Unveiled (Turner, #1)

Ash felt a low burn of rage begin. “Perhaps you might have thought how it could hurt her.”


“You wouldn’t hurt her.” Mark sighed. “You might not…go about courting her in the manner I would prefer, but you don’t hurt women. Come, now, Ash. I know you better than that. Quite frankly, it’s refreshing to know you can be wrong.”

Dalrymple was piling kippers onto his plate with movements made awkward, because he was still flattened against the wall. He clearly wanted to keep as far from the brothers as he possibly could. He only managed to make himself look completely ridiculous. How had a family that produced such a fainthearted coward also come up with Margaret?

“I wasn’t wrong,” Ash said quietly.

“She did lie to you, Ash. Granted, she has other sterling qualities.”

Ash hadn’t realized how much he must have already hurt her. When he’d met her, he’d known she was sad. This morning, he’d been too dazed to truly understand what her parentage meant. But with a little time to sort things out, and food in his belly, he’d begun to comprehend. Now he was no longer surprised that she’d thrown a clod of dirt at him on that long-ago night. Daggers would have been rather more appropriate.

“I stormed into her life, destroyed her parents’ marriage and made her a bastard. And you think that when I faced her down, holding the remainder of her life in my hands, that she should have blithely spouted out the truth? For all she knew, I would have stolen away the little that remained. I was an utter beast to her. I just didn’t realize it.”

From his vantage point against the wall, Dalrymple raised one finger, almost hesitantly. “As a point of order, you did the same to me, and I’ve yet to hear your apology.”

“Oh, shut up,” Ash snapped. “You’re different. You deserved it. You still do.”

Dalrymple’s mouth snapped shut.

Mark’s eyes blazed at this. “Oh, yes. Still set on revenge, are you, after all of this? Wishing now that perhaps when I told you to think about what you were doing to the Dalrymples, you’d listened? I said you didn’t have to do this. I said you were wrong. But no—the great Ash Turner doesn’t need to listen to logic. Or ethics.”

“Oh, God,” Dalrymple moaned from the side of the room. “Ethics. At ten in the morning. And you wonder why you were so constantly set upon at Eton?”

Mark and Ash turned to Dalrymple as one. “He’s championing you, you dolt,” Ash remarked.

“I don’t truck with what’s happened to you,” Mark added. “But if you ever wondered why Smite outdid you so consistently at Oxford, here is one explanation. It’s because you are an idiot. And perhaps because you feel free to suspend your ethics before breakfast.” Dalrymple flushed.

“If you must know,” Ash said, turning back to Mark, “I don’t regret what I did to the Dalrymples one bit—this incomparable ass over here deserved it. And while no doubt it hurt Margaret temporarily, once I’ve married her it shall all be resolved.”

Dalrymple stepped forwards. “Like hell you’ll marry her.”

“As if you have anything to say on the matter. She’s of age. She’s chosen me—or at least,” Ash added with a grimace, “she will.”

“She won’t choose you over her own brothers, you uncivilized brute. And once word gets out that you’re the sort of man who ruins a lady—”

Ash wasn’t quite sure how he got across the room. But he did—slamming Dalrymple against a wall for the second time that day. Eggs and pickled fish went flying.

“How,” he growled, his arm at the man’s throat, “do you imagine word will leak out?”

Dalrymple, held against the wall, up on tiptoes, squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know?” His voice was very high.

“Because if you were suggesting that you would sacrifice your sister’s reputation to serve your own purposes, think again. If you do, I won’t just steal your title and your lands. I will run any bank that holds your funds into the ground. I will bribe your servants to slip nettles into your bed. I will hire trumpets to stand outside your home every evening, where they will sound notes at irregular intervals. You will never have a solid night’s sleep again.”

“You’re mad.” Dalrymple licked his lips.

“Perhaps. But as the putative head of the family, I can have you declared mentally incompetent and committed to an asylum, if you choose to say one word against Margaret.”

“I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t hurt my own sister.”

“Ash,” Mark said from behind him. “Give over. You don’t have to do this.”

It was either the threats, or he’d bodily pull the man to pieces. Margaret probably wouldn’t approve of either. Ash lowered his arm, and Dalrymple’s heels thumped to the floor.

He let out a sigh. And then he cast his brother a reproachful look.

“I’ll send you both to asylums,” he growled.

Richard bit his lip and stepped back in fear. But Mark knew him rather better. He rolled his eyes in unconcern. “Choose a quiet one for me. I should like to get some writing done.”