Ash’s hands itched for his pen and ink, but they were still in the attics of Verity’s house, and besides, there was no time for drawing, even less for engraving. He had hastily packed a single change of clothes and his shaving kit before leaving for Arundel House, and it quickly became apparent that he needn’t have even packed so much. Three consecutive afternoons were spent with tailors and haberdashers, being measured and outfitted for a life he did not particularly want. With every morning that he woke in his absurdly soft bed, he felt less like he had ever known a life before Arundel House. In saying goodbye to people, Ash had gotten good at leaving behind parts of himself. Holywell Street, engraving, Nate, Verity—they all belonged to an Ash who was gone. Within a week, he thought they belonged to an Ash who might never have been real in the first place.
The staff at Arundel House had always been efficiently cordial to him, but there was a shift in their manners, a shift that measured the difference between how a good servant treated a visiting tradesman and how he treated the heir to a dukedom—the heir to a dukedom who would disinherit his cruel master, no less. There was a degree of deference in the footman’s speed and the maid’s bobbed curtsey that set him on edge. He felt that he was being corrupted from the outside in.
He had half expected Verity to write him a hastily scrawled note, perhaps, or to simply send over his engraving supplies. But the days came and went and there was no word from her. He had been excised from her life as comprehensively as he had been cast out of the Talbot family twenty years ago. He knew this wasn’t fair; he knew that he had been the one who had left her. And now he also knew that he hadn’t been cast out by the Talbots after all. But he spent so many years believing it to be true that he couldn’t help but think that it was his fate to lose everyone he cared for. Verity had become the latest in a series of people he had loved and lost, and from Ash’s new home in Arundel House her loss felt as inevitable as those that had preceded it.
Instead of Verity, he met with a bewildering stream of visitors. There were lawyers and peers and a man he later discovered was the Duke of Wellington’s private secretary. After them, there came the women: dowagers and countesses and the patronesses of Almack’s. All seemed preposterously glad to have met him. He wondered if he could get rid of them by behaving very rudely, and thereby get his old life back, then remembered there was no old life to return to.
“Is your brother such a notorious villain that people will welcome any comer to replace him?” he peevishly asked his aunt after a dinner attended by a particularly sycophantic set of aristocrats.
She blinked rapidly, which he learned was how she responded to any question she could not answer with rigorous correctness. “Well, he is a villain, but not precisely notorious. He doesn’t matter, though. People know we will prevail, so they court your favor.”
Ash snorted derisively, even as his aunt’s we warmed a chilly corner of his heart. “Why are they so certain? It still seems like moonshine to me.”
She gave him a gentle smile. “It really isn’t, though.”
“Bol—” He cleared his throat. “Balderdash. If this all goes pear-shaped, I supposed I’ll be locked up in a lunatic asylum as my father was.” He settled gloomily into a corner of the stiff drawing room sofa and downed a glass of whisky.
The following morning an elderly woman was presented to him as Lady Staffordshire. He had a vague sense that he ought to recall this name, but he had met and heard of so many people this past week, he simply could not keep track. She was plump and short, with pure white hair. “Oh my,” she breathed, clasping his hand. “The very image of his father. You weren’t exaggerating, Caro.”
“This is your grandmother,” his aunt said. “How was your journey from Yorkshire?” she asked the lady.
“I came as soon as I got your letter,” Lady Staffordshire said, not letting go of his hands or looking away from his face. “And I’m so glad I did.”
They drank tea, discussed the badness of the weather and the warmth of the fire, and after a quarter of an hour they all rose to their feet.
“Staffordshire will support your claim,” his grandmother pronounced. “What does the duke have to say?”
Lady Caroline shifted in her seat. “He’s very unwell and refuses to meet with us.”
“Insist upon it. You must not waste any time, Caro. It will look very bad indeed if the duke dies without acknowledging Montagu.” She didn’t stumble over the title, but Ash couldn’t imagine ever getting used to it. “You must avoid the appearance of anything cloak and dagger. Besides, he may well wish to see his grandchild. I have half a dozen of my own, but he has none.”
“If I had snarled and cursed, would she have declared me an impostor?” Ash asked his aunt after the older woman took her leave. Could he then have packed his bag, leaving behind his new coats and pantaloons along with this hateful title that people insisted on using, and returned to Holywell Street?
“Oh, no,” she declared promptly. “That would only have made her even more certain you were a Talbot.”
They caught one another’s eyes and laughed. It was the first time Ash had truly laughed in the week he had been living at Arundel House. He felt the ache in his sides, and when he looked at his aunt, he saw that she was nearly doubled over in laughter. She, too, had gone a long time without laughing.
“If you had insulted her appearance and thrown a vase it would have quite sealed the matter. In fact, perhaps that’s what you ought to do in the courtroom.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said dryly.
Ash had often felt unmoored without a family or a home. Without anyone or anywhere he belonged to, and with a body that sometimes seemed intent on killing him, he had often felt like a visitor everywhere he went—estranged from the living, dreading the moment the people he cared for would cast him off and the body he lived in would finally betray him. He hadn’t let himself get too comfortable, hadn’t let himself form connections that would trick him into thinking he belonged.
But looking at his aunt he knew he belonged here. It wasn’t just the fact that her nearly black eyes were identical to his own, it wasn’t just the family connection—one could share blood with any stranger on the street and not have it matter in the least. But Lady Caroline had shown him a duty. Maybe this was the answer to why Ash was here in this body, in this world, in the first place.
Or maybe he was here to simply be his aunt’s nephew, to prove to her that her family wasn’t entirely rotten, to prove that she had done a good deed twenty years ago by sending him away.
“When can we expect”—Ash still did not know what to call the man—“my uncle?”
Lady Caroline frowned. “As soon as tomorrow, depending on how muddy the roads from Leicestershire are.”
“We ought to stay at a hotel,” Ash said, giving voice to a worry that had been niggling at his mind since his arrival at Arundel House. “My uncle will not take my presence calmly.” That was an understatement. He half expected his uncle to murder his aunt and Ash himself without delay. He did not seem to be a man who could be relied upon to make wise decisions.
“I will not leave this house,” Lady Caroline said with more firmness than he expected. “It’s my home as much as it is Robert’s, and more so since I’ve had the running of it for the better part of two decades. He hurt me, Ash. I will not scurry away any longer.”
“Quite,” he said, unable to contradict her.
“Nor will I leave my father without protection. He’s not a good man, but he’s helpless. Speaking of which, Lady Staffordshire was quite right. We need to speak with the duke before Robert returns.”
After a few hours of messages sent back and forth via the duke’s grim-faced valet, the duke sent word that he would receive Lady Caroline and Ash.
“Over there is the portrait gallery,” Lady Caroline said as she led Ash to the floor of the house that was reserved for the duke. “Most of our better art is at Weybourne Priory but we have a Reynolds and a Gibbs here, as
well as a small pair of Gainsboroughs. Watch your step on that carpet.”
Ash knew she was going on in this way to distract him from what was about to pass, but soon enough a liveried servant appeared to usher them through a sitting room and into a large, darkened bedroom. The curtains were drawn, the air was close, and on a large bed hung with velvet curtains lay a small, wizened figure.
“Father,” Lady Caroline whispered. “Here’s the man I told you about.”
The old man’s skin was pale and papery, but his eyes were bright and unclouded by age. He looked at Ash. “Jamie,” he said in a voice rusty with disuse.
“No, Papa, not Jamie.”
“Course not,” the duke said, his eyes focused now on Ash. “Jamie’s son. The one you got rid of.”
“I didn’t get rid of him,” Lady Caroline protested.
Ash stepped closer to the old man. “Your grace,” he said.
“She got rid of you because you had fits,” the duke said.
Lady Caroline made a sound of protest. “I didn’t—”
“She”—he gestured to his daughter—“paid off some poor woman whose son died in a rookery, laid out the body herself, said it was you, and had the child buried the next day under the church floor with the rest of the Talbots. I was at a shooting party in Yorkshire and came home to find the house in mourning.”
So that was how she did it. “How did you know, your grace? If you were away from London, I mean.”
“I’m the duke,” the old man said forcefully, and looked about to say more, but he was interrupted by a coughing fit. A servant stepped forward, but the duke waved him off. “I’m the duke,” he repeated when he once again had breath. “The child’s father told me. He wasn’t going to do the bidding of a chit of a girl. Of course he told me.”
“Got some money from you, too, I suppose,” Ash said gently, not wanting to speak the word blackmail. “Why didn’t you look for me?”
“The body had already been buried in the Talbot plot. I couldn’t dig it up and expose my daughter’s misdeeds to the world,” the old man said. “Or my son’s,” he added darkly. “So you’re to be the duke when I die. Won’t have long to wait. Daresay you’re pleased with yourself.” When Ash didn’t respond, the duke pointed a bony finger at him. “You’d rather my daughter return you to whatever hovel she found you in, then?”
“I’m not certain what kind of newspapers you receive here, but I didn’t come from a hovel. I’m a tradesman, which you may well consider worse. And it doesn’t seem that I have the choice to go back to where I came from, especially since where I came from was evidently here. So I mean to get on the best I can.”
“Hmph.”
“I hardly need to point out that if you don’t like the looks of me, you could very well disclaim all knowledge of the dead urchin. On the other hand, if you wanted to speed things up, you could provide a sworn affidavit with the story you told me. As for me, I’d rather you do one of those things, because without a statement from you, your grace, I don’t see any way around a long and costly legal battle between your son and me. I’d rather that money be spent on doing something about the chimneys in this house, but it’s your choice.”
The old man regarded him appraisingly. “Caro, get him out of here. I need to rest.” As they left, they heard the sounds of his coughing.
Chapter Fifteen
Verity settled into something of a rhythm that first cold, damp week of December. She rose, she worked, she ate, she slept. She feared that the sense of calm and peace she felt in an empty house was certain proof that she was not meant to form a lasting partnership with anyone. In the evenings, she curled up on the sofa with a book while Ash’s cat gave her murderous stares and repeatedly knocked over the inkwell.
“Yes, well, nobody said you had to stay here,” Verity told the cat. Occasionally Verity left a dish of table scraps on the floor, and occasionally the cat left a dead mouse on Verity’s pillow. Verity took this as a sign that they had reached a tentative détente; the cat sometimes even ventured to sit on the back of the sofa, but only if Verity pretended she didn’t notice or care.
Predictably, the papers were making a meal of Ash’s situation. In her line of work, she couldn’t entirely ignore newspapers, but for the first few days she tried to at least avert her eyes from those articles about Ash. Whenever she walked into the workshop, however, she’d find the men hastily hiding the latest edition behind their backs, a pall of sudden silence falling over the room. She caught herself tip-toeing down the stairs, straining her ears to catch fragments of overheard conversation. At that point, Verity figured she might as well admit that she lacked the will to suppress curiosity about a person who had mattered—did matter—so much to her, when there was news of him right in front of her eyes, and began greedily reading everything she could about him.
Each edition of every paper had a story on “the long-lost heir of Arundel” or “the Commoner Duke” as they had taken to calling him, this latter sobriquet being a compliment from Whigs and an insult from Tories. Engravers took shameless advantage of having a subject they knew well enough to draw from memory, so every printshop from Grub Street to Hyde Park displayed ludicrous caricatures of Ash in the window. A notable example portrayed him carrying a common tankard of ale and betting on a cockfight, his ducal coronet askew, radical pamphlets tucked into his ermine cape. That would have amused Ash. He would have been less amused by the caricature of Lady Caroline Talbot absentmindedly dropping a baby in the gutter.
It was when she saw these engravings, done by his former colleagues, that Verity understood that there would be no going back for Ash. Whatever happened, he couldn’t return to Holywell Street and work alongside people who had used him in this way. And what was worse, they were all lost to him. Ash had been alone too often, had been cast off by too many people too many times.
Then she grabbed her umbrella and cloak and made for the street.
“But what do I call these people?” Verity asked an hour later, pacing the floor of Portia’s drawing room.
“I doubt you’ll meet the duke, but if you do, simply call him your grace. Lady Caroline Talbot is either Lady Caroline, my lady, or madam.”
“I meant what do I call Ash?”
Portia looked at her as if she were feverish. “Call him Ash,” she said slowly, enunciating each syllable.
“I can’t walk in the door and say ‘Bring me to Ash.’ Is he Lord Ash? He can’t be Lord Montagu yet.”
“Those who have declared themselves in support of his claim are already calling him Lord Montagu.”
“Then what are they calling his uncle? The man who used to be Lord Montagu?” This was all dreadfully confusing, and exactly the sort of system one would expect from a class of people who regarded an accident of birth as more important than knowing who the devil one was speaking of.
“Lord Robert,” Portia said. “It’s very cold. You’ll borrow my fox cape?”
“I can’t very well wear your fox with my own dress. It’ll look like I stole your cape. I’ll get arrested.”
“Then you ought to borrow one of Amelia’s afternoon gowns as well.”
“No,” Verity said. “I’ll go as I am.” Still, as she lifted the heavy brass knocker on the door of Arundel House, she was very aware of the state of her gown, from its soiled hem to its frayed cuffs.
Well, she wasn’t here to be pretty. She was here to see Ash, if he’d see her. She’d say her piece and then leave, which would have been a fine plan if she had the faintest notion of what her piece constituted. She knocked on the door, dearly wishing she had written a letter instead. But some things were better said face-to-face, and even though she wasn’t entirely sure what she meant to say to Ash, she was fairly certain it fell into that category.
A footman opened the door. “I’m here to see Mr. Ashby,” she said, unable to make her mouth shape his title. She clenched her fists around the handle of her satchel. “My name is Verity Plum.” She realized that she was ready
to stand her ground, to stomp her foot and insist upon seeing Ash. But the servant simply showed her inside to a small parlor and shut the door behind her.
The room was decorated in a subdued style, but scrupulously clean and well aired. Her mind, which for days had been flitting madly between topics, never alighting on any thought long enough to get comfortable, suddenly latched on to the particulars of this room, assimilating details as if they were of the utmost importance. She noted wine-colored whorls on the carpet and green stripes on the wallpaper. A very ugly painting of a horse hung above the hearth, and bits of bric-a-brac were arranged on a shelf. This seemed an extraordinary amount of effort to put into a room that likely served no purpose but the temporary storage of unwanted visitors.
Now that Verity was minutes away from seeing Ash, her hands were clammy and her heart racing. For the past week, she had allowed herself to think only about how annoyed she was—not with Ash, not with herself, but with the entire state of affairs that had ruined things between them. But now it sunk in that she was going to see him. She’d see his face, hear his voice, be near the body that had once been pressed against her own. She realized she was nervous about seeing him—about seeing Ash. That was the worst of it, that this predicament had taken away even the most basic foundation of their friendship. There, thank God, she was angry again, which was much better than the noxious brew of anxiety and contrition that had been with her for days.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door slamming and a man’s raised voice, followed by a woman’s quiet pleading. Verity opened the door immediately. A large man, who looked very much like an older, angrier version of Ash, hollered at Lady Caroline while maids scattered.
“You have gone too far this time, Caroline,” the man roared. “It doesn’t matter what urchins you present with a claim to my title.” He lowered his voice to a hiss that Verity could hear, but which the servants, who had retreated, would likely not. “It remains my title, and you would do well to remember that I’m the one with all the cards in this game.” Lady Caroline looked like she was trying to disappear into the plaster of the wall, and Verity was put in mind of her mother cowering while her father slammed doors and shouted. “I ought to have sent you away at the same time Jamie was locked up. You were both always soft in your heads, him with his drawings and you with your plants. You’ve been living on my sufferance. Your bloody plants, your clothes, your entire manner of living, are all due to my generosity.”
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