Ash trod determinedly toward her, waving his stick to beat people back, if nothing else. He could sense a crowd gathering. Nothing so entertaining as a blind marquess stumbling about after a worthless mutt.
“This way, Ashford,” Miss Christie murmured from nearby. To his relief, she caught his arm to guide him. “The boys can’t get a good grip on the dog, and I can’t lift him. What happened to Smith? He’s all bloody and your visitor is yelling at him.”
At seeing her shadow move, Ash bent his head in near-giddy relief to speak for her ears alone. “Never mind that. Let’s remove the circus from the street. How much further?”
“Half block, this way. The twins are holding him down on the corner. Please don’t yell at the boy. Hartley knows he was wrong, and now the puppy is paying the price. Does your head hurt? You’re looking particularly fierce.”
He was feeling like a doddering old man. He despised feeling weak, so it was gratifying to know that she thought him fierce. Christie grounded him, letting him know exactly where he was and what was happening. With her information, he could kneel and lift the overgrown hound without making a complete ass of himself. In the gray light of late afternoon, he could almost see the dog’s form against the stones.
Hartley apologized profusely all the way back to the house. Ash focused on the woman guiding him and the unhappy animal in his arms. When they reached the steps, Christie exclaimed over the hapless footman while Margaret scolded like a shrew and Caldwell harrumphed and generally made himself as useless as the mutt.
“Hartley, help your father take Chuckles out back,” Miss Chris commanded. “You will have to tend his paw while I look after Smith. Can you do that?”
“Yes, miss. I know a lot about dogs.”
“Then you ought to know better than to bring untrained ones into the house,” Ash scolded, ignoring his guests and following his son down the corridor.
He was being abominably rude and savoring every moment of it.
“Surely the housekeeper can look after the footman,” the slender blond lady in the height of fashion said with a curl of disdain on her rouged lips. “If you’re the twins’ governess, you should be keeping them out of this sort of trouble.”
Harriet bit her lip and seriously debated calling herself either the housekeeper or the governess and disappearing into the woodwork. Unfortunately, the new Christie was a malicious wench. “One never knows when medical attention will be required,” she said with her haughtiest rounded vowels. “My mother taught me that a real lady always learns to look after those who need it, whatever their station.”
She deliberately wrapped her handkerchief around Smith’s hand before leading him away.
Her mother had said many things—all from her bed where Harriet had waited on her until she died. It comforted her to know she was following her mother’s edicts, even if she did so with spiteful intent. She certainly didn’t have any other notion of how to deal with irate, aristocratic guests.
“Marie, please,” she addressed a hovering maid, “take our visitors to the salon and bring them tea. I’m sure Ashford will be back directly.”
One hoped he would do so after visiting his valet. The magnificent madman had stormed into the street in waistcoat and shirtsleeves, his neckcloth unfastened, and his unruly curls looking as if wrens had nested in them overnight.
Absurdly, her insides were melting in admiration and laughter. She’d just participated in a scene all London would talk about, and she felt more alive than she had in her whole life. Obviously, insanity was contagious.
After making certain that the nearly weeping, apologetic Smith had been adequately tended downstairs, Christie washed her hands, removed her blood-spattered apron, and climbed to the garden to check on Hartley.
To her surprise, Ashford was still there, holding bandages in place while Hartley tied them so the dog wouldn’t chew them off easily.
“My lord, you have guests!” she admonished. “And you need to see your valet before you can go to them.”
“That’s just Miss Caldwell,” Hugh said in scorn, taking his scowling father’s place in holding the dog now that Chuckles wasn’t struggling. “She was supposed to be marchioness, but she was too much a coward.”
Even bold Christie didn’t know exactly how to respond to that. Shock hit her first. The lady waiting in the salon would make the perfect marchioness—her delicate ice-blond beauty would balance beautifully with Ashford’s brooding dark height. But the boy’s description of her as a coward—
“Well, not everyone likes dogs,” Christie said sympathetically, dodging the riptides of this topic.
“Or likes boys, or blind men,” Ashford added, rising. “Or much of anyone except herself.”
He towered half a head taller than she, and she felt a little giddy when he offered his arm. Really, she belonged out here with the boys, not with a sophisticated marquess. A dull farmer was more her style.
“Do not turn coward on me, Miss Chris,” he sneered.
“You do that on purpose,” she said, finally opening her mind to the undercurrents beneath all the anger and pain. “You drive people off deliberately. You’re standing there, daring me to take umbrage and pack my bags.”
“I’m not that stupid,” he countered, pressing her hand to his shirtsleeve and turning toward the house. “You are more likely to beat me with a rose cane.”
“Possibly,” she admitted. “But I’ll excuse you this time. I have some headache powders. I will mix them up while you change.”
“Mix them in brandy, and I might even take them. I’m not changing for Margaret.”
With that ambiguous remark, he released her arm and continued down the corridor without her aid.
11
Without stopping to consult with his wretched valet, Ash stalked down the long passage from the back of the house to the front salon, whacking his stick back and forth, giving his guests plenty of time to flee.
That they did not told him more than he cared to know and added to his festering pain, anger, and humiliation. He halted in the salon doorway, glad he could not see himself in the mirror the women had said they’d installed on the far side of the room.
“I didn’t think to hear you cross my portals again,” he said, with wicked reference to his disability. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“Now, Duncan, we are neighbors. You needn’t be so rude,” Margaret admonished in a high soprano that now grated on his ears.
Living on neighboring estates, they’d grown up together. She used his childhood name, as his brothers often did. She was six years his junior, so other than considering her a nuisance, he hadn’t paid much attention to her until adolescence.
He couldn’t precisely remember why he’d thought it wise to betroth himself to her after that. Knowing Margaret, it had probably been her decision, and their parents had approved, and he’d just gone along because he knew someday he needed an heir. She’d been content with a betrothal and had been in no hurry to wed, which had suited him.
“I’ve always been rude, Margaret. You just failed to notice.” Ash could hear her in the direction of the new sofa under the window. He assumed the baronet was beside her, so he addressed him there. “Caldwell, I’m amazed you have the audacity to show your face in my presence. Did you really think blindness robbed me of all my senses?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” the older man said indignantly. “We’ve had our differences, but nothing has changed.”
Ash thought his brainpan might incinerate in fury. To avoid whacking his stick against his guest’s thickheaded noggin, he gripped a table just inside the doorway. His fingers struck a book. Setting aside his stick, he lobbed the tome back and forth to keep his hands occupied.
“Did you think me so disabled that I’d not discover that it was you who encouraged Roddy and his rioters to terrify Lady Aster? Or that once we caught the scoundrels, did you really believe they wouldn’t admit they’d been hired to shoot at my skittish horse to make him r
ear? Why, Caldwell? Was my marrying your daughter not enough? Did you think I’d hand over my entire damned estate if I was incapacitated?”
Margaret gasped. Good for her. Ash didn’t think she was much of an actress, and he had hoped she wasn’t involved.
Caldwell harrumphed. “If you convict me on nothing but the hearsay of a bunch of drunken louts, you are a rotten magistrate. You were the one carousing in the village with the whores while ignoring my daughter. If you’d been home where you should have been, the horse would never have thrown you.”
Ash was aware he was no innocent. He also knew he wouldn’t have fallen off his horse even if he’d been in a drunken stupor. His memory of that night was hazy, but he hadn’t gone headfirst off Zeus into the rocks without cause. Zeus only reacted badly to gunfire. The malfeasants they’d caught had admitted they’d been ordered to shoot if he crossed the bridge. They could not, however, give him the name of the man who had paid them to do it.
Only his neighbors, Caldwell and Montfort—and politically, the earl of Lansdowne—would benefit from Ash being laid up in bed through the fall session.
He’d spent these last months wanting to throttle the wretch responsible for his blindness. He now knew he’d never do so.
In a fit of frustration, he flung the book at Caldwell’s head. “If I’d had proof, I’d have you and your cohorts up in chains,” he roared. “As it is, I prefer to have no further business with you or your partners in crime.”
Apparently the book did not connect. He heard it bounce on the floor.
He would have bowed out then, but Margaret spoke. “I regret taking you up on your offer to end our betrothal, Duncan. It was childish of me. Could we not set grudges aside and try to make amends?”
In shock that she even dared suggest they could repair what she’d cast aside, Ash wanted another book to heave. Or a good crashing vase. He groped behind him for his stick. A soft object pressed against his fingers, and he grasped it in puzzlement. A pillow?
The scent of lilies and woman wafted around him, telling him he wasn’t alone. Christie had handed him a pillow?
He wanted to laugh out loud, but his head was still ready to explode. “Will your father cast his pocket votes for a new administration if I agree to marry you?” Ash asked with a viciousness Margaret didn’t deserve. “What’s the going price of my title these days?”
“That’s absurd,” the baronet sputtered. “One cannot buy votes!”
In satisfaction, Ash flung the pillow in the direction of his guest’s voice. He thought he heard a feminine snicker behind him. The wench really shouldn’t encourage his filthy behavior, but he didn’t intend to stop because she watched.
“Of course one can buy votes,” Ash retorted in fury. “Lansdowne bought yours long ago. I’m assuming you’re so in debt to him now that he can’t be persuaded to provide a suitable husband for Margaret, so now you’re crawling back to me.”
He couldn’t tell where the pillow had landed, but Caldwell sputtered and fumed incoherently. Ash wiggled his fingers behind his back and another pillow brushed against them. He was fairly certain he heard one of his sons racing down the corridor, possibly in search of more.
Uninterested in why they were aiding and abetting his misbehavior, Ash simply dug his fingers into the pillow and kneaded the stuffing, while trying not to take off heads.
“No one buys my vote!” Caldwell shouted. “I am here for my daughter’s sake, and because you need help with your estate that your star-gazing brother cannot provide. I did not come here to be insulted and have objects thrown at me.”
Ash wished he had an inkpot to respond to this insult to Theo’s valiant efforts to manage a task to which he hadn’t been trained.
“Flinging things is all I can do now, thanks to your cohorts, Caldwell! Leave my house and don’t darken my door again. Margaret, I hold no grudge against you, but Lady Aster could have been killed when those reprobates invaded our property. I will not have my brothers and their families insulted and harmed for the sake of a few acres of miserable land!”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Caldwell shouted back. “You own half the damned shire!”
Ash flung what felt like a long, hard bolster at the baronet. This time, judging from the fits of smothered giggles behind him, he was fairly certain he connected. “I give you good day, sir, Margaret.” With a formal bow, he stalked out, hoping the mischief-makers dodged from his path because his head hurt like a thousand furies and he’d forgotten his stick.
My word, no wonder Ashford roared and rattled invisible sabers, Christie marveled, hiding in the ante-room with Hugh as the guests huffed irately and departed. His neighbors had caused the accident that had blinded him! That they’d had the audacity to return to discuss another betrothal . . . Even brash Christie couldn’t imagine such cheek.
She would wonder at the Caldwells’ level of desperation, but she was more concerned about the marquess. He was hurting. She could feel his physical and emotional pain as her own, and it was beyond anything any one human should endure—striking heart, head, and soul. Tears lined her eyes, and she hugged herself, almost breaking into sobs of anguish until she saw Hugh watching her worriedly.
“Tell the kitchen to send up tea,” she whispered to him as the door rattled closed after their visitors. “Your father is fine. He simply does not have enough outlet for his energy and cannot run off the excess as you and your brother do.”
The boy continued to look anxious but nodded as if he might understand. Once he was gone, she grabbed the fallen walking stick and followed Ashford down the hall. He was counting steps and using his fingertips to brush against the wall to verify his position.
She pushed the knob of the cane into his palm. “I have the headache powder mix on your desk. You were supposed to go there first, after you changed your clothes.”
He grabbed her upper arm, dragged her into the study, and slammed the door. Before she had any inkling of what he meant to do, he pushed her up against the panel, held her shoulders pinned—and kissed her.
He kissed hungrily, needfully, as if he’d devour her in one bite if he could. Christie’s lonely, empty soul responded with all her neglected desire. She dug her fingers into his shirtsleeves, and the heavy muscles rippling there added to the incendiary explosion of her insides. Ashford made her feel small. Every particle of her existence thrilled at his proximity. She opened her mouth and welcomed his invasion.
This was no gentle, seductive kiss, but the violent passion of a man pushed to the brink. He released her arms to cup her breasts. Christie squealed against his ravishing mouth, but then the caress of his big hands on her breasts dissolved her lower parts, her knees turned to jam, and she couldn’t stand on her own.
Oh my dear lord, she prayed as pleasure spread through her in ways she would never comprehend. She wanted what he was doing to her—she wanted more. She didn’t protest when he pushed closer, rubbing at the place where all this molten fire was gathering. She nearly wept with frustration that he could not untangle her clothing to touch more of her. She’d always hated her huge breasts, but now she understood their purpose, and she ached.
She could feel his hunger, felt him relinquishing his fury and enjoying the moment—
“Tea, my lord,” a maid said through the closed door, scratching at the wood and asking for entrance.
Ashford shoved away, panting, looking as overheated and desperate as she felt. She hastily adjusted her bodice while he retreated to his desk.
“The headache powder,” she said, although she wasn’t certain she said it loud enough to hear. She shoved the cup she’d left on his desk in his direction.
She opened the door, staying behind it while the maid bustled about, clearing a place for the tray. The gleaming silver pot and sugar and creamer pieces appeared so formal and . . . elegant. And here she stood, rumpled and sturdy and more like a common rotund Brown Betty teapot. She wanted to weep with the futility of the desire rushing through her blood an
d pooling in her lower parts. What on earth had she been thinking?
After the maid whisked away, closing the door after her, Christie flung a few coals on the grate to give herself something to do and steady her confusion. Apparently, she was such a nonentity that no one thought twice about closing her into a room alone with a dangerously unstable man.
The dangerous man looked even more rumpled than she did. His shirt was still damp from their escapade with the dog. It clung to a massively muscled chest, revealing a dark shadow of hair. Blood stained his unbuttoned waistcoat. His black curls fell across his scarred forehead as if he truly were a spoiled, bad-tempered brat who had just thrown a tantrum in front of his neighbors.
But he radiated pain . . . and desire. She couldn’t mistake the feeling. Perhaps men just lusted over any woman available.
She hadn’t noticed him lusting after ice-cold Margaret.
She shoved the cup at his hand again. He threw the contents back as if it were whiskey, then spluttered and gulped and flung the cup at the wall. It shattered into tiny slivers of cream porcelain on the Turkish carpet.
“I’d rather have the headache,” he grumbled. “Give me brandy.”
“Not with headache powder, my lord.” She supposed it was convenient that she had the powders for her own headaches. She gathered her last remaining nerves and poured his tea the way he liked it, one lump and no milk. “I’ll give you the cracked cup. Be careful of the chip. The brandy crystal is too nice to break.”
He glanced bleakly in her direction. “Why the devil aren’t you running fleeing into the night?”
“It has started to rain,” she said prosaically.
He grunted what might have been a laugh. “Why pillows, then?”
“Because you just missed the front window with the book. Those are hundred-year-old panes. I would hate to see them shattered.” She sat down across from him and poured her own tea. She deserved tea after these past hours. She also deserved two lumps and a good deal of milk—and a biscuit, but the maid hadn’t brought any.
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