Unveiled (Turner, #1)

Her fingers constricted around his hand.

“When she passed away, I cried. Don’t tell my brothers—I shouldn’t like to admit to weakness. But I remember what animated her, before. And I mourned the fact that everything I loved about her had died long before. I always wanted to believe that my mother—my real mother—was hidden somewhere in that shell of a body. But if she was, I never saw it. I had years to mourn her loss, before she was taken away for good. I still wake up nights, feeling as if something is gone. You…you’ve scarcely had time to believe it’s happened.”

“Do you always do this?” she asked, her voice husky. “Go to those who have used you poorly and explain away their sins? I lied to you, Ash. You’re supposed to despise me.”

“You may have noticed this,” Ash said, “but I rarely do as I ought. It’s a failing—and one I hope you will forgive in me.” He reached out and traced a line down her cheek. “And then there’s what I said about you. Did I really…did I really call you a poor specimen, to your face?”

She nodded.

“So. With all of that, why did you come to me last night?”

Her eyes widened. She looked up at him, her expression fierce. “Because you make me feel that if I were to disappear tomorrow, I would be mourned. And because…I’m hard pressed to stay away from you.”

“So.” He held his breath. “You’ll marry me?”

She did not answer, not right away. But her sudden inability to meet his gaze told him everything he needed to know. His hands balled into fists.

“My brother talked to the physician. They’ve agreed that my father will not be hurt if he is moved—and that he should be taken to an expert outside of London, a man who specializes in treating apoplexy. I am going with them.”

“Don’t. Stay with me. I’ll send for the proper license tomorrow.”

She simply looked at him. “Ash, my father left his children bastards because he selfishly placed his own wishes and pleasures before their well-being. If I marry you—if that affects the outcome of my brothers’ bid for legitimacy—I’ll have bastardized them a second time. I will not do the same thing. I will not.”

He shut his eyes and breathed in her breath. He needed another chance. More time to erode her objections. To make her choose him.

“Well. May I say my farewells to you properly, then?” He glanced pointedly at the servant who sat at the edge of the room, pretending not to hear. “Without company?”

She nodded, and dropped her voice. “You know where, don’t you? Not your office. Not any longer. They’re watching that.”

No. Not there.

“I know where,” he said quietly.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN




SHE HAD KNOWN HE WOULD meet her in the conservatory.

Perhaps that’s why she’d twirled the knob on the oil lamp all the way up, until it radiated heat. She had hoped the light would drive away the darkness of the night.

It hadn’t; instead, the lamp’s yellow illumination had driven long shadows into every corner of the room. Margaret turned around, looking for him. But the only movement she saw was the flap of her wrapper. The fine silk and painstaking embroidery seemed too smooth against her skin, after weeks of staid wool and linen. Not at all proper attire, but then, etiquette had little advice to give on the apparel a well-bred lady wore to greet a man at midnight.

As she completed her turn, he stepped from the shadows, his footfalls making almost no noise at all. Margaret met his eyes. She was unsure what to say, uncertain how to start and entirely unable to speak the words she knew he had to hear. Instead she gestured at the cutting she’d planted several weeks before, the night she’d pelted him with clods of earth. “I think it will take.”

He came forwards, still silent, and placed his thumb against the cane of wood. There was not much to show for those weeks—just two little nubs of growth, hints of green glinting in the lamplight.

“It might take some time, though. Perhaps it might be best to keep it indoors through the winter. The groundskeeper has a formula he uses, to manage new growth—”

Ash set his fingers against her lips, capturing the rest of her sentence. “You sound as if you are delivering instructions.”

“Come this winter, only one of us will be here. It might not be me.”

As she spoke, her lips brushed his thumb, a whisper of a kiss.

He took her head in his hands, gently tipping her chin up. “When I first met you, I thought there was something…almost sad about you. You hid it well—you’re too strong not to. But your mother passed away not so long ago. Mrs. Benedict once told me that the old duchess loved roses.”

That wound was still too tender to be probed. Margaret turned away.