Page 9 of A Duke in Disguise
Ash made a choked sound. “They were both put to death for treason. It can’t have been terribly lasting.”
“If you have a better premise for a dirty book, please write your own,” she said tartly.
“You’d better read me something, and soon, because otherwise I’m going to assume these are feverish delusions, Plum.”
She paged through the manuscript until she came to the first scene with Perkin and Lady Catherine, one of the tamer passages. She cleared her throat.
It had to be the gravest flaw in Catherine’s character that she was so fond of this unrepentant liar. One couldn’t trust two consecutive words that came out of that pretty mouth. Surely this was something that ought to at least matter. But she hadn’t even been able to feign maidenly reluctance when her father told her she was to marry this pretender to the crown. In all likelihood they were both going to wind up in the Tower, and all Catherine could think of was what would happen in the next hour. When he stepped into her chamber, the ladies who had been brushing her hair curtseyed deeply before scurrying away amidst a chorus of giggles.
“When did they marry?” Ash interrupted. “Before or after his attempted coup?”
“After his first attempted coup, he fled to Edinburgh, where the king of Scotland was so delighted to have a new way to vex Henry VII that he married Perkin—or Richard—off to his granddaughter. Or step-granddaughter. It’s a bit of a muddle.”
Ash’s fingers tapped thoughtfully on the counterpane. “Now, are you going to read me some actual filth or am I going to know the reason why?”
Verity turned the page and skimmed ahead several paragraphs.
Then they were alone, with nothing but their lies to keep them company. He approached her wordlessly, and with one long finger lifted a strand of hair off her shoulders. On her head was a circlet of gold, a meaningless bauble that signified nothing except her father’s pretenses to grandeur, but it was the echo of a coronet, and she saw the dark gleam of hunger in his eyes. Hunger for that crown, and then, as his gaze traveled from the circlet to the silken folds of her bedgown, perhaps also hunger for her. He placed a finger beneath her chin and tilted it up so she had to meet his gaze. His mouth curved into a shrewd smile, vulpine and canny. “My lady,” he said. “You’ve been thinking of this.”
“Yes, my lord,” she admitted, at once ashamed and anticipatory. Then his hands were on her shoulders, heavy and hot through the rich satin Father had brought from France. He trailed a single finger down her body until it encountered the rise of her breast, circling her—
“Stop,” said Ash. “That’s enough.”
“Don’t you want to know what will happen?”
“It’s entirely clear what’s about to happen, Plum.” His voice sounded strained.
“You didn’t like it, then?”
He cleared his throat. “Whether I like it is beside the point. If the book is entirely in that vein, I can illustrate it.” It wasn’t, but she decided to keep that to herself for the time being. “The scene where he lifts her chin and it’s menacing and tender all at once? That would make a good illustration. Candlelight reflecting off cloth of gold. Aquatint, I think.” He got to his feet and began rearranging the contents of a shelf.
Knowing she was being dismissed, Verity rose to her feet. “Can I bring you anything?”
“No, but thank you, Plum.”
“Shout if you change your mind,” she said, and closed the door behind her.
It had done a number on his sleep, that memory of Verity reading a seduction scene, even though they had stopped before getting to the main event, as it were. But it had put sex in the room with them, a reminder of all the things he resolutely tried not to think about. Even if Verity felt the same as he did, no momentary pleasure was worth losing the only family he had. Ultimately it would end and they would be left with awkwardness and bitterness between them. He would far rather have Verity as his friend than as his former lover. Furthermore, she had made clear her intention not to marry, and Ash couldn’t envision a world in which he had a protracted affair with a woman without it ending in marriage; he had long since stopped being ashamed to be illegitimate, but wasn’t about to inflict that status on a child of his own.
After getting coffee and a bun, he shoved a table against the window of his attic workroom to catch the scant light that filtered through the fog and sooty glass. Then he sat, fresh paper and ink spread out before him. He thought he’d do this series of plates in aquatint in order to achieve the right depth of shadow, out of which limbs and faces could emerge. Ash doubted anybody knew what Lady Catherine Gordon and Perkin Warbeck looked like, so he let his imagination loose. As he sketched, all the while thinking of the words Verity had read, Warbeck came alive as a languidly sinister character, all long lines and sinewy grace, and his wife took shape as a strong-jawed, pert-nosed fighter whose clinging garments hardly covered the strength beneath.
Lady Catherine, Ash decided as he drew the folds of her bedgown, only made sense if she loved Warbeck. If his dim memories of history lessons were to be trusted, everyone at the York court knew Warbeck was a fraud, and Warbeck himself hardly bothered keeping up the pretense that he was a true son of Edward IV who had been thought to have died in the Tower. Nobody thought Warbeck would end his days on the throne; indeed, if that had been a real possibility, he would have found a higher-born wife than Catherine. As it was, for Catherine to have married him, she must have known she was risking her own neck. What must it have been like for her to know that her father and grandfather were willing to sacrifice her, to cast her off for no reason other than to play ducks and drakes with the English crown? Ash knew what it was to be cast aside, and wondered whether Catherine longed for some semblance of home.
He was interrupted by the sounds of a quarrel coming from downstairs. He got up and peered out the door to find Charlie, the apprentice, hovering indecisively on the landing.
“They’re at it again,” Charlie said. “Hammer and tongs.”
“What’s it this time?” Ash asked.
“He wants to go to Derby for the execution. She says she’s known him since he was in nappies and she isn’t such a fool as to believe that he’s going to peacefully watch three people get beheaded.”
Ash could very distinctly imagine Verity speaking those exact words. “What does she think he means to do?”
“Start a riot, maybe, or mix himself up in the same kind of tomfoolery that’s getting Brandreth and the lot of them executed in the first place.” Charlie shoved his hands in his pockets. “He has his case packed and we’re meant to catch the mail coach tonight.”
Ash raised his eyebrows. “You’re going as well?”
“He says it’ll be an education,” Charlie said, his voice filled with amusement, but Ash frowned. Charlie had been the late Mr. Plum’s articled apprentice. Nate was in a position of responsibility as his master; he would be doing the lad no favors by getting him mixed up with the law. Charlie had come straight from the workhouse to the Plums, and he didn’t have any parents or relations to look out for him. Ash knew that it was one apprentice in ten thousand who had a master as considerate and kind as Roger had been, but he couldn’t help but look on Nate’s behavior and see it as an abrogation of duty.
