by Jo Goodman
"I don't believe I did say. Deal."
"That's just as well, then. I don't think I want to know. Your scheming is too complicated; can't say that I ever understand what is going on. I thought Ashley would be married by now." She shrugged, picking up her cards. "I suppose things are as you intend them to be. I trust you know what you are doing."
"You are exactly right. My plans are coming together nicely. When is the captain's trial?"
"I haven't heard. Word is there have been problems because McClellan wants a barrister of his own choosing. Salem asked for his brother to defend him."
"The horse buyer is a barrister?" For the first time Nigel's posture indicated genuine interest in Davinia's topic. He leaned forward in his chair, his shoulders pulling taut the brocade fabric of his stylish powder-blue coat.
"I asked the same question myself." She smiled, snapping another card to the table. "I understand there's another brother. Are all these Yankees prolific breeders, I wonder." She looked sidelong at Ashley.
Nigel ignored Davinia's thrust at his ward. "And will this brother be permitted to act as the captain's counsel?"
"It isn't likely. Oh, the brother has all the right credentials, but no one seems keen on the notion of having a Yank in court. Play your hand, Nigel. Oh dear, I thought that card was out."
"You should watch what you're doing," the duke mocked, taking the trick. "Then even if this second McClellan arrives, there is little he will be able to do."
"No. The captain is assured to hang—or rot in Newgate. Pity."
Nigel's attention was directed toward Ashley at Davinia's last statement. He had never forgotten her presence in the room. He knew the exact moment she had become interested in their discussion. Now he saw the thought of the captain's death, either by a quick jerk of the noose or by less merciful means in London's notoriously overcrowded and poorly managed prison, had caused her to look alarmingly pale. The healthy color she had gradually gained in the past two months had completely drained from her face. He watched her rise from her chair in a single graceful motion, smoothing the folds of her gown over her abdomen. With complete detachment he speculated on the odds of his ward being enceinte.
Ashley swayed slightly on her feet, feeling faint with the knowledge of her guardian's treachery. She determined not to expend any breath on making accusations, for Nigel would only deny the charges. But she knew Salem's imprisonment was the result of the duke's influence. And for just that reason she knew there were no bargains she could make that would free the captain. She must take Nigel's most recent offer and see what would come of it. Easy, she cautioned herself, before she spoke. Don't rush your fences, and it all may right itself in the end.
"Your Grace, I wish to speak to you of a matter we discussed some time ago in my chamber. May we do so in private?"
"What's this? Nigel, you're not going to exclude me, are you?"
"I'm afraid I'll have to this time. Don't take offense, m'dear. It's just for a few moments."
Davinia threw down her cards and took her leave in an ill-mannered flurry.
"I think you've hurt her feelings, Ashley," the duke said in mock sadness. "No matter, it was a wise decision on your part to exclude Davinia before you blurted out the terms I suggested to you. I have told her none of it."
"I won't ask you why you have chosen to keep Salem's identity secret from Lady Grant. I'm certain you have your reasons. I have decided I wish to see this proof you said existed about the captain."
"Not until you marry Bosworth."
"That was not the agreement, and you know it," she said with a touch of heat.
"Pray, remind me."
Ashley almost stamped her foot at the duke's insolent manner. "You said I could see proof that Captain McClellan is my brother in return for my word that I would marry Lord Bosworth."
Far from being angry the duke treated Ashley to a rare smile. He had no idea the number of times she had craved exactly that particular salute of genuine pleasure from him. Now he bestowed it upon her for reasons she could not tolerate. "It appears you have some wits about you to catch me out fairly. I can scarcely believe it after the way you've moped about these last weeks. You're not enceinte, are you?"
Ashley flushed to the roots of her dark hair, but her gaze did not waver. She made no reply.
"I suspect I'll find out sooner or later. It's not precisely the sort of thing you can hide."
"Your answer, Nigel. Are you going to honor your bargain? Will you show me proof?"
"And I have your word? You'll marry, then?"
"Yes." She choked. "Yes. You have my word."
"Set a date."
"Later. It was not part of our agreement."
He laughed. "Very well. Come to my desk. You shall have the proof you seek."
Ashley followed Nigel to his desk where he kept all his important papers. He extracted a key from a pocket on the inside of his waistcoat and used it in conjunction with a hidden spring to release a secret drawer. Ashley had, as a child, known of the existence of the drawer, had even tried to open it, but never met with success and abandoned the notion of exploring its contents years ago. She sighed her regret that she had not been more resourceful as Nigel took out a yellowed envelope and handed it to her.
She examined the envelope and saw it was addressed to the Duke of Linfield. She looked questioningly at Nigel. He seemed to know what was in her mind for he answered, "Not I, my father. This letter dates back to before you were born."
She nodded, her fingers trembling. She hesitated. Now that the opportunity presented itself to discover the identity of her parents she was almost afraid to seize it. Carefully she took out the contents of the envelope and found two pages of writing paper. Unfolding the papers, she saw that, although the ink had faded, the letter had been penned by a skilled hand.
Without really being aware of her motions, Ashley sat at Nigel's desk, smoothing the letter on its surface, and began to read.
When she finished some minutes later she calmly returned the pages to the envelope and looked at the duke expectantly. "Is there more? This is hardly proof." She kept her voice even and maintained her poise. Not for anything would she have him see how badly she was shaken.
Nigel's faint frown was his only indication of surprise. "What do you require?"
"Your sister wrote this letter."
"So?"
"She says only in here that she is going to have a baby and wants her father's forgiveness before she leaves for the Colonies."
"And she names the father. Robert McClellan. That is also the captain's father. I have it from his own mouth. I am not mistaken in this. As children Anne and I knew McClellan. He grew up in a crofter's cottage on the Edenton estate. He assisted his father in the breeding of the earl's horses. What else have you need of knowing?"
"Did you murder her?" Ashley's head reeled from the duke's brisk slap to her cheek. She fought the urge to bring her hand to her face and blinked back the tears that stung her eyes.
"You insolent baggage! How dare you speak to me in that fashion!"
Though inwardly she felt a numbness spreading through her, Ashley held her own. "You told me once I was like my mother. You said you killed her. Now you would have me believe Anne was my mother. That gives me the right to question you."
Nigel made no immediate reply. He took the time to pour a glass of wine and then walked to the fireplace and leaned casually against the mantle, looking for all the world as if he had never lost his temper only a few minutes before. He studied Ashley's quiet demeanor before he drank, wondering if he had underestimated her as an adversary. The thought that she was somehow laughing at him was intolerable. He spoke carefully. "I had forgotten I told you that. It served me at the time for you to believe it. You were determined to waste away. I brought you to your senses quickly enough with that parting shot."
"I thought it may have been your intention at the time. Your change of story would be more believable if you could tell me what happened to An
ne."
"As far as I know she ran off with Robert McClellan after giving birth and abandoning you at Linfield. I should add she was never married to Salem's father, for he already had a wife. Anne was always gullible. He no doubt spun a tale that caught her fancy and that was that. Father, far from forgiving her, spread the tale of her death by drowning, and died shortly thereafter of his grief. He chose his course out of pride and found he could not live with his decision."
As Nigel expounded on his story, Ashley grew visibly agitated. At its end she stood and braced her arms on the desktop. "Have you had no contact with your sister all these years?" she cried feelingly.
"None. Please, Ashley, I was only just admiring your calm. There is no need for dramatics. Anne and I were never close. She was disowned by my father, and I respected his wishes, no matter his motive. I have never desired to know what became of her. I did go so far as to erect the marker in the family plot to preserve her memory."
"How did you come to take me in? If you had so little feeling for Anne, why raise her daughter?"
"Surely you are not taking me to task for doing my duty by you? I raised you as befits your station in life. I could hardly recognize you as my illegitimate niece. As a relation of no real account you were treated admirably."
"As your niece I was treated, am treated, shabbily."
"Don't be tiring. You are the bastard child of a woman who ceased to exist in her father's eyes. I have never thought of you as my niece, and it is my fondest wish you never regard me as your uncle."
Ashley bit back an uncomplimentary retort. "I have only one question. The mark on my person, the one you told me long ago branded me as a bastard, who put it there? Was it you?"
Nigel looked patently horrified. "My dear girl, that is hardly the sort of thing I would do to an infant. That was the doing of either Anne or her Colonial lover. It was the head of the key to a marriage trunk I had commissioned for Anne that made the mark. I imagine it was done so there would be no mistaking your identity."
"But why was I abandoned? Why didn't they take me with them?"
"I can't answer that. Perhaps they didn't think you could survive the voyage. Or Anne may have wanted you to have the advantages of being raised at Linfield, rather than in the Colonial wilderness. Robert may have thought he could handle a mistress but not the complications of her brat. Who can say what the truth is?"
Ashley sank back in her chair and stared blindly at her folded hands. She was afraid to speak, lest she break down in front of Nigel. She realized she still had no tangible evidence that she was Anne's daughter. Even the mark on her chest was no certain proof of her identity. Yet she no longer questioned the duke's story. Her brand, coupled with Anne's touching plea to her prideful father, illuminated her past in a way she had never dreamed. She could find no cause for joy.
"He's my half brother," she said without emotion. To have it brought home to her made her feel something less than human. She felt unclean.
"What? Speak up."
"I said Salem is really my half brother."
"Yes, if you want to split hairs."
Ashley's slender fingers massaged her temples. She longed to retire to her chamber and release her hair from the confines of the pins that held it tightly to her scalp. "I'd like to take my leave now, Your Grace, if I may."
Nigel tossed back his drink, satisfied the fight had finally left Ashley. She would no longer oppose him in any matter. "You'll set a date."
She nodded, standing. "I'll tell you in the morning. I'll need some time to prepare for a wedding. I can't imagine you wanting to hurry or hide this affair."
"No. I'll give the announcement to the London paper. This shall be a proper wedding."
"Yes," she said tiredly. "Somehow I expected you would say that."
* * *
Ashley had always been aware that proceeding too quickly with her plans would arouse the duke's suspicions. One full week after agreeing to Nigel's arranged marriage, she was on her way to London to be fitted for her bridal clothes. To serve as her abigail she had Arnella, unaffectionately known as Arnie, whose unpleasant manner merely covered a heart of stone. Arnie had served Linfield house for years in various capacities, but her most frequent duty of late had been to make certain Ashley's clothes saw her through another year.
Far from being pleased that Ashley had been given permission to purchase a new wardrobe, Arnie had complained bitterly about having to make the trip to London. The city was crowded with beggars and thieves in her opinion and no place to send an old lady and a girl.
Ashley paid little attention to her companion's morose and pained expressions. She had taken few trips beyond Linfield, and only one other to London and was still astonished at the expanse of lands existing outside her own world. She breathed deeply, not minding the dust churned up by the horses and the carriage. Every delicious scent of the verdant rolling hills and the patchwork fields seemed impossibly fresh, although Ashley was willing to concede it might be her own taste of freedom that made it so.
Ashley fully intended to savor her good fortune once she reached London and she was prepared to eliminate all opposition to her plans. Even Arnie would not stand in her way. The older woman, for all her pious and self-righteous talk, had a weakness for the duke's special sherry. Two choice bottles of the stuff rested in the bottom of Ashley's valise.
Sitting back, Ashley slipped off her unadorned white bonnet and leaned her head against the well-padded seat. She appreciated the duke's thoughtfulness in permitting her to take his coach rather than rely on a public conveyance. As Ashley considered it, the duke had proved most cooperative once she had set the date for her wedding. He had dispatched a servant to London that same afternoon to put the announcement in the paper and worked on the guest list with Davinia. He had barely raised an eyebrow when Ashley approached him several days later, mentioning she had no suitable dress for the wedding. Nigel studied the dress she had on, well-cared for, but sadly ill-fitting and not of the current fashion. Pronouncing her entire wardrobe singularly depressing, he offered to send her to a London modiste. It was all that Ashley could have hoped for, and she had lowered her thick lashes, afraid Nigel would see the relief in her clear green eyes.
The duke arranged credit for his ward at some of London's exclusive shops. Ashley was permitted a complete trousseau, including linens and jewelry, and told to stay at Nigel's townhouse until he could join her late in the week. At that time he would examine the jewelry she had chosen as well as the designs of the gowns that were being sewn for her.
As soon as the carriage neared town she sat up again, dismissing thoughts of Nigel's apparent largesse, and pressed her face against the window. While Arnella complained about the foul odors emanating from the offal and garbage on the streets and pressed a scented handkerchief to her angular nose, Ashley only had eyes for the activity around her.
Ashley's coach crossed the Thames on the relatively new Westminster Bridge and passed the gothic stateliness of the Abbey. To her delight her driver took her along the tree-lined avenue known as The Mall, past St. James's Palace, the official royal residence, and eventually down Bond Street where fashionable modistes and tailors kept their shops.
Everywhere there were people. The men and the women Ashley saw were dressed stylishly in materials of every conceivable color and fabric. She wondered that no two people were dressed the same, yet all were of a similar stamp. Jackets trimmed in gold braid, brocade waistcoats, and pantaloons with white hose were the order of the day for bewigged men who congregated in the popular coffee houses. Two women alighting from a carriage had their hair greased, dusted, twisted, and piled on their heads.
Ashley touched her own hair, sadly aware that her thick ebony tresses lacked any sort of style. Longingly she looked after the women as they entered a dress shop, then self-consciously dropped her hand to her lap. Embarrassed at her lapse into vanity, she spoke to cover her uneasiness. "Nothing is precisely as I remember it. London hardly seems to be the c
orrupt city you would have me believe."
Arnie sniffed. "The West End is not where you're likely to find the lowlife I was talking about."
"Then where?"
"That ain't your concern. His Grace don't want you all over town."
Now Ashley huffed. "You're just saying that because you're telling tales. The kind of people and places you complained about don't exist."
"Watch your tongue, miss!" Amelia wagged a spindly finger at Ashley. "I'll show you what's in my imagination and what ain't. Mebbe it is time you saw how the rest of the world lives. You've been walking the halls of Linfield as if you're the only one with problems. If you have a mind to see all of London, then that's what we'll do. But don't go all sad-faced on me when you don't like what you see."
Ashley turned away, pretending interest in the residential squares of Mayfair, while hiding her pleasure at provoking her abigail's anger. It seemed she would see more of London than Nigel thought wise after all.
The duke's townhouse was one of many bordering the park-like loveliness of Angel Square. When the carriage stopped Ashley thought it was just as she remembered. Angular and imposing, it didn't look so different from the three-story houses flush against it. There was a subtle difference in the shade of bricks that kept the row of homes separate in her eyes, and Nigel had had a small porch front with Doric columns erected over his entranceway that helped distinguish it from the others. How like the duke, she thought, to establish a difference.
For the first three days of her visit Ashley was an enthusiastic admirer of all the West End had to offer. She coaxed the noticeably less agreeable abigail into two milliner shops, four modiste shops, three jewelry establishments, and the wig maker's. She pretended interest in ribbons and bows, bonnets and ruffles. She praised the modiste's designs whether she saw them outfitted on a doll or in a sketchbook. She nodded politely about the latest Paris fashions of which she knew nothing. She allowed herself to be measured, pinned, and poked so that she might have exactly the right trousseau.