Ashton: Lord of Truth (Lonely Lords Book 13)

by Grace Burrowes

  “What is the real problem?” Matilda asked. A fortune in fine tailoring had been folded into the trunk, and putting it away was a waste of time. Even a dedicated dandy couldn’t wear this many outfits in little more than a week’s time.

  Matilda went on with her task anyway, because each item of clothing was another small insight into Ashton Fenwick. He favored brown and gray over blue or green, elegance over fussiness. His jewelry box was small, his lap desk solidly made and unadorned, though the family crest had been carved onto the lid.

  “Did you make that yourself?” Matilda asked, tracing the unicorn’s horn.

  “Aye. How did you guess?”

  “It reminds me of you.” Sturdy, serviceable, unpretentious, and yet, the man who owned all this clothing was not merely wealthy gentry. He commanded formidable resources. Helen had said there were five more trunks at the Albany just as large as the one Matilda was emptying. The mews housed a team of chestnut geldings matched right down to their star, strip, and stockings.

  “What’s this?” Helen asked, holding up a length of folded plaid.

  “A sash for the fancy dress kilt my sister-in-law insisted I bring along. Might have to attend some Scottish lord’s wedding, she said. Very subtle, is our Alyssa. Easier to pack the outfit than argue with her.”

  Ashton had avoided Matilda’s previous question, and that bothered her. A man who owned this much finery would have no trouble blending in with the Tuesday-morning levee crowd. The king would spare him a passing word or two, other gentlemen would be politely bored, and that would be that.

  Drexel might attend. He was a proper Tory toady, and he would not know what to make of Ashton Fenwick.

  The thought pleased her.

  “Wear the kilt,” she said. “The whole kit with the sporran, sash, and bonnet.”

  “How do you know of the accoutrements?” Ashton asked, taking the plaid from Helen. He handled the wool respectfully, unlike the silk and satin.

  “Because it’s your national dress,” Matilda said. “And others of appreciable rank and status have worn it before you. You won’t offend George by cutting a dash, and you will make a statement.”

  “Statement begins with s,” Helen informed them, “like smart, saucy, and swive.”

  Ye gods, the girl was growing worse. “Shame begins with s too, young lady.”

  “I have a few days to make up my mind,” Ashton muttered, fishing a tasseled sporran out of the trunk. “I’d be noticed.”

  “You’d be noticed on your own terms,” Matilda said, taking the sporran from him. “And to blazes with anyone who doesn’t like those terms.”

  He’d laid the folded plaid across his shoulders. The pattern was a subdued brown and gray with hints of red, suggestive of the hunting plaids designed to blend in with foliage and bracken.

  “I’d like to see you in your kilt,” Matilda added. Just once.

  Ashton took the plaid from his own shoulders and looped the length of it around Matilda’s back, pulling her a step closer.

  “Then that settles it. I’ll greet the king in my plaid, or not at all. The lady of the house has spoken.”

  His smile was relieved, suggesting he’d needed somebody to remind him that he had a choice, that he wasn’t a bondsman indentured to the whims of his titled friend.

  And Matilda had needed somebody to remind her that she was alive. Not quite an even trade, but she was glad to have been a friend to Ashton in even a small way. Maybe when the sun went down, she’d become his lover in truth, and not simply the woman he’d pleasured once upon a time in the back garden.

  Chapter Eight

  “Duke has a u in it,” Helen said, running her hand over the donkey’s shaggy neck.

  “What else do you hear in that word?” Ashton heard pomposity, wealth, arrogance, and politics. Yesterday’s decision to wear his kilt to the levee would probably raise a few ducal eyebrows, and that gratified Ashton more than it should.

  “Duke also has a d and a k,” Helen replied. “D-u-k.”

  “Very good. Can you think of a word that rhymes with it?”

  Spelling was something of a performance art for even the well-educated, and Helen was suspicious of vowels. Her original definition of a vowel referred to a note of hand to secure a debt of honor, an I Owe You, not some peculiar letter that changed its sound on a whim.

  Ashton had taken several days to get to the bottom of her confusion, though with Helen, confusion manifested as indignation and profanity. Always.

  “A word that rhymes with duke would be…” She moved her lips in a silent canvassing of the alphabet.

  Ashton breathed a sigh of relief when she’d passed f—Helen delighted in mocking his burr—but realized where she was heading when she grinned at him over Marmaduke’s back.

  “Puke,” she said. “P-u-k.”

  “You might have said fluke. It’s an odd kind of fish. Marmaduke likes to have his chin scratched.”

  Helen delighted in the donkey, and the donkey, being no fool, delighted in her. Buying the beast had been an impulse, but worth it for the consternation he caused at Tatts and in the fancy stables attached to the Albany.

  The unexpected benefit had been Helen’s reaction. Never had a lowly ass been regarded with such reverent amazement.

  As Ashton showed Helen the basics of equine grooming and further parsed the mysteries of long vowels, he also considered Matilda’s reaction to their evening in the garden. Yesterday, she’d taken charge of his wardrobe, such as one trunk constituted a wardrobe.

  Ashton had liked the sight of her handling his clothing. Her hands on his satin breeches had provoked stirrings of the private sort, but then, so did her admission that she’d enjoy seeing him in his kilt. For her, he’d wear the plaid anywhere.

  Or take it off. She hadn’t given him any indication that she wanted it off of him, so Ashton waited, and let his bath water cool thoroughly before he washed.

  “Where are we going today?” Helen asked as Ashton adjusted a pony bridle to fit Marmaduke’s ungainly head.

  “To pay a call on a solicitor. You’ll stay with Dusty.”

  “Mr. Harder,” Helen said. “I don’t like him.”

  “You don’t like much of anybody, and his name is Harpster. What has he done to offend you?”

  Helen used an overturned bucket to scramble onto Duke’s back and accepted the reins when Ashton looped them over the donkey’s head.

  “Mr. Harpster looks hungry, when he gets plenty to eat,” Helen said. “His clerks aren’t getting enough to eat, though. They had scared eyes. Some of the game girls have eyes like that. The young ones.”

  Ashton accepted Dusty’s reins from a groom—the Albany’s stable help was excellent—and led the horse out to the mounting block.

  “You will never ply that trade,” Ashton said. “Put it from your mind. You will be better situated than your sister if you apply yourself to your letters and learn the manners Mrs. Bryce is trying to teach you.”

  Helen made a show of petting the donkey, but Ashton could see the questions in her eyes. A very few courtesans were well provided for, and even fewer married a besotted protector. Fairy tales came true just often enough to let a game girl keep plying her trade, despite disease, violence, penury, and disgrace. A country maid might walk the streets for a few years and retreat to her village before her health suffered irreparable harm, but whispers would follow her for the rest of her life.

  Rather like being a bastard earl.

  “How long will we be at Mr. Harpster’s?” Helen asked as Ashton turned his horse into the street.

  The girl could out-eat a yeoman in haying season. “Not past your midday meal.”

  “You want to get back to Mrs. Bryce’s.”

  Ashton hadn’t wanted to leave the quiet, tidy house with the tiny garden and the passionate landlady. “You should ride behind me a few yards, keep a respectful distance, and watch for any who’d do me harm.”

  For all her insouciance, Helen took her job
with touching seriousness. She dropped back a few horse lengths, and anybody watching would not have associated the lad on the shaggy donkey with the fine gent on the dark gelding.

  Harpster was all genial welcome, though Ashton couldn’t help confirming Helen’s assessment. The solicitor’s gaze was avaricious, even when he smiled and welcomed Ashton into his office.

  “My lord, good day. Shall I ring for tea?”

  “I’m here to do business, Harpster, not socialize. Have you prepared the map I requested?”

  “As to that, I invite you to have a seat. We will discuss the status of your tenancies in as great detail as you please. The day promises to be splendid, does it not? Spring always gladdens the heart after the dreary months of winter.”

  And unnecessarily long meetings with wealthy clients doubtless gladdened Harpster’s heart. Ashton took a seat and maintained his silence, while Harpster bustled around to the other side of the desk and prattled on about the events of the upcoming Season and the benefits of having the Earl of Hazelton as a sponsor.

  As if Ashton were a debutante?

  “About my map?”

  “You shall have it!” Harpster went to the door, stepped into the other room, and conferred with a clerk, or made a pretense of doing so. On the desk were stacked five thick ledgers, all green, all embossed with the Kilkenney crest.

  Ashton took the account book on the bottom of the pile and leafed through it. The record was from five years ago, when Ewan had still held the title. Farm by farm, month by month, expenses and revenues were tallied in a tidy hand. Comparable records were kept in Scotland, but as far as Ashton knew, nobody had ever set the two side by side.

  “My lord,” Harpster said, striding back into the room and closing the door. “I am very sorry to say that the requested map is not yet complete. My staff has failed me, and thus I must disappoint you. The work was ongoing when a matter pressing toward litigation seized my head clerk’s notice, and our progress on your assignment has fallen short of the goal. I see you have taken notice of the estate ledgers. I hope all is in order?”

  The avarice in Harpster’s gaze was laced with something else. Anxiety, ire, resentment. Ashton couldn’t tell exactly, though Helen might have been able to parse it.

  What did it say about the firm of Harpster and Sons that Ashton trusted a juvenile pickpocket’s judgment more than he trusted his own firm of solicitors?

  “I have much to do today, Harpster.”

  “As well you should, with the Season nigh upon us. The tailor’s fittings alone can take half your time, and then there are social calls that must be attended to, the early entertainments, the blandishments found only in the capital. I do understand, my lord, and we are ready to assist in any and every regard. Perhaps we might use this morning’s appointment to discuss your views on marriage settlements?”

  For the past three years, Ashton had tolerated Harpster’s fawning and smiling on those occasions when travel to London had been unavoidable. Ewan had inherited the firm along with the title, but had never particularly sung Harpster’s praises.

  “Our appointment is over,” Ashton said, rising, “as is our association. If you can’t prepare a simple map in a timely fashion, then you should at least have the decency not to waste my morning with a meeting for which you are unprepared. I understand that the press of business can be compelling. I do not understand rudeness. A note rescheduling would have been sufficient, provided you apologized for the delay.”

  Harpster remained by the door, as if one pale, paunchy solicitor would stop a Highlander intent on charging to freedom.

  “You are being very hasty, my lord. Travel has doubtless left you fatigued, and the capital can be overwhelming to those more comfortable in the shires. I’m willing to overlook this outburst, though in future, given your unfortunate past, you would be well advised to—”

  “I’ll wish you a good day now,” Ashton said, scooping up the ledgers, “lest I kill you and ruin what remains of your morning and mine. If you complete the map by close of business, you may send it ’round to the Albany with a final bill for services rendered.”

  Ashton took a moment to savor the consternation on Harpster’s face, then bowed and stalked out.

  “You!” Ashton called to the largest of the clerks. “You will please run these over to the Albany for me and stop by the chophouse on your way back. The lot of you can use a decent meal.” He set the ledgers on the boy’s desk and slapped a pile of coins atop the books. “Bring that one with you,” he said, pointing to the next-sturdiest boy, “to help carry the food and the ledgers.”

  “Yes, milord,” the clerk said, scrambling off his stool and dropping the coins into his pocket. “At once, milord. C’mon, Smith. The man wants his ledgers delivered.”

  The boys were out the door as if the excise men were galloping up the High Street. Ashton followed at a slower pace.

  “Short meeting,” Helen said as Ashton tightened Dusty’s girth.

  “I sacked him.”

  “Good.”

  “Not good. Now I must find another firm to handle my business.” Which meant a call on Hazelton, damn the luck.

  “Too bad for you, London hasn’t but one or two solicitors, and none of them will want to do business with a wealthy earl.”

  Ashton climbed into the saddle. “You’re to follow a few respectful paces behind.”

  Helen scrambled onto Duke’s back. “At once, my lord. I live to serve your worship. Serve begins with an s.”

  “So do swat, spank, and sermon.”

  Helen resumed her vigilance on the ride to Mayfair, and Dusty was sufficiently blasé about town traffic that Ashton had a moment to consider his decision to sack Harpster.

  Harpster was arrogant, self-interested, greedy, lazy, and untrustworthy. A solicitor could be all those things and still be competent, as could an earl. Ashton had sacked Harpster because such a man couldn’t be allowed to have anything to do with fashioning marriage settlements.

  Not when Ashton himself could barely fathom such an undertaking.

  He set that thought aside and made his way to the Earl of Hazelton’s abode, though the hour was still early for a social call. Hazelton was in his library, correspondence in piles around him, a tortoiseshell cat who rivaled Solomon for size and self-possession lounging amid the chaos.

  “I don’t have your list of scandals yet,” Hazelton said, coming around the desk. “And if you’re here to beg off regarding Tuesday’s levee, spare me your pleading.”

  Ashton wandered the shelves of books, wondering how many had actually been read. Most, he’d guess. His lordship had a mind that did not tolerate boredom.

  “For your information, Hazelton, I’ve met the sovereign twice. On both occasions, he harangued me about the presumptuousness of a certain Northumbrian coal nabob whose importuning for a spot on the honors list annoys the royal person. Though I’ve not been to Newcastle since I was fifteen, George expects me to know this worthy—I’m from ‘the north,’ after all—and to inspire him to leave off lusting for a barony.”

  “You’ve been introduced to the king twice?” Hazelton was surprised, which was some satisfaction in itself.

  “The Duke of Atholl and I get on well, and Ewan dragged me to meet George nearly three years ago. Your neighbor, Viscount Landover, sent a letter of introduction, and some of his friends were good enough to speak on my behalf.”

  Hazelton used his quill pen to tease the cat’s nose. “So my patronage isn’t required?”

  Ashton liked Hazelton, but the time had come to make a few things clear.

  “Your good intentions are appreciated, but if you ever again commit my time without my permission, I will show you how a bastard Scotsman expresses his displeasure with another’s rudeness.”

  Hazelton sat back, his dark features shuttering. “Rudeness? I arrange for you to spend time in the presence of your king, and you thank me with that insult?”

  Ashton leaned over the desk. “Do I commit your tim
e without consulting you? Does your countess even take that liberty? Does your father-in-law-the-bloody-duke speak for your time or constrain your freedom with stupid social obligations?”

  The cat played with the quill, mangling one end, then batting the whole feather over the side of the desk. Ashton maintained a glower that had convinced three-quarter-ton draft stallions to turn up as biddable as lambs.

  “I apologize, Fenwick. It won’t happen again.”

  “When you’re trying to be humble—and failing badly—you might consider using the title,” Ashton said, picking up the white feather. “How is your countess?”

  Hazelton rose with the cat in his arms. “She also reminds me to use your title, but I thought you were avoiding it.”

  “I am, for now, but my days as just another breathtakingly handsome face are numbered, thanks in part to you. I need the name of a trustworthy solicitor.”

  The cat took up a perch on Hazelton’s shoulder, which gave the earl the air of a sorcerer—or an eccentric.

  “I thought you used Harpster. He’s reputed to be competent.”

  “I let him go. Got airs above his station and wasted my time. Harpster took to corresponding directly with my English tenants, and they with him. I never gave him leave to speak for me in that fashion. The correspondence grew unnecessarily heated and costly. That sort of assistance would soon land me in the poorhouse.”

  “I see.”

  The cat tried to lick Hazelton’s ear, which moved the picture they made squarely into the eccentric camp.

  “Harpster could not contain his enthusiasm for negotiating marriage settlements,” Ashton said. “I gather a canny solicitor can ensure those negotiations are more time-consuming than the courtship itself. I don’t care for that approach to marriage, and I don’t care for being told my situation is so delicate that even a lazy London solicitor knows more about how I should go on than I do.”

  Ashton plucked the cat from the earl’s shoulder. The beast must have weighed nearly twenty pounds.

  “Fenwick, you can’t—”