Unveiled (9 page)

He knew Miss Lowell less well, but he could intuit that had she been the least tempted by Mark, she'd never have agreed to the lessons. She had an unfortunate,
innate sense of propriety—one that Ash was only beginning to break through himself.

But now, with her apology folded in his pocket, there was no reason for Ash to wait, banished on the outskirts. Not any longer. He stood and walked down the hall. He paused by the entry to the room and peered in. The doors to the gallery were wide open. Nothing untoward could happen. And while the exercise would have been highly improper for a lady, it was merely eccentric for a few servants.

Miss Lowell and the second upstairs maid stood in the center of the room.

“You're aiming for the nose,” Mark said from his vantage point by the side. “You have to practice bringing your elbow up quickly. Anything else, and you'll not have the advantage of speed or surprise—a big man would simply brush off such a strike. You can't count on being stronger than anyone, so you must be
faster.
”

“I can't,” protested the maid. “Without someone there, I just can't
see
where I should be placing my elbow.”

Miss Lowell cast a sidelong glance at her companion and then looked away. There wasn't a hint of agreement in her face, not a single echo of that lament. Instead she set her jaw almost fiercely. Of course. She wasn't the sort to bemoan her fate, Ash realized, nor to make protests or excuses. Not when she could simply set things to rights. He hadn't heard a complaint from her, not the entire time he'd spent in the house. She simply did what was necessary.

Even last night, she'd not made excuses for her behavior or accusations about his in justification. Anyone else in her place might have done so, but she hadn't.

There was something straightforward about her. He liked that. He already liked far too much about her, from the curve of her snub nose to the way she nodded at Mark's criticism and squared her shoulders, as if determined to get it right.

“I agree,” Ash said from the doorway, “you need to see it done. You need to see someone smaller take on someone larger, so you can have a feel for what it ought to look like.”

Miss Lowell whirled to look at him. Her eyes widened and a faint flush lit her cheeks. But she didn't point her finger and demand he leave. And had she been dead set against any further interaction with Ash, he was sure she would have. Instead, she glanced at Mark, as if seeking permission.

Mark pursed his lips and looked his brother up and down. Had they grown up in each others' company, they might have grappled together sometimes, as brothers did. But Ash had left for India when Mark was barely seven years of age; when Ash had returned he'd been a man, with a man's body, and his brother had been a wiry, too-skinny child of eleven. In the more than a decade that had passed since, Ash had been busy working and Mark had been off at school. They'd never had the chance to do
this.
He'd so carefully protected his younger brother that perhaps he'd missed the opportunity to make friends with him. There'd been no scrambling; no wrestling nor boxing. Not a hint of fencing practice. None of the usual chances that an older brother had to beat his brother into benevolent harmony.

Words on a page would never bring them together, no matter what Mark believed. But this…
this
might.

“Come now, Mark,” Ash said. “Why don't we show the ladies how it's done?”

As an added benefit, perhaps Ash might show Miss Lowell a few things himself.

Mark smiled enigmatically and shook his head. “What do you think, Miss Lowell? Suppose a big man—a man the size of Ash—were to come after you? What would you do?”

That
was not what he'd intended. As pleasant as it might have been to grapple with her, he'd prefer not to have an audience when he did so. And besides, the last thing he wanted her to playact with him was unwillingness.

“Mark, I can hardly strike a lady.”

“Of course not. Perhaps you might simply reach for her wrist. Gently, if you wish.” Mark dropped an eyelid in a mysterious wink, and Ash suddenly understood his brother's ploy. It was a simple matter. He would have to steel himself for the inevitable—a slap on the cheek, perhaps even a feminine blow to the gut. She couldn't hurt him, not if he were ready for whatever puny little punch she managed to deliver. But he could let her
think
she had hurt him. Build up her confidence. Build up her trust. And, in the meantime, get close enough to touch her wrist.

No possible drawbacks to that one. There was no getting around it. His little brother was a genius.

“I don't know, Mark,” Miss Lowell was saying. “I—I really shouldn't like to hurt your brother. I'm not the violent sort.” She glanced uneasily in Ash's direction, as if aware that the events of last night left him more than able to contradict her. “Not usually,” she amended.

Ash hid a smile. If she could hurt him, it was surely
not by laying her hands on him. “I acquiesce in a good cause,” he said soberly. “I can withstand a few bruises.” And then, because he couldn't help himself, he added, “Besides, I don't mind the occasional bout of violence.”

She colored.

Mark nodded enthusiastically at this. “Too true. He's a man. Men
like
pain. It's how we make friends, you know.”

It was as if Mark had lifted the thought from Ash's head. Ash grinned. “The measure of male familiarity is the degree of barbarism to which one reverts in the absence of female companionship. A man knows he's among friends when he feels free to hoot like a heathen and bash heads like a ram.” Perhaps he was overdoing it.

“Additionally, how many nurses can say they've brought the Duke of Parford to his knees?” Mark added, a glint in his eyes.

No doubt that was intended as a subtle hint to Ash. Very well. He'd let her strike him, he'd stagger about a bit, then he'd fall to the floor. An easy victory for her, and his pride could withstand the blow.
Especially
since he would know precisely how much her victory would mean.

“You'll be able to tell your grandchildren, one day,” Mark said.

“Let's start this nice and easy.” Ash reached out and took hold of her wrist, pulling her to him—not harshly, but gently. She looked up into his face, her eyes wide, her lips parted, subtly. He was aware of her whole body, scant inches from his. He could feel the heat of her. If his brother hadn't been looking on, Ash might have been tempted to lean down and touch his
mouth to hers. As it was, he could almost taste her, she was so close. The sweet scent of her whispered against his lips—

Bam.

Something struck his chin, and his mouth clipped shut, his teeth closing about his tongue. He tasted the tang of copper. He was blinking back the stinging pain when—

Whap.

He crumpled to the floor, his knees slamming against hard parquet before he had the chance to brace himself. It took him a second to realize she'd kicked his legs out from under him.

And then he felt a touch against his groin. Not a blow, thank God, but no soft caress, either. He opened his eyes. He was splayed on his knees. Miss Lowell stood above him, her eyes sparkling.

“This,” she said, her slippered foot against the fall of his trousers, “is where I would have kicked you, had you actually meant me harm. Notwithstanding your stated preference for violence and pain, I assumed I should refrain.”

“Clever girl.” His throat was raspy; he had to gulp in air. Part of his shortness of breath he could attribute to the bruising fall. Part of it was that she'd revealed an inch of delicate, stockinged ankle. But mostly, it was the placement of her foot, a gentle brush against an organ that was all too pleased to be touched by her, even in so hazardous a manner.

Her smile was not wide, but her pleasure encompassed her in a full-body glow. She'd taken him well and truly by surprise with that elbow to the jaw. He almost pitied the man who tried to steal a kiss from her now.

“Oh, dear. Did I fail to mention that Miss Lowell was a quick study?” There was a too-innocent tone in his brother's voice. Mark had done it on purpose—he'd put Ash at ease, set up this whole scenario, just to have him brought to his knees.

Ash could hardly disapprove.

“Miss Lowell,” Ash said, “is an entrancing little witch. As well she knows.”

She raised her chin smugly and stepped back, shaking her gown out to fall over her ankles.

If Ash hadn't already been on his knees before her, he'd have gotten on them now. Her hair was slightly disheveled, little strands escaping from her pins. She seemed incandescent—a sharp contrast to the inexplicable grief she'd worn last night. Victory suited her, and all the more because it had been actually won, not handed over in pretense.

He shook his head and gestured to his brother. “Come and help me up,” he said. “I'm not as young as I used to be.”

“Whatever you say,
older
brother.” Mark strode forwards, that delighted look in his eyes. Oh, Mark had won, all right—bamboozled Ash into underestimating Miss Lowell. It was as if Mark had wrestled him to the floor himself. Ash couldn't have been prouder. Mark reached out a hand and Ash grasped it. For a moment, it was a brotherly affirmation—hands clasped together in something akin to friendship.

Ash pulled his weight against his brother's hand, and Mark braced himself. As he scrambled to his feet, he whispered. “Did you really believe that claptrap about my not being young any longer? For a genius, you can be terribly idiotic sometimes.”

And with one swift movement, he pushed his brother
off balance, grappled his legs out from underneath him and, after a gratifying scuffle, succeeded in pinning Mark to the floor. For a second, they met eyes.

Mark smiled at him. And victory was complete.

W
HEN
M
ARGARET LEFT
her father's sickroom that evening, Ash Turner was waiting for her. He leaned against the wall, his bulk a muscled shadow clad in brown wool. She had known this moment was coming, ever since she'd left him that written apology on his desk. He was going to find her, talk to her. He might do substantially more.

But he didn't move to do anything. Instead, he nodded at her. “Good evening, Miss Lowell.”

It was impossible for her to ignore the deep rumble of his voice, impossible not to feel the palms of her hands prickle with awareness. He had treated her with kindness. True, he hadn't given her the prim and proper respect to which she'd become accustomed. But he'd given her something solid and quite a bit more reliable.

She swallowed. Her toes curled in her slippers. But then, she had decided this morning what she had to do.

“Good evening.” She wasn't finished, but she felt her throat closing about the last syllable. Before she could choke on the words, she started again. “Good evening. Ash.”

He didn't smile at that, but his eyes lit. A little defiance, he had called that. But it was a bigger defi
ance than he could imagine, to flout her family and to address him with such familiarity.

He'd earned it. Twice over.

He straightened. As he did so, the light from the oil-lamp behind him caught his features. With his head held high, the points of his collar no longer cast his chin in shadow.

And now she could see it. She stepped forwards without thinking, her breath hissing out. “Oh, no.” Her thumb found his jaw; it was harsh with a day's worth of stubble. And the skin beneath those coarse, rasping hairs was discolored. She lightly ran her fingers over that bruise. “Did I do that?”

She raised her eyes to his and only then realized how close she stood to him. Inches away. She was up on her tiptoes, caressing his face. She could smell his subtle musk—masculine and earthy, with a tang of bergamot. She could feel the heat of him against her fingertips. She should step away. Her breath was burning in her lungs, her lips tingling under his appraisal. Her whole body was coming to life, this close to his. Her breasts tightened, her thighs tensed and that bud between her legs warmed.

“Yes, Margaret.” He drew out the syllables, converting her name from a mere appellation into a verbal caress. “You did.”

“I'm so sorry. I didn't intend—”

“Oh, no apology needed. I've found it a most useful decoration. Would you know, it has actually driven one particularly lovely woman to touch my cheek?”

Her hand stopped on his chin, where she'd been tracing an unconscious circle. “You're putting a good face on it. But—”

“None of that, now. It's as I told you—this is how
men make friends. If you know what drives a man to anger, you know him.”

She shook her head. She still hadn't moved her fingers from his skin. She wasn't sure she wanted to. “That can't be rational.” Even less rational was the fact that she was still staring into his eyes.

“We are speaking of men, are we not? Most of us are base creatures, little more than bundles of animal instinct. Friendship is one of our least rational responses.”

As close as he was, he'd made no move to touch her. Another man who'd shown half of Ash's interest would have closed his arms about her by now and assaulted her lips. But despite the husk in his voice, he didn't strain towards her.

Her fingers still rested against his skin.

“Friends?” Margaret said. “Is that how you think of me?” She pulled her hand away, and lowered herself down from the tips of her toes.

He followed her down that inch and a half, canting his head over hers. A light sparkled in his eyes. “I spoke only by way of analogy. When I think of you, I want nothing so pale as friendship. I want more. I want decidedly more.”

He was going to kiss her. She could feel it in the greedy hunger of her lips, tilting up to his. She could feel it in the clamorous beat of her heart, yearning for that completion.

“I lied to you that first evening we spoke.” His breath felt like little brushes of butterfly wings against her lips, sweet and tremulous.

“Oh?”

His voice had gone deep, so deep it seemed to re
verberate in her bones. His finger reached up to trace her mouth. “I
do
want to take that kiss.”

Her heart stopped. Her lips parted. She felt a flush rise through her—and still he didn't press his lips to hers. Instead, he exhaled and she drank in his scent, sweet and warm.

“Oh,” she breathed.

“But—” he said, and it seemed an unfair word, that
but
“—I want you to
give
me one more.”

It would have been easy to shut her eyes and let him kiss her. To have the choice taken from her in one heated, passive moment, with nothing for her to do but comply. But he was asking for more than her artless submission. Not deference, not docility, but…defiance.

“I want you to choose me,” he said, “well and truly choose me of your own accord. I don't want you to wait at the crossroads in the hopes that I will force the choice upon you.”

What he wanted was more perilous than a kiss, more fraught with danger even than letting him slide his hands down her aching body.

“And why must I be the one deciding?”

“Because I decided upon you more than a week ago.”

At those words, she drew back. He didn't look as if he were joking. In fact, he seemed almost solemn in that declaration. Still, his words jarred her back to reality. They weren't sweethearts, exchanging promises. They were not lord and lady, agreeing to court. He believed she was a servant, and Ash Turner was a wealthy, handsome duke's heir.

“Don't,” she said. “Don't tell me falsehoods. You've treated me like this since—”

“Since the first time I laid eyes on you?” His words came out on a growl. “There's not much to me but animal instinct. Don't look to me for a logical discourse on your charms. I like the set of your chin. I like the way your eyes beckon me to follow you down dark, forested paths. I like that I can't bend you to my will—that you'll send me to the devil if you think I'm in the wrong.” She
wanted
to be wrong, wanted to believe that he proposed more than a simple joining of bodies. But one didn't decide such a thing the instant one clapped eyes on another person.

“You know almost nothing about me.” Not even her name.

“I don't need to line up a collection of
facts
to understand how magnificent you are. I'm not wrong. I'm never wrong. Not about this.”

“Such humility, Mr. Turner.” Her disappointment tinged her words with bitterness. “Everyone's wrong, eventually.”

“I'm not. I've no education to speak of. I know nothing of the classics. But I have this: I can look into someone's eyes and see the truth. It's how I made my fortune, you know.”

She swallowed. If he'd seen the truth in her eyes, he'd not stand so close to her now. “How do you mean?”

He must have heard the warning note in her voice, because he straightened and expelled a sigh.

“Everyone else is hampered by figures and facts, projections based on rationality. Every contract must be examined for soundness by a horde of solicitors; every word in it laid upon a coroner's table and prodded until it divulges its last secrets. It takes days for most people to reach an accord. Sometimes
months.
”

“And you?”

“I make up my mind in seconds. Speed matters, these days. Prices fluctuate, rising and falling with every ship that comes into port.”

“What do you do, then? Sign contracts without having them looked over?”

He bit his lip. For a long time, he pressed his lips together, his expression abstracted. Then he whispered, as if imparting a very great secret, “If I trust a man, I'll sign without reading it at all. Words on a page can't stop a true betrayal. All they can do is muddy up the aftermath in Chancery. And as I've said, I've never been wrong.”

Margaret took another stunned step backwards. “Doesn't that frighten you? To judge so quickly with so little evidence?”

He shook his head slowly—not an answer to her question, but a thorough rejection of her premise.

“I don't think that is at all what you mean. I think what you really want to know is whether you are frightened to have been judged so swiftly.
You
fear you might come up wanting. You fear that when all is said, and a great deal more has been done, you'll have nothing else I want, and I'll be done with you.”

He described them so precisely that she could almost believe he
had
seen her fears. But these were not just idle nightmares, to be dispelled by the coming dawn. Once he discovered her name, he
would
turn his back on her. And this—whatever it was—
would
be finished.

He tapped one finger against her lips. “Kiss me,” he said, “when you're sure that foolishness is wrong.”

 

M
ARGARET RETREATED TO HER
room in the servants' quarters with a pounding heart. She could feel the pulse
in her neck beating in confused arousal. She eased the door shut behind her and stared at the yellowing whitewash.

There were very few truths in this world. One of them, though, she understood deep in her bones. A man like Ash, with his fortune and his prospects, could have anyone. She doubted he intended anything so casual as a single night's seduction—he'd devoted far too much of his energy to wooing her to discard her so quickly.

But he couldn't want her honorably. Dukes' heirs didn't marry their mistresses.

She had no sooner to think that than realization struck. Dukes' heirs
did
marry their mistresses. She could think of one who had once done so: her father.

The sordid tale had been in all the papers when Ash had filed suit in the ecclesiastical courts. The events had been no less salacious for their being fifty years old. It was hard to imagine her father young and headstrong, but he must have been so once. When he had turned twenty-one, he'd married his mistress in a hushed-up ceremony held in a tiny town in Northumberland. He'd quietly brought his wife to meet his parents—and they had just as quietly threatened him with penury if he persisted in his foolishness.

But parents—even parents who were a duke and a duchess—could only do so much. There were no legal grounds for annulment. And so that impetuous, imprudent wedding had never been spoken about. The girl had been threatened with God only knew what—destitution, dismemberment, dyspepsia. She'd been bundled off to America, where she had wed a wealthy financier.

She'd shown neither hide nor hair in England in the decades that followed, until she made more than a
minor sensation of herself, testifying on the matter at Ash's behest.

So, yes. Dukes' heirs
did
sometimes marry their mistresses. But Ash surely knew that it never turned out well. Not for the duke in question, nor for the mistress and most especially not for the family, waiting in confusion on the margins.

Thoughts of family made Margaret think of Richard's letter. She'd tucked it into her lap desk, so that she might answer it at a more fortuitous time. She was supposed to tell him what she'd discovered about Ash. She was
supposed
to be finding evidence to undermine his claim before Parliament, not yearning for his kiss.

And yet, without attempting to do so, she'd succeeded. All she would have to do was write a letter that looked something like:
Mr. Ash Turner believes the notion of class is an antiquated delusion. Additionally, he is so hasty that he doesn't read his contracts before he signs them.

Two pieces of very valuable information. The first sentiment alone was frightfully revolutionary. Nobody would install a lord who espoused such radical sentiments. And if he hadn't meant his comments in a political way…why, that was simply the price that was sometimes paid in these fracases. A little twist of the truth, and she could end this farce right now. All she would have to do was write the words down.

A simple prospect to set pen to paper. There was only one problem.

She could still feel the heat of his presence, an unconscious echo reverberating through her. She could still feel him leaning over her, his lips so close to hers. She could hear her own protest:
You know almost
nothing about me.
This time, as she went over the memory, she added the truth.
I'm Lady Anna Margaret Dalrymple, and I have been lying about my identity so that I can better ferret out your faults. You mustn't trust me.

Still, in her mind, he gave her that enigmatic smile.
I don't need facts to understand how magnificent you are, how eminently trustworthy. I'm not wrong. I'm never wrong.

He was this time. He was utterly mistaken. She was going to betray him, and in doing so, she would tear all his calm certainty to shreds.

Except…she didn't want to do it. If he was wrong about her trustworthiness, he would have no special insight. He might be wrong about every last thing, starting with his assertion that she mattered. Margaret wanted to matter.

More than that. She didn't want to betray Ash. She didn't want to twist his words of kindness into weapons of war. She didn't want to be the one who first introduced doubt into his eyes. She wanted to kiss him, and she couldn't do that with a conscience sullied by betrayal.

She took a deep breath and reached for a sheet of paper. She would write her letter—but she would leave out what she had learned. Nobody would understand his words, not as he had meant them. If she was going to betray him, she would have to betray him with the truth, not with some twisted version of it. And so her letter was simple—uninformative, plain and, at the end, the only lie she told was when she sent her brother their father's love.