Page 36 of A Duke in Disguise
“The lady is slandering you,” Ash told the cat. This was evidently quite enough affection for one day, because she retreated to the top of the bookcase. Ash pushed himself up into a sitting position. His muscles felt both tense and unreliable. “Everyone agrees that being liked by animals is a sign of excellent character,” he observed complacently. “I notice I’m the only person in the room of excellent character.”
Verity snorted and went back to her book. By the time Nan arrived with the tea tray, he had hoisted himself into a chair and felt like an approximation of his usual self. He was still a bit shaken, as he always was, and there was the vague sense of trauma that came with his body and his time being abruptly stolen away from him. Tomorrow he would wake with odd bruises and a headache. But for now he drank his tea, he watched Verity slather fresh butter on a slab of bread, and it was fine, as fine as these things ever were.
They spent the rest of the afternoon together, Ash reading and dozing and Verity writing, while occasionally running downstairs to help in the shop or talk to the men in the workshop. He had a glimpse of what a life with her might look like, working side by side, each independent but turning to one another for comfort, warmth, companionship. He could see how everything, from his seizures to his cat, would fit into this life. Except for how it couldn’t happen, would never happen, and would all be revealed to be a lie.
Chapter Thirteen
Waking to the sound of church bells and the pleasant weight of one of Ash’s arms across her body, Verity knew a moment of undiluted happiness. If this sort of complacency was what happened after a few days of shared pleasure, foolish laughter, and the dreamlike prospect of building a life together, then it was no wonder people made such bad choices when they were in love.
She rolled to face him. The half of his face that wasn’t pressed into his pillow was obscured by hair that had fallen onto his forehead. She loved this Ash, with his disheveled hair and stubbly jaw. Well, she loved all versions of Ash. She was dangerously fond of him, and had been for as long as she could remember. It had been safer when she had known how to ignore how she felt about him and pretend not to know how he felt about her. But time in his arms had razed her defenses, leaving her with nothing to do but capitulate.
He opened an eye and she watched as he registered where he was and who he was with. A lazy smile spread across his handsome face. “Morning, Verity,” he said. “Do you think there’s any goose left?” Yesterday he had come home from the market with a goose over his shoulder, asked Nan to show him how to cook it, and then sent her home.
He had called Verity by her Christian name several times now, almost as if by accident, as if that was how he thought of her, and she could not decide how she felt about it. Once he had even called her sweetheart, but it had sounded like a slip of the tongue rather than an endearment. She was decidedly not the type of woman anybody referred to as sweetheart.
“Not a chance,” she said. “I sent each of the men home with some.” The shop was closed for Sunday and they would have the house to themselves for a full day. Verity did not intend to get out of bed more than strictly necessary.
The sun shone brightly through the window of Ash’s room, or at least as brightly as it got in London at the beginning of December, so she could see his face clearly as he rolled on top of her, his weight a pleasant heaviness pressing her into the mattress.
“One of the things I like most about you,” he said, speaking the words into her neck, “is your capacity for forethought.” He nipped her collarbone and then pressed a kiss over the place he had bitten. She slid her hands down his shoulders and back, feeling his muscles work as he settled over her, then she spread her legs invitingly and watched his face as he thrust inside her. He looked like he was holding himself back. He almost always did. Ash had a stronger set of defensive walls than she did. And that was fine. She didn’t want to be inside anyone’s walls. Defenses were good. They kept people safe. But she suspected it was more than that, that whatever had been bothering him about his newfound relations was preventing him from being entirely free with himself. She smoothed a hand down his back again, felt his muscles tense and shift as he groaned with the pleasure of burying himself inside her, still somehow holding himself in check.
She wrapped her legs around him, taking him deep and savoring the stretch and fullness of him inside her. “Look at me,” she said.
“As if I could look anywhere else,” he said, propping himself up on a forearm and taking her chin in his other hand.
“Do you see my expression?” she asked, trying hard to keep a straight face. “Would you say it’s similar to the engraving of that woman in—” He shut her up with a kiss that turned clumsy because both of them were laughing, and the odd seriousness of a few moments earlier dissolved into silliness.
“How about this?” She assumed a vapid smile.
He responded by thrusting hard into her and she arched up against him.
“Swear to God, Plum,” he said afterward, when they lay sated in the tangled sheets. “If I weren’t so hungry you couldn’t make me leave this bed.”
“I think I could stay hungry for a few more hours,” she said. “But this bed has a sad lack of tea.”
The room was cold when they weren’t in one another’s arms, so she washed and dressed hastily. When she went to the kitchen, she found Ash there, a kettle already on the fire and a crumpet toasting at the end of a fork. She greeted him by wrapping her arms around him, pressing her chest to his back.
“Did you miss me?” he asked, turning his head just enough to meet her mouth for a kiss.
It had been ten minutes since they were in bed together, but the truth was that she had indeed missed him. She wanted more nights like last night, more mornings like this one. And maybe she could have that. Maybe they could come to some sort of arrangement; maybe Ash could content himself with what Verity had to offer, and wouldn’t ask for more.
They ate buttered crumpets and drank sweet tea while sharing the kind of glances that hinted at what they’d be doing after breakfast. But before Verity finished her last bite, there was a knock at the door.
“That’s the shop door,” Ash said, puzzled. It was Sunday, which meant it couldn’t be a customer. Verity put down her cup of tea and shook out her skirts before heading to the door, Ash right behind her. When she unbolted the door, Verity saw a tall woman in a dark velvet cloak and the sort of bonnet that cast her face in shadows. Behind her, Ash sucked in a breath.
“I beg your pardon,” the stranger said to Verity, and the words sounded like a genuine apology. “I’m here to see...” She looked over Verity’s shoulder.
“Lady Caroline, this is Miss Plum,” Ash said in a voice that sounded like it came from very far away. “Verity, this is my... aunt.” He was standing right beside her, but he didn’t touch her arm, didn’t even bump against her with his shoulder, and instead of his warmth she felt only the cold air from the street.
“I do beg your pardon,” Lady Caroline repeated, her gaze wavering between the two of them. “Oh dear.”
“Please come in,” Verity said. “It’s bitterly cold.” They hadn’t laid a fire anywhere but Ash’s bedchamber and the kitchen, but the shop was warmer than the street.
“No, no,” Lady Caroline protested. “I don’t mean to come in. I only wanted to see if—if Mr. Ashby is safe. And I see that he is, so I’ll be on my way.” The light shifted, revealing that the redness on one side of the lady’s face was not the flush of embarrassment but rather a fresh bruise. Verity stifled a gasp.
“My lady,” Ash said gravely. “I cannot let you leave unless I know you have someplace safe to go.” There was a quality to Ash’s voice that Verity hadn’t expected to hear, a note of affection and warmth that she hadn’t expected Ash to feel towards this strange woman, and which was at odds with the formality of his language.
“My brother left for the country this morning, so there is no immediate danger. I feared that he might have visited you on his way out of town. But I see he has not, so I will be on my way.”
