Page 22 of A Duke in Disguise
“I have half a bag of letters requesting advice,” Verity said, still stunned. “Where am I supposed to come up with actual wisdom for these poor unfortunates?”
“Piffle,” Nate said. “You’ll do fine. You always do. Frightfully competent and all that. I’m only sorry I’ll hear about it secondhand.” He slid off the counter and made for the door leading upstairs.
“It’s only for the time being.” She pulled at his sleeve, drawing him into an embrace. “I hope one day...” She didn’t know how to finish that sentence in a way that wouldn’t bring tears to her eyes, and she was determined not to cry. “Here,” she said instead, pointing to the stack of books she had put aside for him. “Take whatever else you want. I haven’t tied up your trunk yet, and I left room for a good dozen books.”
Within the hour, Nate and Ash reappeared downstairs carrying the trunk between them.
“The hackney’s waiting,” Charlie said from the door.
Ash embraced Nate, then shook hands with Charlie and gave him a letter that Verity knew to be a draught on his bank.
“I see you handing that to Charlie,” Nate said as he slapped his hat onto his head. “It’s a damned insult, is what it is,” he said, but he was laughing. “Farewell, Verity,” he said, pulling her into a tight hug.
“Be safe,” she said. “Take care of him,” she said to Charlie, over Nate’s shoulder.
And then they were gone, leaving Verity and Ash alone in the quiet of the shop. She reached for his hand, maybe because she wanted to prove to herself that she wasn’t alone, that despite having dismantled her own life and his as well, they still had one another. He squeezed her hand and then drew her close. She tucked her head under his chin, breathing in the scent of hard soap, ink, and copper that he always carried with him. His arms were tight around her, his pulse fast under her ear. His cravat was loose, the skin of his throat bare and exposed.
“Ash,” she said, tilting her head up. She wanted comfort, reassurance, a chance to lose herself in whatever he had to offer.
“Verity,” he said, his voice strangled. “I think I ought to go upstairs.” But he didn’t let her go.
“I’ll go with you,” she said, pressing up onto her toes, speaking the words into the stubbly skin under his jaw.
He groaned. “I can’t. We can’t.”
She pulled back and regarded him in confusion. It had been only yesterday that they had been in one another’s arms. What could possibly have changed in less than a day?
Then she saw the tightness around his eyes. His mouth was flat, his dark eyes flinty. He likely thought she was a monster for manipulating Nate the way she had. Hell, she might agree with him.
“I see,” she said, stepping away. The absence of his touch felt like a layer of her skin had just been flayed off.
“No, Verity, it’s just that we got carried away last night. It’s not a good idea.” Of course it wasn’t a good idea, she wanted to yell. What kind of fool would think it was a good idea to entrust one’s heart to a cold, unfeeling creature such as she? “We’re good friends and we work well together,” he continued, infuriatingly calm. “I don’t want to jeopardize that.”
“You don’t want to jeopardize our working together,” she repeated. And he hadn’t even called her Plum. It was a slap in the face in addition to a rejection.
He made as if he wanted to step close to her, then checked the movement. She bade him good night and heard the soft, final click of the door upstairs as Ash closed it.
Chapter Seven
Later, Ash realized the entire course of his life would have unspooled quite differently if he had gone to Arundel House in a more complaisant mood. As it was, he was on the edge of fury, mainly directed inward at himself because he seemed as good a target as any. He had spent a night tossing and turning, woken by fragmented dreams—a staircase, a ship, but always alone. The loss of Roger and Nate had awakened some pitiful, childish part of himself, a voice that told him he would always be abandoned, always sent away. It wasn’t true, he knew this. It was the story his childish mind had invented to make sense of events that held no reason, but it had taken root in his mind like an oft-repeated fable, and it had shaped his life. The loss of both Roger and Nate, and in such a short span of time, felt like the workings of a vengeful fate.
The safest course of action was to hew closely to the rules of friendship he and Verity had tacitly established: no touching, no lingering glances, no giving voice to feelings better left ignored. They could continue on that path indefinitely. It might not be what either of them wanted in this moment, but in the long run it would be best.
He remembered Verity’s face as he turned her away, baffled and hurt. If he were a different man he could have brought her to bed. Instead he had spent the night cold and alone, his sleep interrupted by dreams of fear and loss.
By God, he didn’t want to live like that. He wanted to take a risk, to prove to himself that his existence didn’t need to be small and self-contained. He thought of how Verity had touched him and looked at him. It seemed to him the height of madness to meekly love someone from afar when you actually lived under the same roof. He wanted to mean something to somebody. But he couldn’t without risking ending up with nothing and nobody at all.
So it was that he all but stormed into the conservatory, more than ready to lose himself in the intricacies of foliage and Lady Caroline’s tales of far-off lands that neither of them would ever set eyes on. Lady Caroline turned to greet him, took one look at his face, and dropped a potted orchid.
Before Ash could stoop to pick up the remnants of the plant from the mess of clay shards and soil, two servants materialized seemingly out of thin air, one with a dust basin and broom and the other carrying a clay pot. So it was that he had no excuse to avoid the look of barely contained fright on the lady’s face as he greeted her. “Are you quite all right, ma’am?” he asked as soon as the servants left. “If I can be of any assistance, you need only ask.”
She remained silent, giving him only a quick shake of her head. But as he sat down to work, he felt her eyes on him, curious and searching. He sensed that she was working herself up to speech.
“Are you quite certain,” she asked after several moments of silence, “that you aren’t distantly connected to the Talbots? When you walked into the room you looked so much like my brother.”
Frustrated, Ash put down his pen. He was too unpracticed in the art of self-deception to deny the possibility that he was indeed the natural child of a Talbot servant and her master. He was certainly somebody’s natural child, and when he looked at Lady Caroline, he saw the same cleft chin and strong nose that he saw in his own reflection. When he considered the eerie familiarity of this house, he thought it possible that he might have lived in it for some time before being sent to his succession of foster homes. While it would be unusual for a servant to rear her own child in her employer’s home, perhaps one extra child would go unnoticed in a household as large as this one. But his blood family had ceased to matter to him the moment they had cast him off. He felt it was only right to pay as little regard for his antecedents as they had paid him.
“My lady, if you say I look like I have Talbot blood in my veins, then I have no doubt you’re entirely in the right. If you have a relative you suspect of siring bastards, then I daresay he’s my father.” He realized too late that he had spoken too coarsely. “I apologize for my language, but not for the sentiment.”
