Ashton: Lord of Truth (Lonely Lords Book 13)

by Grace Burrowes

  Stephen cast himself into a chair opposite Drexel’s. Both were positioned by a window, the drapes pulled back to let in sunshine and reveal a view of a tidy back garden. The morning light showed the resemblance between Stephen and his late father that would emerge as the years passed. For now, Stephen was robust, golden-haired, and outgoing, but in another ten years, he’d have his father’s receding hair to go with the already evident receding chin.

  Also his father’s devotion to the bottle, alas. That took a toll on a man in many ways.

  “One doesn’t tolerate disrespect,” Stephen retorted. “Basingstoke doesn’t know his place.”

  “He’s the youngest son, probably the only one doing any real work at his papa’s firm, and his antecedents are irregular. What do you think will happen if I let him go or complain to his elders about him?”

  Stephen slouched against the cushions and stared at the ceiling. “We’ll hire somebody who will find the damned woman and put her on a convict ship for the Antipodes. She’s an earl’s daughter and will never survive the voyage. Then I can have my money, you can have Kitty’s money, and we can get the meddling fools from the Chancery court out of our hair.”

  Althorpe had despaired of his only son, and Drexel understood why. Stephen was both stupid and arrogant, a dangerous combination, and the very reason much of the rabble had cause to resent the aristocracy. An intelligent man, even if arrogant, would exercise a certain prudence where his self-interest was involved, and a stupid man could be coaxed to follow the guidance of more shrewd mentors if the fellow had a shred of humility.

  Stephen would charge forth in the worst possible direction, convinced of his own infallibility.

  And yet, Stephen was the earldom’s heir, so Drexel possessed himself of patience.

  “Say we set aside the firm of Basingstoke and Basingstoke and hire another solicitor. What then, Nephew?”

  Stephen burped and thumped his sternum with his fist. “They find Step-mama, and I get my money.”

  “Before that. How do they know where to look, Stephen?”

  He rubbed a hand across his forehead. “We explain what happened, they nose about, somebody recalls seeing Matilda milking cows in Chelsea, or flat on her back in some bawdy house, and then we have her arrested.”

  “That nosing about, what do you suppose it entails?”

  “Chatting with the help, for starts.”

  “And what happens when somebody chats with the help?”

  “The help gossip among themselves, but what do we care how a lot of laundresses and link-boys spend their idle time?”

  Maybe drink was robbing the boy of what few brains he’d been born with. “Stephen, the help gossip, and so word of a renewed investigation comes to some lady’s maid, and she passes it along to her employer. A valet mentions it to one of my peers. Whispers start in the clubs. If your step-mother is anywhere in London, she’ll be listening for those whispers. And what will Basingstoke and his papa make of our taking our business elsewhere?”

  “They’ll learn a lesson they won’t soon forget.”

  “And the loss of our business will go entirely unremarked in the legal community, after generations of patronizing the same firm and relying utterly on their discretion? We simply choose another firm that knows nothing about our history, our properties, our occasional peccadilloes? With no additional effort on our part, all proceeds smoothly and at no greater expense?”

  A light finally, finally dawned in Stephen’s bloodshot eyes. “The wretched vermin will charge us a fortune to take on our affairs. Basingstoke will go crying in his ale, and half the Middle Temple will hear of it by sundown. God, I hate lawyers.”

  The family solicitors were the sole reason Stephen hadn’t been sued for breach of promise where his older daughter was concerned. He’d not even reached his majority when the child had been conceived, and her mother had been from decent, if humble, family.

  “Solicitors, physicians, clergy,”—heirs—“they are a necessary blight upon civilized society. I won’t be changing firms, Stephen, and you will acquire some patience. The Season should present you with diversions aplenty, and then we’ll deal with your dear step-mama. I do wonder if she was carrying when she hared away in the middle of the night.”

  Stephen tugged the curtain half closed, so the sun no longer struck him in the face. “Carrying? With child, you mean? Papa said she couldn’t.”

  Which might explain why Stephen had made such a plague of himself to his own step-mother.

  “My dear boy, your papa said many things.” Few of them complimentary toward the man’s only son. “That brings us to another topic. I can understand why you are reluctant to choose a bride, but the fate of an earldom now rests on your shoulders. If you’re not inclined to marry, I might have to reconsider my own widower status.”

  The threat was empty. Drexel had been married for fifteen long years and had been unable to sire a child. The French flu was said to have that effect sometimes.

  “You’re thinking of marrying?” Stephen pushed out of the chair, wove slightly, then headed back to the sideboard. “Aren’t you a bit mature to be taking a bride? Nothing more pathetic than some doddering title rutting on a schoolgirl in hopes of reclaiming his manly humors.”

  Melancholia threatened Drexel’s normal calm. This sneering, vapid, vain young man would inherit the consequence and resources of the Drexel earldom, and all of Drexel’s efforts to conserve those resources, to husband them efficiently, would come to nothing. Stephen would gallop through the family fortune in less than ten years, and a once proud heritage would become so much grist for the gossip mill.

  “Stephen, you are too much your father’s son sometimes. I am not yet fifty. The companionship of a kind and merry woman, her management of my household, her children in my nursery, would be a fitting reward for my years of stewardship where the earldom is concerned.”

  Stephen poured another portion of truly terrible brandy and tossed it back. “You’re lonely? Why not get a mistress?”

  Anything to prevent a son from coming between Stephen and the title, of course. “You know how a mistress can be, and her role is different from that of a wife. You could break your neck in your next curricle race, Stephen, and where would the earldom be?”

  Stephen fancied himself quite the whip.

  Also quite the ladies’ man.

  Quite the card player.

  Quite the dandy.

  Stephen was a tiresome boy, and Althorpe had been the template from which he’d sprung. No wonder the magistrate had believed that Althorpe’s wife had sent the tiresome fellow to his final reward.

  Drexel well knew the shy, mannerly Mrs. Althorpe Derrick—Lady Matilda, more properly—hadn’t bashed her husband’s brains out, but that version of events had left Drexel managing a sizeable fortune for years. The girl, Kitty, was no trouble and allowed Drexel to keep a toothsome young woman in his employ without causing talk.

  “I’m to look for a bride, then?” Stephen asked, pouring yet another portion of spirits. “That’s the threat? I’m to marry some giggling twit with good hips, or you will disinherit me?”

  Drexel hoped he could tie up some of the family wealth in trusts once the seven years had run to locate missing heirs.

  “Don’t be obtuse, Stephen. I can’t disinherit you from the title or the assets that attach to it, not unless I produce a legitimate son. Even if I do have children, I will always provide for you.”

  And for Stephen’s daughters, and their mothers. Both women could be difficult if regular sums weren’t dispatched for the maintenance of their offspring.

  “Very well,” Stephen said. “Have Basingstoke père prepare a list, and I’ll choose a bride. If there’s one endeavor about which I can muster enthusiasm, it’s swiving. Find me a pretty one, I’ll get some sons on her, and you can settle fortunes on them all.”

  He sauntered on his way, the drink evidently restoring his spirits. Drexel pitied the young lady who became Stephen’s
bride, but she would, indeed, be well provided for. Of course, the same consolation had been offered to the Earl of Kittridge when he’d betrothed his daughter to Althorpe.

  Drexel wrote down the names of half a dozen prospective brides for Stephen, all pretty, all in at least their third Season. The right woman would enter the union with her eyes open and her hand stuffed deep into Stephen’s purse, if not his breeches.

  A thought intruded, one of those unpleasant, sticky thoughts that could upset the digestion and ruin good sleep.

  Solicitors truly motivated to find Althorpe’s missing wife would hire investigators, and those investigators would indeed start by interviewing the help. Stephen was just idiot enough, and just greedy enough, to attempt that same task himself.

  Drexel’s conscience twinged, for the only provision Drexel had made for the late Earl of Kittridge’s daughter in the past six years had been to see a murder warrant issued for her arrest. Drexel wished Matilda no particular harm, but if Stephen found her, she could well hang.

  A pity, that.

  Chapter Ten

  “That is a damned kilt, Fenwick,” Hazelton snapped. “Don’t tell me you’ve been prancing around Mayfair doing your impersonation of William Wallace.”

  Ashton smoothed a bare hand over the wool draped across his knee. The Hazelton conservatory was cool and shady, also private, and this conversation required discretion.

  “You bloody English put Wallace to death as a traitor. His is the last example I’d follow. I’m the Earl of Kilkenney, and if I choose to dress in a manner appropriate to my station, you will contain your envy. When I paid a call on the Duke of Murdoch, I turned quite a few heads, most of them female.”

  Hazelton left off trimming the stems of a bunch of daffodils. “Murdoch is the new Scottish duke?”

  “Aye, and a fine man. Thought I’d show a fellow Scot some moral support. He was wearing a kilt as well, and I have it on the best authority that a duke’s fashion sense is above reproach.”

  Murdoch’s whisky had been so far above reproach, Ashton had nearly begged for a second wee dram. His Grace had offered to send a bottle around to the Albany—the duke’s younger brother owned the family distillery—and Ashton had reciprocated with an invitation to attend an impromptu card party.

  All very friendly, and also—mirabile dictu!—likely to be an enjoyable evening. Matilda would doubtless approve of such gentlemanly hospitality.

  “Murdoch has a pair of unmarried sisters,” Hazelton said, dumping the flowers in a clear glass vase. “I’m told they’re comely.”

  “Edana and Rhona MacHugh. My sister-in-law refers to them as independent spirits, which translates south of Hadrian’s Wall as right hellions. That vase is too small. You should trim up the stems to create a pleasing arrangement.”

  “You do it,” Hazelton said, gesturing with his shears. “You’re the expert on turning women’s heads—now. Last week, you were determined to hide in the hedgerows for the duration of the Season. What’s changed?”

  Everything had changed. “I put on my kilt. Daffodils don’t last well once cut. Who are these for?” They were for Hazelton’s countess, of course, else some footman would be messing about with damp stems and sharp shears.

  “Yellow daffodils stand for chivalry. You’re cutting them too short.”

  Ashton picked up another stem and trimmed two inches from it. “You gave me the shears, now be a good earl and let me work my magic. Don’t suppose you’d care to join Murdoch and me for a few hands of cards Monday night?”

  “I’m telling you, you’re ruining those flowers.”

  “Fetch me a stem or two of fern, about eight inches long, please. Make it three stems. Ferns symbolize fascination.”

  Hazelton disappeared between an orange tree and a lemon tree. “You’re hosting a card party?”

  “At the Albany. My first social gathering. Murdoch’s brother will likely attend, but we could add another foursome if you’d like to increase the guest list.”

  Hazelton emerged from the greenery, fern fronds in his hand, one of them with dirt clinging to its roots.

  “Hazelton, one cuts the ferns, one doesn’t yank them out like weeds. You seldom bring your lady flowers, I take it?”

  He shook the hapless ferns, sending dirt everywhere. “One of my endless supply of brothers-in-law mentioned that at some point every week, he brings his lady flowers. The other fellows acted as if that was simply a required gesture. Another prides himself on fixing his lady her morning chocolate exactly as she prefers it. Another reads to his wife at the end of the day. Yet another has learned how to knead bread, simply because his wife—a countess, mind you— enjoys puttering in the kitchen.”

  Hazelton looked both bewildered and annoyed as he clutched his bedraggled fern. “Maggie likes flowers.”

  Ashton appropriated the ferns and trimmed off the roots. “She likes you. No accounting for taste.”

  The earl took a seat on the bench Ashton had vacated. “I think Maggie prefers our sons to her husband. She’s a devoted mother.”

  “For which you adore her. I might need another pair of ferns. You should tell her you miss her.”

  “I don’t—” Hazelton stretched an arm along the back of the bench and crossed his legs. He’d shed his jacket, and he presented the picture of a wealthy gentleman at his informal leisure. “One can’t miss the woman beside whom one sleeps.”

  Ashton had been missing Matilda his entire adult life and hadn’t realized it. “The hell one can’t. What other blooms do you have?”

  “That pink thing,” Hazelton said, waving toward a bush growing beside the glass wall.

  “Quince. Signifies temptation. She’ll like that.”

  Ashton added three small sprigs of pink, positioned the ferns among the flowers, and surveyed his work.

  Not quite right. He took a thirteenth daffodil from a bucket sitting beside the workbench, cut an inch off the stem, and stuck it dead center in the arrangement.

  “Perfect. Present the lady with your bouquet and tell her you miss her. Kidnap her for a picnic out at Richmond and take your traveling coach so the journey might include a few marital intimacies.”

  Hazelton considered the little pot of flowers. “The last time I saw you, you were glum, resentful, and eccentric. Clearly, you enjoyed a sample from the duke’s liquor cabinet.”

  “You will too,” Ashton said. “Murdoch’s brother, a former army captain, owns a distillery or two, and the man knows what he’s about. Has an excellent head for business, does Colin MacHugh. Will this do?”

  Hazelton sniffed the daffodils and got pollen on his lordly nose. “How do you know how to arrange flowers? I understand that you can shoe a horse or train one, that you’re accomplished at manual labor, and have other skills as a result of your tenure at Blessings, but arranging flowers?”

  “When a man is a lowly steward, he’s not entirely a gentleman. He works for his wage, even though others work for him too, and the work is hardly genteel. When he approaches a woman, he knows his paltry wealth, standing, and consequence mean nothing to her. He must acquire the courage to be desired for himself and for what courtesies and considerations he can bring along. Failing that, a bouquet of flowers never hurts.”

  “You’re lecturing me. You, the confirmed bachelor, the reluctant earl, the noble bumpkin in a kilt no less, and yet, I must admit you have a point.”

  “Your lordship has pollen on his nose.”

  Hazelton produced spotless linen and erased the evidence of his proximity to the flowers. He went to the door and summoned a footman next, proving that rank was no guarantee of brains.

  “You don’t have the footman deliver the flowers, Hazelton. You seek out your lady and present them yourself. She will be pleased, and you will be on hand to enjoy her reaction. How did you ever solve mysteries, if this is an example of your deductive abilities?”

  “I solved them by dogged persistence and grim determination. I will, of course, bring her ladyship the f
lowers in person, but the footman will know where she is.”

  Oh, right. Ashton swept the trimmed stems into his hand and tossed them among the greenery. “How is my list of scandals coming?”

  Hazelton resumed his place on the sofa, his posture more relaxed. “I’ve unearthed a good half-dozen juicy scandals, two of which never appeared in the papers. I can send you a written summary, though it will be unsigned. I don’t investigate anymore.”

  “You should. You enjoyed it, and you helped solve difficult problems.”

  Such wistfulness crossed Hazelton’s saturnine features, Ashton would have thought the countess was biding up in the north, hundreds of miles away.

  “I meet with my cousin from time to time to discuss cases.”

  “Tell Sir Archer you want an assignment or two, especially if they involve the court set, or polite society. Not everybody has that sort of entrée.”

  “Few do. Speaking of court entrée, do you know a man named Hannibal Shearing?”

  They had been speaking about curing Hazelton of a case of the blue devils. “Shearing is a coal nabob in Northumberland. Wants a spot on the honors list so badly he’s probably funding half the renovations at Brighton to get it.”

  Ashton pushed away from the workbench, gave a sprig of quince a half-inch nudge to the right, and considered the bouquet complete.

  “He asked me to accompany him to a levee,” Hazelton said, “of all the presumptions. You will be there on Tuesday?”

  “We’ve been over this. You will show up for cards on Monday. Tuesday morning, I will pick you up in my coach. Bring Murdoch and your-cousin-the-investigator to the card party, and I will fill them in on all the Scottish gossip. Did any of the scandals you researched mention somebody named Althorpe?”

  Hazelton rose and picked up the bouquet. “No. Is that a first name or a family name?”

  “First name, I’m guessing, but it could be a family name.” Matilda might have resorted to use of her maiden name, or she might be traveling under an alias.

  “Doesn’t ring a bell. My thanks for the flowers.”