Lady Margaret’s gown fit rather better than those loose gray frocks. The fringe of her shawl shaped itself to her bodice, outlining curves he’d held early this morning.
“There are a great many things I don’t understand,” he said.
“I suppose you should like to know why I lied to you.”
He just looked at her. Now that he knew who she was, that secret sadness she always carried with her made sense. She’d told him in the very first hour why she disliked him. She’d never given him lies. Just truths that he hadn’t truly heard.
“If you must know,” she began, “and given what has transpired between us, I suppose you deserve the full story, the plan started weeks ago, when—”
“Hang the plan, Margaret. I don’t care about any of that. I want to know—she was your mother. Not the duchess. Not your employer. Your mother died. And you…you blame me. For good reason.”
Her mouth stopped, midword. Her lips worked, but no sound came out. Finally she set her pen down and put her fingers to her temples. “That night I threw dirt at you—the conservatory was her favorite place. I had wanted to feel close to her. And then you came along and disrupted everything.”
“You are in mourning.”
Margaret glanced at her dark silk. “I’ve worn gray the entire time I’ve known you, Ash.”
“I’m not referring to your clothing, Margaret. I’m referring to your spirit.”
She let out a tired sigh. “Ash, you’ve understood a great many things. But really—what would you know about mourning a mother?”
He glanced behind them to make sure that the arm of the sofa would hide the extent of what he was about to do from the maid’s watchful eyes. Then, he sat next to her and placed his hand on her knee. The gesture was casual, friendly—and yet intimate in a way that transcended mere physicality.
He leaned in and spoke in a near whisper. “My mother was complicated. Painful. At the end of it all, she was completely mad. But I remember gentle moments, before she started to change. I remember when she was my safe haven. That’s what made her descent into madness so frightening. Not the beatings, nor even the illness. I could remember what she had once been, and I kept waiting for her to return. Instead, she slipped further away, every time I saw her.”
Margaret’s eyes rounded.
“Maybe,” he said, “that is part of what drove me in those early days of business. I kept thinking that if I accomplished more, maybe this time she would be proud of me. If I recovered the family fortune, she would value me. If my brothers went to Eton, she would honor what I had done. I kept waiting for her maternal instincts to overcome her madness.”
Margaret reached out and took his hand.
“But no,” he said. “It never worked.”
“I am certain,” Margaret told him, “that somewhere, somehow, she was aware of what you had accomplished. And that even if she couldn’t acknowledge it in her lifetime, she was—is—proud of you.”
Her fingers constricted around his hand.
“When she passed away, I cried. Don’t tell my brothers—I shouldn’t like to admit to weakness. But I remember what animated her, before. And I mourned the fact that everything I loved about her had died long before. I always wanted to believe that my mother—my real mother—was hidden somewhere in that shell of a body. But if she was, I never saw it. I had years to mourn her loss, before she was taken away for good. I still wake up nights, feeling as if something is gone. You…you’ve scarcely had time to believe it’s happened.”
“Do you always do this?” she asked, her voice husky. “Go to those who have used you poorly and explain away their sins? I lied to you, Ash. You’re supposed to despise me.”
“You may have noticed this,” Ash said, “but I rarely do as I ought. It’s a failing—and one I hope you will forgive in me.” He reached out and traced a line down her cheek. “And then there’s what I said about you. Did I really…did I really call you a poor specimen, to your face?”
She nodded.
“So. With all of that, why did you come to me last night?”
Her eyes widened. She looked up at him, her expression fierce. “Because you make me feel that if I were to disappear tomorrow, I would be mourned. And because…I’m hard pressed to stay away from you.”
“So.” He held his breath. “You’ll marry me?”
She did not answer, not right away. But her sudden inability to meet his gaze told him everything he needed to know. His hands balled into fists.
“My brother talked to the physician. They’ve agreed that my father will not be hurt if he is moved—and that he should be taken to an expert outside of London, a man who specializes in treating apoplexy. I am going with them.”
“Don’t. Stay with me. I’ll send for the proper license tomorrow.”
She simply looked at him. “Ash, my father left his children bastards because he selfishly placed his own wishes and pleasures before their well-being. If I marry you—if that affects the outcome of my brothers’ bid for legitimacy—I’ll have bastardized them a second time. I will not do the same thing. I will not.”
He shut his eyes and breathed in her breath. He needed another chance. More time to erode her objections. To make her choose him.
“Well. May I say my farewells to you properly, then?” He glanced pointedly at the servant who sat at the edge of the room, pretending not to hear. “Without company?”
She nodded, and dropped her voice. “You know where, don’t you? Not your office. Not any longer. They’re watching that.”
No. Not there.
“I know where,” he said quietly.
Chapter Eighteen
SHE HAD KNOWN HE WOULD meet her in the conservatory.
Perhaps that’s why she’d twirled the knob on the oil lamp all the way up, until it radiated heat. She had hoped the light would drive away the darkness of the night.
It hadn’t; instead, the lamp’s yellow illumination had driven long shadows into every corner of the room. Margaret turned around, looking for him. But the only movement she saw was the flap of her wrapper. The fine silk and painstaking embroidery seemed too smooth against her skin, after weeks of staid wool and linen. Not at all proper attire, but then, etiquette had little advice to give on the apparel a well-bred lady wore to greet a man at midnight.
As she completed her turn, he stepped from the shadows, his footfalls making almost no noise at all. Margaret met his eyes. She was unsure what to say, uncertain how to start and entirely unable to speak the words she knew he had to hear. Instead she gestured at the cutting she’d planted several weeks before, the night she’d pelted him with clods of earth. “I think it will take.”
He came forward, still silent, and placed his thumb against the cane of wood. There was not much to show for those weeks—just two little nubs of growth, hints of green glinting in the lamplight.
“It might take some time, though. Perhaps it might be best to keep it indoors through the winter. The groundskeeper has a formula he uses, to manage new growth—”
Ash set his fingers against her lips, capturing the rest of her sentence. “You sound as if you are delivering instructions.”
“Come this winter, only one of us will be here. It might not be me.”
As she spoke, her lips brushed his thumb, a whisper of a kiss.
He took her head in his hands, gently tipping her chin up. “When I first met you, I thought there was something…almost sad about you. You hid it well—you’re too strong not to. But your mother passed away not so long ago. Mrs. Benedict once told me that the old duchess loved roses.”
That wound was still too tender to be probed. Margaret turned away.
But he didn’t stop. “Your father seems to have no care for anything any longer. Your brothers have been too busy, scrambling to save their own hides. When have you had a chance to mourn, Margaret?”
She stepped away to examine the pots that stood on a window ledge. “She’s still here,” Margaret said. “She l
oved this house. The gardens. And the roses especially. Sometimes I can almost hear her footsteps around the corner. I can see her nodding in approval when the house runs smoothly. So long as—”
She caught her breath as the end of the sentence slammed into her.
Pick a house, her mother had once advised her on love, not a husband. Husbandly interest will fade. But a house will always be yours—yours to arrange and command, yours to gift over to your sons, warmer and more welcoming than you found it, when the time comes. A house will hold all your affection and shower love back upon you.
That philosophy hadn’t worked so well for her mother. At the end of her life, even the house hadn’t truly been hers any longer. And whatever fiction Margaret maintained about this place, once Ash took the reins…
“So long as what?” Ash asked quietly.
“She’ll be here,” Margaret said, her throat closing, “so long as nothing changes.”
But everything was changing. Over the course of the next few months, her brothers would present their case to Parliament. Her father’s remaining health might slip away. She couldn’t bear to stay here, to see the last vestiges of her mother’s care disappear. And that meant that this was goodbye.
To the house. To her mother. And to Ash, as well.
She’d known it the instant her brother had spelled out precisely what marriage to Ash would mean. She’d always known that whatever time they had was transient and fleeting. She’d just assumed that he would be the one to end it.
She walked back to him and set her hands on his shoulders. He acquiesced when she pushed him to the bench. But when she leaned over him and straddled him, he pulled back from her kiss.
“There’s something I must tell you,” he began.
She put her fingers over his lips as she settled her thighs against his.
“Be quiet, Ash. I am trying to remember you.”
In the lamplight, shadows collected on his face as his eyebrows drew down. He must have taken her meaning, because he shook his head. “Well. I am trying to have you.” His voice was fiercely possessive. “Not for one night, nor even two. I want you every evening—mine outright, not a few hours stolen here or there. I want you during the day, on my arm. I want to know that when we’re apart you’re missing me; I want to know when we’re together, I’m the one who puts the smile on your face.” He punctuated each phrase with a kiss—against her chin, the line of her jaw, the hollow of her neck. As he spoke, his hands drifted down her sides. The light silk of her wrapper rendered his touch diffuse.
“Not that. I can’t.” But she didn’t push his hands away.
“You will.” His fingers cupped her breasts lightly, sending little shivers through her. She’d wanted one last night with him for physical comfort. She hadn’t wanted this intimate courtship.
“I’m leaving on the morrow.”
“So you have claimed,” he said, his breath hot against her neckline.
“This is the last time we can speak— Oh.”
He had slid her robe aside and taken her nipple in his mouth, almost roughly. His tongue circled the tip, and she could feel it draw up into a tight bud, could feel the corresponding pulse of desire between her legs. As if he, too, felt that need, he reached between them and undid his breeches. The rough fumblings of cloth rasped against her legs.
But he continued to taste her, almost leisurely. As if he were sure of her physical surrender—as sure as he was of everything else. There was no urgency in his caress, just languid pleasure. He was firmly in command, in control. His other hand freed his erection from its confines. She could feel it, straight and rigid and hot, against her thighs. With his free hand he steadied her against it, moved it into position between her legs. She felt her wetness rub against him.
“Hear this,” he growled in her ear. “I didn’t withdraw last night. I’ll be damned if I do it now. And if I get you with child—and Margaret, I hope I have already done so—you will marry me.”
She’d known it, deep inside her. She just hadn’t let herself think it.
“I will never do to you what your father did to your mother. I will always be here for you.” He sat on the table, and pulled her down to him.
He would. She knew it. Loyalty was in his nature, as surely as patience, understanding and the steady offer of support.
His hand stroked her back. She could not think, could not gather up enough logic to ascertain how to go forward. Every path she could take seemed to double back into dishonor for her family. There was no forward. The only direction she could imagine was down. And so she let gravity think for her. She slid down him an inch. His breath caught. His hands settled on her hips, and he guided her on top until she clasped him tight, her thighs resting against his.
Yes. This was what she wanted—risk and all. She wanted him. She wanted his body, the feel of him against her, inside her. Some dishonorable part of her even wanted his child, wanted an excuse to escape the dilemma that stretched before her.
She sank lower, her passage stretching to accommodate him.
“God, Margaret,” he whispered in her ear. “You’re so tight. So damned hot.”
And now that she’d encompassed him, a more pressing matter emerged. “What should I do?”
His fingers clenched her side. “Whatever feels best for you.”
“But I want to know what feels good for you.”
His eyelids shivered shut, and his member twitched inside her. “It all feels good for me. Trust me. At this point, it’s all exquisite. You’re exquisite.” His hands cupped her hips.
Tentatively Margaret rose up on her knees. Pleasure drifted through her. Through them. She sank down on him once more, and his hand drifted to her breast. A delicious heat engulfed her.
“Ah, yes. I really love that.”
She did it again.
“Talk to me,” he whispered. “Tell me what you feel. What you want.”
“Touch me,” Margaret whispered. “I want you to touch my back.”
His hands fluttered up her back in slow, gentle caresses. She rose up on him again, finding a rhythm. Her hands found the curve of his biceps; her legs clasped the steel of his thighs. “You feel hard.”
“Hard is good.” His voice was husky. He thrust inside her.
“And big.”
“Big is better.”
His hands slipped to her hips and helped the rhythm along. She could feel her tension build, a slow fire stoking deep inside her, growing hotter and hotter with every stroke. His teeth gritted; the night air could no longer cool her skin, and her temperature rose. He insinuated his hand between their bodies, and as he pressed his fingers to her sex, ecstasy overtook her. It crashed over her in wave after glorious wave. When he’d wrung every bit of satisfaction from her body—when the fire that filled her had flared up into a bright pillar and burned everything from her—then he pressed his head into her neck.
“You feel like Margaret,” he whispered. “And Margaret is best of all.”
As she slumped bonelessly against him, he lifted her again, thrusting inside her. She hadn’t imagined there was any pleasure left in her, but it came. It came in little sparks at first. Then it caught fire in her soul. He gasped once, and then, just as she was cresting into her own orgasm, he came, too.
For long moments after, he said nothing. Instead he put his arms around her, holding her close. He was warm. And hard. And big. She didn’t want to think beyond those moments, didn’t want to admit that there was anything else to say. But as their clean sweat began to grow chilled, he spoke once more. “I’ll be damned, my dear, if this is the last time I have you.”
He was wrong. Utterly wrong on both counts. He wouldn’t have her again, and they were both already damned.
For the first time in months, Margaret felt the full weight of loss settle on her shoulders.
But she’d shouldered heftier burdens on her own. Her eyes stung, but this time she didn’t lean on him. She didn’t weep. Instead she moved his hands off h
er shoulders and disentangled their bodies. Disentangled his life from hers.
BY THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Margaret had left her family home and her lover.
She sat on the squabs opposite her brother. From the road, she could hear the creak of the carriage, the clop of horse hooves. They made a regular procession: this conveyance, another for the servants and luggage and yet another carefully converted to transport her father to London. They had been traveling for some hours already, and given the leisurely pace of their travel, days of their journey still waited. Those days were going to be very long, if she and Richard spent the entire time not conversing with each other. They would seem even longer if he chose to lecture her.
But so far, he hadn’t said a word. He’d simply looked out his window at the passing landscape, watching hill after hill disappear into oblivion. And she’d waited, her fists clenched together, for the coming explosion.
She could already predict what he would say. It was nothing she hadn’t told herself before. A lady’s virtue was her most precious possession, and she’d squandered hers not once, but twice—the second time on the man who sought to destroy her family. No doubt her brother was wondering if he could trust her. Or any of the reports she’d sent.
Richard sighed heavily, and turned away from the landscape that flitted by the carriage window.
“Are you going to rip up at me?” Her voice sounded stilted and formal. After their hours of silence, it also seemed unexpectedly loud. “Because if you are, I should prefer that you get it over with.”
Richard cocked his head and squinted at her. Margaret held her spine straight and met his gaze. She wasn’t going to let him cow her. If she was in the wrong, it was only because there was no right choice to be had. It took her a few moments to realize that he was squinting not in an attempt to intimidate her, but because his eyes had been dazzled by the sunlight reflecting off the lake outside.
“Do you see me as such a monster, then?” he finally asked.
She had no response. Had he been Edmund, he would have heaped aspersions on her head. But Richard was quieter than their middle brother—quieter and, she’d always thought, kinder. More understanding.
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