Asher narrowed his eyes. It irked him that his father had known what Asher’s gut reaction would be.
“I would encourage you to think of those who depend upon you.”
Conniving, scheming swine…There was no doubt now that his father had known.
“I’m certain you are sitting there seething.”
Asher grunted.
“I’m also certain you will think of a way to do the right thing and triumph over me while doing it.”
As if Asher gave a damn what his father thought.
“To my utter shame and regret, I did not have enough fortitude to think of a solution in my own time to reject my father’s demands to divorce your mother, but perhaps you do not have the backbone to do what it takes to triumph, either. We shall see.”
It was definitely a challenge. Even from the grave, the man was goading him.
“After all, you did wed Elizabeth without so much as a query into the heart of the matter; though, I confess, I questioned things too late myself.”
What in God’s name was that supposed to mean? The heart of the matter? His father had questioned what too late? Asher drummed his fingers on the desk, irritated with his lack of answers.
After a moment, he realized Mr. Benedict was not reading anymore. “Is that it?” Asher asked.
Mr. Benedict looked up from the foolscap. “No, Your Grace. Your father instructed me to pause here, and then—” The solicitor looked from Asher to Pierce but did not say anything.
“And then what?” Asher demanded as Pierce went from looking bored to irritated to, hell, Asher didn’t know what that look on his brother’s face was, but it was one he’d never seen.
“Lord Pierce?” Mr. Benedict asked.
Pierce’s expression became what could only be described as mutinous. “Have you forgotten how to read?” he snapped at the solicitor. “Get on with what I need to do and abandon whatever nonsense my father dreamed up in his mind. He was not in his head in the end, as we all know.”
Mr. Benedict sighed. “Lord Pierce, your father instructed me to read this to you at this juncture: There are no ties that bind the mind as tight as those of guilt. And a bound mind cannot think upon all it needs to address, such as being purposeless and repenting. I express my most heartfelt apology for spoiling you, for I believe that is the weakness that has led you astray. I did love you as best as I was able, but my remorse for what my own weakness cost me, I know, made me a hard man.”
Asher swallowed, uncomfortable with how his chest had tightened at his father’s unexpectedly human words. He had thought the man devoid of guilt, as he’d never expressed it, but it seemed Asher had thought wrong. He studied Pierce, who looked wholly uncomfortable now. Asher didn’t know to what his father’s words referred as the man had purposely prevaricated, but he supposed it was not his right to know what sins Pierce needed to repent. God knew Asher had sins he could ask forgiveness for, as well, and he sure as hell would never confess them before witnesses. So he wouldn’t question Pierce on it.
“Is that all?” he asked again instead.
“Yes. All that remains to be read is the list of the three ladies your father selected for you.” Mr. Benedict hitched a bushy black eyebrow. “If you wish to hear them?”
“And if I don’t?” Asher asked.
“I’m afraid if you do not hear them now and set your courtship in motion by tomorrow at the Antwerp ball, my instructions are to prepare the legal documents for your brother to inherit the money and the unentailed properties.”
“He doesn’t want to hear the names,” Pierce snapped. “He’s made that clear.”
Mr. Benedict looked to Asher. “Your Grace?”
Asher felt as if he was at the precipice of something he didn’t fully understand yet. It was unnerving. He liked being in control, and even dead, his father was somehow managing the situation. His gut reaction was to say no, but his rational side, the side that reminded him of those whose livelihoods depended on him, told him to at least hear the names, meet the ladies, and then decide how to proceed.
He kept replaying one thing in his mind that his father had said. Perhaps you do not have the backbone to do what it takes to triumph, either. We shall see.
He felt his lips pull into a smile. He did actually have an idea, which ironically was a tack he would be taking directly from his dear old father. He could wed one of the ladies to gain his inheritance, but that did not mean he had to stay wed to her, which would likely suit her, as well. Divorce was an option, though an admittedly difficult one.
“Who is on the list?” he asked.
“Lady Henrietta Burgh—”
Pierce let out a whistle. “Ill luck, Carrington. She eloped last week.” Pierce rested his hands on his knees, and an intent look came over him. “Who else is on the list, Benedict?”
Mr. Benedict inhaled deeply and then said, “Lady Constantine Colgate.”
Pierce shook his head. “That woman has ice where her heart should be. Damn, Father. It seems he’s set you up to fail.”
It did seem that way, but why would he go to the trouble to create this stipulation if he wanted Asher to fail?
“Who is last on the list?” Pierce demanded. His tone was now as tight as his face.
Mr. Benedict pressed his lips together for a moment, appearing grim. “Lady Guinevere Darlington.”
Asher’s jaw slipped open, and he noted that Pierce looked as astonished and outraged as Asher felt. Pierce let out a loud breath. “If I ever doubted Father was a cruel devil, this proves it. I’m sorry, Carrington. Perhaps you can persuade Lady Constantine. Unless you intend to try to approach Lady Guinevere, but you did throw her over for her best friend.”
“I do not intend to approach Lady Guinevere, nor did I throw her over,” Asher growled. Besides, the lady damn well had not cared. She herself had kissed another, kissed Kilgore—the swine—that same night Asher was discovered with Elizabeth in his arms.
Pierce stood and grabbed his empty glass. “What will you do?”
All the faces of all the people who would be harmed if he had to sell any of his distilleries filled Asher’s head, not to mention the years of work he had put in to build the company and make a name for himself. Damned if he wanted to have his hand forced by his father, but it seemed he had no choice. This was not about just him. “I’ll gain an introduction to Lady Constantine, and try to persuade her to wed me.” The words left him feeling hollow.
“And if you cannot persuade her?” Pierce asked, pouring more liquor into his glass. “Will you actually approach Lady Guinevere?”
Her face filled his mind. The gentle slope of her cheeks. Her plump, pretty lips. The way her eyes had always sparkled when she laughed. He’d once thought her charmingly innocent before she’d slain him with duplicity. Would he approach her? The mere thought sparked an odd combination of ire, wariness, and searing lust. If there was such a thing as an enchantress, Guinevere was it. She was dangerous to him because of that. Would he approach her? “I’ll do what I must,” he finally said.
Pierce tipped up his glass as he strolled over to Asher and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Welcome to the ton, Carrington, where we are ruled not by desire alone but by desperate need. Whatever you do, do it with a stiff upper lip and never let them know what you’re really thinking.”
Chapter Three
Guinevere’s bedchamber door burst open with such force that it clanked against the wall and caused the normally unflappable Ballenger to pause in working Guinevere’s unruly hair into something presentable for the Antwerp ball that evening. In the looking glass, Guinevere watched as both of her younger sisters proceeded into the room—Vivian in a swirl of blue silk and Frederica in her nightclothes. Both wore determined expressions.
“You have been avoiding us!” Frederica announced, striding across the room.
The megrim Guinevere had falsely claimed to have in order to avoid her sisters since the ball two nights prior began in truth directly behind her right
eye. With a sigh, she pressed her fingertips to her temples as a very vivid picture of Asher filled her mind.
He now wore his rich brown, thick hair shorter than he had five years ago. No more curls upon his neck. Pity, that. But sinfully dark stubble still grazed his wickedly handsome face. The man never had liked a proper shave, and she always had liked that about him. He’d been averse to the rules of society, and she’d been daft.
His image flashed once more in her memory, dark eyes that were altogether too knowing. Well, at least she thought they still were. She had not been able to see them well in the night, but his deep-timbered brogue had sounded as confident as ever. He was taller than she remembered, though. She could have sworn her head had once come above his shoulder, but it seemed it was not so. Everything about Asher—from his great height to his voice to, well, simply his mannerisms—made her feel fragile, devil take the rogue. She’d given up trying to think of him as Carrington. Her mind simply would not do it. She squeezed her eyes shut.
On a throat being cleared, she forced them open once more to find Ballenger staring at her questioningly.
“That will be all, Ballenger,” Guinevere said, her voice unusually weak. And no wonder! She’d slept horribly since her encounter with Asher.
She stared at herself in the mirror as Ballenger departed with a nod and a handing over of the hairbrush to Vivian. She’d thought to cut her hair more times than she could count, but she didn’t, and she wished she didn’t remember why, but of course, she did.
Him. Asher.
He had once told her she had the most glorious hair he had ever seen and that he wanted to pluck out every pin she vilely allowed to constrain it. He had said how he would then dearly love to let the silken strands—his words, not hers—slide through his fingertips. He never had, but she’d never forgotten what he’d told her.
The door shut with a soft swish, and her sisters launched at her like two well-seasoned agents of the Crown intent on discovering the enemy’s secrets no matter the cost.
“You said you had quite forgotten him!” Freddy exclaimed, taking the brush from Vivian and yanking it through Guinevere’s hair.
“Freddy!” Guinevere gasped, reaching behind her and snatching the weapon from her younger sister’s hands. “I do believe you’ve left me with a bald spot,” she muttered and dropped the hairbrush in her lap before rubbing her stinging scalp.
Vivian set a gentle hand on Guinevere’s left shoulder. “Are you unsettled from the encounter with Carrington?”
She was positively dizzied still, but she didn’t want to admit it. It irked her that a man she knew to be a liar could still give her heart palpitations. He was the very reason she’d started the Society of Ladies Against Rogues, whose primary purpose was to ensure no woman was ever duped by a villainous rogue again. They had not stopped all ruinations of women, of course, but they had halted a reasonable amount.
Frederica looked down her pert nose at Guinevere. “Do not ignore the question. Does the duke still affect you terribly?”
“Absolutely not,” Guinevere fibbed.
“She’s lying,” Frederica announced in her typical no-nonsense manner.
“I am not,” Guinevere sputtered.
“You are,” her youngest sister returned, focusing her gaze on Vivian. “Did you hear how her voice went up an octave?”
“I heard,” Vivian said, her blue gaze latching onto Guinevere’s with a sympathetic look. Though Vivian was five years younger than Guinevere and one year older than Frederica, she was more like Guinevere than she was Frederica. Vivian and Guinevere were both naturally soft and mushy on the inside. They were prone to feel too much too strongly, which was why Guinevere had been especially proud that she had gotten over how Asher had ripped her heart out of her chest, but it seemed now she was not actually quite as over it as she had convinced herself she had been previously.
“‘Double, double, toil and trouble.’” Guinevere’s eyes widened as she slapped a palm over her mouth at the words that had just escaped her treacherous lips.
Both her sisters’ gazes collided with hers at once—Frederica’s horrified and Vivian’s filled with wisdom beyond her years. It was the sort of wisdom Vivian had because she had been ill for many years as a child. Her insight was born of patience, endurance, and a deep understanding of the struggle it could take to overcome the past.
“She’s quoting Shakespeare again,” Frederica said with a shake of her head and a worried look at Vivian.
“I can hear you, you know,” Guinevere snapped, more irritated at herself than her sisters. It had been years since her annoying and embarrassing habit of blurting out Shakespearean quotes when she was vexed had occurred. She gnashed her teeth at the thought that she might be beset with the problem again. It had started when she’d made her first appearance in Society at Almack’s and had been, she believed, a large part of why her first Season had been so disastrous. Well, that and her penchant for talking politics. And perhaps that she’d been about as graceful as a newborn colt. She supposed her inability to feign her dislike of gossipmongers and men fawning after her for the coin her dowry could add to their coffers had been a factor, as well. Oh, and old, eagle-eyed, tight-lipped matrons who looked down on any woman with an ounce of life in her.
Her mother had been beside herself at Guinevere’s miserable start to the Season, and then he had appeared and turned it around before he had flipped it upside down. He was a Scot but also a marquess, so he was allowed to court her. The blurting of quotes had stopped as the courtship had begun. But…
There was always a but, wasn’t there? She despised the word.
She nibbled on her lip as the memories assaulted her. He had made her feel womanly, graceful, interesting, and understood. He had filled her with hope that a real love match was possible. She had fantasized they would be wed by the end of the Season and have their first child by the end of the next. Their grand love would fall from the aged lips of gossipmongers for years to come. She actually had been giddy at the prospect. Giddy!
The story would have gone like this:
Once upon a time there was a misunderstood, overlooked, slightly plump young lady who was wrongfully ignored at worst, tolerated at best. Then one day, a handsome, mysterious Scot appeared in Town, and of all the women he could court, he chose her because she was like no other. An undiscovered diamond of the first water. He was irrevocably and hopelessly besotted by her, and he got down on one knee in the middle of a field of lilies, her favorite flower, and asked for her hand! She’d always wanted to be proposed to in a field of wild purple lilies, just as her grandfather had proposed to her grandmother.
“Guinevere Darlington!”
Frederica’s exasperated voice, as well as her fingers snapping in front of Guinevere’s face, jerked her back to the moment. A flush immediately covered her from her yet-to-be completed hair all the way down to her slipperless feet. She curled her toes at her embarrassment.
Frederica pointed an accusing finger at her. “You were daydreaming about Carrington.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Guinevere replied in the most unaffected tone she could muster. “Viv, please repair my hair. You know Mama will call on us to depart for the Antwerp ball at any moment, and she will have a fit if—”
“Girls!” came Mama’s shrill voice. It shot up the stairs, down the hall, and straight under the door of Guinevere’s bedchamber to pierce their ears, as only their mother’s voice could do. Each of them winced. “We must depart! We do not wish to be late. Let us all pray, especially you, Vivian, that Guinevere will finally concede to make a match this night.”
Guinevere rolled her eyes as her sisters gave her sympathetic looks.
Vivian patted Guinevere’s hand before she moved behind her to finish her hair. “I do not mind, Guinnie, that you have not wed yet,” she said in a soothing voice.
“I know you don’t, darling,” Guinevere replied, smiling at each of her sisters in turn with true affection. Only sisters
who truly loved her would not be bothered that their mother had declared that Vivian, who their mother had finally allowed to be presented this Season, could not be courted until Guinevere was betrothed. Their mother was very clever. By allowing Vivian to come out, she was effectively forcing Guinevere’s hand.
And it would work.
What choice did she have? If she did not get herself betrothed, then Vivian could not be courted, and if Vivian could not be courted and become betrothed, then Mama would not allow Frederica to make her appearance at Almack’s to find a suitable husband.
Guinevere bit the inside of her cheek to quell her desire to scream. She’d been trumped by her mother. But Guinevere was determined to take back as much control as she could. If she finally must wed, she would do so on her own terms. Somehow.
“There!” Vivian said. “Guinevere, I swear you are too beautiful for your own good.”
Guinevere stared at herself in the mirror. Brown hair. Green eyes. Yes, her hair did shine, and her eyes were bright. Her lashes were dark and passably long. A straight nose and teeth helped the overall appearance. The years had been kind to her looks, she supposed, and had been good for her backbone. Heartbreak did give one a spine of steel, but her heart had not mended properly. The most important piece was missing—the one that still believed in true love.
She sighed.
“Girls!” Mama shrilled again. “Your father is becoming impatient.”
Guinevere scoffed. That was an untruth if ever there was one. Papa tolerated balls for Mama’s sake. Guinevere slipped on her shoes, rose to her feet, and the three of them stood there for a moment, Guinevere’s secrets unspoken and swirling between them. She had once been completely in love with Asher. Perhaps it had been a young, foolish love, and surely it had been one-sided love, but it had been love for her part.
Vivian surprised Guinevere by taking her hand and squeezing it. “If I’m near Carrington tonight, I’m going to elbow him sharply in the ribs.”
Lady Guinevere And The Rogue With A Brogue (Scottish Scoundrels: Ensnared Hearts Book 1) Page 4
