Unveiled (Turner, #1)

“As I recall,” Mark put in, “you read me the most astonishing lecture on my duty to my name and my person. Afterwards, I was too frightened to even so much as suggest leaving.”


“You see,” Ash said, “he’d suffered a thousand indignities from the older boys—shoves when nobody was looking, little cruelties and taunts delivered in lonely halls. He was small for his age, then, and quiet.”

She watched him, her hands clasped in a white-knuckled grip.

“And he was a Turner,” Ash continued. “It wasn’t enough that Parford let my sister die. Edmund wanted everyone to know that no matter what the bloodlines proclaimed, Mark counted as no kin of his.”

She cast her eyes down to the carpet. Her jaw set.

Ash smiled grimly. “My brother begged me to let him come home. I refused and told him that under no circumstances would I allow him to do so. I walked away from him.”

“As you should have,” Mark commented.

“A few weeks later, I had this notion I should go back.” It had been another one of his instincts, and it had practically screamed for him to return. “When I got there… I have never been so furious in my life.” He could feel his fury returning, just thinking of it. “They broke his nose. They blacked his eyes. Three fingers on his right hand—”

“But,” Mark put in quietly, “you didn’t see the other boys.”

“Ah, yes. The other boys. Edmund Dalrymple and four of his friends had taken him on together.”

Margaret looked at him in shocked dismay. She shook her head. “It couldn’t have been. Together? But—”

“Don’t tell me what could have been. It was, in violation of all gentlemanly conduct. Apparently, they had been trying to bully him. And apparently, he hadn’t given in.”

“This happened years ago,” Mark put in. “I see no reason to think of it. But has Ash forgotten?”

“Have they let me forget? There’ve been no physical attacks since then. But tell us truly, Mark. Has Edmund ever forgotten you? And Smite—Richard was never so uncouth as to attack, but I know why Smite moved to Bristol, instead of taking articles in London as we had once discussed.”

Mark shook his head earnestly. “Really, Ash. It doesn’t bother me—why must you take it so seriously? I try not to spare either of them my attention. I’ve better things to spend my time worrying about.”

Ash looked up. “They have spread rumors. Innuendo. Edmund once hired a caricaturist to portray Mark as a—”

“Ash, really.”

But his brother’s admonition only heightened Ash’s resolve. “For years, they used their station and their place in society as a way to humiliate my brothers. So, yes. I’ll take their station. I’ll take their place in society. And I’ll have no mercy whatsoever for the Dalrymples. If I can make their lives miserable in response, I will. And…” Ash felt a wolfish smile play across his face. “I can.”

Margaret stared at him, white-faced.

“Don’t tell me you agree with Mark,” he said in surprise. “Turn the other cheek, and all that nonsense. If someone threatens me and my own, I won’t rest until he’s been taught to leave well enough alone.”

“But what…” She stopped, looking down, and then looked up at him, her eyes filled with inexplicable entreaty. “What about the innocents who are hurt by your actions?”

“What innocents?” He spat the word.

Her eyes fluttered down again. “The duchess.”

“That…that was unfortunate. In truth, if it had come to it, if she’d survived… I don’t want true innocents to suffer. Hell, I’d make some provision for the Dalrymples. I would certainly have done something for her.”

“If you had thought about it,” Mark put in gently.

Margaret’s lips were almost white. “And what about Parford’s daughter?”

“Parford’s daughter.” Ash shook his head in confusion. Then he realized she must have known the woman, conversed with her during the course of the duchess’s illness. “Wasn’t she married off earlier? I seem to recall hearing about an engagement, years ago. I don’t keep abreast of such matters. I suppose she must have suffered some embarrassment, then. But I also suppose she was used to the feeling. Wasn’t she the girl who fainted in the fountain, her first year out?”

A flush touched Margaret’s cheeks. “I find it quite odd that you can be so kind to mere servants, and yet so cavalier to everyone else. Had you simply not thought of how your actions would affect everyone connected with the Dalrymples?”

“What does it matter?” he asked in bewilderment. “She married some other fellow. She’s well and truly out of it.”

“No. I don’t believe she married.”

Ash snorted. “Let me guess. She fainted before she said ‘I do.’”

Margaret didn’t smile. Ash had the feeling that he’d fallen into a world where down had become up and right had turned into left. “Oh, come now. That was at least a little clever. Whatever her name might be— Anna, is it?”