Page 31 of A Duke in Disguise
She had thought that with Ash it would be different because he had never asked her for a single thing. Even if she could believe that Ash would continue not to want things she couldn’t give, it would be Verity herself who wanted more. She could already feel the demand welling up inside her—she wanted all of Ash, and she wanted him in a way she couldn’t even identify. She wanted him in bed, she wanted his friendship. When she woke in his arms, she had felt some chilly part of her melt. Or maybe she had never had a core of ice to begin with. Maybe she was warm and alive and it was only Ash who let her feel safe enough to realize it. It would have been so easy, frighteningly easy, to delude herself into thinking nothing mattered outside the cocoon that contained the two of them.
Instead she went to Portia’s house. It would be a bracing reminder that love affairs did not last forever, and that she needed to guard herself against the certainty that she would need to navigate a similar course with Ash. Portia’s house, however, was in a state of mild chaos in preparation for that evening’s salon. The slightly harried butler ushered Verity into the morning room where Amelia sat with a stack of papers on a desk before her and a pair of spectacles on the top of her head.
“Mama’s in the green parlor having strong words with the wine merchant,” Amelia whispered. “He tried to pass off corked Bordeaux and I don’t think he’ll make that mistake again.”
“No, I dare say he’ll find that he wants to take up an entirely new trade after your mother’s through with him. Perhaps retire to the country.”
“Oh, that reminds me.” Amelia wrinkled her nose. “Mama somehow got an invitation to the Featherstones’ for a shooting party, so we’re meant to decamp to Hampshire next week.”
“You sound less than pleased.”
“You have no idea how exhausting it is to talk to people.”
“You make perfectly lovely conversation.”
“I can talk about electricity and Ovid and sugar boycotts as well as anyone, but nobody at the Featherstones’ house party will wish to discuss any of those things. Or perhaps they will, but if I dare to say a word about, say, the Thames tunnel or explosive gases, they’ll take it as proof that I’ve been badly brought up. Whereas if I sit quietly that’ll also be proof of my low origins. So I must confine my conversation to the weather, lesser society gossip, and some of the more bland aspects of the theater.” She recited this list as if she had heard it many times. “And the constant scrutiny is...” She shuddered. “I don’t know how Mama bears it. I wish I could stay with you instead.”
“Really?” Verity had always thought Nate was the reason Amelia enjoyed spending time at their house.
“Do you want to know what’s droll? My mother has gone to all this trouble to make sure I don’t make a bad marriage, but the truth is that I swear I’d marry the first interesting man to make an offer if it got me a bit of freedom. I told you the truth when I said I wasn’t in love with your brother, but I’d have married him in half a heartbeat. When we were—” She broke off, glancing at her papers, then at Verity, before composing herself. “When we were discussing a topic of mutual interest—and no, that is not a euphemism, Verity—I thought it would be the easiest thing in the world to take all this fragile respectability that Mama is so set on protecting, and just cast it to the ground and never have to worry about it again.”
Verity sympathized. In Amelia’s shoes she might well have acted on that impulse. But she felt obligated to argue the responsible point of view. “If you make a bad marriage, you’ll be thoroughly impoverished.”
“We’re thoroughly impoverished now. I’d worry about winding up a governess, except that no good family would want me as a governess.” Amelia straightened some of the papers before her. “Mama’s belief that she can find me a wealthy husband is the only silly idea she’s had in two decades.”
“Give your mother some credit,” Verity said, but she felt a surge of anxiety for her friends.
She left before Portia had done with the wine merchant so she decided to walk in the direction of Cavendish Square. Arundel House was minutes from Portia’s, and Ash had mentioned needing to pay a call on Lady Caroline Talbot. Verity thought that she might be able to catch up with him and they could either walk home together or share a hackney.
He had explained the necessity of leaving through the garden gate, so Verity found the mews that ran behind the house and waited, leaning against the wall of what had to be the carriage house. She took a book out of her pocket and started to read, but found her attention diverted by the sheer amount of foot traffic passing before her. This lane couldn’t possibly access more than three, possibly four, houses, which meant this small army of servants, tradespeople, carters, and coachmen were all in the service of at most four households. Her house in Holywell Street had always been a busy place, with customers and workers and friends coming and going at all hours, but it had nothing on the mews behind Arundel House. There were men with spades, boys leading pony carts, three girls beating a rug, a washerwoman carrying a bucket, and deliveries of ale, fish, apples, and coal. And that was merely what she saw glancing up between sentences. Eventually she gave up and tucked the book in her pocket.
A few people glanced at her, some curious, some suspicious. She wondered how they could tell she didn’t belong—she wasn’t dressed much differently than any upper servant—and then realized it was because she stood still. Remaining idle was the most conspicuous thing she could have done in this place. She tried to calculate, in pounds sterling, what it must cost to employ this many people. But before she got far, the garden gate swung open.
Ash looked frankly terrible. His face was a sickly gray and his mouth was pressed into a flat line. As she watched, he leaned against the wall opposite her, his hands covering his eyes. She went to him.
“Ash?” She touched his arm lightly.
He dropped his hand and stared at her, as if struggling to recognize her in this unfamiliar setting. “What are you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood. Are you well? Do you need a carriage? A glass of water?”
“I’m not going to have a seizure.” He looked at her, bleaker than she had ever seen him. “I don’t want to go back there,” he said, tipping his head towards Arundel House.
“Then don’t. There will be other jobs.”
“It’s not that. It’s the, ah, family connection.” His voice was low enough so they couldn’t be overheard by anyone walking past. “Apparently the men in my family are vicious bastards.” He swallowed, and Verity had the sense he was weighing his words. “And Lady Caroline could use an ally. So I need to help her.”
Verity didn’t know how Lady Caroline Talbot, the daughter of a duke, could possibly need the help of an illustrator she happened to be related to. But then she remembered Ash’s nightmare. Whatever was going on, it weighed heavily on him. Verity had always had an abundance of connections, both blood and otherwise. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to discover blood ties at the age of twenty-six.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” she asked.
“God no.”
“Come here, then,” she said, and drew him into her arms.
He sank against her, wrapping his own arms tightly around her. She felt his heart hammering against her chest, his pulse fast and unsettled against her cheek. But he held her tight and stroked the hair that had come loose at the nape of her neck.
“People will see,” he murmured, but didn’t slacken his grip.
