Unveiled (Turner, #1)

Her mother had carefully tended the estate, training servants, choosing decorations, caring for the gardens. She’d built a home to pass on to her children. It had killed her to believe that Parford Manor would go to a stranger. But then, with Margaret married to Ash…it wouldn’t.

Margaret’s hands balled into fists. “I believe,” she said softly, “that if she could speak at this moment—if she knew that I would inherit her house—I believe that she would be cheering.”

Her father stared at her in stupefaction. She had waited all this time for some sign that the man she remembered was still inside her father. But maybe that part of him had vanished, along with his strength and ability to stand. Maybe he’d lost the piece of himself that cared for her. Maybe she would never see it again—at least not now.

Margaret leaned forwards to kiss him on the forehead. “Someday,” she said quietly, “when you truly understand everything that’s happened, you’ll be cheering, too.”

And then, still wearing the ring, she turned and walked from the room.



HOME. IT SEEMED A STRANGE place for Ash to return to, after everything that had transpired that afternoon. After he’d left Saxton House earlier, he’d not wanted to return here. But when he stepped inside, Mark was waiting for him in the entry. Ash had felt so bruised, he’d not wanted to believe that time would continue to pass.

But Mark smiled at him, all light and innocence. Ash felt a last bitter tinge. Seeing his brother only drove home how much he had really lost.

“You would be proud,” he finally said. “I realized that I didn’t have to do any of this. I didn’t.”

“The news has traveled even to me,” Mark said. A cryptic description, but Mark seemed unfazed by the loss of the dukedom.

Ash looked at him. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I know you didn’t care about any of this for yourself. But—I just had this notion, see. I knew, somehow, that if I were the Duke of Parford, someday I’d have made things different for you. I didn’t want to give up on that. But then…”

“I’ve always managed to take care of myself,” Mark said dryly. “Today should prove no exception. You know I would never be angry at you for doing the right thing.”

“I’ve abandoned you enough.”

“Abandoned me?” Mark’s hand was curled about itself, and he turned to Ash with a quizzical expression on his face. “When have you ever abandoned me?”

“There was the time I went to India.”

“Which you did in order to make enough funds for the family to survive. I can hardly begrudge you that.”

“And there was that time at Eton. You’d told me that Edmund Dalrymple had begun to single you out. That he was pushing you around. And you begged me to take you home.”

“I recall. You read me quite the lecture—told me, in fact, that I had to stay there.”

“Two weeks later, I returned to find you battered and bruised, your face bloodied, your eyes blacked and your fingers broken. And all I could think was that I had done that to you. I’d abandoned you, for no reason other than my personal pique and vanity, and you paid the price.”

“Vanity?” Mark shook his head. “I thought that was one of your ridiculous instincts, Ash. Horrible to hear about. Impossible to argue with. And as usual, entirely right.”

Ash felt his throat go dry. “That wasn’t instinct.”

Mark raised one eyebrow. “Really? Nonetheless, it was still the right thing for you to tell me.”

Ash had to say it. He had to tell him, before his nerve gave out and he let another decade slip by. “That,” Ash said quietly, “was fear. You had to go to school. I didn’t want you to turn out like me.”

“Oh,” Mark said with a roll of his eyes, “I see. Because you’re so unimpressive a specimen.”

Ash took a deep breath. “No. Because I’m illiterate.”

“Well, you don’t even appreciate Shakespeare, and that does rather speak against you.” Mark shook his head and reached for Ash’s hand. “Here. I have something—”

Ash pulled his fingers away. “I meant that in the most literal of senses. I can’t read. Words don’t make sense to me. They never have.”

Mark fell silent. He looked at Ash as if his world had been turned on his head. He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I can’t read. I can’t write. Margaret read your book aloud to me.”

“But your letters.” Mark leaned heavily against the wall. “You—you sent me letters. You wrote on them. I know you did.” He paused, and then said in a smaller voice, “Didn’t you?”

“There are a few phrases I’ve committed to memory. I wrote them over and over, hour after hour, until the words came out in the right order. Until they said what I intended, without my having to look at what I wrote. There were some things I needed to be able to tell you, when you were away.”

“Your postscripts always said the same thing,” Mark said. “‘With much—’” he broke off.

“‘With much love,’” Ash finished hoarsely. “With more than I could possibly write.”

Mark passed his hand briefly over his face. When he looked up at Ash, he lifted his chin.