Unveiled (Turner, #1)

Still he did not respond, except to lower his hands from her waist.

“Please,” she begged. “My father—when I found out that he was a bigamist, that I was a bastard, it almost undid me. You’ve told me all this time that I can accomplish things. That I mean something. Let me prove this to them.”

Ash let out a sigh. “And here I’d hoped you would ask for a new carriage. No. I know. This is hardly the time for levity. But Margaret, my dear, if this were about mere revenge, I’d give it up for you. But it isn’t. I have these…these feelings. These instincts. And I simply know that if I’m Parford, I’ll finally be able to make matters come right for my brothers. I can’t abandon them. Not again.”

“Abandon them! You’re talking about abandoning them to a life of wealth and advantage.”

He shook his head. “You’ve met them. They’re trapped. Have been in some inescapable way ever since I found them on the streets all those years ago. I can’t put it right without this.”

“You don’t know that,” Margaret began.

“But I do. I do.”

“You can’t.”

“I can.” His voice grew harsh. “I must.”

“And what if you’re wrong? What if you ruin my brothers’ future, what if you tear me in two with worrying, and you are wrong? Have you never thought of that?”

His eyes glittered, and his hands drew into fists. But he did not move towards her again. “If I am wrong,” he said quietly, “then I truly have nothing to offer my brothers. No intelligence. No advantage. I certainly lack their wit. If I am wrong—if my instinct is all imagination—then I am nothing but an illiterate ignoramus. Believe me. I think of that all the time.”

“You’re—you’re a great deal more, Ash.” But so much of who he was was bound up in that confidence he had, that unshakable certainty. She’d seen him uncertain and vulnerable a few times. She couldn’t imagine him that way all the time.

He passed his hand over his face. “Marry me anyway, Margaret. Marry me not for your brothers, but simply because you love me. And I love you.”

She hadn’t realized how she wanted to hear those words until he said them. For one blissful second, everything else fell away—her endless obligations, her needs, her brothers. The thrill lasted longer than it should have, an electric tingle that coursed through her. But looking into his eyes was a window to a different sort of reality.

“You don’t love me,” she said slowly. “You’ve looked at me the same way from the instant we met.”

His grip tightened on her waist. He leaned into her on a hiss. “Don’t tell me I don’t love you. Don’t you dare tell me that, Margaret. I have loved you since the moment you read my brother’s book to me. I love that you are the one woman I can trust with my weakness, that you know all the dark parts of me and do not turn away. I love the fierceness with which you protect the ones you love, even when they don’t deserve it. I love every last inch of you, and I want you for my own.” His words were hot, fiercely possessive, and yet he leaned his forehead against hers gently. “Although God knows, I don’t deserve you.”

She felt almost dizzy under this onslaught. Still, there was one truth she could not relinquish. “You love your brothers, and so you stole them a dukedom. When Mark needed you at Eton, you were there before he could even speak the words. But you are destroying my family, destroying my life, and you ask me to simply accept it.”

His hands tightened around hers, but she did not stop.

“On any other man, I could believe this casual selfishness could be equated with love. But, Ash, I know what love looks like on you. It doesn’t look like this.”

“And how should you know what love looks like?” he demanded. He slipped a finger under the chain around her neck and pulled her locket from between her breasts. “Is it Richard in here? Or Edmund? Your father? Which unworthy man do you carry next to your heart, never to be supplanted in your affections no matter how poor-spirited he proves himself to be?”

“That’s not it. It’s not about choosing my brothers over you.”

Her hand closed about the chain, but he held her locket firmly. With his other hand, he flicked open the catch. His breath stopped.

“My mother.” Margaret’s voice caught. “Gentle. Loving. Patient. Clever and funny, when my father wasn’t around. She taught me everything. And she died when you revealed she was an adulteress.”

He let go, and the heavy locket swung back to strike Margaret in the chest.