by Claudia Dain
“Mother, I simply must get Ashdon up to my room. He’s had a rigorous afternoon and requires attention. Oh, and this is my brother, the Earl of Dalby. Markham, my husband, Lord Ashdon. There, now that’s done, we’ll just disappear upstairs for a moment or two. I really should look at Ashdon’s wound. You do know that Uncle John attacked him without cause, don’t you?”
“Nonsense, Caro. John never attacks anyone without cause. It’s something of a point of honor for him,” Sophia said. “I’m quite certain Lord Ashdon provoked him outrageously.”
“If I did, I fail to see how,” Ashdon said grimly. Darling Ashdon, always going grim when crossed. It was slightly adorable.
“You were chasing after my niece,” John said. “What could I do but thrash you for it?”
Ashdon’s eyes widened. “You speak English? When you said you did not?”
“It is not necessary for everyone to know everything,” John said, his dark eyes twinkling.
“How utterly true,” Sophia said with a sly smile. “But Caro, were you truly running down Park Lane? And was Lord Ashdon truly chasing you?”
Caro could only nod. She couldn’t believe she’d done it now, of course. It was highly illogical to run from one’s husband, particularly down a public street. Particularly as he could run faster than she could. A complete waste of time, really.
“How delicious,” Sophia said, grinning, “and how clever of you, darling.”
“Clever?” she said.
She had just deduced that it had been a colossal mistake in judgment. Her mother was always saying something to confuse her knowledge of things. Thinking logically was so very complicated when her mother was around, constantly offering advice and comment on the most mundane of subjects. Like running down the street away from an enraged husband.
“How clever of you to understand that there is simply nothing a man enjoys more than chasing after things, especially a woman. Isn’t that so, Lord Ashdon?”
“I’ve never run down a woman in my life,” Ash said stiffly.
“But now you have, and wasn’t it fun?” Sophia said with a smile.
Ash allowed a crooked smile to escape him as he said, “Tolerably.”
Caro almost fell out of her shoes.
“Excuse us,” Ash said, taking her arm in his hand. “My wife is exhausted from her exertions. We’ll just go upstairs for a bit.” And he led her, quite authoritatively, from the foyer to the stair hall.
She shivered at his touch. It was his first touch since she’d kneed him, which had resulted in him chasing her. Which had then resulted in his being knifed by her uncle and beaten by her cousins. Quite a memorable wedding day, even without the sideboard.
“And now I have you,” Ash said softly as he tugged her up the switchback stairs. Her stomach clenched in a not altogether unpleasant sensation.
He might try to punish her for that well-placed knee in his groin.
She just might let him. She might even let him chase her again since he seemed to enjoy it so much.
“I don’t know what you think you’re going to do with me,” she said. “As you said, it has been a day of exertions. You look quite the worse for it.”
“Oh, do I?” he said calmly. They’d reached the top of the stairs. “Which is your room?”
“You need Markham’s room. That’s where his clothes are, and you need a change of linen, at the very least.”
“I need something, but it’s not linen,” he said.
She knew very well what he was referring to; she’d been married for most of the day, after all.
“I can’t think what you mean,” she said loftily. “You look a perfect disaster. Surely we must see to your wound.”
“Exactly what I had in mind,” he said, pushing open doors rather more violently than was absolutely necessary. She found it thrilling, actually. This violent, demanding Ashdon was completely irresistible. Of course, the quiet, grim Ashdon had been equally irresistible. It was a good thing she was so accommodating in her tastes, at least as far as Ash was concerned. “First things first,” he said. “And first wounds first.”
Oh, my. Her stomach tumbled into her shoes, snagging her feet and making her trip.
Ash pulled harder on her hand, tugging her along. “Now, now, you must keep your feet. At least for now.”
That sounded ominous, deliciously so.
It was with sudden clarity that she knew why her mother said “delicious” so often and for what cause.
Caro couldn’t have agreed more.
“You don’t think that we’re going to . . . to . . . well, to do that, do you?” she said in the most outraged tone she could produce, which wasn’t much since she was rather hoping he had exactly that in mind.
Ashdon had pulled her to the top of the stairs and was pushing open doors now, without even knocking, rude as that was. The first door he tried was, unfortunately, the door to Anne’s room. And Anne was sitting by the single window in her room, crying silently. At Ashdon’s rude entry, Anne spun to face them and stood, all in one motion. She did it gracefully, her skirts twisting prettily around her legs and her cheeks turning a very lovely shade of pink. Ashdon stopped in his tracks, bowed, and said, “Excuse us, Mrs. Warren. Are you quite all right? Is there anything we can do to help?”
As much as Caro loved Anne, it was all rather anticlimatic and much more civilized than she had been led to expect. Gone were her hopes of having her skirts tossed up and a seam or two ripped.
Ah, well.
“No, I’m sorry,” Anne said, moving toward the door. “I’m certain you want to be alone.”
“Don’t be silly, Anne. This is your room,” Caro said. “Ash can just wait to thrash me until we fix things with you. Now, why are you crying? ”
“Lord Ashdon! You’re bleeding!” Anne said, a hand going to her mouth in shock.
“Nothing but a scratch,” Caro said briskly, pushing past Ash, who looked at her with his eyebrows raised in amusement. “He assures me it’s nothing and I quite believe him. He couldn’t possibly be so vigorous if he were bleeding to death. Now, what on earth can have you so unhappy? It’s not Lord Staverton, is it? He hasn’t cried off, has he?”
“No,” Anne said, sinking back down on her chair. “Not yet.”
“Not yet? Why would he ever? He’s besotted, Anne, completely besotted.”
“Oh,” Anne said softly, “these things can change.”
They’d better not. She’d worked very hard to bring Lord Ashdon under her very pretty heel and he was going to stay there for life, blissfully besotted with her. There simply was no other course open to him. She only hoped Ash was intelligent enough to know that.
“Change?” Caro said, looking suspiciously at Ashdon, who was looking not at her, but at Anne. “I don’t see why.”
“Let me assure you, Mrs. Warren, that I can think of nothing my father could say that would turn Lord Staverton’s affections from you. He is firmly fixed. So firmly, that I think even Westlin can see the futility of any argument he could make,” Ash said, standing over Anne in gentlemanly concern.
“Why on earth would Lord Westlin seek to turn Lord Staverton from Anne?” Caro said. “What business is it of his?”
To which Anne only looked at her with sorrow-filled eyes. To which Ash answered, “Because Westlin believes Mrs. Warren is his by-blow.”
To which Caro collapsed in a heap of dirty muslin and torn stockings upon a very conveniently placed daybed. “Oh, dear.”
Twenty-nine
“OH, dear,” Sophia said in an undertone. “He actually said that? Lord Ashdon said that he’d been attacked by Caro’s breasts?”
“He did,” John answered solemnly, his eyes betraying his amusement.
“How intriguing,” Sophia said with a soft smile, “and how clever of her. I wish I’d thought of that.”
John grunted his reply, which Sophia understood to mean that she’d thought of enough on her own to mourn the loss of a single ploy, which of course was ridiculous as a wom
an could never have too many strategies, a concept she communicated to her brother by a single raised shoulder and a double eyebrow raise.
She knew he understood her answer very well. For all that they’d seen little of each other over the years, they had the benefit of a common past, an unusual past that formed a very firm foundation for their present relationship. There was no one she trusted more. Not that she trusted him completely.
“Where did you find Mark and the Blakesley boy?” she asked.
“In the usual place,” he said. Which meant a place of drinking, gaming, and whoring. Not unusual in a man of his age, but hardly exemplary.
“You think he could use a change of scene?” she asked.
“And a change of purpose,” John added.
Sophia cast her gaze over her nephews as they stood in solemn repose on the edges of the yellow salon. They were young men, but men of composure and poise, men to whom self-control was a necessity and not an idealized concept. She understood her nephews from bone to skin, and because she did, she also understood that her son was already walking a different path. It was not a path she would willingly choose for him.
John Markham Stuart Grey Trevelyan, the ninth Earl of Dalby, named for her brother, stood talking to George, laughing about something that George only smiled at. Mark looked a bit soft. A bit indulged. A bit . . . debauched. George, on the other hand, looked ruthlessly self-sufficient. It was not a comparison she enjoyed making.
Really, what choice was there? He would learn more that would serve him well in the dark forests of New York than in his rooms at Oxford, or in the gaming hells of London.
“Take him,” she said, staring at her son, letting him go. When he returned, he would not be as he was now. She said a silent good-bye to the boy she had known and loved. “It must seem his idea.”
John merely nodded.
“For how long?” she asked, turning her head to look at John.
“Two years,” he said.
Her heart clenched at the words, but her eyes did not show her anguish. Such were the skills that Markham needed to learn, skills that only living among the Wolf Clan could teach him. He had gone before to live with the Wolf Clan, both he and Caro had gone, but they had been children then. Her darling Dalby had died and after a half year of mourning, she had taken them to her brother. They had performed the Mohawk grief rituals, rites that healed her more than any English observances could, and then she had left them to John and his wife. They had learned much, but they had been the lessons of childhood, a year within the Iroquois Nation that had shaped them into a slightly more pragmatic version of what they were: children of the English aristocracy. Now Markham would learn the lessons of a Mohawk warrior.
He would not return the same. Which was exactly the idea.
“When will you leave?” she asked.
“I’m not certain. It would be best if he decided.”
“Yes, that’s true,” she said softly. “Caro will miss him.”
“When she has a new husband to entertain her?” John said.
Sophia smiled. “That’s true as well. If Ashdon is up to the mark, she shouldn’t notice that Mark is missing until he’s a month gone. I rather think Ashdon is up to the mark, at least to judge by my sideboard.”
John grunted twice and lowered his gaze, his version of raucous laughter.
“It is a good beginning,” he said, “though she doubts him. It is why I challenged him. Let him prove himself for her. He did, but still the shadow of doubt is in her eyes. Why?”
“Because of Westlin.”
“And because of you.”
“I suppose so.”
“Was it for revenge, Sophia? Did you pair them and make a fine revenge upon your old enemy, bringing your seed into his house?” John asked.
“It is a fine revenge, isn’t it?” Sophia said. “And I so enjoy that Westlin thinks of it that way, but I wouldn’t use Caro to punish Westlin. You know that.”
“Then why doesn’t she know it?” John said.
“I think,” Sophia said softly, “because I am Sophia and she is Sophia’s daughter.”
John nodded and lowered his head. As always, they understood each other very well.
CARO clearly did not understand anything about anything, which was becoming annoyingly routine. She could only hope that it wasn’t also becoming obvious.
“I beg your pardon?” she said, staring up at her husband as he stood in front of Anne.
“Mrs. Warren,” Ash said, “Lord Westlin could say nothing which would dissuade Lord Staverton from his alliance with you. Lord Staverton has known my father longer than any of us and he therefore knows how to stand firm against Westlin’s—”
“Fits?” Caro supplied.
“Arguments,” Ash said.
She thought fits was more to the point, but if Ash wanted to call Westlin’s fits arguments, she supposed he could do so. He obviously and understandably didn’t want to think ill of of his father. He must be positively exhausted in trying to think well of him.
“You should also know that my father, not without cause, thinks that everyone of a certain age who possesses ginger hair is his get. You should not put too much upon it, Mrs. Warren.”
“You are too kind to say it, Lord Ashdon, but Lord Westlin would only suppose ginger-haired children to be his get if he knew he’d had a prior relationship with their mothers,” Anne said, rising to her feet. “And so it is with me. I regret it, though I can’t undo it. I realize that this is an extremely awkward turn of events, and I will promise you that I will not continue my friendship with your wife.”
“Mrs. Warren,” Ash said, taking her hand in his and bowing over it, “not a one of us chooses our fathers, our mothers, or our siblings. If we do share the same father, can we not console each other over our mutual and miserable fate? I, for one, would enjoy having a sibling and I could not wish for one more lovely and kind than you.”
Upon which, he kissed Anne on the hand.
Anne’s eyes filled with tears and she shook her head to clear them. It was futile. And as to that, Caro’s eyes were swimming as well as she considered her husband. That was truly the kindest, most gallant display she’d ever witnessed.
She loved him quite unreservedly, which was ridiculous since he’d never done a single thing to earn her love and quite a few things to earn her anger. Logical and true, yes, but obviously meaningless. She loved him anyway. In point of fact, she seemed to love him more with each passing moment and what had he done but throw her against a wall, upon a sideboard, drape her in pearls he couldn’t afford, chase her down Park Lane, and look entirely too fondly at Anne?
Her stomach rolled and twisted and delicious bubbles of delight burst up into her throat. She felt an idiotic smile spread itself all over her face and tears dampening the corners of her eyes. She even found herself forgetting about the bet.
Logic had seriously failed her.
“USE logic, man,” Westlin said to Lord Staverton. “You can’t want to marry her. She’s the daugher of a common whore, and my bastard on top of it. Think of your family name.”
“She’s a lovely woman, a respectable widow,” Staverton said stubbornly. One thing that could be said for Lord Staverton was that he made the most loyal friend. He was immovable once his affections were fixed and he was not too quick to fix them, which only meant, of course, that his alliances were considered by all to be based on near infallible judgment and shrewd perception. By all, with the exception of Lord Westlin.
“And were you thinking of your family name when you tumbled with a common whore?” Sophia said, entering their conversation without invitation and without remorse. “Not that I agree with you, Westlin, about Anne’s mother. She was quite lovely in her day and much sought after. As you perhaps know better than any of us.”
“A man plays, a woman pays,” Westlin said stiffly.
“Yes, such a common and distasteful expression,” Sophia said. “I quite remember when you first quoted it t
o me. I did not find it at all amusing, but of course, in my case, ’tis the man who pays, and the woman who plays, isn’t it? Quite satisfying.”
“We were not speaking of you,” Westlin said, bristling. Well, he often bristled. Sophia barely bothered to notice anymore.
“Weren’t we? How odd,” she said, smiling at Lord Staverton, who looked more than relieved to have been spelled in his confrontation with Lord Westlin. Another common occurrence for those who were forced to speak with Lord Westlin.
Westlin hadn’t always been this way, of course. He’d once been quite handsome, very wealthy, and occasionally devastating in his charm. All long ago now, so long ago in fact that few people remembered the old, young Westlin. But she did. And she knew that she had been the chief cause of his present ill temper, a foul mood that had lasted a full two decades. She was rather proud of that, particularly as he quite deserved it. She was only sorry that Ashdon had been made to bear the brunt of Westlin’s temper. She’d had to rescue the dear boy and by what better means than Caro’s unflagging will and wit? They were, without doubt, perfectly paired.