Damnation. He had to find her.
“Do ye know where she might be?” he asked.
“Perhaps one of our homes?” Lady Lilias offered. “Let us each go to our house to check.”
“Thank ye.” He was going to go to Pierce’s townhome next, and if they weren’t there, he’d rip England apart to find his wife and tell her he was sorry, and then he was going to give Pierce a beating he’d never forget. “If ye could, please send word to my valet Cushman if ye find her, even if she’s unwilling to return to me.”
“What shall we tell her if we find her? You know, to perhaps persuade her to listen to you?” Lady Lilias asked.
He swept his gaze over each woman. “If ye see her, please tell her that mo chridhe means my heart. And mo ghraidh means my love.”
Guinevere was not at Pierce’s townhome, and neither was Pierce, and the townhome looked exactly as it had the last time Asher had seen it. Asher stared at Pierce’s butler, Bentley, and repeated the question he’d just asked because the answer made no sense. “Ye are saying this townhome is not being redecorated?”
“No, Your Grace,” the butler answered. “It has not changed since it was decorated some twenty years ago.”
Asher pinched the skin between his brows. Pierce had lied about this, as well, and this time the reason was obvious. He’d wanted a reason to stay with Asher and Guinevere. The thoughts that had been dull and disquieting after Asher’s discussion with Kilgore were sharp and loud now. Pierce had been planning to make Guinevere his, but for how long?
“When was the last time ye saw my brother?” he asked Bentley.
“Yesterday, Your Grace. He had me pack a trunk for him, and he said he would not be returning.”
Asher’s blood froze in his veins. “Those were his words?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Asher departed without a word and sent the horses into a gallop toward his home, his mind racing in time with their hooves. Pierce had tried to dissuade Asher from pursuing Guinevere when Asher had first come to London. Pierce had been the first to say that Guinevere was not worthy of him, and only then had their father spoken up.
As his conveyance jangled down the road, Asher could easily picture the moment he’d first seen Guinevere and had gone to speak with her. But now he tried to recall earlier. He, his father, and Pierce had been standing side by side after just being announced and coming into the ballroom.
Asher had made a comment that he thought Guinevere was lovely, but he had called her the chestnut-haired girl with the bonny smile. Pierce had been holding a glass of some sort of liquor, and he’d spilled it on their father, turned to him, patted him, and said something that Asher had not heard. When Pierce had turned to face Asher once more, he’d said Guinevere was not worthy of Asher and their father had not only agreed but he had forbidden Asher from speaking to her.
Naturally, for a hardheaded half Scot who already had a strained relationship with his father, that had been like sticking a rabbit in front of a fox. Asher had gone straight for her, but she had captured him.
Asher pulled the horses to the side of the stables, and as Digby came out, he said, “Has she—”
“No, Your Grace.”
“Damn,” Asher muttered, leaving Digby to the horses and striding toward his townhome. As he strode to the house, his mind turned. Had Pierce wanted her then but had not had the nerve to court her? Had he made attempts that had gone unnoticed or ignored because Guinevere had only ever thought of Pierce as a friend?
What was all the planning and scheming for now? Guinevere was Asher’s wife. It was too late. And in that, Asher realized he had his answer. It brought him to a stop, worry for Guinevere settling into every part of him. Pierce was desperate. In his mind, he’d lost everything. The title. The unentailed lands. The money. Guinevere.
And they’d all been tied together.
Asher burst into the house and almost knocked Cushman over, who it seemed had been about to open the door.
“My lord,” Cushman said, “I saw you come up the drive. I’ve three messages here, each labeled Urgent.”
Asher took the sealed notes with a nod, tore open the first one from Lady Lilias, and cursed at the news that Guinevere had not been to her house. Then he opened the next from Lady Emmeline with the same result and another curse, and then the next from Lady Abigail. It, too, imparted the same news.
“Damnation!” he swore. “I am going back out.”
“My lord!” Cushman burst out.
Asher swiveled back toward the man. “Aye?”
“You received another letter. This one came yesterday.” Cushman held the sealed letter out to Asher, who took it, saw it was from his solicitor, and opened it, thinking perhaps Pierce had contacted Mr. Benedict in his scheming. Cushman left him alone to read, which was a good thing, as Asher’s mouth slipped open when he read the note.
Your Grace,
Your father instructed me to send this letter to you if you ended up wed to Lady Guinevere. I am sorry for the short delay, as I was ill for several days.
Asher turned to the next page and began to read.
Dear Son,
It’s my hope that all is very well with you and your wife. In all I have done to make this union possible, I want you to know I have done so out of the recent comprehension of my own fault in character, and out of a hope that you will accept that, from the time you left London and foreswore me, I understood I had much to atone. Your anger and wish not to forgive me is fair, but I hope this will show you that I did love you and I was incredibly proud of the man you became, despite my presence in your life—or more likely because of my lack of presence in your life.
I regret immensely choosing money over you and your mother, and I regret even more that I asked you to come to London after your mother died for some right reasons but mostly for continued selfish ones.
You see, you were my chance to have the heir I’d always wanted. To crow to my friends of your shining glory. To prove to myself I had done one thing right in my life. I did crow, by the way, though you were not around to hear it, and I did nothing to make you who you are. You and your mother did that.
What I did was raise a selfish man, a man who will do anything to attain what he desires, a man weak in character just like his father—your brother. I don’t believe for one moment that he’s admitted any of his wrongdoings to you, though on my deathbed, I implored him to do so. He was, rightfully so, full of hatred for me because I could never love him the way I should have, in the way I love you.
Here are the facts of which you need to be aware. Do with them what you will once you know, but remember, at every turn, I’m quite sure I made your brother feel less than worthy because that’s how my father had always made me feel.
I first forbade you from pursuing Lady Guinevere because your brother had advised me that she was a woman of easy virtue.
Asher paused as a fresh wave of anger and fear gripped him. The need to find Guinevere pressed in on him from every side, but he suspected the letter would clear up some things and possibly guide him, so he continued to read.
I did not investigate this as I should have. I simply took his word, which I learned shortly after was not to be taken. I did not fathom until later how jealous he was of you before you had ever even arrived. I’ll admit, I was probably easily swayed by his false words because I wanted an Incomparable for you, which the Lady Guinevere was not at the time, or at least not by the silly standards I had come to accept.
Life is an ironic opponent, for as I write this now, I’ve come from the lady’s house to visit her father and inquire as subtly as I could if you had once truly had her affection. I chanced to glimpse her in the garden, and she is much like the most stunning of roses in full bloom. I’ve also discovered after further inquiries that she has wit as sharp as any thorn.
Asher smiled. How true those words were.
But I digress. I discovered after you were wed that your brother had orchestrated a great plo
t to ensure you would not end up with Lady Guinevere, whom, to my utter shock, he had nurtured hopes of wedding since they were much younger. I fear I may have worsened an already intolerable situation for the lady when I met her quite by accident in Town and tried to make amends for my part in her current predicament as the on-dit of the Season. I apologized for your pursuing her to spite me.
Asher winced, though Guinevere had told him of that meeting already.
In my defense, I had not yet discovered your brother’s plot to come between the two of you, the details of which I feel at this juncture cannot possibly matter, for one player, Elizabeth, is deceased and the other player, Lord Kilgore, is paying handsomely for his transgressions against you. Once I did discover it, though, I forbade your brother from pursuing Lady Guinevere with the threat of cutting him off completely from my funds.
That explained why Pierce had not attempted to do so until their father had died.
I did write all of this in my letters to you, each of which you returned unopened. Mr. Benedict has them now if you ever wish to read them. I have instructed him to keep them safe for you.
Guilt struck Asher in the chest that he’d never forgiven his father.
I did what I could with my will to ensure you end up with Lady Guinevere and to make amends for what has happened to you. Between myself and Mr. Benedict, we chose candidates for your wife that we knew were not truly candidates. And I did what I could in Scotland to ensure that you were motivated to swallow your pride and come to London so that I might right some wrongs for you, as I never had the chance to do in life.
He’d done what he could in Scotland? Was his father the cause of the troubles with his distilleries? He’d had contracts that people had unexplainably backed out of. Competitors that had come into huge amounts of money that enabled them to win bids he’d tried to win. The list went on, but in that long list was all the reasons he’d been forced to sell shares of his company.
Yes, Asher, I was the cause of your troubles.
It was as if the man were here speaking to him.
It pained me, but it had to be done, and it was nothing permanent. If you failed to wed, Benedict was instructed to give you the shares of your company that I had anonymously purchased from you, as well as a large sum of money for you to use as you saw fit. He was also instructed to tell you none of this. I am hoping you are thanking me now.
So his father had involved Mr. Benedict in his scheme? Asher made a note to give Mr. Benedict a hefty bonus.
I have become as certain as I can be that you cared greatly for Lady Guinevere, as she did for you. My investigator tells me you have not had dealings with another lady since Elizabeth died, and I can only imagine what your marriage to her was like. Probably like my marriage to my second wife—cold and barely tolerable.
I know from Lady Guinevere’s father that she has turned down several respectable offers of marriage, and I concluded, as did her father, that the two of you are simply waiting, without realizing it, for the time you shall be together.
Asher stared at those words in shock. His father and Guinevere’s had colluded to bring them together?
And now you are. You’re welcome.
That made him laugh. That was more like his father. Pompous, but as fate would have it, he’d had a heart.
I love you, Son. I only wish I’d been able to say it when I was alive.
A knot formed in Asher’s throat. He hated that feeling, but he hated the regret that pressed against him even more. He’d thrown away the chance to know his father, and he could not get that back. He could not tell him he forgave him, even though now he did.
Guinevere. God’s blood, Guinevere. He had just about destroyed his chance with her, too. He hoped she was all right. He had to find her. But where to even look? He’d start by getting help from Beckford, and—
A pounding at the front door broke his train of thought, and he opened it as the footman rushed into the room. He scowled at Asher.
“Habit from years with no servants,” Asher supplied as he stared at Beckford and Kilgore on his threshold.
“I was just coming to see ye,” Asher said to Beckford. Then to Kilgore, he said, “What are ye doing here?”
“He insisted,” Beckford said with a shrug.
“I am striving to atone,” Kilgore supplied, which immediately reminded Asher of his father’s words, so he nodded and stepped back to allow them entrance.
He told them the pertinent information he had discovered, leaving out the parts that were personal. “I’m going to go to my country house to see if they are there, but—”
“I have an idea as to where Talbot might have taken your wife,” Kilgore said, his smile hard. “I lost Grimsthorne, my country home in Lincolnshire, to Talbot. I would wager he’s gone there.”
It made perfect sense. Pierce would not think that Kilgore would be helping Asher. He stared at the man and made a choice to forgive, one he should have made with his father. “Let’s go get my wife.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“What do you think?” Talbot asked, sweeping his hand to indicate the Chinese drawing room.
Guinevere was thinking that she didn’t care, but she suspected Talbot would not welcome that answer. The journey here had been long, and Talbot had spoken nonstop of his home, claiming that he knew she would love it. He’d knocked on her bedchamber door a dozen times in the last day, and she had forced herself out of bed this afternoon, knowing she could not put him off any longer. It was unfair to him, though she honestly did not see why he cared what she thought about his home, but she would strive to be enthusiastic. She owed him that. He was doing her an immense favor by allowing her to take time here to plan.
The problem was she had gone over the situation in her mind in every possible way, and she could not see how she would obtain a divorce without it casting a horrible shadow on her sisters’ futures. Nor in her stupid heart of hearts was she quite ready to let go of Asher, but she had accepted that it would take time. She felt as if she were near death, but that, she supposed, was half-true. Part of her had died. The part that had hoped for extraordinary love with him. What she was left with was a shell of her former self, yet she needed to somehow go on.
Talbot chattered on about the home, telling her where different pieces came from, and she continued to think of her problems while nodding politely every now and then. She had made up her mind that when she returned to London, she would offer Asher the choice to live apart. Just thinking on it made her ache, but she could not live with him knowing he was taking other women to his bed. It was intolerable. Maybe, in time, she would not care, but now… Well, now she had not yet managed to kill her love for him.
It occurred to her suddenly that Talbot was no longer speaking. She glanced toward him to find him closer than he had previously been—within arm’s length—and scrutinizing her.
“What is it?” she inquired.
“I asked if you liked this room. I had it redecorated recently with you in mind.”
She nearly tripped over the rug under her feet. She frowned. “I beg your pardon?” She could not have heard him correctly, but when he stepped closer, an uneasy feeling rose in her. She stepped back only to come up against something. She glanced behind her shoulder and gaped at the ornate walnut and parcel-gilt chair.
“That was a gift from King George to my father,” Talbot said, stepping even closer. “Sit in it.”
“I—” She swallowed. “No, thank you.”
“Sit,” he commanded, his tone hard and his look even harder.
Her heart quickened, and she sat, clutching the arms of the chair.
Talbot came to stand directly in front of her and leaned down. “Don’t be frightened.”
The words served to worsen the fluttering in her chest. “Why would I be frightened?” she managed.
“I know I’ve surprised you.”
That was a vast understatement, but she merely nodded.
“I planned this in my head—ex
actly what I would say.”
Oh, dear heavens. She had missed some glaring sign from this man at some point. She felt both angry and sad at once, and then suspicious that she had been a fool to accept what he’d told her about Asher. The suspicion gave the anger a leg up against the sadness.
Talbot gave a lopsided, boyish grin. “I have waited a long time to confess this, but I love you.”
Her anger gave way a smidge to pity. She knew what it was like to love someone and not have it returned. Or did she? If she could not trust what Talbot had told her, then maybe Asher did love her. Hope overflowed.
“Talbot,” she started, determined to gently dissuade him, but he held up a hand and frowned at her.
“Let me finish. I know what you’ll say. You are wed to my brother. You are good and honorable so, of course, you will say that, but he doesn’t deserve you. I deserve you.”
“I’m not such a prize, Talbot,” she said. “I have a horrid temper, and I am not very trusting apparently.”
“You trusted me,” he said.
“And you lied to me, I think,” she replied.
He set his hands near hers on the armrests and leaned forward until their faces were so close she noticed the color of his eyes for the first time. Talbot had blue eyes the color of a thundercloud. He shrugged. “I might have a little, but you were meant to be mine, and he stole you from me. Fair is fair.”
She frowned. “How was I meant to be yours?”
“When I defended you, you told me that I was the most honorable, the most dashing boy you’d ever known.”
She vaguely remembered the day. She’d been but a girl of eleven summers, and she had read a passage from one of her mother’s hidden Gothic novels, and the words had popped into her head. She had thought them better to say than what she had been truly thinking—that she was irritated that Talbot had defended her when she had wanted to defend herself. If only she’d been truthful! She had to be so now.
“Talbot, those were the silly words of a silly girl.”
Lady Guinevere And The Rogue With A Brogue (Scottish Scoundrels: Ensnared Hearts Book 1) Page 27
