by Betina Krahn
“They’re kidskin,” he said, meeting her glare with one of his own.
“The best danged kidskin money can buy.” She raised her chin.
“Leather contains oils. You need plain cotton to protect the documents.” He produced two pairs from his inner breast pocket and thrust one at her.
“Gloves for reading?” Horrified, she looked to the countess, who merely blinked what was probably Morse code for “shoot me now.”
“These documents are rare and must be handled carefully,” he said, donning his own gloves. “Some are hundreds of years old. The pigments in the inks are susceptible to light and moisture and are already in a perilous state. Much more of this neglect and the work would be lost forever.”
Daisy grudgingly removed her leather gloves and donned the ones he provided, staring between him and the pile of books and documents that might hold the key to her family’s past and her future.
“How do you know about ink and documents?” she asked.
“I studied under Huxley at Queens. When researching history, you have to learn about handling old sources of information, old documents.”
Daisy watched him lay out the pages, inspecting each for what he hoped not to find. He seemed truly worried about the papers . . . not the kind of thing she imagined would bother a high-living rake like him. He seemed perfectly at ease checking the documents for damage and checking curled edges for pliability. And those supple, long-fingered hands . . . she could almost imagine them curling and uncurling around . . .
She crossed her arms and took a step back from the table.
The books had fared better than the loose documents. One hefty volume on the offspring of Charles II bore the name of Broadman Huxley on the spine. As Ashton selected it and leafed through the thick pages, Daisy couldn’t help edging close to peer over his arm. Remembering the feel of it tight around her, she barely managed to keep her hands tucked firmly beneath her arms.
“Does it say anything about Charlotte Fitzroy?” she asked, her voice higher than usual. She swallowed hard and edged back several inches.
“I believe there may be some mention of—” He paged through the front, paused, and then flipped quickly to the middle of the book. “Ah. Lady Charlotte Fitzroy Lee, Countess of Lichfield.”
“What does it say about her?” Daisy was suddenly consumed with curiosity and forgot the need for distance. “When was she born? Where did she live? Did she have children?”
“According to Huxley she was contracted in marriage in the year 1644, at the age of nine years,” he read aloud.
“What?” Daisy grabbed his arm to pull the book closer and see for herself. Her eyes widened on the line he indicated. “That’s—disgusting. Marrying off a child? Who would do such a thing?”
“Her parents or guardians, one must assume,” he said dryly. “However, she wasn’t actually wed until two years later.”
“Two? But that would make her . . . eleven, at most twelve years old.” Daisy frowned. “But surely they didn’t—they wouldn’t have made her—”
“Presumably they did.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “Because she gave birth to her first child at thirteen.”
The countess’s gasp echoed in the hall. “That poor, poor child.”
“How old was the beast they married her to—thirty-five?” Daisy grabbed the book from Ashton, scanned it, and looked up in disbelief.
Lord Ashton-with-the-smoldering-eyes gave a slow smile. “Her beast of a husband was all of thirteen years old when they were married. He fathered a child on her when he was not yet fourteen. It seems both the men and women of your lineage start young.”
“Assuming she is an ancestor of mine. There was a second Charlotte Fitzroy, after all. What does the book say about her?”
He took the book back, went to the front, then turned to a page near the one they had been reading.
“‘Lady Charlotte, Countess of Yarmouth,’” he read. “‘Born to Elizabeth Killigrew Boyle in 1650 and acknowledged by HRH Charles the Second. She married the Honorable James Howard, by whom she had one daughter. In 1672 she married William Paston, who inherited his father’s title and became the Second Earl of Yarmouth. By him she had four more children.’”
“She sounds respectable.” Daisy bit her lip, appalled by her thinking.
“Really? Yarmouth fought two duels over her ‘virtue.’”
She winced. “Well, at least she had her children within a marriage.”
“Not exactly a high standard.” He flipped back a few pages. “Charlotte, the Countess Lichfield, and her first and only husband, Edward Lee, Earl of Lichfield, lived together for forty-two years. Together they had eighteen children. As opposed to the Countess of Yarmouth’s paltry five.” He gave her a taunting smile. “Your odds of finding an ancestor probably lie with the more fertile Charlotte.”
Daisy took a step back, her jaw drooping. “Eighteen children? The woman was brought to childbed eighteen times?”
Chapter Ten
A scuffling sound interrupted and as Daisy turned she caught a whiff of the tobacco smoke settling in a wreath around Uncle Red’s head. She glowered, but before she could speak, the countess smacked Red’s arm, nearly causing him to drop the cigar he was enjoying.
“Hey—”
“How dare you!” The countess sprang to her feet and took Red by the ear, forcing him—protesting—to his feet.
“Damn it, woman—that hurts!” He jerked and twisted, trying to escape.
“Outside with you, this minute!” the countess snapped. “Of all the irresponsible—thoughtless—smoking that filthy thing around priceless historical documents!” She didn’t relent for an instant as she dragged him, howling, out of the hall.
Daisy’s shock became a chuckle that grew to a hearty laugh at the sight of the usually demure and decorous countess taking wild and woolly Uncle Red in hand. Seconds later she found herself looking up into Ashton Graham’s glowing face. He had been laughing, too, and traces of pleasure lingered in his gaze as it roamed her. He took a step that brought him against her skirts. A bolt of expectation shot through her, leaving scorch marks on every hungry and traitorous nerve in her body.
“Where were we?” His voice was thick as wild honey. “Ah, yes. Eighteen children, Daisy Bumgarten. In forty-two years of marriage, Lady Charlotte spent almost half of them pregnant.”
“I believe the proper term is ‘in a family way.’” She licked her lip.
“Eighteen years pregnant. No riding horses or hosting hunting parties or attending operas or balls—watched constantly—every bit of food inspected and measured, every exertion and diverting pastime prohibited, all contact with frivolous society disallowed. You see, a duchess’s pregnancy isn’t about a baby, it’s about an heir. And believe me, families take no chances that the heir to a title might be endangered by the whims of a mere mother.” She could feel him leaning, closing on her, watching her reaction. “That’s the lot of a woman lucky enough to snag a duke for a husband. I wonder what Lady Charlotte would counsel if she could talk to you across the years.” He moved still closer and she retreated another step, feeling his heat and determination crowding her. “Would she warn you against seeking attachment to a title—an elevated one at that?”
“Doesn’t much matter what she’d say. That was two hundred years ago. People don’t marry off their daughters at twelve anymore.” She took another step back, but the distance between them didn’t seem to widen. “And I’ve never been a meek little thing like Charlotte, not even when I was twelve. Just ask my mama.”
“Oh, I’ll take your word for that.” He advanced again and she backed into a bookcase that stopped her retreat. That look in his eye—that hungry coyote look—she couldn’t run from that and live with herself.
“Look, I’ve traveled and learned and read plenty of books. I know a few things about the world. I’ve talked to sea captains and lawyers and horse breeders and professors and a passel of noblemen from here to Rome, Italy.”
His lips came down on hers and her whole body caught fire. The heat welled from deep in her body to explode and spread quickly under her skin. She had no more chance of stopping it than she had of heading off a stampede of longhorns by waving a hankie. When she slid her arms up and around his neck and pressed her body against him, the rumble from his chest could have been a taunt of victory, but in her steam-filled head it sounded more like hungry approval.
His supple lips drew hers into luscious, ever-changing combinations that spread pleasure through every denied and long-suffering part of her. Her determination melted. Her skin came alive, tingling, yearning, needing exactly what she had sworn to abstain from until she was safely married.
The bookcase behind her began to creak and she could hear the slide and plop of books falling over as she was pressed back against the shelves. She ended the kiss to take a breath and glimpsed his arms braced wide on either side of her and his hands fiercely clasping the wooden shelves. It took a minute for her to realize he gripped the shelves to avoid touching her.
Surprised, she looked up into his face.
His eyes shone, but in them she saw no taunt or ridicule, no gloating at having aroused her. She saw only wanting. She’d heard it called a dozen things, most in nervous leering or self-righteous condemnation: the itch, desire, craving, lust, hunger, wanting, lechery, heat, the burning. All of that was in his eyes, but there was more, something deeper and more important than just physical pleasure. There was need.
His lips covered hers again, inundating that thought with waves of sensation that made her sigh against his mouth and mold eagerly against his body. This time his hands came, too. His touch was gentle as he traced her curves at first, but grew firmer, more possessive as he pulled her tighter against him. The quiet hum of his chest against hers relayed the pleasure he found in exploring her shape. She wanted more, needed him against her bare—
Approaching voices froze them lips to lips, bodies pressed hard together. She pushed him back, breathless with panic. Before she could manage a word, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her around the bookcase and out of sight of Huxley, the countess, and whoever else had just entered the hall.
“Well,”—she heard the countess—“where did they go?”
“Ashton?” Huxley called out. “Where the devil are you?”
She clapped a hand over her kiss-swollen lips and stared at Ashton with wide eyes. He grabbed the biggest book he could find from the shelves around them and shoved it into her hands.
“Here, Huxley.” He stuck his head around the end of the row of bookcases. “Trying to find the latest Burke’s. Much of the stuff on the shelves is refuse . . . useless and inaccurate. . . schoolboy scribbling. Yet, they store your precious primary sources in a charwoman’s closet.”
“Well, I’ve brought the head librarian here to see and account for such shabby treatment,” the professor said with indignation.
“About time.” Ashton strolled out of the stacks with an open volume in his hand. “Inspect, if you will, the professor’s life’s work, sir. And explain, if you can, the carelessness with which such precious sources have been curated.”
The head librarian was a portly, well-starched fellow used to holding his own with the nobs and swells of his world. Daisy peered through a crack above the books as he stretched his portly neck past his starched collar and collected his dignity.
“I am certain the misplacement of Professor Huxley’s materials can be explained by our shortage of storage and display space. A regrettable situation, surely, but one that can be remedied.”
What followed was a loud and furious discussion of the importance of various documents and books and the manner in which they should be held.
Daisy pressed icy hands to her flushed cheeks and calmed her breathing, grateful for the chance to regain her composure. She spotted an opening at the far end of the rank of bookcases, slipped through it, and walked down the rank of farther bookcases toward the center aisle. She exited looking down, as if she were engrossed in the massive volume in her hands. The countess noticed her, but turned back to the confrontation, and she noticed Uncle Red standing not far away with his fists clinched in anticipation, itching to see fists fly.
Relieved to be spared their scrutiny, she closed the book and joined watching the conflict. The librarian finally had enough and stalked out with the professor close behind. The assistant librarian looked to Lord Ashton as if awaiting instructions, so Ashton gave him some.
“We need unbleached cotton vellum, and plenty of it.”
The man hurried out the rear of the hall, and Lord Ashton turned to look through the folios, selecting two that had suffered only minor damage.
“What are you doing?” she asked, putting a table between them as she watched.
“These folios hold a small portion of the letters the professor has collected and studied over the years.” He pointed to elegant numerals painted on the bottom of one packet. “These are all marked with the years your Lady Charlottes lived. Some bear the royal seal and others the mark of noble houses. Some are official correspondence and others are personal. We shall have to go through them one by one if you want to uncover any possible links to your ancestry.”
“We?” She propped hands on her waist. “You intend to search, too?”
He paused to study her irritable question, then produced one of those slow smiles that never failed to weaken her knees.
“I do.” He raised one eyebrow. “And believe me, that is the first time I have ever spoken those two words to a lady.”
A second later, Uncle Red guffawed and the countess hid a quiet laugh behind a hand.
Daisy sat down furiously at the table and reached for one of the folios of letters. He put a hand out to stop her from opening it until she’d heard his rules for the proper handling of such old and important documents. By the time he finished she was ready to chew saddle leather and spit tacks.
Whatever his game was, she would bet stacks of silver dollars it wasn’t to help her prove her royal ancestry. That meant she had to watch his every step, his every move. And that meant she was going to be tempted by those devilish eyes and that delicious mouth, again and again.
Curse his hide.
The morning faded into afternoon and the documents piled up. Letters—who knew people wrote so much about so little? Exchanges of property, news of births and deaths and the occasional marriage, visits, and permissions asked and granted. Everything was made to sound important with fancy wording. Worse still, the writing itself was nearly impossible to decipher without help. His help. Ashton had obviously read and interpreted many such documents before—which began to undermine her distrust of his abilities. They took turns reading Huxley’s book regarding the Charlottes and verifying what he said with the letters and documents in the folios.
Late in the day, when lamps had been lit and Uncle Red and the countess both had begun to snore, Daisy looked up from the letter she was trying to decipher and caught him pouring over something with an official-looking seal. It had come from the same folio as the letter she was holding.
“What is that?” she asked, rising with her letter.
“Record of a Royal Navy promotion. Commodore Fitzroy Henry Lee.” He pointed to the name and frowned. “Promoted to vice admiral.”
“Who was he, again? I think he’s in the professor’s book.”
“Charlotte of Lichfield’s son. Her seventh, I believe.” He consulted Huxley’s book. “Yes. Appointed Commodore Governor of Newfoundland, Canada, in 1736.” Then he scowled. “Was removed from that post later,” he read, “accused of drunkenness and debauchery.” He looked back at the warrant of promotion with confusion. “Don’t know how that could be. He was promoted to vice admiral after his dismissal and return to England.”
“Look at this letter . . .
from Lady Charlotte to an F-somebody. I can make out some of it. She’s writing about temperament or something. And ‘integrity and duty’ over something.”
Reluctantly, he dragged his attention from the warrant to the letter. She retreated to her chair, arching her back to relieve the strain, and watched him devour the script. He was truly interested in this search, she realized, or at least in the history it resurrected. He’d apparently spent a great deal of time at the university deciphering and studying old papers. It seemed out of character for a man with such a fast and loose reputation.
He was something of a puzzle, Ashton Graham. Only then did she recall Old Lady Sylvia’s confidence in his ability to discern the truth of her heritage. What was it she called him? For the life of her, she couldn’t recall.
“Good God.” His exclamation brought her back to the present. “It’s a letter from Lady Charlotte to her son ‘Fitz.’ And from the sound of things she wasn’t happy with him. She’s talking about his removal from the governorship in Newfoundland.”
He read slowly: “‘Intemperance has ever been your downfall. But if you will return to the true faith and change your ways, you may still recover your reputation. You still enjoy our uncle’s favor—if you would but seek to do the honorable thing, and in the matter of the child, do as integrity and duty require, you may yet be restored to the bosom of your family and country.’”
Daisy winced. “Child? Does she mean his child?”
“Huxley’s book lists him without any offspring.” He looked thoughtful. “But apparently he was something of a high-liver and a heavy drinker. Who knows what he got up to in the colonies?”
“So hard-drinkin’ Fitz got booted out of Canada in disgrace and went home, where his uncle got him promoted? Who was his uncle?”
“She said ‘our’ uncle,” Ashton replied, glancing at the warrant. “He was apparently Charlotte’s uncle as well. That can only be one person: James the Second, the king himself. Huxley says Charlotte was known to be his favorite niece among all of Charles’s children. He was very fond of her and her children, so perhaps he intervened to clear Fitz’s record and give him this promotion.”