Page 52 of A Duke in Disguise
This baffled Verity. It hadn’t occurred to her that Ash had been serious about living anywhere other than Arundel House. The Holywell Street house was out of the question, because it would be exceptionally awkward for the workers to have a duke poking his nose into their business, not to mention how it would throw Nan into apoplexies. But there could, apparently, be a middle ground between Holywell Street and Arundel House.
It occurred to her that what she really wanted to do was continue theLadies’ Register. And that she could do from a distance, sending in material to be printed and then sold. The shop foreman could continue to publish theRegisterwith minimal oversight. It made her feel slightly sick, the idea of giving up control of the rest of Plum & Co. It was hers, she had made it, and now she was going to need to step away from it. But Ash had stepped away from his own work in order to take on his duties. Even Nate had stepped away from his work when Verity had needed him to. Verity could do the same. Sometimes love required sacrifices; she had known this since her earliest days.
She responded to Ash’s note with one of her own, stating that she would be at home the following morning, and he could arrive with settlement documents in hand. Her cheeks flushed as she wrote the words, but if she was giving up her livelihood, then he could ensure that she was provided for. It was fair. And it was something more than fair—it was just.
The following morning, she found Nan in the kitchen, reading what appeared to be a pamphlet, her brow furrowed and eyes narrowed.
“What’s the matter?” Verity asked.
“It’s just... if I didn’t know better, I’d think this was written by Mr. Nate. Have a look for yourself.”
Verity glanced at the front page and for a moment went quite dizzy. In large type were the words “On the Dangers of a Shackled Press” and below it an engraving in a style she would have known anywhere. It depicted the body of a man in chains, with buzzards in red coats picking at his bones, while jackals looked on in hungry anticipation. Sketched in the background was a gibbet, emaciated children, and soldiers holding out tin cups. An assortment of men in shiny boots and evening dress looked everywhere but at the dead man. Ash had drawn himself as one of the distracted bystanders, including himself among those who needed to pay closer attention. In case there was any confusion, he had signed his name to the bottom, a signature she had seen hundreds of times, but this time it readArundel.
On the next page was a short paragraph: “What follows is an example of what is lost when the press fears for its safety. I, James Talbot, Duke of Arundel, set the type and printed these pamphlets with my own hands and no assistance. In the event that the Home Office finds these materials seditious, my direction is Weybourne Priory, Notts.” Below was the entirety of Nate’s last essay, in which he wrote about the dead of Pentrich, arguing that only the direst desperation would drive a man to take arms and revolt, because the chance of success is so minuscule and the cost of failure so high; a person would have to believe his death to be worth more than his life, and for a government to tacitly agree to that statement is to concede its failure and acknowledge it should be overthrown. It was a perfectly good essay, and made points Verity had been hearing for years, but to see them laid out starkly on paper, and by Ash’s doing, moved her to speechlessness.
“Miss Verity?” Nan asked. “You all right?”
Verity realized she was crying. “Very much so.” Other people might like love poems or posies; Verity’s heart could be won only by outright sedition, and Ash had known it. Within hours of inheriting his title, he had declared himself against the government, and for Verity. “But I need to go to Arundel House immediately.”
“If you could spare a moment before leaving, perhaps?” came a voice from behind her.
She spun around to find Ash leaning against the door that led to the shop.
“Nan, here’s a couple of florins, go buy the finest cheese in the land, leave it on the kitchen table, then take the rest of the day off.”
The older woman took the coins and left, throwing a wink at Ash over her shoulder.
“Who are you to dismiss my servant?” Verity asked, stalking towards him. “Overstepping and imperious.” She took hold of his cravat and pulled him close so she could breathe in the scent of his shaving soap and skim her lips across the faint stubble of his jaw.
“I’m the man you’re going upstairs with, Plum. Shocked you need this spelled out for you, always thought you cleverer than that. After that, I plan to go to Weybourne, but thought you might like to come with me. Caro says it’s in an appalling state of dilapidation, so you don’t need to worry about being subjected to a life of luxury.”
This, she suspected, was his way of asking her to marry him in his ancestral home. She twisted her hand in his cravat and saw the mingled alarm and desire in his dark eyes. “Did you really print it with your own hands? How did you operate the press by yourself?”
“Ah, I did have an accomplice for that part.”
“Your aunt?”
“Madam, I am not informing on my aunt.”
She bit back a laugh and kissed him hard. God help her, she had missed this, missed having him by her side. “Upstairs,” she said, her lips still against his. “Now. Then we’ll go to your poxy house.”
They got only as far as the study, Ash pressing her against the closed door. She promptly wrapped her legs around his waist as he reached for the fall of his trousers. She slid her hand between them, pushing his hand away and drawing him out, stroking him in her hand. “I’m feeling maudlin, Ash, but I missed this.”
“It missed you,” he said earnestly.
She snorted with laughter and then groaned as he slid inside her. “I meant that I missedthis,” she breathed. “Being close with you, doing this with you. I ought to have known from the first time we kissed that we needed to be together. Stupid of me.”
“I knew before then,” he said, driving into her. “And I’ll spend the rest of my life reminding you, as often as you need.”
“Please,” she said. “Please.” He was hitting a spot inside her that made her feel perpetually on the brink of climax, and while it was sweet torture, she needed more. She insinuated a hand between them, felt the place where they joined, where he thrust inside her again and again, and then she was gone, toppling over the brink, with only Ash to hold her.
Could it be that easy? As simple as two people deciding to be together regardless of every reason why they shouldn’t? Verity was willing to believe that it was, because the alternative was a life without Ash, without love, without hope. And hope, Verity was learning, wasn’t just idly positing the truth of some fanciful notion. It was taking that truth and letting it be your lodestar, guiding your movements, providing your direction.
Whatever the next months or years might hold, Verity would go through it with Ash, and that was enough.
Epilogue
In the end, they wound up staying at Weybourne Priory for longer than either of them had contemplated. There was an entire village of houses with bad roofs and worse chimneys, which kept Ash quite busy and provided a way for him to dispose of reckless amounts of money. Verity, meanwhile, offered her shop foreman an extra six shillings a week and lodgings in the Holywell Street house in exchange for him handling the day-to-day business of Plum and Company until Nate returned. This gave her time to work exclusively on theLadies’ Register.
