Ashton: Lord of Truth (Lonely Lords Book 13)

by Grace Burrowes

  He rose from the sofa, his hair in disarray, his cravat slightly askew. He looked anything but well pleasured, and his restraint had been for her sake.

  “I was given to understand that your first husband is dead,” he said. “If that’s the case, you are of age, of sound mind, and free to marry where you please.”

  Matilda wanted to throw herself into his arms, but passion still hummed in places low and lovely. Ashton would oblige her—again—and they’d still need to have this argument.

  “A marriage for an earl and an earl’s daughter is a public undertaking,” Matilda said. “Even if we marry by special license, you’ll have to procure that license. Drexel was clever enough to set thief-takers on me. He’ll be clever enough to set spies watching at Doctors’ Commons.”

  Ashton brushed her hair back from her shoulder. Without touching her skin, he yet made her shiver. “I can have Damon Basingstoke certify our eligibility to marry and procure the license. Nobody needs to know we’re still in London.”

  Matilda took his hand and led him back to the sofa. “You have learned how to stand alone and be seen as someone other than the Earl of Kilkenney’s charming by-blow.”

  He settled beside her, but with the air of a cat waiting for an opportunity to leap away. “I’m not feeling very charming now, Matilda mine.”

  And yet, charm her, he did. With his passion and with his protectiveness.

  “You fought to be seen for yourself, Ashton. I fought to remain hidden, and hiding well has kept me alive. Think like a criminal. If you wanted to snatch Lady Matilda for a reward ten times the annual salary of most chambermaids, what lengths would you go to?”

  His sigh was masculine and impatient, but not defeated. “I’d hang about Doctors’ Commons or the archbishop’s palace. I’d watch Mr. Damon Basingstoke, whose office is conveniently located under the very roof where you were last seen. I’d bribe the clerk in the archbishop’s office to tell me who had applied for a special license, and I’d watch carefully to see where all those licenses were delivered.”

  Matilda took his hand. “You would also nose about, asking questions regarding the two fine coaches clogging the lane before Basingstoke’s offices earlier today. Two crested coaches, one of which bore a man in a kilt and a second man in court finery. Somebody might identify the crest on your coach. Somebody else might have seen that same kilted man at the Albany.”

  “Shite.”

  “You’d set people to watching the Albany, and eventually, a casual remark would connect the Earl of Kilkenney with the Earl of Hazelton, so Hazelton’s house will be watched as well. The countess might be kidnapped and held hostage to secure my cooperation. Kitty might become a pawn. Helen has already been used by her scheming sister.”

  Silence wrapped like a shroud over the hopes Matilda had begun to cherish. Ashton wasn’t arguing with her, because there were no arguments to offer.

  “You’re saying we were better off as plain Mr. Fenwick and Mrs. Bryce?” he asked. “We were safer.”

  “You were miserable.”

  “We can run,” Matilda said. “Not to Scotland, because I’ll be too easy to find, but somewhere far away, somewhere beyond the reach of the crown. I’ll be your wife in all but name, and nobody will be the wiser. We can be safe and happy.”

  Ashton slipped his hand free of her grasp. “You don’t believe that. You had six years to be safe and happy, and you were neither. You looked over your shoulder every day, made no friends, had the smallest life you could squeeze yourself into. The only people you allowed near were worse off than yourself. Will you turn your back on wee Kitty now, and on me as well?”

  Matilda rose, though she didn’t dare approach the desk or the sideboard. She’d break something valuable, make a stain on the carpet, and ruin good furniture in a display of heartbreak that only looked like temper.

  “I want to live, Ashton. I want you to live. Kitty’s life isn’t in danger, and right now, neither is yours. If I tarry here too long, if I can’t find safety again, that could change. Drexel has a care for appearances, and he’s shrewd. Stephen cares for only himself, and we’ve already underestimated him once.”

  Ashton rose.

  Matilda braced herself to be shouted at, held tightly, or possibly both at once. Instead, he regarded her steadily from across the room.

  “You are not wrong, my lady. Your fear has kept you alive, and for that I’m grateful. Your fear will also keep us apart. I am the Earl of Kilkenney, whether I want to be or not. I know well the stigma an earl’s bastard bears, and a loving father does not impose that burden on his own children. Add to that, my family will lose the earldom if I can’t produce a legitimate heir, and you see that the scheme you propose for us—an unsanctioned union in some far-off land—only shifts our peril onto our children.”

  Matilda sagged against the battered desk. “I can’t be your lawfully wedded wife until we are in that far-off land, Ashton. Even then…”

  “By then,” he said, “it might be too late. We’ve already risked conception, Matilda, and my firstborn child will not be illegitimate if I can help it.”

  Now Matilda had no arguments. She’d been brought up in the lap of privileged respectability, and while the privilege had been a mixed blessing—privileged young women were too often ignorant young women—the respectability had also saved her life.

  Her upbringing had allowed her to become a respectable widow, a respectable neighbor. She’d fit right in at Sunday services, and she’d been able to read and write in several languages. Her children deserved at least that much of a start in life.

  “I want to bear your legitimate heirs, Ashton. I don’t see a way to do that while remaining in plain sight.”

  “I want you to be safe, and if we run, that will never be the case.”

  She reached for him, and he came to her. “So now what?”

  “Promise me you’ll not leave without telling me.”

  Life had made Ashton wise. He’d not asked her to promise she’d stay. “I’ll not leave without saying good-bye.”

  By the time the Earl of Hazelton returned with his countess, Matilda had taken the opposite end of the sofa from Ashton, and Hazelton’s cat sat between them, tail switching back and forth, like an impatient feline chaperone.

  * * *

  On Hazelton’s advice, Ashton did his best to impersonate an earl searching for a prospective countess. He waltzed by evening, he hacked out at dawn, he played cards, he even flirted.

  And he worried.

  One week after parting from Matilda, he was ready to snatch up his claymore and go after Stephen Derrick, to the point that even Helen’s company in the spacious rooms of the Albany annoyed him.

  “You want to visit her ladyship?” Helen asked without looking up from her book.

  “Of course I want to visit her. I want to marry her, I want to spend the rest of my life with her. What are you reading?”

  The girl set the book aside. Breakables she handled with cavalier disregard, but books she touched reverently.

  “I’m not reading anything. If you want to pay her a call, you hop on your horse and ride up the street. You were calling on Hazelton before, and you can call on him now.”

  How could a room with twenty-foot ceilings feel cramped? How could gorgeous carpets, gleaming gilt, and precisely draped velvet feel oppressive?

  “I’m to avoid anything that reinforces my connection with Hazelton. His investigations are progressing, and I must be patient.”

  “Patient? You? And you let old Hazelnuts order you about like that?”

  Not exactly. Ashton had conducted a few investigations of his own, late at night, when Stephen Derrick was three sheets to the wind and enjoying the free food and drink available at Mayfair’s best gatherings. A few quiet questions revealed that Derrick was disliked, but as an earl’s heir he was welcomed by every hostess.

  He had two illegitimate daughters about whom he cared not at all, a mistress who led him about by his nose, and enou
gh bills overdue on Bond Street to impress even King George. Ashton’s English tenants, on their most charitable day, would have torn the roof from Stephen’s head and charged him for their labor.

  And Stephen was next in line for an earldom full of English tenants.

  “If you want to see her ladyship,” Helen said, “you tag along with the tom-turd-man of an evening, and nobody will come near you. Slip through the garden, climb up the trellis to her balcony, and there you are. Stay upwind of the night-soil man, and you won’t even stink much.”

  “The things you know, child.”

  “Stink will keep you safe. Illness can keep you safe,” Helen said. “You ever get into a bad situation in the wrong sort of crowd in the wrong sort of place, you just gag like you’re about to flash the hash, and they’ll back off three paces without even realizing they’ve done it. Do you think those curtains would hold my weight?”

  Flash the hash was likely a genteel reference—by Helen’s standards—for casting up one’s account.

  “You are not to climb the curtains.” Though she climbed the doorjambs, as nimbly as an organ grinder’s monkey scaled a lamppost.

  “You’re climbing the walls, guv. Go see her.”

  A tap sounded on the door, two short knocks, a pause, then three more. Hazelton had at long last come to call, or at least sent an emissary.

  “I’ll get the door,” Ashton said. “You go back to deciphering French.”

  “That’s damned Frenchy?” Helen said, picking up her book. “No wonder it didn’t half make sense. You mighta warned a girl.”

  “I might have, but as soon as you’ve conquered English, French is the next logical step.” And she’d be on to Latin and German by Michaelmas.

  Two men waited outside Ashton’s door, one familiar from the evening of card playing, the other the Earl of Hazelton in footman’s attire.

  “Hazelton, good day. You took your sweet, damned time paying a call. Sir Archer, welcome.”

  Archer Portmaine was Hazelton’s cousin and, in the family tradition, an investigator at large. He was tall, blond, and attired with the exquisite understatement of a gentleman of means. His gloves were the exact buff shade of his breeches—probably cut from the same hide—and his cravat pin sported a ruby.

  A touch of sartorial daring, for the hour was barely past noon.

  “We’ve been busy,” Hazelton said, waiting for Portmaine to precede him into Ashton’s parlor. “I bring you felicitations from Lady Matilda.”

  “She’s well?”

  “If you can call the ladylike version of a caged bear well,” Hazelton replied, “she’s thriving. Helen, greetings.”

  “That is a girl,” Portmaine said. “A lovely little girl, for all she looks like she’s about to skewer me.”

  “Don’t talk about me like I’m deaf,” Helen said, taking a perch on the windowsill. “I’m his lordship’s general factotum.”

  “She’s also my resident bad influence,” Ashton said, “so tread carefully, but speak honestly. Helen has my trust.”

  Helen abruptly found her fingernails—her clean fingernails—fascinating.

  “Do you have her trust, though?” Portmaine asked. “Of sorry necessity, the ladies learn greater caution than we gentlemen do.”

  That earned Portmaine a grin from Helen, but no reply. She returned to her window seat, opened Candide, and resumed puzzling over the French—or pretending to.

  “Here’s what we know,” Portmaine said, flipping out his tails and subsiding onto a blue velvet sofa. Footman-fashion, Hazelton remained standing by the door. “The Earl of Drexel has taken ship from Portsmouth, bound for Rome. He filled three large trunks with valuables and left instructions with Myron Basingstoke to pay only Stephen’s quarterly allowance. The bank draft Drexel took with him all but beggared the earldom’s immediate resources.”

  “Damn and bugger,” Ashton muttered, crossing to the sideboard. “Drexel’s the one who’s been stealing from Matilda. He’s the one who could have prevented Stephen’s lies from being believed, and our best crack at getting Stephen to change his testimony. Would you gentlemen care for a drink? I certainly want one.”

  “Such fine manners he has,” Helen muttered from the window. “Doesn’t offer me no drink.”

  “Nip down to the kitchen and have some ale,” Ashton said.

  Helen glowered at him and went back to her farce.

  “A tot of brandy would be appreciated,” Portmaine said. “A pity a footman never drinks on the job.”

  Hazelton studied the ceiling.

  “You should be glad Drexel has decamped,” Portmaine said. “As of this morning, Stephen Derrick has moved back into his uncle’s town house, which makes him much easier to watch. The staff at Drexel House is less than respectful of their employer’s privacy when enough coin is offered. The maids in particular have no use for Stephen, and the governess positively loathes him.”

  “I have no use for Stephen,” Ashton retorted. “He’s a lecher, a liar, and a thief.”

  “He’s worse than that,” Portmaine said, accepting a glass of Ashton’s best brandy. “Samuels confirmed that Stephen wants Matilda to disappear, very quietly, so Chancery will lumber along, leaving the financial matters just as they are for years to come.”

  The glass in Ashton’s hand slipped to the floor and shattered. “Matilda was right, then. She’s safest if she runs, unless I kill Derrick as quietly as he would like to do away with her.”

  Helen shot a worried gaze at him. Sir Archer took a deliberate sip of his brandy.

  “You are not a murderer,” Hazelton said, “though I grant you, Stephen is a blight in breeches. If you’ve a plan for making him repent of his sins—and recant his lies—we are at your service, for his sworn recounting of events the night of the murder is the sole evidence against Lady Matilda. The servants were not interviewed by the magistrate. When Sir Archer spoke to them yesterday, they claimed not to recall anything that would corroborate Stephen’s version of events.”

  Helen hopped off the window seat and used the broom and dustpan from the hearth to start sweeping together the shattered glass.

  Ashton picked her up, the implements still in her hands. “Footmen clean up spills, child. I wouldn’t want you to cut yourself.”

  “Got you,” Sir Archer said, smirking at his cousin, “and got me, because Kilkenney’s right.”

  “Do a thorough job,” Helen said, “and then you should scrub the spill up, or it’ll bring the ants. Waste of good brandy, though. Somebody should get a proper switching.”

  Ashton set her down. “Stephen should be…”

  “What?” Helen stuffed her braids into her cap as Hazelton swept up the mess.

  “Switched,” Ashton said quietly. “Stephen holds two advantages over us, one being his sworn testimony. The other is Lady Kitty. As it happens, I have a plan for how her little ladyship can be wrested safely from the Derrick household. Helen, how fast can you run in a dress?”

  “Damn fast. I can also climb trees, swim, and scream bloody murder. Won’t even cost you too many cobblers either.”

  * * *

  “Pippa is a natural,” Sir Archer murmured, twirling his walking stick. “I could use her. She has the knack of being smarter than she looks.”

  Hazelton walked along at Portmaine’s side, while across a grassy swath of Hyde Park, Pippa and Helen played catch. Helen was attired as the child of a well-to-do family and Pippa as her governess. The day was beautiful, and the game was on.

  “Helen is the one you want to recruit,” Hazelton said. “She’s devilish observant, nimble, and has a healthy sense of self—”

  “So that’s Lady Kitty?”

  Right on schedule, another small girl and her governess came trundling down the path from the direction of Park Lane.

  “Lady Kitty,” Hazelton said, “and your recently acquired best friend, Miss Reynolds. I assume you offered her a Banbury tale?” Lady Matilda had drawn a sketch of the child, and the resemblance
between sisters was marked, even given the difference in their ages.

  “Cousin, you shame your upbringing,” Portmaine replied. “I told Miss Reynolds the God’s honest truth. I might well be in the market for a governess, though I haven’t raised the notion with my lady wife.”

  “Coward.” Hazelton took out his handkerchief and pretended to mop his brow, the signal that Lady Kitty had arrived rather than some other girl.

  Pippa and Helen switched to kicking the ball, their acknowledgment of Hazelton’s message.

  “You miss the game,” Sir Archer said. “You were too bloody good at it not to miss it sorely. If Kilkenney hadn’t come up with this scheme, you would have proposed it by sundown, or something even more clever.”

  “More clever than kidnapping an earl’s daughter from the park in broad daylight?”

  “The occasional felony adds a bit of spice to the—Good God, that girl can kick.”

  Helen’s ball went sailing off toward a hedge. Retrieving the ball took Helen right past Lady Kitty, who was occupied with tossing a ball to her governess.

  “Recall Helen’s prowess with a kick if she’s ever aiming for your privities.”

  “Saints defend me if that child takes me into dislike. What’s stopping you from accepting the occasional case? You’re quite the earl now. You wouldn’t have to do it for money.”

  If Helen had been playing at footman, she’d never have stood by and watched another clean up a spilled drink. She became the role she’d rehearsed, in this case, a genteel girl lonely for the company of another genteel girl. She and Lady Kitty were soon kicking the ball back and forth between themselves, while the two governesses settled onto the same bench to supervise and socialize.

  “Earls don’t sneak about,” Hazelton said, “peering through the hedges and listening at keyholes.”

  “You sound so wistful, and you did far more than peer and listen. Have a word with your countess, promise her you won’t do anything dangerous, and then keep your word. More or less.”

  Maggie had all but told Hazelton to find a hobby, for being an earl was downright boring compared to investigations.