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Ella remained motionless, caught in the spell as Ashton lowered his mouth over hers. He started with a bare brush of lips, then pressed his mouth fully against hers, soft, gentle, but without demand. Was he seeking permission? Aside from their kiss when the priest had pronounced them man and wife, she’d only experienced two other kisses. One, a quick peck on the mouth, the other, an awkward, three-second smashing of the lips. Both left her sorely lacking in knowledge. Was she supposed to—?

Ashton nudged her lips apart with his tongue. Ella gasped at the feel—and fresh taste—of his tongue against hers. Mint. He’d cleaned his teeth this morning. She rose to her feet—or did he lift her? Suddenly, his arms encircled her. The breakfast room faded away as he pulled her close and teased her tongue with his. She hesitated, but when he deepened the kiss and his tongue invaded the recesses of her mouth, she tangled her tongue with his.

Her heart pounded. He held her so tight, the firm muscles of his chest pressed against her breasts and the beating of his heart seemed to match the rhythm of hers. An unfamiliar longing made her want more. She molded herself against him.

His tongue pulled back. She didn’t want the kiss to end. Was that whimpering moan coming from her? She started to cringe, but Ashton dropped his hand on her back and pulled her closer, deepening the kiss. His tongue again swept her mouth, a heated ember of passion that sent a shiver down her arms. She ran her hands up his chest, marveling at the solid muscle beneath her fingers. He moaned softly, then drew a long breath and sucked her bottom lip into his mouth.

At the sound of a dry laugh near the door, she sprang back.

The countess stood in the doorway, a gleam of humor in her eyes.

Duncan was nowhere to be seen.

Ella turned and curtsied. “Lady Leighton,” she whispered, as heat burned her face.

“Grandmother, my dear,” the woman corrected, sweeping into the room.

“Good morning, Grandmother.” Ashton nodded.

Ella drew a wavering breath. His kiss had stolen her good sense along with her breath. He’d obviously kissed her to make some kind of point with Duncan. Blushing even more, she forced her focus onto the countess gliding with regal grace toward the dining table.

As Ashton pulled out his grandmother’s chair, her eyes fell on Ella. She gave a humph. “Fetch this child a dressmaker, Ashton. Not just any dressmaker. Send for Mrs. Pitt. At once.” She primly took her seat and arched a disapproving brow his way. “I swear, must I take care of every detail?”

“Mrs. Pitt is ready and waiting,” he replied coolly. “I was on my way to fetch her.”

“Oh?” She skewered him with a glance, but a twinkle danced in her eye. “On your way? You appeared rather occupied to me.”

Ashton blinked and, to Ella’s astonishment, a faint dusky color flushed his cheeks. Her stomach fluttered. Had the kiss meant something to him, too?

“I shall leave you ladies to your meal.” Ashton bowed. “If you will excuse me, I’m off to fetch one dressmaker, as ordered.”

He turned to Ella and their eyes met. A hungry expression flashed over his face that sent a tingle straight down to her toes. Then he left. Ella watched him go. She touched her fingers to her lips. He’d kissed her in such a blatantly passionate way, a way that, for all appearances, announced to the world, ‘You are mine.’ Her heart skipped a beat. Could he have…meant it?

“Come now, child,” the countess’s voice intruded upon her thoughts. “There’s time aplenty to pine over Ashton later. Fetch me a cup of tea, will you?”

Ella blushed and gratefully escaped to the sideboard.

“My old bones are weary,” the Countess complained as she stretched in her chair. “Perhaps a game of whist would take my mind off the aches? I’ve missed our games so.”

“I would be delighted,” Ella replied, struggling to collect her thoughts. She reached for the teapot.

“My lady,” a man’s voice interrupted.

Ella looked over her shoulder. James stood just inside the door, facing the countess.

“Your company has arrived,” the man said with a formal bow. “The urgent matter.”

The countess sighed. “Then it’s tea and whist later, my dear child. If you will excuse me?” She rose.

“Certainly,” Ella murmured and dipped a half curtsey as the woman left the room.

She expelled a breath of relief. Solitude, as last. She left the breakfast nook and hurried down the hall, headed for her room. At the fourth turn, she spied a large table of marble busts she hadn’t seen before. She frowned and backtracked.

By the sixth turn, Ella expelled a breath. She was lost. She peered out the nearest window. The gravel carriage drive lay below her to the left. Perhaps she’d do better to escape out the nearest entrance and reenter the castle’s main door, then start again. Feeling rather foolish, she smoothed her skirts and turned back the way she’d come. This time, when she entered the narrow hallway, she heard someone whistling.

“At last,” she muttered.

Ella rounded the corner just as a jolly, middle-aged chambermaid emerged from a nearby room, her arms overflowing with laundry.

“Lor’ bless me,” the woman screeched. A few of her linens slipped to the floor. “My lady, but you gave me a fright.”

“Forgive me.” Ella stooped and picked up the spilled linen.

The woman frowned. “Oh, no, you shouldn’t do that, my lady. Please, I can tend it myself. It’s soiled toweling.”

Ella laughed. “Believe me, I know a thing or two about washing.” She handed the maid the toweling. “What is your name?”

“Mrs. Thornton, my lady.”

“Forgive me for giving you a scare, Mrs. Thornton, but I am so very glad to see you. I’m lost. Could I trouble you to point the way to my room?”

“Why, I will do one better, my lady.” The woman’s jolly dark eyes sparkled. “I am going that way myself. I’ll just show you.”

“That would be delightful.” Ella heaved a breath of relief. “No doubt, I would only lose myself further.”

“Aye, Kinnettles is a baffling place, if I may say so. You will get used to it soon enough, though. It won’t take long,” the woman prattled as they headed off down the hall. “It’s so wonderful to see Lord Ashton back after all these years, and with a bride, too. Och, you’re a bonny one, my lady, if I say so myself. It warms the heart to think the lad found love, at last. He’s suffered so, you know, ever since the...accident,” she said, the last word, spoken in a whisper.

Accident? She itched to ask what accident. But a wife would be expected to know such things. Instead, she merely smiled as if she understood.

“Aye, I’m glad you agree.” The woman nodded, then lowered her voice, “That title they call him behind his back. I won’t say it. I simply will not.” She clucked and wagged her head. “As far as temperament goes, I’ve always said Duncan matches it more.”

The woman had to be talking about The Demon Earl. Ella didn’t know Duncan, but what little she knew, she didn’t like, and murmured, “Indeed.”

The woman appeared pleased. “I never did believe that lad and his tale.” She drew her lips into a prim line. “It was years ago. Still, there’s folk who call his lordship that terrible name. I feel for the lad, I really do. After all this time, when he swept through the door this week, you could see he still feels the weight of it all. It’s in his eyes.”

Demon Earl. Who would cherish such a name? Small wonder, the gossip bothered him. “Indeed,” Ella murmured again, this time with more feeling.

“Folk should know better after all these years,” Mrs. Thornton babbled on. “His lordship was treated harshly as a lad, but it doesn’t mean he killed his father on purpose now, does it?”

Ella came to an abrupt stop. Killed? The rumors were true?

Mrs. Thornton gasped in horror. “Oh, heavens, my lady. I’m a fool. My mouth gets away on me now. I shouldn’t have said such a thing. We all know it was an accident—”

Ella forced her thoughts into order and lay a comforting hand on her arm. “Nae, please, don’t fret. I assure you, I am not at all offended.” Anxiety tightened her stomach. When Stirling talked her into marrying Ashton, she’d told herself that Stirling wouldn’t have let her marry a violent man. Yet, had he known all the details? Suddenly, she needed to know every detail—she had to. Her very life might depend on such knowledge.

“Mrs. Thornton, I know ‘tis hard, but I would so very much like to hear your perspective. It might help me help him more. He…doesn’t like to speak of it. I feel certain you understand.”

Mrs. Thornton frowned. “We don’t talk about that day much around here, my lady, but to want to help his lordship…well, you are an angel.”

Ella felt exactly the opposite, but smiled encouragingly. “Please?”

For a moment, she thought the woman would refuse.

“Well then,” Mrs. Thornton began as she slowly resumed her walk down the hall. “It was the second year when Duncan came to visit. He was twelve—no, thirteen. ‘Twas the year he grew like a weed.”

Thirteen? “Hardly more than a child,” Ella murmured in surprise.

She nodded in agreement. “He snuck up to the barn for mischief…”

The barn? That must be the barn they’d seen on the ride in. Ashton has called it The Barn of the Damned.

“He couldn’t wait to grow into a man,” the maid went on. “Had a fascination for whisky. Stole his father’s finest and snuck up to the barn. After his father whacked him with a broomstick—”

“Broomstick?”

“Aye, just a few whacks. Caught him kissing the chambermaid. Even then, he was one for the lasses.” She chuckled.

Ella arched a brow.

The woman caught herself and hastily cleared her throat. “Forgive me, my lady. His father thrashed him that day and locked him in his room. Of course, his lordship escaped, climbed right out that window like a monkey, and off he went to the barn. When his father found out, he went after him…and that’s when it happened.”

Ella held her breath.

“Some say he saw his father coming and opened the bull’s pen out of spite. Whatever it was…well, you know what happened then...”

Ella didn’t, but she very much needed to.

“It was a quick death…gored him straight through, that bull did. Straight through.”

Ella drew back in shock. Gored. What a horrendous way to die.

“It was a mad bull. The lads knew better than to get near the thing,” Mrs. Thornton continued. “They were going to put the beast down the next day—”

“Lads?” Ella interrupted. Instinct already told her the answer. “Who else was there?”

“Duncan, my lady.”

Of course. Duncan. “How much of this tale came from him?” she asked a bit more waspishly than intended.

Mrs. Thornton didn’t seem to notice. “Why, all of it, of course. According to Duncan, he and his lordship quarreled, and Duncan tried to get his lordship to leave the barn and return to Kinnettles. But Lord Ashton would have none of him and ordered Duncan away. A shame, for if Duncan had of stayed, the earl might not have been killed. But he left Lord Ashton alone, as he demanded. When Lord Andrew found his lordship, his lordship was too drunk to recall a thing. Drank all his father’s whiskey. He was out, stone cold. But his father was dead in the barn not five feet from where he’d passed out in the stall.”

“Lord Andrew?”

“Duncan’s father, my lady.” Mrs. Thornton tsked and shook her head. “Met an untimely death himself, just a year later. Drove his carriage off a cliff. Folk began calling his lordship The Demon Earl after that, though some say, ‘twas Duncan who called him that first.”

Ella didn’t doubt that for an instant. She found it astonishing the family would brand a thirteen-year-old boy Thes Demon Earl purely from another lad’s account. Surely, there were other witnesses? The entire situation sounded grossly unfair.

“I can’t believe the countess would countenance the nickname,” Ella said with heat. “He was just a child.”

“You are right there, my lady. She didn’t allow anyone to call him that horrid name. Duncan received more than one punishment for making the mistake of repeating the title within her hearing.”

Unexpected affection rippled through Ella. The dowager countess had protected Ashton? Somehow, she’d thought—

“My lady, we’re here,” Mrs. Thornton said. “Your room.”

Ella smiled. “I thank you, Mrs. Thornton.”

“A pleasure, my lady. A real pleasure. And if I may say so again, I am so happy his lordship has found love. He is a fortunate man.” With a broad smile, she bobbed up and down, then hurried off with her armload of laundry.

Ella pushed open the door and wandered to the window. So, The Demon Earl was nothing more than a lad who’d picked the wrong day to get drunk for the first time. Relief flooded her. She should have known that Stirling would never have placed her in danger.

Mrs. Thornton’s tale wouldn’t leave her, and as the morning passed, her anger grew on Ashton’s behalf. He’d been thirteen. No wonder he’d called the place the Barn of the Damned. What a heavy yoke to bear.

Restless, she decided a stroll in the gardens would serve her better than staying cooped up inside. She grabbed her pelisse and headed down the stairs.

Several maids were dusting the marble in the foyer as she arrived. She smiled warmly at them and hurried out the door into the crisp autumn air. Kinnettles was an impressive estate, but even had it stood in ruins, it was a far sight better than the Edinburgh washhouse. With a wry smile, she strolled down a gravel path toward the rear gardens. The garden beds had long since gone dormant, but evergreen shrubs formed a dense hedge on the left, with a stone arch in the middle. Curious, Ella left the path and crossed the lawn. As she neared, voices came from the other side of the hedge.

“I cannot wait.”

She drew back. Duncan.

“Can you not imagine the horror on his face when she announces she’s chosen me?” The man chuckled. “It will be priceless.”

“Aye, my lord,” a woman murmured.

Ella squinted through the hedge. At first, she didn’t comprehend what she saw. Then her mouth dropped open in shock. Duncan stood with his breeches down about his knees, thrusting between the bare legs of a maid balanced on a low, stone wall.

Ella gasped.

Duncan stilled. “What was that? Is someone there?” he called.

Ella froze, her face burning.

“It’s most likely a bird, my lord,” the maid replied.

“Aye,” he grunted, then began pumping into her again. “Has Ashton spoken with you?” he asked in a strangled voice.

 “No, my lord,” the maid replied breathlessly. “Why should he?”

“He always wanted you,” Duncan growled.

“That was years ago. We were but children. He has no reason now, and more so that he’s wed.”

“Perhaps, but I am wed, am I not?” Duncan gave a hoarse laugh.

Disgust rolled over Ella as the slapping of flesh quickened. What a cad the man was. Taking a maid in the garden while his own wife remained at home, pregnant with his children. She’d thought Duncan a detestable creature before. Now, she found him beyond contemptable.

Ella tore her gaze from the two when he moaned, and she started to creep away, then froze when Duncan said, “Tell me if Ashton speaks to you.”

“Aye, my lord.”  

Ella crept away toward the castle. Once out of sight of the hedgerow, she forced herself into a sedate stroll. She stepped around the corner of the castle just as a carriage rolled to a stop before the main entrance.

Her heart thudded.

Ashton had returned.