Loving Lord Ash

by Sally MacKenzie

  “Very good, milord.” Winthrop bowed and departed.

  Jess was still smiling at him. “Thank you for not letting Winthrop throw me out.”

  Her smile was doing very odd things to his heart. “I would never let you be treated in such a fashion. I don’t know what got into the man.”

  Jess shrugged. “I’m afraid the local people don’t approve of me.”

  Of course they didn’t approve of her, but he didn’t wish to start that argument again. It would be far too exhausting to squabble about it anymore, especially if she were really going to stay until morning....

  How would they get through the hours until daylight?

  One obvious activity presented itself—

  He would not think about that now, or about the bed that took up a good portion of the room. The White Stag did not cater to the aristocracy. His bedchamber was simply that—a room with a bed. There was no separate sitting room.

  “How are things at the castle?” she asked, looking at the brandy bottle.

  Was she nervous? She’d never been at all reticent around him when they were children. It was one of the things that had first drawn him to her. Not that the other children deferred to him, precisely, but there had always been a distance, even with his brothers, that had never been there with Jess. With them, he was Ash, one day to be Greycliffe. With Jess, he was Kit.

  Or perhaps he’d just been fooling himself.

  “Well, I think. I left after Mama’s Valentine party.”

  Jess’s eyes widened. “That was over a month ago.”

  “Yes.” It was his turn to study the brandy. “I’ve been traveling.”

  “In all the snow? You must have left right after the blizzard.”

  He shrugged. “It did make things more difficult. That’s why it took me so long to arrive at the manor. Well, and I stopped along the way for a few days.”

  “Find some interesting architecture?” She smiled.

  He grinned. She did know him. “Yes.”

  The servant arrived then with their food, breaking their brief rapport.

  “Thank you,” Ash said. “That will be all. We shall serve ourselves.” They certainly didn’t need one of Winthrop’s people eavesdropping on their conversation and spreading the details throughout the countryside.

  “Yes, milord.”

  Once the fellow left, Ash held Jess’s chair while she took her seat. Mmm. He smelled lavender, the same scent she’d worn as a girl—he smiled—when the scent wasn’t overpowered by the smell of oil and turpentine and paint.

  He sat and carved her a slice of duck. “I don’t suppose you know if Winthrop’s kitchen does better with this than with beef? I tried some of that downstairs earlier. It was inedible.”

  “No.” She took a spoonful of peas. “I don’t leave the manor except for Sunday services.”

  “You don’t have any female friends in the area?” That seemed too bad, though now that he considered it, Jess had been somewhat solitary even as a girl.

  She met his gaze directly. “I don’t have any friends, male or female, outside the manor staff.”

  “Ah.” The rumors said otherwise, but perhaps her early success with the area’s male population had faltered. Hell, she didn’t need any “friends” besides that damn footman and the rest of the male servants.

  “Might I have some of the Madeira?”

  “Yes, of course.” He poured her a glass and then reached for the brandy.

  Jess concentrated on cutting her duck, not that it required much concentration. At least the inn’s cook had had better success with this dish. It was almost palatable.

  For a while, the silence was broken only by the scrape of their utensils. It wasn’t a companionable silence, but he couldn’t think of something to say that wouldn’t just pitch them back into an argument. He could ask her about her proposal, but he wasn’t certain he wished to hear what she might say.

  “So was your mother’s party successful?” Jess finally asked.

  At last, a happy topic. “Yes, indeed. After years of trying, Mama managed to bring Ned and Ellie together. We celebrated their betrothal at the closing ball.”

  Her eyes darted up to his and then back down to her plate. “Is that why you broke things off with Ellie?”

  “What?” Oh, that’s right. She’d mentioned that ridiculous rumor about his relationship with Ellie Bowman. “Jess, Ellie is my friend. That is all she has ever been to me—except now she will be my sister-in-law as well. Didn’t you know she’s been in love with Ned since we were children?”

  Jess frowned. “But Ned married Cicely.”

  “That didn’t change Ellie’s feelings.” But then Jess hadn’t been at the castle to see that. She hadn’t been invited to Ned’s first wedding, and she hadn’t been there when Cicely and the baby had died.

  Perhaps that had been badly done of him, but he’d felt the only way he could manage the pain was to cut her out of his life entirely.

  And now here he was, sitting across a table from her, getting ready to make their separation permanent.

  He should do so without a qualm. How many more naked men did he need to find her with to understand divorce was his only option?

  And yet . . .

  She was so beautiful and so familiar. His idiotic heart still wished to find a path to happiness with her, to children and years of marital love.

  Stupid, stupid heart.

  He took a swallow of brandy. “You said you had a proposal.”

  Chapter Five

  Once you see the glimmer of an opening,

  shove your foot into the crack.

  —Venus’s Love Notes

  “Yes.” Jess leaned forward, her expression suddenly hardening into what looked to be determination while the candlelight made her skin glow.

  God, she took his breath away.

  “You need an heir.”

  He inclined his head. “Obviously.”

  “And procuring a divorce is an expensive, messy, lengthy business.”

  His heart—or, more likely, another organ—urged him to reach across the table and run his thumb over her lips. Instead he clasped his brandy glass more tightly. “Which is why it is time I got started with it.”

  Jess’s lovely brows snapped down.

  Zeus! When she was a girl, she used to frown like that at anyone who didn’t fall in with her plans immediately.

  Her fingers tapped the table. They were long and slender, and for once she’d managed to get all the paint off them.

  She’d always been so happy with a brush in her hand. Her paintings, like her, had been full of life and color. That passion had been one of the things that had attracted him to her. His life had seemed dull in comparison, drawn in measured lines, painted in pale watercolor.

  Perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised she’d taken to depicting naked men.

  “It will be painful and embarrassing for you and your family, Kit, especially your mother. She’s the Duchess of Love, after all. Think of all the fun the wags will have with that.”

  “Yes.” He had thought of it and had hoped to avoid it. It was one reason he’d made the trip to the manor to see if he and Jess might come to an agreement.

  But what he’d seen was Jess with that naked footman.

  He took a swallow of brandy.

  “The talk will affect you, too,” she said.

  He shrugged. “Yes, but I’ll wager the ton will forgive a future duke.”

  Her frown twisted into an expression he’d not seen on her face before—self-mockery. “I’m sure you are correct. They will likely forgive you even more quickly since your first wife was a servant.”

  She’d mentioned that earlier. “You weren’t a servant, Jess. I never thought of you that way.” She had always been Jess, his friend.

  His love.

  “Of course I was. My father was the head groom.” She looked down at her plate and pushed a few lonely peas around. “Though I grant you I couldn’t have found a position anyw
here, unless someone wanted a painter who wasn’t very good at making people look better than they are.”

  He had to smile at that. Cicely had been extremely put out—and Ned upset on her behalf—at the painting Jess had done of her when Cicely was fifteen. Jess had always thought the girl rather insipid, and it showed in her portrait.

  But that was then, before Percy and the naked footman.

  “What is your point, Jess? As you say, I need an heir.” He took another sip of brandy. “Are you offering to give me one?”

  “Yes.”

  The brandy went down the wrong way. Jess started to get up to thump him on the back, but he held up his hand to stop her.

  She frowned. “Are you all right?”

  He nodded. He was still coughing.

  “I didn’t mean right away about the heir, of course. We should take some time to get reacquainted.” She leaned toward him. “If you’re not in love with someone else—if you don’t believe in love at all—then why not see if we can salvage this marriage? If we try and find that we can’t, then you can proceed with the divorce.”

  This had been his initial plan, but he wasn’t certain it was a good one. “Why do you want to try?” In another woman, he’d suspect a desire to maintain her status as marchioness and duchess-in-waiting, but he could not believe Jess cared for that.

  She looked away and shrugged. “We were friends once—or at least I thought we were.”

  “We were friends.” She’d been his best friend, the only friend who seemed to see him—Kit, not the Marquis of Ashton. “But we were children then.”

  Her eyes were dark in the candlelight. “I’d like to see if we could be friends again. We haven’t seen each other for eight years; perhaps if we spend a few months together, we’ll find we can at least tolerate each other.”

  He would like that, too, but was friendship her true reason for proposing this plan? It seemed unlikely, especially when he could think of another more pressing one.

  He took another sip of brandy. “Are you increasing?”

  “No!” She looked as if she was going to throw her glass at him. “I am not.”

  This was obviously not the best way to begin a reconciliation, but he must be very clear. “I cannot allow another man’s child to become the Duke of Greycliffe.”

  “How many times do I have to say it? I am not in the family way.”

  He’d swear Jess’s teeth were clenched. Her hands definitely were. He would prefer not to push the point, but while in the past he could argue he’d never been physically close enough to get her with child, now it looked as if they would have to share this room—this bed.

  “Then you’ll not object to signing a paper stating that any child you may bear within the next nine months isn’t mine.”

  Her mouth flattened into a hard, thin line; she was going to refuse.

  Disappointment knotted his gut.

  Hell, he was a pitiful arse, wasn’t he, to want her back so badly? He should—

  “Very well, I will sign your blasted paper.” She spat the last word as if it were a curse. “Have you a sheet and quill handy? I have a few clauses I wish to include myself.”

  He should be angry at her tone, but he was mostly relieved. He stood. “I didn’t bring any writing materials, but I shall ask Winthrop—”

  “Don’t bother,” Jess said, getting up also. “I packed my stationery set.”

  This was a stupid idea. She should go back to the manor, though Kit would probably still insist she sign something since they’d been alone together—in a bedroom, no less. Surely she could persuade Roger to forget about waiting six months once she told him what a blockhead Kit was.

  But Kit had walked in on her in two very damning situations. She must remember he had some grounds for his asinine behavior.

  She threw open her valise. Damn it, her stationery must be at the bottom. She dug for it, jerking out her sketchbook—

  A packet of papers tumbled out. What was this? She bent to pick it up.

  “May I see what you’ve been drawing?”

  Kit had followed her. When she looked up, he had her sketchbook in his hands and was opening it—

  “No!” She lunged, grabbing the book and shoving it and the papers back into her bag. If Kit saw her drawings, he’d know how stupidly in love with him she was—or, had been. She wasn’t feeling much love at the moment.

  “I beg your pardon.” Kit sounded like he had a poker up his arse again. “I did not mean to pry.”

  She didn’t trust herself to answer. Instead, she closed her valise and carried her stationery case over to the table. Fortunately, Kit followed her.

  She pushed aside her plate, pulled a sheet of paper and a pencil out of the case, and, as Kit looked over her shoulder, wrote: Jessica, Lady Ashton, swears that she is not with child, but if she were, that child is not her husband’s.

  “Will that do?”

  “And add that you swear not to engage in sexual congress with any other man during the months we are together.”

  She glared at him.

  Kit had the grace to blush. “If we should come to an agreement, I will still need to be certain our first two sons carry my blood. After that you may do as you please.” He cleared his throat. “You don’t have any reason to, er, think that you can’t have children, do you?”

  Idiot. “No. Do you have any reason to think you can’t?”

  His brows snapped down. “No.”

  “Fine. Here you go, then.” She further swears she will not allow any man into her bed—

  “You said you didn’t need a bed to cuckold me.”

  Oh, dear Lord, she had. Her lamentable temper.

  “So I must ask you to refrain from allowing any man but me access to your person.”

  Access to her person? She glanced up at Kit; he looked stiff and uncomfortable. She’d never fit into his orderly life, had she? He preferred things to be all straight lines and right angles where she was swirls and shades of colors. But she’d loved him anyway . . . or perhaps she loved him because he was so different from her. She’d always found him steadying. When she got caught up in her emotions, his was the calm voice of reason.

  Which had been why she’d so wanted to see him after Papa had died.

  “All right.” She changed it to any other man access to her person. “Does that suit?”

  “Yes, that will do. Now if you will just sign it, we can—”

  “Oh, no, I’m not finished yet.” This would never work if she were the only one making promises. She started writing again: I, Christopher, Marquis of Ashton, in consideration of my wife forsaking all others, swear that I will not—hmm, how to put it? Perhaps best to be as blunt as he had been—that I will not engage in sexual congress with any other woman.

  Kit made an odd, strangled sound.

  She put down her pencil. “It is only fair.”

  “The situations are not the same.”

  Of course they weren’t. She understood why he needed to know any child she might bear was his. If it were a boy, the baby would inherit the vast Greycliffe holdings someday. The poor mite. The nasty ton would likely look down their damn aristocratic noses at him for being the grandson of an Irish groom.

  Well, they would have her to contend with if they tried to do so . . . unless Kit exiled her to the manor again once she’d done her duty.

  Ha! If he tried to do that, he’d have quite a battle on his hands. She wasn’t going to desert her children.

  If she ever had any.

  “That is true, but I find I don’t care to be just another woman you spill your ducal seed into.”

  Which she wouldn’t be if she kept saying things like that. She must learn to control her tongue.

  Kit’s head jerked back. His mouth twisted in disgust, but his eyes had an odd, intent, almost hot gleam. “Ah, but my seed is only ducal when it’s spilled into you, isn’t it?” He looked away. “Or into my wife, whoever she should be.”

  She barely heard his q
ualification; she was too busy trying not to drown in the heat that suddenly flooded her. Oh, dear God. Her breasts felt swollen and sensitive, but worst, the place between her legs ached, throbbed—

  She was losing her mind.

  She hadn’t felt like this when she’d had her horrible encounter with Percy. Then she’d felt nothing but desperation, her heart numb from her father’s death and Kit’s absence. She’d been willing to do anything to guarantee she’d have a place to live and food to eat.

  And then she’d discovered Percy had never been offering marriage at all.

  “Very well,” Kit said. “I am willing to control my carnal urges if you are.”

  Carnal urges? She’d like to show him some carnal urges. Very, very much—

  No! No, she would not, or certainly not now, before they had settled anything. And he would just reject her if she were to be so bold; he thought her base enough to break her wedding vows with Roger and countless other men.

  And she thought the same of him . . .

  But that was different. Men—especially the male members of the ton—weren’t expected to keep their wedding vows. Even back when she was a girl at the castle, she’d heard the servants talk about how the guests behaved—or, rather, misbehaved—and how unusual it was that the Duke of Greycliffe was faithful to his duchess. He was the only peer in England who never strayed, they said.

  Hell, she knew firsthand of the ton’s profligate ways. If she wanted to be the loose woman everyone thought her, she’d have no shortage of married nobles eager to oblige her. She’d had to turn far too many offers of that nature down, sometimes with the aid of an elbow or other sharp object.

  “Of course.” She signed the paper and handed Kit the pencil. “Will we be returning to the manor in the morning?”

  Kit shook his head as he signed, too. “I don’t wish to share a house with your beautiful footman.”

  “Why?” Kit was far more handsome than Roger. “And I thought you’d let Roger go.”

  “I’ll admit I was too precipitous in that.” He stared at her, his eyes the color of slate, as he folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “If I punish him for falling prey to your wiles, I likely would have to replace the entire household.”