Page 51 of The Lyon Returns
“As for the duchess, you will find her above reproach, if unwilling to suffer fools. She has only one weakness.”
“Lord Ashwood, the younger,” Gwen said.
He wondered for a moment how she’d guessed. But then, Grayson was the most likely answer. “Yes. My brother, whom you’ve met. I believe he will behave more cordially when next your paths cross.”
She waved that off. “It does not signify, Gideon. Your brother merely had your interests at heart. You are lucky to have a sibling that so idolizes you.”
Gideon snorted. “Looks can be deceiving, Gwen.”
“Hm,” she uttered, noncommittal.
He sipped his wine. “Have you any questions for me?”
“Idohave one,” she said, nibbling the tip of her index finger. “What of your birth mother?”
“My mother?” He set the goblet on the inlayed table beside him.
“Yes.”
“What of her? She is long dead and no one you need concern yourself with to survive tomorrow’s dinner.”
“I understand that. I simply wish to hear your reflections of her.”
“Why?”
Despite his increasingly belligerent tone, her answer held no impatience. “I think it would help me to understand you, your father, and perhaps even your father’s wife.”
This woman. She never ceased to upend him. By God, Brice had the right of it when he warned Gideon to keep his wits sharp around her. He scraped a hand over the fine layer of stubble emerging over his jawline.
“I do not remember her—not much, at any rate. I have a few vague impressions of a smiling woman, with jade-green eyes, who sang to me. The better part of my understanding came from others. She was, of course, the duke’s paramour.”
He meant to quit there. Instead, he fixed her with narrowed eyes to gauge her reaction to his next words. “She was the offspring of a British merchant who had relocated to Calcutta, and his Indian wife, the daughter of a wealthy farmer. My mother was Anglo-Indian, as am I.”
She nodded. “That explains some things.”
There it was—evidence of her ingrained sense of British superiority, anticipated at first glance. “Such as?” he drawled. He would enjoy making her spell it out.
“Such as your interest in shipping. I think sometimes it’s in the blood. Like me, with my work. Undoubtedly, you have relatives in Calcutta who helped you get your start in shipping.”
He grunted in assent, more gratified than he cared to admit that she’d belied his assumption. “Yes, as well as a family friend who may as well be blood related.” Dirk Kennedy had, after the two of them had gotten over butting heads, not only accepted him, but taken him under his wing. After that, those who originally opposed his appearance, treating him as an outsider, fell in line.
A gentle smile tugged at her lips. “None of that tells me who your mother was.”
After initially resisting her prodding, he found himself wanting to share what he’d gleaned of her over the years, though his tongue felt rusty from lack of practice. “She had a bleeding heart, they say, and an indomitable will. She and my father met when he ventured to India on an errand for the Crown.” He could not staunch the grin that followed. “Father tells me they got on like oil and water. He had British colonial interests to see to; she had what she saw as a sacred calling to save every suffering man, woman, and child in India.”
“She sounds wonderful,” Gwen said, resting her elbow on the armrest and her chin in her hand.
Like a river bursting the confines of a dam, the words continued to pour out of him. “Evidently, she captivated him from day one. The reverse was not true, however. She wanted nothing to do with him. He trailed after her at the hospitals where she volunteered her time, generally making a nuisance of himself, until she agreed to put him to work. Two things happened as a result.”
She stared at him, as if enthralled.
“They fell in love, and he informed the Crown he could no longer serve as emissary, such was her influence on him. He and his father—the Duke of Ashford, as my father had not yet ascended to the title—had a terrible row. Father would not be swayed.”
“What happened?” Gwen whispered.
“He asked her to marry him.”
“Oh,” she breathed, pressing one hand to her heart.
