Unveiled

by Courtney Milan

  “You wouldn’t collapse.”

  “You can’t possibly know that.”

  He stood up, taking a step towards her. “You don’t comprehend what I mean, Margaret. You’re stronger than that. You’d reach deep down into yourself—just as you’re doing now—and you would look the possibility in the face and tell it to go to the devil. Yes, just as you’re doing with me, at this moment. Some people crumble when they’re dealt a blow. You might stagger a bit, I suppose. But you? You would never collapse.”

  “I wish I could hate you,” she said passionately.

  “Yes,” he remarked. “It would be more convenient for you. Sadly, you’ve found it quite impossible.”

  She stared at him. The corner of her lip twitched—not quite a smile, but the shadow of one.

  “When he’s like this, Miss Lowell,” Mark offered from his seat on the sofa, “I usually take it upon myself to stamp out in a rage. It’s impossible to argue with him, once he starts asserting his correctness as a matter of unarguable certainty. And if you stay, he’ll turn your thoughts around until you don’t know right from wrong. Take it from me. Ash is both perfectly right, and horridly wrong. And he will never, ever understand what he’s said to upset you.”

  “What did I say?” he inquired.

  She gave him that look—that one that said, If you don’t know, I shan’t be telling you. Ash hated that look.

  And then she stood. “Must I stamp? Or can I sweep out gracefully?”

  “By all means, sweep.” Mark stood for her, and Margaret gave him a swift curtsy. She didn’t even glance at Ash on her way out. Not quite what Ash had intended for the evening—sending her from the room in a confused flurry. It wasn’t precisely bad that they had argued—the more pleasant it would be to make it up to her later. But it wasn’t what he’d hoped for.

  And it just went to prove: one might think one knew a great deal about a woman. One might tell her one’s darkest secrets. And she was still going to make one’s head spin about, by caring about things that made absolutely no sense. He heaved a sigh. He wasn’t quite sure when or where the conversation had gone wrong, or what precisely he’d said to make it veer off course with such vehemence.

  “Well.” The syllable echoed in the now too-empty room. “Do you suppose she’ll have forgotten this episode by morning?”

  Mark shook his head. “She may be as stubborn as you.”

  “I’m not stubborn,” Ash said. “I’m right. There’s a difference.”

  Mark snorted. “No. I remember when Mother used to assign us Bible verses to learn. For Smite, it proved no problem—no matter how many she gave us.”

  She’d given too many—dozens and dozens, it seemed. She’d locked them in the parlor to learn them.

  “But you’d refuse. One of my earliest memories is her beating you, and your refusing to cry. You were smiling as she switched you. As if even then, all you wanted was to prove that you bent to nobody’s will but your own.”

  Not quite how Ash remembered that particular event. First, there’d been the fact that he hadn’t refused to learn anything. He’d simply been unable to read.

  “I always remembered that, when things got bad. I remembered thinking, ‘Well, if Ash could do it, I can.’”

  Ash felt a lump in his throat. “You know, Mark…”

  But then, his younger brother so seldom expressed admiration for him. He wasn’t about to muck that up by disclosing a tiny fact that was now a mere side note, an irrelevancy.

  “Yes?”

  Ash smiled. Papering over that hollow in his chest seemed impossible. But he’d smiled through beatings as a boy. And he didn’t want to lose the light of respect in Mark’s eyes. If nothing else, he wanted his brothers to feel safe with him—protected. Taken care of. Cosseted, even.

  How safe would they feel if they knew his secret?

  “I was wondering,” he said, “speaking of stubborn—what think you of Miss Lowell?”

  Mark settled slowly back into his seat. “You were, were you? Do you wonder about her?”

  “All the time,” Ash said, sitting down with a heavy sigh. He wondered a great deal about her—about the sound she would make when he kissed the nape of her neck. Whether the skin of her thighs was as soft as he remembered. What she’d look like, waking in his bed, rumpled from sleep and pleased to see him. He glanced over at his brother. “But don’t you be wondering about her that way. I thought you had no interest in anything but chastity.”

  Mark smiled. “I didn’t intend it that way. Only someone as corrupt as you would take what I said in that jaded manner. I meant, have you ever wondered where she comes from? She didn’t spring up, fully formed like Athena, the instant we landed on this estate. There’s something not quite right about the situation.”

  That was the problem with thinking. “There is a great deal about her that doesn’t add up,” he admitted reluctantly. From the way Mrs. Benedict protected her, to the way the other servants jumped at her command. For a young woman—and a nurse no less—she wielded an extraordinary influence. He’d always assumed that the duchess had favored her. But, maybe…

  “Ash,” Mark said almost urgently, “think. I can’t imagine why I haven’t, until I saw her face just now. She’s a bastard who owes the Dalrymples some form of allegiance, who—”

  “Stop,” Ash said. He wasn’t even sure why he spoke, until he did. “I want her to tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure. “I want her to tell me why she’s so sad.” He wanted all of her secrets, but like her kiss, he didn’t want to wrest them from her, to poke and pry and pull, until he’d stolen them entirely. He wanted the truth of her, given as a gift. “Besides, I trust her. What do you suppose I went to London to do? You don’t suppose I left you to take care of any piddling business matter?”

  Nothing in response, nothing but shocked silence, as Mark sorted that out. Nothing until: “Oh…” Mark’s voice came out in a whisper. “Ash. You’re utterly insane, do you know that? You’ve just met her. You can’t just—just—”

  Ash grinned. “Yes, I can. Sometimes, I just know things. I can’t philosophize, as you do. I won’t ever be a scholar or a thinker. I know things. I act.” He shrugged. “That’s what I do well. You may need everything spelled out for you. I don’t.”

  “And have you…informed her of this yet?”

  “Not a word. My men will send everything on, once the paper’s issued. Apparently, the parish is taking its sweet time sending along confirmation of the particulars.”

  “Oh, Ash.” Mark looked up at him, the most curious expression on his face. His brother set his jaw, and that made no sense. Because what he saw was neither pity nor happiness, but instead a grim look of determination.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE TERSE MISSIVE—the only one she’d received in weeks from Richard—arrived the next morning. The paper listed only the lords her brother had spoken with in the past few weeks, with instructions to pass the list on to their father.

  But it ended with an admonition for her.

  Take care, Margaret. You speak well of Ash Turner, and that worries me. You seem to be distracted from our overarching goal. No need to become so neat about matters. Tell me what’s wrong with him—however small, however trivial. I need to know.

  Margaret stared at those accusing words, then shredded the letter and fed it, piece by piece, into the fire.

  Richard wrote in a harsh, jagged hand, without excess verbiage. She had never before noticed the lack in his words, but it was obvious now.

  Her brothers had never been overly demonstrative, but they had done their duty. They’d danced with her at her come-out and introduced her to their friends, a great mass of titled gentlemen who had admired her—and her dowry—immensely. She had no doubt that if her honor had been in need of defense, Richard and Edmund would both have taken up the call.

  And when she’d fainted on one warm spring night in her first year out, i
t was Richard who had fished her out of the fountain and covered her with his coat, Richard who had cleared the back hall and ordered everyone away. In the weeks that passed, it was Richard who had kept her by his side. He’d been too important a figure—a duke’s heir, the Marquess of Winchester—for anyone to risk alienating him with overly harsh gossip. And it had been Richard who had insisted that she return to London for a second season, claiming that another, more interesting, scandal would take precedence.

  Richard had been right.

  Someday soon, she would have to choose between Richard and Ash. She felt that choice lying across her, like a cold hand reaching out across the grave.

  But how much of a choice would she truly have?

  Ash was a worldly tradesman, and Margaret knew precisely what he intended to do with her. Even if his suit in Parliament didn’t prosper and he was denied the dukedom, he’d eventually turn his relentless gaze to one of the other debutantes out there. With his fortune and his smiling allure, he’d be able to do a great deal better than an illegitimate woman who brought neither land nor connections to the marriage.

  The truth smarted.

  And then, she wasn’t just any bastard. She was Anna Margaret Dalrymple. She was the daughter of his enemy, and the sister of two men that he hated. And she had been lying to him throughout their entire acquaintance.

  No. She had no choice to make. It was only a matter of time until she told Ash the truth of her origins. She’d braced herself to do so last night, but then they hadn’t been alone. He’d mocked her to her face—not knowing that it was she he’d ridiculed.

  Once he knew everything about her, he would recant every one of his fine compliments. Margaret wouldn’t have to make a choice. He would make it for her.

  And so why not write Richard now? Why not disclose the secrets Ash had reposed in her? She could spin a tale, she realized, that would make him out to be a monster. He was a man who seduced nurses, who eschewed reading not out of choice, but by necessity. He sat at table with the upper servants, upsetting the social order. And one day, one day soon, he would become her most implacable enemy.

  Perhaps she kept faith with Ash because he had not betrayed her yet. Because she wanted to be a person he could trust. Because she wanted to believe that what he’d told her was true, and that despite her fall from grace, she was still a magnificent creature.

  You matter. You are important.

  She had to believe that for herself, because someday soon, he would no longer believe it for her.

  He would…how had he put it? He would salt the earth beneath her feet and grind her into a fine dust. He would, no doubt, tell the world that she’d masqueraded as a servant and offered him her body in exchange for information. Every one of their caresses would become gossip-fodder. If she’d been ruined before, she would be utterly cast out when he revealed the truth.

  Margaret let out a little sigh. When that happened, she would fight back. She would reveal his secrets if he unveiled hers. But until then, she wanted to believe that he was right. That she was the kind of woman he could trust, that at the end of the day she would not betray him.

  And so when she sent her brother another empty set of platitudes, she whispered to Ash in her mind.

  See? This is how I repay you.

  IT WAS ANOTHER ONE of those dreadful mornings—cloudy without rain, Ash sitting in the library pretending to make sense of an agricultural text, while his brother scribbled away at his work.

  It had been two days since Margaret had stormed out of this room. Last evening, she’d not come by—even though he’d waited for her until nearly midnight. He’d been left with nothing but a pile of written words, which presumably would tell him about agriculture, if he were to sort them out.

  Ash snapped his book shut.

  There were rows and rows of books here. Shelves upon shelves, and his younger brother was buried behind them, entombed in a sea of understanding that Ash could never comprehend. He’d substituted cold letters for human companionship. Ash just wanted him to live.

  God. What Ash wouldn’t give for an interruption.

  “Mr. Turner, sir. There’s someone here to see you.”

  Ash almost gasped in relief at Smith’s words. The majordomo stood stiffly at attention, but he held no card in his hand. Ash had already had his man come through from London. He knew of no pending matters that would necessitate a visit.

  “The gentleman says he’s expected,” Smith continued. “Where should he be put?”

  Ash’s confusion only deepened. He’d certainly not invited anyone. Perhaps this was one of the duke’s hangers-on—a friend of the Dalrymple boys? His hands clenched.

  But Mark was already standing, his face lighting with an almost painful joy. “I’ll go meet him immediately,” he said. He left the room at a run.

  Ash followed more slowly, his thoughts whirling. Mark hadn’t shown this much enthusiasm for another person in…well, the entire summer. Had he invited a friend down?

  Why hadn’t he mentioned such a thing? Not that Ash would begrudge his brother anything he wanted. And he wasn’t complaining—a little more friendly conversation would do Mark a great deal of good.

  Ash pattered into the entry, trailing after his younger brother. He came out of the hall just in time to see Mark grab the fellow—dark, ebony-haired—about the arms.

  “My God,” Mark said, “you’re here already? You must have left the instant you received my note. You must have traveled half the night. What were you thinking?”

  “You knew I would come,” the man replied cheerfully.

  Ash stood in the doorway. He’d heard once that diamond was nothing but coal that had been compressed for many years. He could feel his own heart withering to blackness, slowly turning into cold cinder. He wasn’t sure if he should venture forwards or stay behind.

  Because he had seen in one glimpse who the visitor was. This wasn’t some friend, come down from London. That had been a brotherly embrace. Literally.

  “Smite.” Ash tried to keep the accusation from his voice, tried to keep his tone even and devoid of the emotion he felt. “But I invited you to join us the day Chancery ruled in our favor.” He cut off the rest of the whine. And you told me you were too busy.

  His brother looked over and saw Ash standing in the doorway. He didn’t quite stop smiling, but it was as if all the warmth, all the humor of his fraternal greeting had been sucked from him. As if the sight of Ash had invested him with an extra pound of starch. He looked about, half grimacing, and then walked forwards, holding out his hand. His hand. As if Ash were nothing more than a chance-met business partner.

  “Ash,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”

  And what was Ash to do? He shook his brother’s hand, because that was all that was offered. Because he’d take anything he could get from his brother, even this bare scrap of civility. He would take it, and he wouldn’t complain.

  He’d left Smite behind years ago, when he’d gone to India. No matter how high he set the man’s quarterly allowance, he could not make up for those bleak years. Smite never spoke of that time. But then, he didn’t need to. He’d accepted the education and a few hundred pounds to further his studies afterwards. That great quarterly allowance Ash had signed over to him, though, lay untouched in the account the solicitors set up, funds piling up year after year, a silent, venomous rejection of Ash’s brotherly affection.

  Instead, Smite lived in a tiny, narrow house in Bristol. He didn’t even employ full-time servants, and his living arrangements had always seemed to be a quiet rebuke, a disavowal of Ash and the largesse he wanted to shower upon him.

  Smite pulled away from Ash before their clasped hands could communicate anything like affection. He turned quickly away, his gaze darting about the room as if to take in the new surroundings.

  “Just look at this.” He let out a low whistle as he turned in place—as if he were truly interested in the painted plasterwork overhead. As if he weren’t avoiding Ash’
s gaze.

  “Yes,” Ash said, playing along. “It’s a thing of beauty.” He looked at his brothers as he spoke—one fair, the other dark, both palpably incandescent. His entire family had come together, and however this miracle had come about, he was not one to discard such a fine chance in a fit of pique.

  Smite crossed the room to peer at a wall. “Is that a Caravaggio? My God.”

  He and Mark drifted over to a picture of several cherubic-looking boys and began babbling about lighting and strokes and God knew what else—things they had learned at university, no doubt. Ash would have understood them better if they’d started chattering at him in Bengali. Just like that, Ash was left outside of the conversation, with nothing to do but notice that Smite had put on a few welcome pounds. He’d finally lost that thinnish cast he’d had about him all through Oxford.

  In the brotherly lottery, Smite was both the biggest loser and the greatest winner. Winner, because if women admired Mark, they adored Smite: his shining black hair, in contrast with the snapping blue of his eyes. His features were sharp enough to be manly, but not so brutish as to rob him of an almost haunting beauty. And unlike Mark, Smite wasn’t averse to taking occasional advantage of all that feminine adoration.

  On the other hand, there was the matter of his name. The Bible verse their mother had given him—too unwieldy to be used in regular speech—had been shortened to Smite years ago. Mark was a common name. Ash was a strange one. But Smite? That was downright awful.

  Back on the credit side of Smite’s personal ledger, he had a prodigious memory. He could recite word for word any book he had read, no matter how long ago it had been. It was as if everything Ash lacked, Smite had received a thousandfold.

  But then, there was the little matter of what had happened to him all those years back. When Ash had returned from India, he had found his brothers living on the streets of Bristol. Neither had ever explained why they’d left their mother. Squalid as it had become, her home should have been preferable to city streets in early spring. For any other man, those few months of horror would have faded into blissful forgetfulness, fogged over by the blanket of passing time. But there was that prodigious memory. And while Mark had stopped waking in the middle of the night after a few months, Smite never had. Not in the years he’d lived with Ash. Smite didn’t forget: not whatever it was that had happened, nor, apparently, that it was Ash’s fault it had transpired in the first place.