, and help me get ready,” Ana Maria said, rolling her eyes.
“In here.”
Ana Maria swallowed as Nash pushed the door open to his fighting room. He wasn’t yet in shirtsleeves, but he also wasn’t wearing a cravat, which meant she could see his bare throat.
She hadn’t realized a gentleman’s bare throat could be at all alluring, and yet here she was, staring at it as though it were a scrumptious sweet that she’d been forbidden to taste.
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