“The news has traveled even to me,” Mark said. A cryptic description, but Mark seemed unfazed by the loss of the dukedom.
Ash looked at him. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I know you didn’t care about any of this for yourself. But—I just had this notion, see. I knew, somehow, that if I were the Duke of Parford, someday I’d have made things different for you. I didn’t want to give up on that. But then…”
“I’ve always managed to take care of myself,” Mark said dryly. “Today should prove no exception. You know I would never be angry at you for doing the right thing.”
“I’ve abandoned you enough.”
“Abandoned me?” Mark’s hand was curled about itself, and he turned to Ash with a quizzical expression on his face. “When have you ever abandoned me?”
“There was the time I went to India.”
“Which you did in order to make enough funds for the family to survive. I can hardly begrudge you that.”
“And there was that time at Eton. You’d told me that Edmund Dalrymple had begun to single you out. That he was pushing you around. And you begged me to take you home.”
“I recall. You read me quite the lecture—told me, in fact, that I had to stay there.”
“Two weeks later, I returned to find you battered and bruised, your face bloodied, your eyes blacked and your fingers broken. And all I could think was that I had done that to you. I’d abandoned you, for no reason other than my personal pique and vanity, and you paid the price.”
“Vanity?” Mark shook his head. “I thought that was one of your ridiculous instincts, Ash. Horrible to hear about. Impossible to argue with. And as usual, entirely right.”
Ash felt his throat go dry. “That wasn’t instinct.”
Mark raised one eyebrow. “Really? Nonetheless, it was still the right thing for you to tell me.”
Ash had to say it. He had to tell him, before his nerve gave out and he let another decade slip by. “That,” Ash said quietly, “was fear. You had to go to school. I didn’t want you to turn out like me.”
“Oh,” Mark said with a roll of his eyes, “I see. Because you’re so unimpressive a specimen.”
Ash took a deep breath. “No. Because I’m illiterate.”
“Well, you don’t even appreciate Shakespeare, and that does rather speak against you.” Mark shook his head and reached for Ash’s hand. “Here. I have something—”
Ash pulled his fingers away. “I meant that in the most literal of senses. I can’t read. Words don’t make sense to me. They never have.”
Mark fell silent. He looked at Ash as if his world had been turned on his head. He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“I can’t read. I can’t write. Margaret read your book aloud to me.”
“But your letters.” Mark leaned heavily against the wall. “You—you sent me letters. You wrote on them. I know you did.” He paused, and then said in a smaller voice, “Didn’t you?”
“There are a few phrases I’ve committed to memory. I wrote them over and over, hour after hour, until the words came out in the right order. Until they said what I intended, without my having to look at what I wrote. There were some things I needed to be able to tell you, when you were away.”
“Your postscripts always said the same thing,” Mark said. “‘With much—’” he broke off.
“‘With much love,’” Ash finished hoarsely. “With more than I could possibly write.”
Mark passed his hand briefly over his face. When he looked up at Ash, he lifted his chin.
“Nobody knows,” Ash warned him. “If anyone were to find out, it would—it would—”
“You protected me.” Mark’s voice was uneven. “All these years, you protected me. From Mother. From the Dalrymples. From my own wish to go build a cocoon and stay there. Do you think I don’t know that?”
“I— Well—”
“Do you truly think that after all this time, after everything you have done for me, that I would not protect you?”
He’d been the elder brother for so long, had been carrying that burden for all these years. It wasn’t just recent events that had fatigued him. But with that light shining in Mark’s eyes, suddenly the future seemed manageable. Ash had been exhausted before; now, he felt refreshed.
“And next time you need someone to read to you, if— But, oh. You distracted me. Here. I’m supposed to give you this.”
“Give me what?”
In answer, Mark held out his fist and unfurled his fingers. Cradled in the palm of his hand was a black key—its bow a curlicue of iron, crossed by a sword. A master key. The master key to Parford Manor.
Mark smiled knowingly at him. “Margaret brought this by.”
Ash felt a dizzying flush. She’d been by? His heart rose. But then—she hadn’t stayed to see him. His stomach sank. And she was returning his gift—not good.
But what use would she imagine he would have for the master key to Parford Manor, with her brother lord there? His emotions warred between elation and despair. “What do I do?” he asked Mark. “No—never mind. I already know. I have to see her.” He was halfway to the door before Mark’s voice arrested him.
“Ash, you cannot call on a lady looking like that.”
Ash looked down. His trousers were spattered with mud he’d collected over the course of his perambulations. He’d discarded his cravat hours ago. “I can’t?”
“Even you cannot.” Mark’s eyes glinted with humor. “I am protecting you, recall.”
A few minutes’ delay. Ash juggled that with the prospect of looking civilized for her. He supposed the time wouldn’t matter anywhere except in his own racing heart.
“Damn,” he swore, and he raced up to his room.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he heard Mark calling from behind him. He ignored that.
He didn’t bother ringing for his valet—the man was too fastidious, and the toilette he would insist on putting Ash through too time-consuming. Instead, Ash shrugged off his sodden coat and tugged at the sleeves of his linen shirt, eager to remove it.
And that was when he heard a gentle, feminine clearing of a throat. He froze, his hands at the buttons of his neck.
“You know,” a voice said behind him, “if you rush the disrobing, I don’t get nearly so much enjoyment from it.”
He was almost afraid to look about, lest her voice prove to be a product of his fevered imagination. Slowly, he turned around anyway.
If this was his imagination, he realized, his imagination had produced a gray silk dress and hung it over the back of his dressing chair, not six inches from him. He reached out and touched the silk gingerly. It felt real. It smelt of roses.
And then he lifted his eyes from the chair to his bed. If this was his imagination, his imagination was glorious. Margaret lay on his coverlet, stretched out full length. She still wore a corset and petticoats, but they’d been hiked up so that he could see where her garters tied at the knees. She crooked one finger at him and smiled.
“Margaret. What are you doing here?”
“I,” she said, “have been procuring my future.”
His mind went blank. He didn’t know how to take it. She’d decided to have him, after all. She’d realized she didn’t need him, not one bit. His head pounded. His heart swelled in a mix of hope and despair.
“I want you.”
Hope. Hope. It was all hope. He took a careful step towards her.
“Wait. There’s a condition.”
“You know,” Ash said, his throat closing, “that if you are half-naked on my bed, all conditions will be met. Instantly.”
“Ah, but this is one of the conditions I did not deliver to Lord Lacy-Follett earlier today.”
If he’d been overwhelmed by her appearance before, he was stunned now. “You talked to Lacy-Follett? You cannot be serious.”
“Oh, but I am. I had to renegotiate, after I’d heard what you had done. I had been so blinded by my loyalty to my brothers that I
could not see that I owed loyalty to you, as well. I was wrong. I love you, Ash.”
He swallowed.
She smiled up at him. “I love that you make me feel as if I’m the only woman in the world. I love that you’ll always be there for me.” She sat up on the bed, and her petticoats fell, so that only her toes peeked out at him from underneath those layers of fabric. “I want to paint my own canvas, Ash. And I want you on it with me.”
Delicately, she stretched out one leg. Her foot flexed, and then her toes found the floor. He was helpless. Just seeing her push to her feet got him hard. And seeing her in his room—on his bed—made every part of him reverberate with the rightness of it.
She shook her head at him. “Still nothing to say? Lord Lacy-Follett and his group will vote down the bill in Parliament. I told them to do it. They agreed—every one of them—but to get them all on board, they wanted to ensure the duke’s line would continue. They insisted that we marry.”
“Have you any plans tomorrow?”
She held up one hand. “I’d like to ask for a wedding gift. Not—not an allowance for my brother. But an independence. I know it’s possible to obtain titles, if you make a donation to the Crown. If you know the right people. Could you do that for him?”
“After what he did to you?”
“Yes. After what he did to me.” She tilted her head, and her unbound hair spilled over her shoulders. “Because we’ve had enough of vengeance between us. Because I don’t want to be so caught up in what has been done that I forget what we could have in the future instead.”
“And what of you?” Ash asked hoarsely. “When we talk of what could be, what of you?”
“Yes, indeed.” Her smile broadened. She minced towards him, stopping mere inches from him. He could have reached out and drawn her against him. He might have leaned down and taken her lips in a kiss. “What of me, Ash?” she asked.
Instead, he laid one finger on the gold chain of her necklace. He hooked his little finger underneath it and then undid the clasp. “Here,” he said, dropping the master key back onto the necklace. “That’s yours, my love.” He let it drop, and the key slid down the chain. It hit her locket with a clank.
Ash fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, until he found what he was looking for. “And this—” he pulled a second key from his waistcoat “—this will unlock my rooms in town.” He let it fall down the chain, as well, and it slid to clank against the other key.
She opened her hand, and he let the tangled mass of chain and keys and locket fall into her waiting palm.
“It’s yours,” he said. “As am I, Margaret. Always. Now what are you going to do with me?”
Her mouth curled up. But she turned from him and glided to the door. For a second, he thought she might actually walk through it—but instead of turning the handle, she jiggled the key he’d just given her into her hand. And she locked the door.
“You mean, before I marry you?” She gave him a saucy smile, freed of sadness. “Until you can get that license, what are you doing for the next few hours?”
He walked forwards, his steps finally sure.
“Margaret.” He meant to say her name softly, but it came out on a growl. She watched him come close, and she smiled as he did so. He didn’t stop, not until he’d placed his hands on each side of the door, until he’d pressed his chest against hers, until she was flattened against him, her heart beating in concert with his.
He breathed in the scent of her hair, as intoxicating as a sweet white wine. His lips found her neck; his hands slid down her body to rest on her waist. He drew back just enough to look into her eyes.
“For the next few hours,” he said quietly, “I believe I shall be occupied with you. Only you.”
EPILOGUE
Parford Manor, June, 1840
THE SUN WAS HIGH IN a blue sky, untroubled by clouds, but Margaret could not relax. The servants had set the al fresco luncheon off to the side of the house. A pile of old rugs and a low table, brought out for this occasion, graced the north lawn, just beyond the waving heads of the rosebushes.
They’d lunched outside often enough in the nearly three years since Margaret’s marriage—when the weather was fine, when Ash’s brothers visited. There was nothing unusual about the sight of that old, dented wood, graced with uneaten crusts and the green tops of strawberries. What made this day different was the sight just beyond the table.
Ash had stripped off his coat and his cravat, and had rolled his cuffs to his forearms. And he was circling Richard, who was garbed similarly.
“Keep your fists up,” Ash advised. “No, up—what part of up makes you think you should let them hang by your belt?”
“The part that wants to protect the bits just below my waist,” Richard shot back.
Margaret held her breath. For years, she’d been inviting her brother to visit. For years, he’d refused. He’d been angry with her and ashamed of himself, all at the same time, which hadn’t made for fond conversations. But after a year, they’d begun to exchange letters. At first, they had been tentative, awkward missives.
This year, he’d finally accepted her invitation to visit. And on this, his last full day at Parford Manor, somehow Ash had inveigled him into a sparring match. A friendly sparring match.
Or so she hoped. Her heart stood still.
“Don’t mind me,” Richard said as he circled her husband. “I’m just trying to determine how to bring you to your knees without causing permanent damage. I shouldn’t wish to upset my sister.”
“That’s for damned certain.” Ash’s remark stirred the unspoken tension that had hung in the air since Richard’s visit—the too-polite conversations, the glances her brother cast her way. There was still a great deal left unresolved. If this went badly, it might take years before he visited again.
Margaret had a great deal of hope for the coming years—that Edmund might come around; that her own family, a mere two strong at this moment, might take root and grow.
Beside her, Mark stirred. “Don’t worry about that,” he called out. “This is how Ash makes friends—by beating you into a pulp, or getting beaten in turn.”
Ash didn’t take his eyes from Richard. “True,” he said shortly.
Circling opposite Ash, Richard seemed pale and thin. He lacked Ash’s sense of vitality, his sense of grace. Margaret wondered briefly how terrible a mistake she’d made. She didn’t want this visit to end with a hasty ride to the physician. She reached for Mark’s hand and gripped it tightly.
“So simple?” Richard asked. “Fight with you, and we’re friends? Never seemed to work before.”
Ash smiled faintly. “That’s because it will only work when you win.”
Richard’s jaw set, and he brought his fists up. Not high enough—Margaret could see that—but at least a little higher.
Ash gave him a light tap on the shoulder with his fist. “If you’re going to be my brother,” he said, “you’ll have to learn how not to embarrass yourself in a fight.”
Be gentle, love. Margaret’s hands gripped the table. They had no way of changing what had been done. All she could hope was that there was room for forgiveness in the future, room for both her families to find some semblance of peace. But if this went badly…
Richard just laughed at Ash’s pronouncement. “If you’re going to be my brother, you’ll have to learn how to handle the shame of defeat.”
“Fine words.” Ash punched him on the shoulder again, this time slightly harder. “They’d mean so much more if you could block my blows.”
“Blocking’s not my strategy,” Richard admitted, ducking another one of Ash’s fists.
Richard swiveled around to avoid another blow.
Ash turned to him once more. “Apparently, neither is hitting. You’d best conjure something up, and quickly.”
Richard feinted to his left, and seemed to contemplate this for a moment. And then he shrugged—shrugged, in the middle of a fight!—and said, “Very well.”
Before A
sh could do more than narrow his eyes—before he could properly turn—Richard stepped in close and swept his foot out from underneath him. Neatly. Properly. Cleanly. And Ash went down.
She and Mark let out a joint exhale of relief.
Thank God. Their strategy had worked. Richard blinked, even more surprised than Ash must be at this turn of events. He stared at Ash on the ground before him, as if he didn’t quite understand what he’d done.
Ash sat up gingerly. “Damn,” he said. And then he looked over at Mark and Margaret, sitting next to one another. Margaret tried to school her expression into some semblance of angelic innocence. Mark did it so well—but she could not keep that naughty smile from creeping over her face.
Ash stood and then held out his arm to Richard. Slowly, her brother took that outstretched arm, clasped it tightly. And in that moment, a dark shadow in Margaret’s life flooded with light.
After they released each other’s hands, Ash looked over at her once more. But instead of shaking his head—she had set him up for this, after all—he walked towards her, smiling. And he didn’t stop until he’d folded his arms around her and pulled her to his chest—in front of both his brother and hers.
His mouth found her ear, and he gave her a gentle nibble that sent pleasure sparking through her. “Next time,” he whispered, “tell me ahead of time what you’ve taught him to do, so I know how to bait him into doing it.”
Margaret froze in his arms. “You knew?” she whispered back. “But—”
“Of course I knew.”
“But you let him—”
“I made you happy, didn’t I?” he responded smoothly. “Surely, by now, you must realize I’d do anything to make you smile.”
His arms were around her, powerful and strong. He loved her. He cared for her. And no matter what happened, he was dedicated to her. Margaret swallowed. She was the luckiest woman in the world.
“If you meet me upstairs in fifteen minutes,” she murmured, “we’ll see who makes who smile.”
His hold on her tightened, fierce and needful. “Well, my dearest love,” he finally answered, “that sounds like a challenge. I’ll have to take you up on it.”
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