Unveiled (Turner, #1)

Richard shook his head, but when he started towards her, Ash stepped in his way. He didn’t say anything; he just raised one hand, setting it against Richard’s chest. Her brother backed away.

Margaret heard the door shut behind him.

“God,” Ash said. “I even hate that the cad left you alone with me, because he feared a tiny thing like more pain. If he were any sort of a brother, he wouldn’t care what I said or how I threatened. He wouldn’t leave your side, not if he was threatened by a phalanx of soldiers.”

Margaret rubbed her temples. Ash had walked forty miles, barefoot, when he was fourteen years old for his sister’s sake. He would feel that way. But not everyone could be as strong as he. Yes, her brother was consumed by a hundred tiny selfishnesses. But most people were. It was only natural to think first of yourself. And Richard had lost so much—he’d had his entire inheritance ripped away. Of course he would jealously defend what little remained. Only a saint would think of someone else when his world was crumbling about him. It didn’t make her brother a bad person. It just made him a little preoccupied.

“Don’t you hate me for lying to you? I’ve been sorry for it for weeks. You can’t know—”

“I can imagine.” He set his hand on her shoulder behind her. “Easily. I’m remembering every word I said to you, every last unkind, unwarranted comment I made about Lady Anna. You must have thought me the cruelest man imaginable. These past months…your mother, the ecclesiastical suit. Your fiancé. Of course, your fiancé. Your dowry. Your place in society. My God. I had you declared a bastard. Margaret, what have I done to you?”

She buried her face in her hands, her eyes burning. She’d imagined this moment a thousand ways. In her mind, he’d scorned her. He’d cursed her. He’d walked away in a huff. She should have known that Ash would always find a way to outdo her imagination. “Ash. Please don’t.”

“Is Anna your name, then?”

“Anna Margaret. But Anna is my mother’s name. Everyone has always called me Margaret.”

“You were standing in the room when Parford said he didn’t give a damn about his children. My God, Margaret. How can you bear it?”

“I bear it just fine, thank you, so long as I don’t need to think of it.” Her chin wobbled.

Ash accepted this in relative silence. He strode to the window and looked away. “Have you any doubt in your mind that I wish to marry you because I want you, not for any more mercenary reason?”

She looked at him, her mind jumbled. “Even you, Ash, could not be so ruthless. No. I don’t believe it of you.”

He paced to his chest of drawers. “But I am that ruthless, Margaret.” He let out a breath. “I know that of me, even if you have not yet come to the realization. And your brother will try to steal that certainty from you. He’ll tell you I’m lying. I want you to know in a way that your brother cannot steal from you.”

“I’m certain.” But she wasn’t. Certainty had been a thing for last night. The more time passed, the more doubts encroached.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he sifted through a pile of garments on his chest of drawers, until he found his waistcoat. Then he strode back to her. Silently he held it out, an arm’s length between them. “Look in the right pocket.”

Margaret took it gingerly. The fabric was rough against her hands. Her fingers slipped into the pocket and found a crinkling piece of paper. She pulled it out. For a second, she wondered if she, too, had somehow lost the ability to decode symbols. Then she realized she was looking at the reverse side, where ink had seeped through the foolscap. She flipped the paper over, and stared at the characters written in a crabbed hand on the other side. But even reading those words, she could not truly comprehend them. It was almost as if her mind had forgotten how to function, as if the symbols on it were written in an alphabet so foreign and distinct from her world that she could not understand its import.

“What is this? Why…why does it say Margaret Lowell on its face?”

“It’s why I went to London last week. It’s why I’ve been in a terrible dudgeon these last days, waiting for an express that never arrived. It’s a receipt from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office in Doctor’s Commons, where I applied for a special license.”

“It’s dated nine days ago.”

“I know. And that is how you know that no matter what your brother tells you, no matter how he tries to make you doubt me, what I say is true. I wanted to marry you weeks ago. The great benefit I see to marrying you is that I would be married to you. I told you it didn’t matter who your parents were. I meant it. I want you. Nothing else matters.”