Page 46 of A Lady Igniting Wicked Passions
Aaron seemed to brighten at that. “Yes, I do miss the old place something rotten. Tumble down and dilapidated as it is.”
A man emerged from the house, stocky and dark-eyed with thick black eyebrows below a bald pate. The scar across his face made him appear monstrous but he greeted Aaron with a beaming grin and booming voice.
“Aaron, my boy! Congratulations! Introduce me to the new Duchess that I may pay homage.”
Aaron smiled ruefully and turned to Arabella. “Arabella, this is my uncle, Lord Graham Loudon of Blakehill. Blakehill, allow me to introduce the Arabella Blackwood nee Harrington, Duchess of Ashenwood. Daughter of the Earl of Eversden.”
“Eversden! Yes, I know the place. Lovely part of the country you hail from Your Grace,” Blakehill said effusively.
He bowed low over Arabella’s hand and kissed it.
“Please, call me Arabella, Lord Graham. I am certainly not used to being addressed as Your Grace and may never get used to it. But, to my friends I shall always wish to simply be…Arabella. And I have decided we will be friends.”
Blakehill grinned unabashedly. “How very modern. And you may call me Blakehill so as not to confuse this muddled old brain. Everyone calls me that.”
He clapped Aaron on the back with a blow that should have staggered him.
“I have had your household, such as it is, prepare luncheon for us as I understand that wasn’t being provided. And have raided my cellars for port that was bottled while the Stuarts still held the throne.”
Aaron looked at Arabella who beamed back, delighted by this strange man and his explosion of character. “I must admit that my father’s rudeness on the subject of the usual celebrations is somewhat embarrassing,” she said. “But, perhaps, we three can have our own celebration. As we are the only ones who seem to feel it is an occasion for it.”
“Capital! Come along then,” Blakehill said, striding up the steps that led to the palatial entrance.
Arabella took Aaron’s offered arm once more and then ascended into the house. Her first impression was that Aaron must only recently have moved in. The main hall was curiously bare, with blank areas on the walls that had obviously held paintings previously. In some cases, the panelling there was not as faded as it was elsewhere.
They walked along the hall and to the left of a grand staircase, into a drawing room. A sideboard held cloched plates of food, along with cutlery and a decanter next to a jug of fruit juice. A fire had been laid but not lit and the room had a chill to it despite the warm sunshine outside.
On a small table, beside one chair was a thick ledger book which Blakehill hurried to and closed with a clap, sitting on the chair, and stuffing the book down the side of it.
“We won’t talk business, Aaron. Not on your wedding day.”
Arabella noticed a look pass between the two men. She did not know its origin but felt a moment’s disquiet. It was as though something to which she was not party was going on. Taking a seat offered by Aaron she smiled sweetly, putting the worry to the back of her mind.
When Blakehill rose and began to serve food onto plates, which he handed to Arabella first, then Aaron, she realized another oddity in the house. She had not seen a single servant thus far. Looking around the room she saw that the three of them were, indeed, alone.
It seemed odd for a duke to be left to serve himself luncheon. Blakehill offered her a glass of ruby red port, having supplied himself and Aaron also.
“A toast to the new Duchess of Ashenwood,” Blakehill said. “I have waited a long time for my nephew to be made an honest man. To find the other half of his heart. And I am overjoyed that the day is finally here. To you.”
He raised the glass in her direction and Arabella nodded, catching Aaron’s eye. His smile was honest and genuine, hishear, hearsounded as though it came from the heart. She met his gaze and her worries melted away.
Chapter 27
Aaron avoided looking at the book of accounts that Blakehill had so clumsily hidden upon entering the drawing room. He knew that his uncle had been studying it for the same reasons that Aaron himself had been. To find every spare pound and shilling that they could.
He was acutely conscious of the half-made feel to the mansion, created by his selling numerous pieces of art and furniture which his father had accumulated. And which he could not afford to keep. It had been hard to divest himself of objects that he had been seeing about the place since he was a boy. But they were just objects.
The gaps those objects left behind had the feel of gaping wounds and he was sure that Arabella would have noticed the omissions. While he knew the whole truth could not be kept from her, he at least wanted to keep some of it back. What would a woman like Arabella think of a husband who was mired in the debts of a gambling hell.
Or the nature of some of the investors that Blakehill had been forced to seek aid from to avoid bankruptcy and debtor’s jail. Though he knew that Blakehill would be one of the few people in the world to be genuinely happy for him, congratulations would not have been the sole aim of his visit.
During the aimless chatter of the next hour, he waited for the right moment to separate Arabella and Blakehill, in order that he might ascertain how dire the situation had now become.
Arabella laughed at Blakehill’s jokes and listened with rapt attention to his anecdotes, particularly where they related to their shared experience during the war. He even found himself chuckling, particularly at the account of the ferocious Mother Superior who had cracked Blakehill over the head with a chamber pot, believing him to be a French pillager, when Aaron and Blakehill had entered her convent.
“I was barely conscious on the floor. Covered in piss for goodness sake! Pardon my French. She is screaming curses and Lord knows what at us in Spanish. And there is a company of French dragoons about a half hour away!” Blakehill roared.
“If only I had this pretty young man go ahead of me, she probably would have welcomed us with open arms. Alas, my looks are against me,”
