The safest course of action was to hew closely to the rules of friendship he and Verity had tacitly established: no touching, no lingering glances, no giving voice to feelings better left ignored. They could continue on that path indefinitely. It might not be what either of them wanted in this moment, but in the long run it would be best.
He remembered Verity’s face as he turned her away, baffled and hurt. If he were a different man he could have brought her to bed. Instead he had spent the night cold and alone, his sleep interrupted by dreams of fear and loss.
By God, he didn’t want to live like that. He wanted to take a risk, to prove to himself that his existence didn’t need to be small and self-contained. He thought of how Verity had touched him and looked at him. It seemed to him the height of madness to meekly love someone from afar when you actually lived under the same roof. He wanted to mean something to somebody. But he couldn’t without risking ending up with nothing and nobody at all.
So it was that he all but stormed into the conservatory, more than ready to lose himself in the intricacies of foliage and Lady Caroline’s tales of far-off lands that neither of them would ever set eyes on. Lady Caroline turned to greet him, took one look at his face, and dropped a potted orchid.
Before Ash could stoop to pick up the remnants of the plant from the mess of clay shards and soil, two servants materialized seemingly out of thin air, one with a dust basin and broom and the other carrying a clay pot. So it was that he had no excuse to avoid the look of barely contained fright on the lady’s face as he greeted her. “Are you quite all right, ma’am?” he asked as soon as the servants left. “If I can be of any assistance, you need only ask.”
She remained silent, giving him only a quick shake of her head. But as he sat down to work, he felt her eyes on him, curious and searching. He sensed that she was working herself up to speech.
“Are you quite certain,” she asked after several moments of silence, “that you aren’t distantly connected to the Talbots? When you walked into the room you looked so much like my brother.”
Frustrated, Ash put down his pen. He was too unpracticed in the art of self-deception to deny the possibility that he was indeed the natural child of a Talbot servant and her master. He was certainly somebody’s natural child, and when he looked at Lady Caroline, he saw the same cleft chin and strong nose that he saw in his own reflection. When he considered the eerie familiarity of this house, he thought it possible that he might have lived in it for some time before being sent to his succession of foster homes. While it would be unusual for a servant to rear her own child in her employer’s home, perhaps one extra child would go unnoticed in a household as large as this one. But his blood family had ceased to matter to him the moment they had cast him off. He felt it was only right to pay as little regard for his antecedents as they had paid him.
“My lady, if you say I look like I have Talbot blood in my veins, then I have no doubt you’re entirely in the right. If you have a relative you suspect of siring bastards, then I daresay he’s my father.” He realized too late that he had spoken too coarsely. “I apologize for my language, but not for the sentiment.”
“Indeed, there is nothing to apologize for. Talbots are no strangers to vice. However, the fact that you are alive and in good health suggests that you were well provided for in your early years. That doesn’t sound in the least like something a man of my family would do. A Talbot man would be much more likely to leave one of his by-blows to die of exposure on a hillside. I suppose I ought to apologize for suggesting that you might be a Talbot, after having spoken so badly of them.”
“My lady, you are yourself a Talbot and I don’t see any evidence of evildoing on your part. I doubt you would leave a child to die of exposure.” It was meant as a jest, but the lady’s face drained of color.
“Indeed. I would not let a child die,” she said in a faint voice.
Ash worried he had said something to recall a bad experience to the lady’s mind, and scrambled to find a way to make it right. But before he could come up with a suitable response, she stepped towards him.
“Do you have scar on your forearm, Mr. Ashby? It would be your left arm, halfway between the wrist and elbow.” She reached out to him, as if she meant to check for herself, but then arrested the motion. Ash was already on his feet, stepping back from the woman’s hand as if it were a viper. “I beg your pardon,” she said, blushing fiercely. “That was terribly inappropriate of me.”
But as he looked at her outstretched hand, he saw a ring of bruises around her wrist, of the sort he imagined might be caused by a large hand gripping her. “I find it hard to believe that you would wish to have another Talbot man in proximity to you,” he said, trying to make his voice gentle. “They do not seem to do you much good.”
“They don’t do anyone any good whatsoever,” she said, tucking her hands behind her back when she saw that Ash had observed her discolored wrists. “I mitigate the harm as well as I can, which sometimes isn’t very well at all.” She spoke these last words with something like grief, her gaze not moving from his face.
“You’ll understand that even if I am the natural child of some connection of yours, I don’t especially wish to dwell on it, nor do I wish to make the acquaintance of people who threw me away.”
“Thrown away. You misunderstand—” Lady Caroline went pale. “I beg your pardon. I just thought—family is good to have.”
It wasn’t until he was halfway home that Ash realized she might have been talking about her own wish for family—family that didn’t leave bruises on her arms or cause her to hide within her own home. If he were a different sort of person he might have been able to negotiate some kind of relationship with this family that could be his. He might be able to provide some comfort to this woman who, despite her fine clothes and grand house, seemed more alone than Ash.
Verity was inspecting the proofs for the November issue of the Ladies’ Register when a woman entered the shop. She had a black velvet cloak pulled over her head and a fur muff covering her hands. At a glance, Verity could tell that this was not the sort of customer they usually got. But then the girl flung off her hood. It was Amelia Allenby, looking vaguely dismayed to see Verity.
“Oh!” Amelia said, standing in the shop door. “You never work behind the counter.”
“Well, what with Nate being—” Verity clapped a hand to her forehead. “Oh, Amelia, I ought to have sent word.”
The girl looked stricken. “Is he in prison?”
“No, God no.” Verity explained Nate’s departure and watched the girl’s open countenance progress from surprise to relief to, finally, what seemed to be mild consternation.
“Your brother certainly doesn’t make things easy,” Amelia said.
This was such an understatement that Verity couldn’t hold back a laugh. “You don’t know the half of it,” she said. But why did Amelia speak as if she were personally aggrieved by Nate’s behavior? In fact, what was Amelia even doing here in the first place? “I thought you weren’t supposed to come here,” she pointed out.
“That was to keep me away from Nate. If he isn’t here, then it hardly matters.”
Verity folded her arms across her chest. “But you came to see him.”
“Trifling details,” Amelia said breezily. “Oh, is that the second issue of the Ladies’ Register you have there? We’ve dearly been looking forward to it.”
Verity’s eyes narrowed. Could it be that Amelia had arrived for some kind of assignation with Nate? Or Charlie, even? “Amelia, are you and Nate—”
“Stop, you sound like Mama. She thinks I have a tendre for your brother. She’ll be over the moon to discover he’s at a safe distance from me.”
“You wouldn’t be the first person who did,” she said carefully.
“I’m exceptionally fond of your brother, and of you and Mr. Ashby. You’re all so clever and quick-witted and I enjoy your company very much. And your brother is handsome, no question. But Mama thinks that
means I want to elope with him. You know Mama, she thinks every young lady will drift helplessly towards an amorous misadventure if given half a chance.”
“Well,” Verity said, striving for delicacy, “that may be due to the fact that this is precisely what she did at your age.” Portia had been very young indeed when she met Amelia’s father.
“Truly, though, I don’t even want to kiss Nate or anybody else. I just like to look at him and listen to him. It’s envy, not romance.”
“Envy?” Verity repeated, gazing pointedly at Amelia’s velvet cloak.
“Imagine being able to do exactly as you please. I know that sounds childish, when there might well have been dire consequences for him, which is why he’s on a ship at the moment. But he’s a man, and, well, not a gentleman. He doesn’t need to stand on ceremony. Whereas I feel like a prize pony. Every word I say and every step I take is judged, sometimes right in front of my face. I do feel bad for Mama. She has such a poor horse to show.”
“Oh, Amelia.” Not for the first time, Verity wondered if Portia had been thinking quite clearly in bringing up her girls the way she had. Amelia had all the burdens of gentility with none of the security and none of the status. Verity could at least fend for herself. She did not think she could stand a single day in Amelia’s shoes, being judged and found wanting by people with money and titles—the very group she held responsible for most of what ailed the nation. Well, Verity could endure a day, but that day would end with her throwing her drink in somebody’s face and then going back to her normal life. Because Verity had work; she could take care of herself. Amelia’s future was dependent on the approval of people she did not respect or care for.
“In any event,” Amelia went on, waving an airy hand. “I’ll miss your brother terribly and I’ll likely convince myself he’s my lost love the next time I’m feeling dramatic, but I have to agree with you that he can’t go on like this, risking arrest and throwing your lives into chaos. I’ll pretend to be devastated so Mama thinks my life is more interesting than it really is, and so she’ll have the satisfaction of thinking a crisis has been averted.”
“Does she even know you’re here?”
“No. The coachman is pretending not to notice that I’m at a bookshop instead of the milliner, and my maid is quite charmingly bribable. I only meant to duck in.” Her brow furrowed. “But if Nate isn’t here, I’m faced with a problem,” she murmured.
“Are you? Are you quite certain this wasn’t mean to be a, ah, rendezvous, Amelia?”
“Oh, never mind!” Amelia assured her with patently false brightness. “Here,” she said, dropping sixpence on the counter. “I’ll take a copy of the Ladies’ Register. We laughed so hard when we read the last issue that Lizzie was nearly sick and Mama had tears coming down her face.”
Verity had been partly responsible for hundreds of issues of the Register, but the Ladies’ Register was the first publication she had managed entirely on her own and she felt proud beyond all measure. “It’s only the proofs, not a proper copy,” Verity protested, but Amelia insisted it did not matter, and shoved the stack of papers into her muff, which seemed to already contain quite a collection of other papers.
“Send Mr. Ashby my regards!” Amelia called, already whisking out the door before Verity could ask why she had really come.
The weather obliged in providing a melancholy backdrop that perfectly suited Verity’s mood. The sky was a dirty shade of gray and there was a layer of fog seeping into the cracks between buildings and leeching the city of all its color. As she looked out the shop window, her view was a study in gray and brown. Verity adjusted her shawl around her shoulders.
She heard the door to the back room open and out of the corner of her eye saw a person approach. Without turning her head she knew that it was Ash. It wasn’t any particular scent of his or a way he moved, just the way his body seemed to fit beside hers even without touching.
“Brought you some tea,” he said, putting a cup down on the counter.
“Thank you,” she said. “I suppose you don’t despise me enough to make me go without tea.”
“Despise you?”
“Despise, detest, resent, revile. Take your pick.”
“Plum,” he said in a voice that somehow managed to make itself heard over the noise, “are you suffering from some kind of affliction?” He was facing her now, but she didn’t return his gaze, instead keeping her attention on the fog outside the shop window.
“Maybe that’s the explanation for my wickedness,” she said. “An affliction. Let’s go with that.”
“Your—What maggots have got into your brain to make you think I despise you?”
“You’ve been avoiding me all week, ever since Nate left. You plainly disapprove.”
“I don’t disapprove of a single thing you’ve ever done in your life, Plum.” He shook his head, as if perplexed. “I don’t think I could.” There was something dark and needy in his voice that made her look directly at him. The strong planes of his face were even starker in the flickering candlelight, and his dark eyes gleamed with intent. “If you hadn’t persuaded Nate to go in the way you did, I don’t think I would have known a moment’s peace. Damn it, Plum, I miss your brother. I think England is a better place with him on its shores. But there was no way I was going to stand idly by while he threw his life away and yours into the bargain.”
“Then why haven’t you talked to me?” Her voice sounded small and weak and she hated it. “I’ve been all alone for days now.” This was so close to asking—begging, even—for help, for reassurance, that she felt small and weak even speaking the words. She needed to hear it, though, needed proof that she was not the only one in over her head. She couldn’t make herself speak the words aloud, so she squeezed his arm, willing him to answer the question she could not ask.
She heard his breath catch. “You know perfectly well,” he said, as if he had heard her thoughts. But he must have seen the uncertainty in her expression. In a voice that was nearly a growl, he said, “I see you do not.” The next thing she knew he had bolted the shop door and slipped his arm into hers, not a gentlemanly offer of support so much as a means of more or less dragging her from the room. “This way. We’re not having this conversation for an audience.” He led her out of the shop and up to her study. Ash kicked the door shut behind them and they were alone in the dark, his mouth on hers, his body caging her against the wall. The room was cold and the wall was damp against her back, but he was a wall of heat in front of her, around her, everywhere she needed him to be. And his mouth—he was kissing her as if he were running out of time, as if there were a very serious kiss shortage and reasonable people had to set about stockpiling. She contemplated rucking up her skirts and seeing what they could do against the closed door, fully dressed.
He paused only enough to speak. “You matter more to me than anything in the world and you fucking know it. And it won’t do us a penny’s worth of good. It simply won’t do.” But he spoke the words against her mouth, his lips moving against her own.
She kissed him again, then pulled away just enough to speak. “You’re wrong. I’ve known you for ages and you’ve never been as wrong as you are now.” Another kiss, and this time she nipped at his lower lip. He groaned.
All that mattered was the taste of tea on his lips, the pressure of his hands on her waist, the way their bodies and their lives fit together and made her forget everything else. She wrapped a leg around his waist at the same time he got his hands under her bottom and lifted her, pressing the hard length of his arousal against her, kissing her with a rhythm that suggested something more than kisses.
“Please,” she said, not sure what she was asking for. “Ash.”
He groaned and pulled away, the cold air rushing in between them. “We can’t. I can’t.” He let out a bitter laugh that she didn’t understand. “I certainly can’t.”
“If you’re worried about my virtue I assure that’s not of the least concern. I don’t expect—”
/>
“I don’t give a damn about your virtue. I can’t explain, Verity,” he said with a mix of frustration and sorrow, and left her alone in the cold dark room.
Chapter Eight
The door to Ash’s studio was closed, so Verity took a deep breath and straightened her back before knocking. For the two days since their last encounter, they had been behaving towards one another with exaggerated cordiality, carefully preserving a respectable distance between their bodies and hewing to only the most harmless conversational topics. If this was what a couple of kisses did to a friendship, then Verity was staunchly opposed to kissing. Or she would at least act like she was. Because however delightful those moments in Ash’s arms had been, nothing was worth having her friendship with Ash reduced to mere civility.
Only when she heard footsteps approaching the door did she think to adjust her skirts or check her hair, and a quick glance at the former and pat of the latter confirmed that she was all askew, but there was nothing to do about it now. And besides, she was not here to seduce Ash with her elegance. The thought of it made her smile—if Ash required elegance, he would not have kissed her in the first place.
The door opened, and Ash stood there in shirtsleeves. Before he could open his mouth to say something blandly polite, Verity blurted out, “I thought you might like to go to the chophouse. I finished the last of the bread at breakfast and forgot to buy more so it’s the chophouse or a slow starvation, your choice.” She paused to take a breath. “My treat.”
A Duke in Disguise Page 10
