Papa nodded. “Yes. He paid me a visit a few months before he died, talked of your distilleries, and brought me some whisky as a gift.”
Asher frowned. “I’m surprised my father would share such information with ye. He kept to himself, as far as I knew.”
“He did,” Guinevere’s father agreed, “but at one time, your father and I were good friends—back in our university days.”
Asher frowned. “And he just showed up here one day uninvited? Without provocation?”
“We had business to discuss,” her father said rather evasively.
Asher apparently thought so, as well, because his gaze narrowed. “What sort of business?” Asher prodded.
If her father’s eyes had been windows, then someone had just slammed them shut. He got a shuddered look. “Personal business,” he replied, looking between Asher and Guinevere. “I will say this, though: your father could be a most insightful man when he turned his focus on something. He had the mind of a true tactician. It was, in fact, what drew us together in the first place.”
Asher nodded, and Guinevere could practically see his thoughts turning in his head. She wanted a moment alone with him before he left, and as if he read her thoughts—or more likely he noted the way she was staring with longing—he looked to her father. “Might yer daughter and I have a moment alone before I leave?”
“Of course,” her father replied, waving a hand to the same garden where he’d allowed her to be alone with Kilgore.
Asher’s mouth tightened, and Guinevere bit her lip. She wished she had never stepped into that garden with Kilgore.
When Asher proffered his arm, she took it, feeling his body respond to her touch. Their gazes met as they moved through the corridors to the door that led to the garden and then outside. When the door closed behind them, she turned to face him. There was so much she wanted to say, but she’d start with what she thought was most important.
“Please do not give any credit to what my mother said about why I refused the marriage offers I received.”
“Why did ye turn down the offers of marriage?” he asked, which did not give her much indication of how he was feeling.
She had thought herself very brave, but in this moment she was fearful to confess that he’d stolen her heart and she’d been unable to forget the feeling he had filled her with, the one that had made her think he had seen her inside and out and had liked what he’d seen. He had given her hope that she could have a marriage with a man who would appreciate her, and she had been unable to fully relinquish that hope. What if she told him all of that, what if she blurted her love, and he did not tell her the same? Or what if she bared her soul and discovered, in this moment, that their souls were the same as she had once thought—lost and looking for each other?
She swallowed the large lump in her throat. “I did not love them,” she whispered.
“I see,” he replied, his voice rough and low. He stared down at her, his gaze probing. “If we had not been caught in the woods, Guin, and ye had understood what had occurred with Elizabeth and me, and I had then asked ye to marry me, would ye have said—”
“Yes,” she interrupted, needing him to understand the desperation of what she felt for him so he would feel free to return it.
“Mo ghraidh.” His voice slid over her like silk as his thumb came to her lip to brush it with the warm pad. His other hand slipped behind her neck, and he pressed the most exquisitely tender kiss to her lips. When he pulled back, his fingertips curled around her neck, and he said, “When we are alone—”
“Guinevere!” her mother shrilled as light spilled from the house into the shadowy garden. “I’m certain Carrington needs to be getting on with his journey to his distillery.”
Guinevere bit her lip on a laugh, but she could not contain the smile. Mama was concerned about a chaste kiss, but it was far too late for concern. Guinevere had been corrupted completely, blissfully, eternally.
“When will you return?” she asked Asher as he broke contact with her much to her dismay. But since her mother was bearing down on them like a hound in chase, she did understand.
“Saturday,” he said, winking. “Let us plan on next Sunday here for the wedding.”
She scowled at him. If she did not love him and if her mother were not a breath away, she’d take him to task for being so dictatorial. But she did love him, even if she had not said it exactly and he had not said it back even close to exactly. He had said when we are alone, which gave her immense hope that he would share his heart with her then. Besides those things, she had no doubt that Mama would want the wedding here, if it was not to be in church, which would be difficult to manage on such short notice.
He brought her hand to his lips as Mama came to stand beside her, fairly panting. She must have run through the corridors to get to the garden so quickly. Guinevere scowled, but the moment Asher’s warm lips touched her skin, her discomfiture with her mother was forgotten, as the desire for the man before her consumed her.
He tilted his head close to her and whispered in her ear, “Remember this: ‘To thine own self be true.’”
She grinned. “Hamlet, Act One—”
“Scene Three,” he finished, smiling at her and stepping away as Mama cleared her throat loudly. “My lady.” He offered a tilt of his head, and just as quickly as he had reappeared in her life, he disappeared.
Before the garden door even clicked shut, Mama turned to her. “You should not have allowed such familiarities before he is your husband.”
She was weary of her mother’s criticism, but she knew Mama had only her best interest at heart. “A kiss on the hand hardly seemed outside the bounds to me, Mama.”
“I saw the two of you through the study window, Guinevere,” her mother scolded.
Heaven above, if she only knew!
“You would hate yourself for allowing such liberties if he jilted you,” Mama added.
Her words, sharp as any blow, were hard, painful, and unexpected, but with a sting far worse than a mere hit. Guinevere’s stomach knotted with thoughts. No. No, Asher would never jilt her. He had not been trying to seduce her last night. He wanted to wed her. It was true he had not told her he loved her, but she had not told him plainly she loved him, either.
She frowned. She had practically told him so, though, and Asher was an intelligent man. He had surely understood. What did mo ghraidh mean? The only person she knew who spoke Gaelic was Kilgore.
The idea to go see him took hold before she could stop it. Not only could he tell her what mo ghraidh meant, but he could provide answers to her questions.
The knock at her bedchamber door the next day sent Guinevere and her sisters scrambling to their feet and exchanging anxious glances.
“Yes?” Guinevere called, saying a silent prayer that it was not Mama returned to discuss more wedding arrangements but rather Ballenger returned from her mission to take a missive to Kilgore to meet Guinevere in the park.
“My lady, it’s Ballenger.”
Guinevere rushed to the door and pulled her lady’s maid inside the room. Abandoning niceties, she said, “Well?”
“The marquess is not in town.”
Guinevere’s shoulders slumped. “Oh.”
“His footman told you this?” Frederica asked from beside Guinevere.
Ballenger shook her head. “No, my lady. He was rude actually. He’s a strange one, that man. Nearly deaf and half-blind. I cannot see why the marquess employs him. He—”
“Ballenger!” Guinevere interrupted. She loved her lady’s maid dearly, but the woman did have a habit of losing track of the topic of conversation.
“If the footman did not tell you,” Vivian said, “then how did you come to discover Kilgore was not in residence?”
“Oh!” Frederica exclaimed. “Did you snoop?”
“Freddy, please,” Guinevere said, more snappish than she’d meant to be. But if Mama returned and wanted Guinevere for more wedding preparations, it could be evening before she h
eard the rest of Ballenger’s tale.
“Lord Pierce happened by on the way to his townhome, which seems to be next to Lord Kilgore’s.”
“Oh,” Guinevere said, surprised. She had not realized Talbot had a townhome near Kilgore’s residence, but then why would she have? She had not had occasion to be at either man’s townhome. A dreadful thought hit her. “Ballenger, please tell me that you did not reveal to Talbot that you were my lady’s maid.” She could only imagine what Asher would think if his half brother told him her lady’s maid had called upon Kilgore.
“Oh, no, my lady,” Ballenger said.
Dizzy relief struck Guinevere.
“But,” the woman continued, and Guinevere groaned. There was that word she positively despised. Ballenger paused, her eyes widening. “Shall I continue?”
“If you must,” Guinevere muttered.
At Ballenger’s look of confusion, Vivian said, “Yes, Ballenger, please do continue. Lady Guinevere is simply overtaxed from Mama.”
Ballenger nodded dutifully, though her expression was doubtful. “Lord Pierce recognized me from your parents’ annual ball.”
Now it was Guinevere’s turn to be positively confused. “Why would Talbot recognize you from the ball?” Guinevere asked, casting her mind back several weeks ago to the ball. What she mostly recalled about that night was her conversation with Asher. That night had marked the reappearance of him in her life. Had it really only been that short a time?
“Lord Pierce took a wrong turn trying to find the necessary, and I directed him, as we nearly collided when I came out of your bedchamber, my lady,” Ballenger said, looking at Guinevere.
“That’s quite the wrong turn,” Frederica said. “Does the man not know his left from his right?”
“Freddy, hush,” Guinevere said. “Talbot will be my brother-in-law soon. Who honestly cares if he has no sense of direction?”
“His sense of direction makes no matter to me,” Frederica protested, giving Guinevere a peevish look. “But—”
“No!” Guinevere snipped, feeling an ache begin behind her right eye. “Let us stay focused on the most important topic. Ballenger, are you saying Talbot knows you are my lady’s maid?”
Maybe all was not lost…
The woman flushed, and Guinevere groaned again. “You told him.”
Ballenger nodded and then hurriedly said, “Not today, of course. I would not be so foolish.”
“No, of course not,” Guinevere said, seeing the look of worry on Ballenger’s face. “Don’t fret.”
Ballenger needed this position, and Guinevere did not want the woman, who was nearly the same age as Guinevere was, to worry that her position was in jeopardy.
“I told him the night I redirected him at the ball. He was very kind and asked my name and position, as he wanted to tell your mother how I’d helped him, and he did.” She beamed. “Your mother gave me a bonus the next day.”
“I had not realized,” Guinevere said. Her mother could be so kind, which was one of the reasons Guinevere knew in her heart that Mama only meant well, though her words and actions had hurt over the years. “Did Talbot ask you what you were doing at Kilgore’s home?” She both wanted to know and dreaded the answer.
“Yes, my lady. I confess that I lied and said that I was there delivering a message from your father to Lord Kilgore telling him that the children’s orphanage meeting had been canceled. It seemed it would be a believable lie.”
“Well,” Guinevere said, “I do not know who does sit on the orphanage board besides my father, and hopefully, Talbot does not, either. Because if Kilgore does not—”
“He does,” Ballenger interrupted. Then she quickly said, “Beg your pardon for interrupting, my lady.”
Guinevere waved away the apology as she studied Ballenger, who would make a most excellent member of SLAR if only her lady’s maid could go to balls. “How do you come by such information?” Guinevere asked, intrigued.
Ballenger flushed the color of a ripe berry. “Your father speaks very loudly, my lady, and I could not help but hear your brother and father once discussing the marquess and an apparent wager.” She paused and gave Guinevere a look that could only be described as pointed.
“Oh my,” Guinevere said.
“What wager?” both Vivian and Frederica demanded at once.
Guinevere quickly told them of what Asher had told her about the wager.
“Kilgore is a blackhearted rogue!” Vivian exclaimed.
“I hardly think you can call a man who sits on the board of an orphanage a blackhearted rogue,” Frederica said, matter-of-fact. “I would think one would have to conclude him simply a rogue.”
Guinevere had to agree. Kilgore had turned out to be much more complex than she had ever thought him. She suspected the man had more layers than an onion. “When was this day that my father was speaking with Huntley?”
Ballenger appeared to be considering the question for a moment, and then she said, “I believe it was right before we departed for the house party. Your brother stormed through the halls, which did stir my curiosity.”
“Naturally,” Guinevere said.
“I might have moved closer to the door to position myself better to hear… God above, forgive me.”
Guinevere waved a dismissive hand. “I’m certain God has forgiven the transgression already. Go on.”
“Your brother was at White’s and had been glancing back through the wager books to find something from years before. He did not say why.”
“No matter,” Guinevere replied.
“In so doing, he discovered the aforementioned wager, and I believe he told your father he had come home to get his pistols to challenge Kilgore to a duel.”
“Duels are illegal!” Vivian exclaimed.
“Don’t be a dullard, Viv,” Frederica said, elbowing Vivian, who did sometimes seem to misplace her common sense. “Men know duels are illegal, but they engage in them secretly because men are led by foolish pride.”
The statement immediately made Guinevere think of Asher. She had once wounded his pride, possibly his heart, and instead of talking to her, he had kissed Elizabeth and snatched their future from them. But the truth was, she might have done the same thing had she been in his position. And that was her primary trouble. She had always thought more like a man than a woman.
“Men are also led by the desire for power,” Vivian retorted, giving Frederica a superior look.
“Do not squabble,” Guinevere chided, sensing that her sisters were headed that way. To Ballenger, she said, “I presume since Huntley has not been wounded in the past week, at least not to my knowledge, that my father dissuaded him.”
“Yes, my lady. If I recall correctly, your father told your brother that he suspected Kilgore was going to be dealt with shortly by the Duke of Carrington, and if Carrington failed to show Kilgore his fist—I believe that’s what he said—your father would personally do it after the next board meeting for the orphanage, as they both sat on the board.”
She didn’t understand at all. According to Ballenger, her father’s talk with her brother had occurred before Guinevere had been caught with Asher, which meant her father should have had no reason to think that Asher would deal with Kilgore, let alone even be in Guinevere’s life. As far as her father had known, Guinevere had not talked to Asher in five years. Her thoughts drifted to her father saying that Asher’s father had come to see him and the purposely evasive answer he had given when Asher had remarked on the strangeness of it all. It seemed to her that the dangling strings had to connect in some way, but she could not imagine how.
For a moment she contemplated approaching her father, but she did not want to put Ballenger in jeopardy if her father questioned how Guinevere had known of the conversation between her father and brother. She could lie and say she herself had overheard them, but in her experience, lies created a web that was entirely too easy to get caught in. Not to mention her father’s response earlier to being questioned left her li
ttle hope he’d supply information now.
Before she could contemplate it further, her bedchamber door swung open to reveal her mother standing in the doorway.
Mama frowned as she swept her gaze over the lot of them. “What is this?”
“We were just discussing what gown Guinevere should wear for her wedding, Mama,” Vivian spoke up.
“That will have to wait. I need to speak with Guinevere alone.”
Guinevere nearly groaned. In her experience, that meant her mother wanted to lecture her or point out some way in which she was lacking. But it was useless to try to get out of the talk, and within moments, Guinevere found herself alone sitting beside her mother on the bed.
Silence stretched, and then her mother situated herself, cleared her throat, and said, “I fear I have done you an injustice, Guinevere. I have been unable to sleep since my comment to you in the garden.”
Her mother’s never-before-heard admission stunned Guinevere into momentary silence. She swallowed. “Why, Mama?”
“Well, I… Well…” Her mother paused, took Guinevere by the hand, and squeezed gently. “I have tried at every turn to make your time on the marriage mart easier than mine was, and I often felt you fought me and made things more difficult for yourself. I know you believe I thought you lacking, and I want you to know that was never the case. I know how superficial Society can be, and I simply feared, since you came late into your looks, that you would be passed by. Then I feared you would become a spinster because you so stubbornly refused those other marriage offers.”
“I am sorry if I caused you worry, Mama. I simply did not want to marry a man who did not care a whit about who I was on the inside and only offered for me because my face and dowry were pleasing.” She would leave out the part that she had loved Asher for five long years and she suspected it would not have mattered who had offered for her.
Mama nodded. “I do understand that, my dear.” Her mother blushed. “I have been jealous of you.”
“Of me?” Guinevere blinked. “But you were an Incomparable.”
“I was a coward, and I still am. I molded myself into what Society expected of me, and I never had the courage to do otherwise. Shall I tell you a secret that only my mother knew?”
Lady Guinevere And The Rogue With A Brogue (Scottish Scoundrels: Ensnared Hearts Book 1) Page 20
