Chapter Thirteen

Thunder drifted like a malignant spirit over the London night, heightening Ash’s desolation. He’d thought absence of feeling was his lowest possible point, but this incessant torment was worse—a twenty-four-hour struggle against the basest part of his soul.

Daily, his wicked desires threatened to seize control. He even dreamed of breaking into Alicia’s home, carrying her off to his castle, and confining her to his bed. He countered his thoughts with phantom scent of charred flesh.

And everyone had thought his father mad.

He prepared for another night of wrestling without a hint of relief in sight. Then, his study door crashed open. Chev.

“Christ, Ash! I never thought you would play villain.” A shocking amount of venom laced Cheverley’s words.

Ash squinted. “What the devil are you talking about?”

Chev advanced with menace. “How dare you trouble Lady Stone?”

Cheverley had somehow discovered his secret. The doctor, perhaps? Dr. Wilton had sworn to be discreet. Anyway it had happened, he was sure to lose Chev as well.

“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” Cheverley asked.

All that self-righteous fury. For what? Because he’d dared to touch something pure? Poison rose in Ash’s blood.

“The widow and I had an arrangement. It is not uncommon.”

An ugly rage twisted Cheverly’s features. “Damn you.”

Ash’s gaze narrowed. “If you wished to protect your pure little friend, why dangle her like a lure?”

“I thought you were a decent man,” Chev answered. “I came to you because I thought this was the one place I needn’t worry about the spread of scandal.”

“You came to me,” Ash said bitterly, “because you did not wish to return home.”

Chev shook his head no. “I’ve been your friend. For years. I trusted you.”

Ash stood. “...And doesn’t that just make you feel noble? The always reliable Chev. Friend to the friendless, the first boy at Eton with courage enough to champion a murderer’s son.”

“I have fought by your side.”

“And I have stood by yours while you made vows to a woman who does not know you are alive. What are you doing here, Cheverley? Why not go home?”

Chev’s gaze narrowed. “This is not about Pen!”

“Isn’t it?” Ash asked.

“You have no idea what I did to survive for Pen. For Hurtheven. For you.”

The wild fire in Chev’s gaze couldn’t be faked. Still, Ash pressed on. “Why meddle in the affairs of a widow while your own wife pines? It’s cruel.”

“You know cruel, don’t you?” Chev shoved Ash’s chest. “I owed it to the admiral to sort out his affairs, and I was close to a resolution. Then you interfered. You have destroyed her peace.”

“Her ruin is your fault, you know,” Ash taunted. “You described an angel. How could a devil like me resist stealing a feather from her wings?”

Chev’s left hook hit him with shocking force, leaving him teetering on his feet. Ah, the sweet relief of physical pain.

“She deserved protection.” Chev back-handed another punch. “She deserved freedom.” And another again. “She did not deserve you.”

Ash knew that. God, how he well he knew. “Pity. I defiled her just the same.”

Cheverley lunged with a full-body roar, knocking them both to the ground. The puckered scar at the end of Chev’s arm passed over Ash’s eyes.

“Hit me back, you cur,” Cheverley demanded.

The lights around Ash flickered. “No.”

“Do you want me to murder you? Do you wish to die?” Chev’s face blurred. “Because I’ve seen death. I’ve looked it right in the eye, and it’s not to be wished.”

Ash had seen death, too. His father’s valet, impaled on his father’s sword. The unrecognizable bodies of his father and his wife.

“Perhaps,” Ash tasted blood on his tongue, “I no longer have a reason to live.”

Chev stared for a long, silent moment. His pallor slowly returned.

“Go ahead,” Ash taunted. “Exact your revenge.”

“Oh, be silent, would you?” A ragged breath shook Chev’s body. His accusatory gaze sliced with a boning knife’s precision. Then, he closed his eyes. “Forgive me, Lady Stone.” He moved aside. “You have an excellent reason to live, you self-indulgent, addle-pated ass.”

Ash’s snort caused considerable pain at the bridge of his nose. He lifted himself onto his elbows. It was possible he’d cracked a rib. “And just what purpose does the ever-honorable Cheverly assign my worthless, purity-ruining life?”

“Fatherhood, Ash. You are going to have a child.”

The mysterious guest seated next to Hester had dark chestnut hair adorned with jewels. Her dress draped in the Grecian style the countess had inspired. She was beautiful. Hauntingly beautiful. But the excited fury that lit her eyes left Alicia cold.

“Meet Madame Bianci,” Hester replied. “Your lover’s former mistress.”

“Hester,” Alicia breathed, “what have you done?”

Madame Bianci assessed Alicia with a jealous glare. After a short perusal, her shoulders relaxed and a slight smile touched her mouth. She’d judged herself superior.

“I am sorry we must meet under these unfortunate circumstances.” Her exaggerated accent was of indeterminate origin. “I understand you are considering an arrangement with the Duke of Ashbey.”

“With due respect...Madame Bianci, was it? I am doing no such thing.”

“No need to draw daggers, my dear,” the Madame continued. “No one in the world understands as well as I.” She sighed. “Ash can be thoughtful. Generous, too. His gifts make you think he understands...has a heart.”

Ashbey. Ash. Alicia was going to be sick.

“But no.” The Madame’s lips pinched. “He cultivates with such care only to engender obligation.”

“He wants you to feel you owe him,” Hester explained.

As if Alicia did not understand. As if she hadn’t known from the start. But she hadn’t heeded her misgivings, had she? She’d allowed herself to be seduced, not with caresses and pretty gifts, but with the admiration he’d faked.

“Madame, I would never consent to be anyone’s mistress. Thank you for your time—”

“The Duke of Ashbey is a villain,” the Madam interrupted, calmly removing her glove. She lifted her hand. A jagged scar marred her palm and fingers. “He did this to me the day I told him we were finished.”

Alicia stared at the scar, her heart pounding in her throat. Impossible. Cold and unkind, yes. But this?

“Do you know the family history?” Madame Bianci asked.

“Of course,” Alicia replied.

“His father killed, no matter what the courts decided. Hot blood, too.” Madame Bianci’s eyes glittered. “No planning. He just...” She snapped her fingers. “A sword through his valet’s stomach, right in front of his wife. Smart woman, she ran.”

Oh God, Ash.

“I ran, too.” Madame Bianci leaned forward. “If you wish to remain unharmed, I suggest you do the same.”

“You see, Alicia?” Hester asked. “You simply cannot trust this man.”

Alicia turned to Hester. “I cannot believe you would sink this low.”

“That child,” Hester pointed to Alicia’s still-flat belly, “will be shunned without the Stone family’s acceptance.”

Madame Bianci gasped. “Child?”

“There is no child,” Alicia lied.

“I should think not,” Madame Bianci said. “Ashbey would never allow bad blood into this world. The line dies with him.”

Alicia paled. “Again, Madame,” she said, “I thank you for your time. I’ve never been introduced to the Duke of Ashbey.” That much was true. “My Aunt has lost her mind.” She slanted a glance to Hester and whispered, “Laudanum.”

“I only wished to help.” Madame shrugged as she carefully donned her glove. “His wife died in a tragic fire. They say she set the blaze, but perhaps not. If she were with child, a child he did not want...”

Alicia’s heart leapt into her throat. “I told you. I have never been introduced to the Duke of Ashbey. Tell her you were mistaken, Aunt Hester. Tell her now.”

Hester frowned. “I—I—could have misheard.”

The Madame shrugged. “Better yet, then.” She rose. “I will see myself out.”

The Madame sauntered into the hall, retrieved her cloak, and then followed the butler to the back.

“At least,” Alicia hissed, “you had sense enough not to bring her through the front door.”

Hester’s mouth set in a mulish line. “I heard you say Ashbey, I am sure.”

“Nothing good comes from listening at keyholes!” She rubbed her head. “Go to bed,” Alicia said. “I must think.”

“I—I am sorry if I misheard,” Hester said. “But you wouldn’t listen to me.”

“You must, must stop this, Hester. The countess is not going to inherit Astonbury—it will go to Simon.”

“Simon?”

“Yes, Simon. The captain told me as much. So you may cease this nonsense about an heir.”

Hester covered her lips.

“Really, Hester, your nephew will hardly force you to the streets.”

“Of course not,” Hester said. “But what about you? What will Simon do when he learns of your bastard child?”

Alicia swallowed, as the answer suddenly became clear. “He won’t. I expect to be long gone.”

After an hour of lists and figures, Alicia may have discerned a plan. Then, the muffled sound of the night watchman’s raised voice brought Alicia to the window. Rain tinged the glass, and her breath mottled the already-limited view.

The watchman approached a dark figure in the square, a black shadow of a man that made her shiver. The watchman held up his lamp, and the figure turned.

Ashbey’s angled features glowed.

The watchman bowed and backed away. Alicia dropped the curtain.

She placed a protective hand over her belly and sent up a small curse. Cheverley. So much for keeping his word. How could she have trusted a man who had given her a false name.

Somewhere amid the thudding of her heart she found her voice, and called for the butler. When he entered, she paused for a moment, stunned at what she was about to do. “There is a man in the square.”

The butler’s brows rose.

“Retrieve him,” she said primly, “please.”

His eyebrows went higher. “You wish to bring a vagabond into the house?”

Her back straightened. “That vagabond is the Duke of Ashbey.”

“Lady Stone,” the butler recovered his usual composure, “why don’t you have a seat in the dining room, and I will bring you a nice cup of tea?”

“If you do not go out there and convince the duke to come to the back door, he’s going to march right up the front stairs in full view of all the neighbors and—”

The great knocker on the front door clanged. Matching the thud of her heart.

The butler opened the door, asking whom he might announce.

Without a word, the duke limped into the hall, dripping with rain and filling the room with an anger that smoldered like sulfur. Vicious purple bruises sagged beneath his eyes.

“If I could take your—” the butler began.

“Leave us,” he said.

Ashbey’s gaze hadn’t left Alicia’s face. Even in his state, to see him was a balm she hadn’t known she craved.

She tore her eyes away long enough address the butler. “You may go.”

“Lady Stone,” the butler cautioned, “if you would permit—”

“Go,” the duke boomed.

Alicia concealed her shaking hands. “I will take care of our guest.”

The butler bowed in retreat.

“Were you going to tell me?” His voice sent a frightened rush through her blood.

I am no helpless maid to his feudal lord. She strode past him into the parlor. He followed, closing the door.

“Well?”

She swallowed. “I hadn’t yet decided.”

“You hadn’t decided?”

Why hadn’t she seen it—the dark force that pulsed around him like a curse? Why hadn’t she been afraid she’d be consumed?

He would consume her, no matter what choice she made. Even now, she felt her resistance crumbling like a harbor in a hurricane, torn to pieces the way her childhood home had been torn to pieces.

She must stand strong against the storm, even if a feral part of her heart cried just because Ash was near.

She paced the length of the room, trying to find the calm center, but her foundations had been uprooted, her thoughts silenced by the anger that pulsed through the room like a live thing.

He was angry, was he? She was angry, too.

“How dare you come to my door in the middle of the night? The watchman recognized you, no doubt.”

“I don’t give a damn if the whole street was peering out the window.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Was that your plan? Ruin me and force my hand?”

“Alicia,” he said, rough as a gravel path.

“Don’t use my name.”

“Lady Stone, then, if you prefer.” His voice had grown cold. “I believe you owe—”

“Owe? Owe? I owe you nothing.” She backed away. “All along I knew you felt I was your right.” A terrible lump refused to move from her throat.

“You are my right.”

His right? A man who believed so would not hesitate to send away her child.

She shook her head no. “Do you think you have a right to me just because you bought my grief? You are no better than the spectators who bought tickets to see your father’s trial.”

He jerked as if he’d been hit. “Not like that, Alicia. Never like that.”

“Why did you buy me? What was your plan? To pass a few days indolence, see if you could make the little widow cry?”

His gaze narrowed. His nostrils flared.

She held her brow and shook her head. “I cannot believe I allowed you to bind me. Literally bind me! When I had sworn never to don shackles again! Is that the only way you can feel?”

Blood drained from his face, leaving his cheeks ghostly pale. “Forgive me.”

“For which of your sins?”

He drew a ragged breath. “Hubris.”

“Hubris?”

His jaw twitched. “I spoke in anger. You owe me nothing. You never owed me anything.”

Somehow that was worse.

“The child, Alicia,” he said softly. “We must speak of my child.”

“Your child?”

He flinched. After a silence he said, “Yes, mine.”

As if she would let him near anything innocent and pure. “Actually, not.”

“What are you saying?” His voice chilled.

She had wanted to suggest she had loved another. She had wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt her. She could not. “The law assumes the child belongs to Octavius.”

“You, who cannot lie, would lie to our child and the world?”

“I would.” She lifted her chin. “To protect my child.”

“From me?”

“Yes, from you!” Her lashes dampened as she struggled to master the wild thing in her chest.

“You know I would not harm a child.”

“Do I?”

He shut his eyes, squeezing them closed as if he could make the whole world vanish. An ugly vein pulsed at his temple.

He folded his hands behind his back and bowed. Horribly courtly. Ghastly polite. “I will take my leave.”

Oh Lord. This had not been what she wanted. She faltered. Ashbey. Ash. Give me a reason to trust.

He strode through the door into the hall.

“Ash,” she whispered.

“You are perfectly correct, of course. An association with my name would only harm the child.”

He squeezed the bridge of his nose, and winced. She lifted her hand.

He stepped away. “I will, of course, provide any funds you require.”

“Ash,” she whispered again.

“Goodbye, Lady Stone.” He paused at the door. “I never meant—” His voice cracked. “For three days, you made a broken man feel whole.” He dropped his head. “Good night.”