“I’d give you a hefty enough allowance right off,” the pleased old meddler said, as if he were offering a boon, “starting the first of the year, to keep you from losing the estate before my hopefully-timely demise.” He patted the inner pocket of his frockcoat. “Got it right here in the will, an allowance right off. First of the year.”
“Thank you Grandfather,” Ash said, tongue in cheek, and judging by the brow raised his way, it seemed as if Lark had been the only one to hear the wit in his caustic tone.
“Nonsense my boy. The least I could do. The Chase has been in the Blackburne family for centuries, after all. Too bad to lose it now.” The old man turned back to Lark. “Ash’s blighted father—the Black Blackguard many called him—inherited it with debt, added more debt in his life, and predicted with certainty that Ash would be the one to lose it, you see, which is why our boy is so stubbornly determined he will not.”
“Grandfather, please,” Ash said, for the old charlatan had revealed so much more than Ash wished Lark to learn as yet. Besides, in addition to revenge against his father, Ash wanted to save the place for his mother. ‘Twas the least he could do for all but stealing her life.
“Nonsense boy, Lark’s a member of the family now. She needs to know what a scurvy sot you come from.” The old man returned his attention to Lark, and Ash prayed he might be struck mute before Lark learned the disgraceful truth about what he’d done to his mother.
“Because of the reprehensible way Ash’s father treated my dearest daughter, neither Ash nor I can bear to let the blighter win even in death.”
“Grandfather,” Ash said, “I do believe Lark has learned enough of our tedious family history for one day. She does not appear at all well for what she has already learned.”
His grandfather regarded Lark with a keen eye and patted her hand. “Go and rest, my dear. We will continue at another time.”
Lark thanked him, excused herself, and left the dining room, her last fleeting look at her husband boding him ill.
“How did you know?” Ash asked his grandfather, that I married at all, given the fact that the ceremony was a hasty one.
“I keep my ears open. Knew you’d paid a trollop to wed you, didn’t I? Knew if she took money to do the deed, she’d take more not to.”
“You paid the trollop, er, I mean the actress not to wed me?”
“Tripled her earnings and sent her to France.”
“You pernicious old meddler. I should be furious,” Unfortunately, Ash could only contemplate the horror of having a trollop rather than a guttersnipe for wife. Then again, he shuddered to think of the ramifications. “This could all have gone tragically wrong.”
“But it did not, did it? You deserved better than the trollop. Looks like you found better, and sooner than I expected, I am forced to concede. Good job, Boy.”
“Hah! Now I wish I had introduced you to Lark on our wedding night,” Ash said with due disgust, though his grandfather’s foul means had garnered a surprisingly optimistic result … perhaps. “You like her then?”
“She is a bit rough around the edges, I’ll grant you.”
“If only you knew.”
“Whatever the problem, I’d warrant she can be fixed.”
“Perhaps. Only time will tell.”
“We do not have time. At Christmas, your bride must be heavy with child. You have barely enough time to insure that happens. And you will make it happen, come fire or flood, if you know what you owe your mother.”
“Right.” There it was, glaringly loud, however unspoken, between them, a reminder of his insidious sin, his greatest failure, a failure for which his mother had paid. “I will not run from my responsibilities again,” Ash said.
His grandsire was almost as talented a schemer as his father, Ash thought, and he, himself, nearly as bad as both of them. But he had one worthy bone in his body, revenge, and one bit of himself to give—repentance, to what was left of his mother—to his tenants, and to Larkin and the children they might have, despite the fact that he’d had to sell his soul to his grandfather to do it.
When the old man was set to take his leave, Lark returned to stand beside Ash at the top of the Chase steps. She embraced and kissed his grandfather as if he were her own, affectionate and loving, and she smiled as they waved him off. And when the old man’s carriage cleared the gates, she rounded on her unsurprised husband. “You have to get me with child before Christmas?”
“Those are his terms for me to inherit.”
She whipped a small packet from the folds of her skirts and shoved it at him. “Read this to me.”
Ash hesitated before he took the packet. “What is it?”
“His will, he said. Go ahead. Read it, and you had better not omit anything important.”
“Where did you get it?”
“I found it.”
“Where? In my grandfather’s pocket?”
Lark shrugged and dragged him, awestruck, and certain his suspicions were correct, into the drawing room to sit. “Read it,” she said.
Ash shook his head and read the bloody will, because frankly, he had always wanted to be certain he would face no surprises after the old scoundrel stuck his spoon in the wall.
For fully ten minutes after, Lark sat in amazed and uncharacteristic silence.
“Speak to me,” Ash said. “Would you like a glass of water?”
“You should have told me the final stipulation. I once thought you the most forthright of men.”
“You were wrong.” Ash knew, if his bride did not, that he was everything his father said—a good for nothing, a rogue, a scoundrel, who’d as good as killed his own mother with selfishness.
“Your grandfather is difficult to read,” Lark said. “I cannot decide whether he is proud or ashamed of you.”
“And I cannot decide if you are a lady or a pickpocket.”
Lark tilted her head, as if deciding whether to answer, but she remained silent.
“As to whether my grandfather is proud of me, he is not. We dislike each other tremendously, always have.”
“That, I did not realize. You put on a good show.”
“He disowned my mother when she married my father, and when I was born he disowned me by association. We had no contact for years and have one thing, and one alone, in common. We both detested my father and everything he stood for. Ours is a pact of vengeance, pure and simple.”
“But your father is dead. And what about your mother? Where is she? Both you and your grandfather spoke so little of her, it made me wonder.”
His mother was all but dead as well, Ash thought, swallowing regret. “May I reserve the right to tell you my mother’s story at another time?” he asked.
His wife regarded him curiously then, and he saw recognition in her gaze, of sorrow perhaps, with a spark of understanding as well, and she nodded.
“My mother loved Blackburne Chase almost as much as she loved me. I intend to save it for her, and for her grandchildren, by God, even if that means making a pact with the devil, which is where my grandfather came in.”
“So you and your grandfather created a hell into which I stumbled?”
“Into which your father pushed us both, make no mistake, not that either of us is wholly without blame.”
“Right,” Lark said. “You have me there.”
CHAPTER NINE
Ash stood staring into the fire in the drawing room, aware he must convince Lark that it would be in her best interests to aid him in his determination to become his grandfather’s heir. She had intelligence and a ready wit, and must understand the importance of his need. Besides, there was no getting around the old codger’s determination any more than his own.
“When were you going to tell me of this final stipulation? That was the last, was it not? You did read to me every word on that will? I am not to bear six babies in six years or any such wild requirement am I?”
“A babe in my bride’s belly by Christmas was the final condition. To be truthful, I
did consider telling you last evening, after I got you drunk.”
Lark raised a brow. “I knew you were up to something.”
“But you let me hold you in my lap, a clear indication you understood nothing of my intent.”
“I had told you my sister’s story and frightened us both. I felt safe enough and sleepy enough not to worry. Foolish probably, but I survived. We both did.”
Barely, Ash thought, remembering the hard night’s sleep he’d had later, the worse for having spilled his seed in her hand, and for the erotic dreams he’d weaved as a result. “Twas a true story, then?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Since, for the most part, all is laid bare between us what do you say to helping me?”
Lark started. “Help you do … what?”
“Save Blackburne Chase by bearing my child?”
“That is an excessively large and … personal request.”
“I swore to take revenge upon my father in my mother’s name. You would take revenge upon your sister’s tormenter, if you could, would you not? I would help you vilify your own sire, if you wished it. He deserves taking down, that one. I detest the way he treated you.”
That brought her head up. “May I call upon that offer at some future date, perhaps?”
“I will be at your service, and will you be at mine? Is having children not what married people do, after all?”
“People who are married in the conventional way do, without stipulations. But since we were not married without conditions … on your part….”
Ash prepared for battle. “I feel an additional requirement coming on.”
“My sister’s babe….”
“It lived, then?”
“It did. She did not. It is—he is— Micah, his name is Micah. He lives still in the country, and because I pay them to care for him, they treat him almost as a member of the family, but that is not the same as a family of one’s own, do you not agree?”
Lark rose as well, forestalling his response. I will go along with your grandfather’s requirements, if you bring Micah here and raise and educate him as you would your own son, and—”
“And?” Ash asked, encouraging the thought she had abandoned.
“When you inherit, you put ten thousand pounds in each of our names, mine and Micah’s, as security against an uncertain future.”
“That’s robbery.”
“Equal to the deceitful trick you were planning that might have broken my heart.”
Ash scoffed. “Is a guttersnipe’s heart so delicate, then?”
Lark paled, “You will never know,” she said, raising her chin. “For my heart will never be open to your view. But if you wish to get me with child, I’d as soon know the reason why beforehand and not lay it at the door of a foolish notion like forever or any such rubbish.”
Ash hated himself for the angry insult. “Speaking of rubbish, what do you mean by demeaning such a cherished notion? Many a lady has lived on the hope of forever.”
“Many a lady has also perished from such an ill-fated aspiration, besides I am no lady, as you just pointed out.”
“I have been known to be wrong-headed as well as fork-tongued. Remember that you are my lady. You will accept my apology.”
“I will accept ten thousand pounds for each of us,” she said, stubborn as ever.
“For what uncertain future? You are my wife, until death us do part. No uncertainty exists in those words.”
“Unless you leave this earthly plane and another of your relatives with more money than brains writes a will with the power to send me packing. Besides, ‘tis for your own good as well as ours.”
Ash gave her a sardonic smile. “Explain.”
“After your grandfather passes—if either you or I, or both of us, chooses—we will be free to go our separate ways. You would be due your freedom, if you wished it, after the way … my father tricked you.”
“And you, what would you be due?”
“Recompense, for my suffering.”
“What suffering?”
“You must realize that I am … fearful of being hurt by the act necessary to creation. I am not partial to the idea of all that blood and pain just for a babe, though I do love Micah, and I am certain I could love a child of yours.”
“If you tried very hard,” Ash said, aware of the bite in his rejoinder. Yet, about his wife there suddenly existed a broken doll quality that he had certainly not glimpsed at the pub, or later when he brought her home. The fragility seemed to emerge as he peeled away each hardened layer of her hopes and dreams, layers of a past that might break a lesser being.
Ash saw the defenselessness in her, because he had experienced it on rare occasions in his own lifetime—and not just as a child. As a man, he considered himself a failure when he experienced dejection, because the male of the species were not supposed to feel, much less acknowledge the susceptibility toward vulnerability.
Nevertheless, in Lark, the frailty called to him, as if some invisible thread connected them, a sturdy thread he wished he might cut, for in many ways, he ached where it tugged at him. He disliked understanding her pain, seeing her helpless. He abhorred her mirroring his powerlessness, even more than he detested the weakness in himself.
“One more problem,” she said. “I do not know precisely what to do to get with child, so you will have to teach me.”
“I would have thought that living at a pub with transient “guests”….”
“Exactly.” Again her chin came up. “While I suspect that I know what to do to keep from getting with child—as the result of an incident I have tried to put from my mind—’tis the brutality of conception that seems to have slipped utterly through the fabric of my education.”
There, he saw it now. Through Larkin’s pain-filled eyes that broken doll vulnerability regarded him.
“I would rather a minimum of pain and blood,” she said, “if you please.” She went to gaze out the window, too pensive by half, her spine and shoulders bent with the ugly weight of the single brutal conception she remembered, however distorted.
Dear God, if she wept, in the way his mother had been wont to do, to get her own way, he could be done for. Then again, he did not intend to become bitter over the effort to touch his wife, as some men did. One way or another, easy or difficult, theirs would become a true marriage. He could be patient.
To his great relief, she turned to him, her shoulders firm, her tense tiger’s eyes becoming as inflexible as tiger eye stone, calming him, for the fissure in her broken-doll-porcelain seemed to be healing of its own accord. “And when I am with child,” she said, punctuating her words as if he should heed them, “you will stop coming to my bed.”
A strike to the solar plexus. A loss of breath. Her final condition hit him hard. Ash rubbed the back of his neck, scrubbed his coarse-stubbled chin. Now he knew, by God. Larkin Rose Blackburne could outfox him in a trice while remaining even more coldhearted and unemotional than he. Good God, what had he gotten himself into?
Whatever the depth of his predicament, he must remain strong, for this woman could break him. He knew it in his bones. “Fine,” Ash said, firming his spine, for his immediate goal sat more heavily on his shoulders than his absurd wish for an enduring physical relationship with his wife, though he’d not relinquish the notion. “We start now.”
“Now?” The sudden lack of color in his wife’s cheeks softened her and reassured him that she was not totally lacking in sensitivity. “But this is the middle of the day?” she all but wailed.
“You think what we did last night cannot be done in the middle of the day?”
That fast, scarlet washed her flour-paste skin. “What we did last night can hardly make a babe,” she said. “There was not a drop of blood anywhere.”
“No but there were drops of that which really counts.”
She colored and turned back to the window. “I do not know what you are talking about.”
“Fine. Then get you up the stairs and st
rip to the dress God gave you, because I am about to teach you.”
“Just like that, so cold and … brutal?”
“You are the one who requires no emotion. A hard cold bargain you offer and a hard cold bargain I accept.”
“Well, there is no emotion between us, is there? Ours is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a love match.”
“Perhaps not, but what happened between us last night seemed rather intimate to me. I thought at the time that it might make for a good beginning.”
“A beginning to what?” His wife’s face flamed. “What did we do last night? Do you not understand that I have no name for what happened between us? I do not even know. I did think I’d surely die and go to hell for whatever it was, for it seemed supremely wicked to my mind, and I was honestly surprised I woke this morning … alive.”
‘Twas not her innocence that made Ash laugh, but his own at doubting her, and the harder he laughed, the angrier his wife became, until she ran from the room and out the front door.
“Here we go again,” Ash said, chasing her as far as the spinney at the far edge of his estate.
She was weeping when he caught up with her and that seemed to make her madder, but she was out of breath, almost as winded as he, and so she remained by the stream, sitting on a rock. He sat beside her, took her into his arms, and let her weep against his shoulder. “About time you had somebody to lean on,” he said. “Life’s not been easy on you, has it, Larkin?”
“It’s not been terrible bad,” she said. “Except for never knowing my mother, and losing my sister, and wanting to make a better life for Micah.”
“Micah will come to us, as soon as may be arranged,” Ash said, concerned over his ability to become a proper father to the boy, considering his own mischievous childhood … and adulthood, come to that. “I shall send for him today if you wish.”
Lark wiped her eyes. “You would take him on, before I am with child?”
“He has a home with us, if you never get with child.”
“Could that happen?”
Untamable Rogue (Formerly: A Christmas Baby) Page 8
