Chapter Sixteen
The great house, Marlton, was cool and quiet, and he’d had a hard night. While he waited for the earl to return to the house and receive him, Ashton sank into a large, pillow-stuffed chair, stretched his legs out before him, and nodded off for a bit. He was just sinking into a delicious dream of warm flesh and hot blue eyes when voices intruded and he was rattled awake.
“Can you not see? She’s an ambitious title seeker. Pure and simple.”
Good God. It was Bertram winding up for one of his harangues.
“Just because you see money in everything you look at, doesn’t mean others do. She’s a fine young woman with a sound mind and caring nature.”
Damn it all. That was Arthur. And the “she” under discussion had to be Daisy Bumgarten.
Ashton wrestled with the urge to announce his presence before it went further, but he didn’t want Arthur to question his appearance and purpose there. Even his usually oblivious brother knew he wasn’t welcomed with open arms in polite society.
“She’s a crude, grasping bit of baggage who doesn’t know her place,” Bertram railed with compressed fury. “She’ll waggle her bustle at you and soon have a ring around her finger and another through your nose. She’ll lead you around like a moon-struck calf.”
“Uncle, I will not listen to slander against a young woman who has shown nothing but courtesy and kindness to me. I have better things to do.”
Arthur strode out, the sound of his heels smacking the marble entry floor the only sign of his outrage. Ashton heard his uncle muttering and moving about, so he popped his head over the edge of the chair.
“You’re wrong, you know,” he said, giving Bertram a start. His uncle wheeled and glowered at him. “She doesn’t wear bustles.”
“Damn your eyes—what the hell are you doing here?”
“Waiting for a certain ‘grasping bit of baggage’ to return. We have business at the old Temple Church—which, if you are luckier than you deserve, will keep her out of your hair for the rest of the day.”
“Does Albemarle know you’re here?” Bertram asked, glancing at the door behind him.
“Not yet. I’m waiting for him to return from his gardens. The butler put me in here.” He sniffed. “Without even an offer of refreshment.”
“No doubt he’s heard your reputation and won’t risk the help,” Bertram snarled, stalking closer to the chair where Ashton was sprawled. He lowered his head and his voice. “For God’s sake, man, get on with it. Compromise the chit before she gets her hooks into your brother. We’ve barely a week before she’s due at Betancourt to present her ‘proof.’ I take it you’ll see to it that said proof is insufficient, or better yet, fraudulent.” The venom in his voice took on an oily quality. “That would add dashes of shame to her abject unsuitability.”
Ashton rose slowly to tower over his uncle.
“I’ll do what must be done,” he bit out, forcing his hands to unclench. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve a ‘grasping bit of baggage’ to see.”
* * *
Daisy walked slowly, deep in thought and staring at the path as she approached Marlton House. She didn’t notice the figure standing on the terrace until she was close enough to recognize him and stop dead.
Sons of Thunder. What was he doing here?
A breeze had come up, and now tugged at her sun hat, threatening to tip it off, so she removed it and clutched the brim of it tightly before her.
Ashton was dressed in a handsome charcoal suit and stood with his feet spread and one hand clasping the other wrist, waiting. He seemed perfectly at ease and utterly focused. On her.
His gaze felt like a physical touch and her heart responded as if it would jump out of her chest to run to him. She was suddenly aware of every aspect of her body; the touch of the breeze against her bare throat, the feel of her clothes rustling against her body, the motion of her legs, the sway of her hips. Each sensation was somehow linked to the man watching her, waiting for her. She swallowed hard as she mounted the steps onto the stone terrace.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Everyone keeps asking that.” He pursed one side of his mouth. “I should think it would be obvious to you. I am here to verify your ancestral documentation. I spent the morning at Temple Church, waiting for the dean. He said he would wait for us until six o’clock, which is the time he leaves for home and supper . . . which he is unwilling to delay one single minute. So if you’ll get a shawl or wrap of some kind, we’ll be on our way. I have a cab waiting.”
“I can’t just up and go with you, unchaperoned,” she said, raising her hat like a shield against her breast. “It wouldn’t be proper.”
“It’s a church, Daisy,” he said, leaning close. “I’m hardly apt to ravish you in the nave.”
“You didn’t seem to have any scruples about doing it in a library.”
“Nor”—he smiled wickedly—“did you.”
“Varmint.” She stepped furiously around him, entered the salon, and headed for the nearest servant. Her uncle, she was informed, was in the library having a cigar. She had the footman carry a message that she needed him straightaway, and soon he appeared in the entry hall with his cigar still in hand. A heady cloud of whiskey vapor collected around them as he listened to her predicament. Catching a footman by the sleeve, he sent his regrets to the earl, whom he had intended to hustle in a game of billiards, and asked for his hat.
While he waited, she raced upstairs to retrieve a shawl and a reticule from her room, and the threesome were soon in a coach being driven into the heart of Bristol.
“Did you ask him about the citation?” she asked. Ashton looked at her blankly and she clarified: “The dean. When you spoke, did you ask about the records?”
“Not really. He was anxious to leave for luncheon, which he does every day, promptly at one o’clock—which he called ‘two bells.’ Pretentiously nautical.” He raised one eyebrow. “Besides, I don’t have the citation. When you left the library the other day it mysteriously disappeared. I was counting on your bear-trap of a mind to recall it.”
“Bear-trap,” Red echoed, chuckling. “Good one.”
She reached over, grabbed his cigar, and tossed it out the window.
“Hey!” Red was a little too whiskey-mellowed to take serious offense, but he looked to Ashton with indignation.
“I know,” Ashton commiserated. “She’s hard on cigars.”
It was all Daisy could do to keep her lip from curling. She moved closer to the side of the coach and stared doggedly out at the scenery.
The nearby sea port and its military vessels had clearly shaped Bristol’s development as a city. Everything from shop signs to street names bent to a nautical theme, and the striped middies and black caps of sailors were thick in the streets near the river.
Temple Church sat in the middle of the city, accompanied by a bell tower that leaned off center and made Daisy cock her head three different ways to make certain she was seeing it properly. Ashton noticed.
“Yes, it is leaning to one side. Like the Tower of Pisa in Italy. Same problem, I believe.” He offered her his arm, but she took Red’s instead.
The dean of the parish met them at the rear of the church and directed them to a side door in the sanctuary. He lighted a lantern from a table in the hallway, and led them down a set of worn stone steps to an arch-braced cellar that seemed to stretch for miles.
It was chilled and gloomy. All manner of crates, shelves, cast-off benches, and tables were stacked around, as well as banners, brass candle stands, iron grillwork, and unused lamps from pre-gaslight days. The dean lighted an oil lamp and then continued down one row of the cellar arches to a set of shelves that had once been covered by doors . . . the rusting hinges were still attached.
“These”—the dean waved to great, leather-bound books that slumped against each other and lay in disorder on the shelves—“contain the history of the parish of Temple Fee and Redcliffe Fee—which merged some time ago to make our parish. Help yourselves.” He turned to go.
“Wait,” Daisy said, reaching out but not touching him. “Can you tell us anything about the records? Are they all here, or are there other documents to be found?”
He studied her with a put-upon expression. “They’re numbered.” With that he stalked off, taking his lantern with him and leaving them to the mercy of the one questionable-looking oil lamp in a sea of darkness and liturgical leavings.
She lifted one of the volumes, blew off the dust, and looked it over.
“Here.” She held the spine to the light and tried to read the numbers on it. Ashton and Red leaned in to see. “Does that look like forty-eight?”
They agreed and she opened the volume. Her heart sank at the faded condition of the ink and the embellishments of the script that made it all but unreadable. It was nearly as bad as the papers in the professor’s collection.
“We need more light,” Ashton said, and headed back to the place the dean had found the lamp. There was some metallic rattling and a muffled curse as something fell, but he returned shortly with another lamp that seemed to still have some fuel in it.
Red helped Ashton pull a nearby table over and wipe its top with a handkerchief. Then he rambled off with the second lamp to locate some chairs. Soon they were seated at a blocky old table on bare wooden benches that would have made church pews feel comfortable by comparison.
With both lamps providing light, Ashton was able to decipher the script and then show Daisy how to interpret the writing. The going was slow for her at first, but with both of them searching, he said, they would find the records faster. The volume she had picked up turned out to be a register from the early 1790s and covered a period of approximately ten years. The records of all of the births (by baptisms), deaths, and marriages in the parish slowly materialized before them.
“What was the number of the volume in the citation?” Ashton asked Daisy as he looked over the shelves. “Thirty-something?”
She delved into her reticule and produced the yellowed paper she had secreted from the professor’s collection. She opened it, avoiding Ashton’s accusing look. “Thirty-six. If you’re right about this being a citation.”
“Then let’s look for that number.” He grabbed one of the lamps and went back to the shelves.
She joined him and picked up one dusty old register after another, sneezing at the cloud of dust they created. Then came the second disappointment of the afternoon: some of the numbers were worn off or so badly damaged that they were unreadable. Worse yet, some of the volumes were water stained and the leather bindings were mildewed.
“This is appalling,” Ashton said, gingerly examining the registers. “These are records that go back hundreds of years, and look how they are treated.” Daisy paused to watch him testing corners and smoothing damaged pages. She stared at his hands, remembering the feel of them on . . .
She shook herself out of that slide toward indiscretion and looked around for Red. He was prone on a nearby bench with his hands clasped and eyes closed. Any moment now he’d begin to snore; Red could fall asleep in the middle of a damned stampede!
“This one has no number, and the ink is barely readable,” she said with disappointment.
Ashton came to have a look and together they deciphered the date of the initial entry: forty years after the date they sought. They set it aside. The next volume had a forty-four painted on the spine, and the one after that, a twenty-four. They began to rearrange the registers on the shelves according to number, and to place the numberless ones in a stack on the table.
A quarter of an hour later, they had arranged all of the numbered volumes on the shelves in order, but hadn’t found volume thirty-six. They turned to the unnumbered registers on the table and began to look for opening dates. In the next to the last volume, they found entries beginning in 1738. Given that each register contained roughly ten years’ worth of records, they might have found the volume they sought.
Daisy’s heart beat faster as they settled side by side on the bench and Ashton pulled one of the lamps closer. She could tell from the tension in his expression that he was just as excited as she was. Each page carried history forward in time until they reached the sought-after page ninety-one.
There was the citation—the ink less faded than many of the entries.
“It’s a birth,” she said reverently, running a finger along the line beneath the words. “There’s her name: Gemma Rose Howard. ‘Baptized on October third, 1747,’” she read aloud. “‘Mother: Hannah Violet Howard of Redcliffe. Father: Fitzroy Henry Lee, Commodore, Royal Navy. Witnesses: Sadie McLeod, godmother, and Eli Cornwallis, Royal Navy, godfather.’”
“The disreputable commodore had no wife, but he clearly had a daughter,” Ashton said, putting pieces of the story together. “And the family knew it—because this citation”—he held up the paper Daisy had taken from the folio—“was with their letters and other documents. This has to be the child Lady Charlotte was urging him to make his ‘duty.’”
“This proves Gemma Howard was the great-granddaughter of King Charles the Second,” she said, sitting back, feeling a little dizzy. Was it possible the lineage Red had memorized was true?
“So she was,” he said, the working of his mind visible in his eyes. “Though, what it proves about you is still to be established.”
“Well, there are Howards several generations back in my lineage—I remember my mother mentioning them. I’m fairly sure they were in the States. . . . Maine or Massachusetts. I’ve written my mother for any information she might be able to find on them.”
She stared at the entry, trying to imagine the baby girl and what her life might have been like. “Why wouldn’t he marry Hannah? She bore him a child and he was there at the baptism.”
He expelled a heavy breath. “Maybe it turned out for the best for Gemma Rose and her mother. Perhaps they went to America and Hannah found a husband and raised a family. Maybe she lived to a ripe old age and was revered by all.”
“Or maybe she mourned the loss of the love of her life for the rest of her days,” she countered, though with less conviction than she would have liked. “Maybe she died young and penniless and desperate.” In her mind’s eye, Daisy conjured possible futures for the child who may have been the anchor of her family’s past. “Poor little girl. That’s a rotten thing to do . . . beget a child on the wrong side of the blanket and expose her to shame and ridicule for the rest of her life.”
“Not necessarily. It happened to Charlotte, and she ended up with a good marriage, a comfortable life, royal favor . . . lots of children and grandchildren.”
“Her father was a king, not a navy officer accused of drunkenness and debauchery who refused to acknowledge his daughter,” she said, scowling.
“Not so. He signed the register as the father. That’s proof he cared about what happened to her.”
“If it truly was him,” she said.
“I would lay odds it was. They didn’t let just anyone sign a church register. The participants had to be known in the parish or vouched for by an upstanding parish member.” He frowned, still studying the bold signature on the page for clues. “Maybe he had a reason for not marrying her.”
“What? That she was lowborn? Part of the common folk. Charlotte’s letter said he should do right in the matter of the child, not the mother.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe his family thought she wasn’t good enough for him.” She turned to look him straight in the eye. “Families do that—sit in judgment on prospective brides.”
He considered her personal connection to that statement for a moment.
“Don’t take it personally. Meridian elders sit in judgment on everyone, including their heirs and spares.”
That was probably true, she realized, considering Uncle Bertram’s disgraceful behavior. He was as condescending to Arthur as he was to her.
“If I prove my lineage to your family, do you think they’ll accept me?”
“They’re not known to be accepting of anyone.” He looked away.
“Your uncle was vile to Arthur this morning.... Treated him like a child, ordering him around, pulling him this way and that. Last night he openly ridiculed Arthur at dinner.”
“That’s Uncle Bertram. Unpleasant to everyone.”
“But especially to Arthur. I felt horrible for him.” She looked up and found him watching her with an intensity that spurred her heart to extra beats. “Your brother is odd at times, I’ll admit. But he’s mostly just bookish and hasn’t been out in the world much. He’s sharp about some things, and gentle, and courteous. He’s really very sweet.”
“You’ve gone soft on him,” Ashton accused, one corner of his mouth quirked up in that wicked half smile of his that started her bones melting.
“And why wouldn’t I?” she said, battling her fascination with his lips. She knew just how they would taste and feel—how they could tease her sensitive—“He needs someone to stand up for him and care for him and help him take his rightful place in the world.”
“Yes, well, it can’t be you.”
“Oh? And why not?” She could hardly breathe. He was so close . . . he filled her senses and invaded her very breath. Parts of her that had no business making themselves known were tingling with anticipation.
Alarmed, she rose and stood with her hands clasped, but she was unable to make herself move away or to take her eyes from his handsome mouth. She wanted so badly to touch that face, to run her fingers over every slope and curve—to memorize every—
“I’ll tell you why not.” His words came low and slow and vibrated her very fingertips. “Better yet, I’ll show you.”
He seized her arms and pulled her off balance and onto his lap. The next instant he was kissing her within an inch of her life. His mouth was hard and demanding at first, but softened as she responded and wrapped her arms around his neck. She shifted against him, savoring the feel of his body beneath her and smiling against his lips as his hands moved over her waist, claiming it. She held her breath as he slid his hands down her skirts to trace the contours of her leg.
Moments later he dragged her petticoats higher and slid his hand past her garters to her bare thigh. She held her breath as he reached her knickers and the sensitive curve of her hip. She wanted more . . . his touch on her bare skin, his hands caressing her body, his strength around her, his hardness inside her.
She was barely conscious of shifting, moving to straddle him, to press her burning need against him. They were now face to face, exploring each other and the lush, instinctive synchrony of their bodies molding, moving, rubbing. When she stiffened and shuddered, momentarily lost in a flash and rumble of pleasure, she sensed it was exactly what she wanted—needed—this release of tension, this freedom from constant restraint. She melted against him, feeling deliciously flushed and open to him.
With just a few kisses and knowledgeable touches he’d led her into a warm shower of pleasure. She kissed him deeply, feeling his hardness against her sensitive and hungry flesh. She wanted to be naked and horizontal and to have him deep within her, driving them both toward even greater—
She froze as the realization of what just happened made it through the steamy haze muddling her mind. She opened her eyes and looked around.
They were in a church—Merciful Heaven!—and Red lay snoring just a few feet away. She was straddling the rogue’s lap with her skirts raised halfway to Heaven, and her body was burning for more. When she tried to move away, his hands on her waist held her against him.
“That’s why it can’t be you,” he said, his voice thick with unspent passion.
Because she had just disgraced herself. Because she had abandoned her morals yet again and been betrayed by her body’s lustful cravings. Shame flooded her face. She squirmed out of his grasp, stood on shaky legs, and turned her back to him to right her skirts. Her hands trembled.
Seconds later, he was on his feet behind her.
“Arthur could never give you that,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders and turning her around. She turned her head, frantic to avoid what she was certain would be a gloating expression. He lifted her chin to make her meet his gaze.
“You’re not a weak, wilting lily of a deb. You’re a strong, determined, passionate woman. You need someone to match your strength.” He stroked her cheek to coax her to meet his gaze. “Noble or common—what matters in a marriage is that a man and a woman are equally matched. The church fathers called it ‘equally yoked,’ though I believe what they meant by that was that believers should marry believers, not heathens. All the same, it works to say that people should marry their equal.” He gave her a wry and tender smile.
“Like it or not, Daisy love, the Duke of Meridian will never be your equal.” He tapped her temple. “Not here.” He tapped her chest above her heart. “Nor here.” He leaned closer and breathed against her lips: “And certainly not here.” His mouth caressed hers so gently, so lovingly, that tears welled within her closed eyes.
He wasn’t condemning her for her knowledge of carnal pleasures; rather, he was saying his brother was woefully ignorant of such things. Was he right? Did her knowledge of passion make her an unsuitable wife for a man who had little or no experience of it?
She pushed away, scrambling for emotional footing, trying to make sense of his motives. As she gathered her shawl around her, she shivered and blinked to clear her vision. Did he care anything about her, or was he just using her own passions to get her to abandon pursuit of his brother?
In his presence she couldn’t think straight; he had her wits roped and tied. Why was he luring her into forbidden pleasures, and then rescuing her from her own headstrong urges? Was he just another treacherous Meridian, using his gift for temptation to destroy her hopes? While the other family members sneered and bullied to get their way, he flattered and seduced. But did that make him any less dangerous?
At that moment she remembered what Lady Sylvia had called him in that upper room at the Earl of Mountjoy’s. “A prime Meridian.”
He was that, all right.
She had fled his pull on her desires and now found herself at the limits of the lamplight. She turned to find him watching her, staring at her with what could only be called lust in his eyes. At least that much was true. He wanted her almost as much as he wanted her to give up Arthur.
Almost.
That put things into perspective. Taking a steadying breath, she strode back to the table, shook Uncle Red awake, and grabbed the volume containing Gemma Howard’s baptismal record.
“What is it?” Red sat up, smacking his lips dryly, looking around.
“We found it, Uncle Red. We found Gemma Howard in the book and we have to get that ‘dean’ fellow to make out a paper saying who her parents were and when she was baptized. Come on.”
She looped an arm through her uncle’s and led him briskly to the stairs, leaving Ashton standing in the lamplight.
* * *
She wouldn’t listen, Ashton realized, his hopes sinking. She wasn’t going to give up her pursuit of Arthur, no matter how ardently he tried to persuade her they were mismatched. Time was running out. By the end of the week, she would be at Betancourt with the family and a number of other notables . . . where the family elders expected he would discredit her lineage even if he had to falsify it.
But what if it were true? What if her ancestry could be traced back to Charles II, the Restoration king? Two weeks was an absurdly short amount of time to prove any sort of history, much less a family lineage that spanned two continents, but they had made a promising start. The scholar in him rebelled at the idea of patently lying about history, no matter how small it was in scope. The past was foundation to the present, Huxley had drilled into him years ago, and to deny or falsify it was to undermine the future.
Her future.
There was only one path left. Her personal history included more than she pretended. She was no shrinking virgin, that was clear. Much as he despised the idea, he would have to use her own unknown past and whatever gave her such a delicious eagerness for pleasure against her.