Page 42 of A Duke in Disguise
“No,” Verity said. “I’ll go as I am.” Still, as she lifted the heavy brass knocker on the door of Arundel House, she was very aware of the state of her gown, from its soiled hem to its frayed cuffs.
Well, she wasn’t here to be pretty. She was here to see Ash, if he’d see her. She’d say her piece and then leave, which would have been a fine plan if she had the faintest notion of what her piece constituted. She knocked on the door, dearly wishing she had written a letter instead. But some things were better said face-to-face, and even though she wasn’t entirely sure what she meant to say to Ash, she was fairly certain it fell into that category.
A footman opened the door. “I’m here to see Mr. Ashby,” she said, unable to make her mouth shape his title. She clenched her fists around the handle of her satchel. “My name is Verity Plum.” She realized that she was ready to stand her ground, to stomp her foot and insist upon seeing Ash. But the servant simply showed her inside to a small parlor and shut the door behind her.
The room was decorated in a subdued style, but scrupulously clean and well aired. Her mind, which for days had been flitting madly between topics, never alighting on any thought long enough to get comfortable, suddenly latched on to the particulars of this room, assimilating details as if they were of the utmost importance. She noted wine-colored whorls on the carpet and green stripes on the wallpaper. A very ugly painting of a horse hung above the hearth, and bits of bric-a-brac were arranged on a shelf. This seemed an extraordinary amount of effort to put into a room that likely served no purpose but the temporary storage of unwanted visitors.
Now that Verity was minutes away from seeing Ash, her hands were clammy and her heart racing. For the past week, she had allowed herself to think only about how annoyed she was—not with Ash, not with herself, but with the entire state of affairs that had ruined things between them. But now it sunk in that she was going to see him. She’d see his face, hear his voice, be near the body that had once been pressed against her own. She realized she was nervous about seeing him—about seeingAsh. That was the worst of it, that this predicament had taken away even the most basic foundation of their friendship. There, thank God, she was angry again, which was much better than the noxious brew of anxiety and contrition that had been with her for days.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door slamming and a man’s raised voice, followed by a woman’s quiet pleading. Verity opened the door immediately. A large man, who looked very much like an older, angrier version of Ash, hollered at Lady Caroline while maids scattered.
“You have gone too far this time, Caroline,” the man roared. “It doesn’t matter what urchins you present with a claim to my title.” He lowered his voice to a hiss that Verity could hear, but which the servants, who had retreated, would likely not. “It remains my title, and you would do well to remember that I’m the one with all the cards in this game.” Lady Caroline looked like she was trying to disappear into the plaster of the wall, and Verity was put in mind of her mother cowering while her father slammed doors and shouted. “I ought to have sent you away at the same time Jamie was locked up. You were both always soft in your heads, him with his drawings and you with your plants. You’ve been living on my sufferance. Your bloody plants, your clothes, your entire manner of living, are all due to my generosity.”
“I beg your pardon,” Verity said. The duke spun towards her, his face somehow even redder. But really, she couldn’t stand another minute of this. The world might teem with bullies and tyrants, and there might not be a damned thing she could do to stop them, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try. “You no longer have any need to be generous, because Lord Montagu—” referring to Ash by his proper title actually tasted bitter on her tongue, but the look on this man’s face was worth it “—has settled three hundred pounds a year on his aunt.” This was pure invention—her goal was to draw fire from Lady Caroline. “So you can put that in your pipe and smoke it. In fact, he has more right to be in this house than you do, so why don’t you take yourself off now.”
Verity was not such a fool that she thought the man would meekly comply, but she succeeded in diverting the man’s attention from Lady Caroline. However she did not expect what actually happened, which was for the man to roar like a toddler in the midst of a tantrum, and then take hold of the nearest vase, smashing it to the floor.
“You probably owe your father a hundred guineas for that vase,” Verity said, because now the man was stalking towards her and that would give Lady Caroline time to collect herself. “All these years you’ve been carrying on thinking it all belongs to you, but it doesn’t, you bloody oaf. Now why don’t you fuck right off.” She was going to get hit, and it was going to hurt, but this man was plainly going to hit somebody, and it was far better for it to be Verity than Lady Caroline, because Lady Caroline looked like she had been through enough of that in her life. “I’m what, half your size? And you’re going to hit me?” She held her hands out to her sides, as if inviting him.
“No, he will not,” said a cool voice behind her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ash in the door that led to the street, idly lounging in the doorframe. Never before had Verity so vastly appreciated his talent for feigning boredom. “Good day, Uncle,” Ash said. “I suppose we can dispense with the formal introductions.”
Ash’s first thought upon seeing the man who had wished him dead, committed his father, and waged a decades-long campaign of terror against his aunt, was that of course Verity would waste no time in flinging herself into the fray. Of course she wouldn’t behave sensibly and runawayfrom a man she knew to be a would-be murderer. His heart filled with a mixture of fondness and exasperation. Catching the eye of a nearby footman, he mouthedconstableand watched the lad slip out the door.
Positioning himself between Verity and his raging uncle, Ash gestured with his chin to the sweeping staircase at the end of the hall where a few black-clad figures peered over a balcony. “I realize that this matter must be distressing to you, but surely you can’t mean to make a scene in front of the servants.” Ash did not care one jot about making a scene in front of servants or anyone else; as far as he cared, his uncle was free to embarrass himself in front of any audience he wished. But he needed to say something to buy time before the constable arrived, if a constable would even be of any use. In anticipation of Lord Robert’s arrival, Lady Caroline issued orders for the servants to deny him entry, but Ash supposed they ought to have guessed that his uncle would bully his way into getting anything he wanted.
Now his uncle took a step closer. “These are all lies. I don’t know or care who you are but I know you’re no nephew of mine. My solicitors assure me that you and my whore of a sister have no evidence to support this cock and bull story you’ve cooked up between the pair of you.”
“We can let the chief justice decide that next week,” Ash said, wondering at the calm in his voice. “Meanwhile, I suggest you leave.” A week ago, Ash would have felt preposterous, attempting to eject a man from his own house. But it wasn’t his uncle’s house—it was Ash’s grandfather’s house, and his aunt’s home. Ash had every right to be here: he belonged here as much as he belonged in Holywell Street, as much has he had ever belonged anywhere. This was his birthright, and as vastly unfair as it was that some people inherited fortunes and others inherited nothing at all, he wasn’t going to let this man do him out of what was his.
“It’s an utter shame for a grown man to carry on like a baby who lost his rattle,” Verity chided. “Are all men in your family like that, Lord Montagu?” Ash was fairly certain she’d sooner have her tongue cut out than call him by his title, so he guessed she intended it as a barb for his uncle.
“I’m afraid so, Miss Plum. I assume that in a fortnight I’ll start throwing food at the table.” Ash regarded his uncle dispassionately, with only a flicker of interest, because the more bored he acted, the redder and angrier his uncle became. If Ash kept going he might provoke the man into an apoplexy, and it likely spoke no good things about his conscience that he found this a consummation devoutly to be wished. “As illuminating as this has been, Uncle, I’m afraid we’ll have to continue this at another time when there are no ladies present.”
“This whore is no lady,” Lord Robert growled. Evidently he was the sort of man who believed all women who thwarted his wishes were whores. How very predictable.
“Quite right,” Ash said, catching Verity’s eye and seeing something like amusement there. “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said solemnly, then turned back to his uncle. “She’ll take me to task for suggesting otherwise as soon as we’re in private. Now, either this is going to come to blows with servants watching and newspapermen in the street outside, or you’ll leave.” He made up that last bit about the newspapermen, but it was plausible.
Lord Robert looked like he was seriously considering the first option. His hands were curled into fists and his expression took on an even more menacing cast.
“Robert,” Caroline said, her voice quavering. “You are frightening the servants and making an ass of yourself. It will take generations to undo the shame you’ve brought on this family. Don’t compound it by committing violent assault in the foyer of Arundel House and getting taken away by redcoats. I can only imagine what the judge would think of you then. Go stay at your club.”
Glowering, the man looked between Ash and Caroline. Then he muttered an indistinct oath and returned to the street.
“I didn’t think that would work,” Caroline said. Her hands trembled. Behind her, her maid looked ready to run to her mistress, and Ash realized grimly that usually when this sort of scene played itself out, his aunt had wounds that needed tending to.
“Nor did I,” Ash said. He didn’t like it. That had been too easy. But his aunt seemed almost giddy with relief, so he merely reminded the servants to bolt the door and then headed for the library, gesturing for Verity to enter first. As soon as he shut the door behind them, Verity was in his arms. She didn’t even kiss him, just flung her arms around his neck and held on for dear life.
“Ash, what the hell kind of situation have you gotten yourself involved in?”
“I’ll tell you,” he said into her hair, “until today I hoped my aunt was exaggerating. She’s had a hard time of it, and I thought she might have overestimated his capacity for violence. Now, if anything, I think she was making light of it.” She smelled like soap and ink and home and he tightened his arms around her. “How does a man get like that without being killed in a tavern brawl?”
“Not a lot of sons of dukes involved in tavern brawls,” Verity said dryly, stepping out of his embrace. “Although, what do I know. I’m hardly an expert. Duels, maybe. And even then, I don’t think they suffer any ill consequences.” The man they had seen in the hall was manifestly not hampered by the forces that kept regular people from smashing vases whenever they felt stroppy. “One thing is clear, and it’s that your aunt was quite right that he needs to be stopped. Was it true what your uncle said about there being insufficient evidence?”
“Oh, there’s plenty of evidence that the grandson of the Duke of Arundel did not die, but was instead sent to be fostered in a village in Norfolk.” He sighed and leaned against the door. “What’s lacking is any information specifically connecting my history with that of Arundel’s grandson. There are bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence—a letter signed by the first woman who fostered me, the scattered memories of an aging cleric, something vague whispered to the headmaster of my old school when I was brought there—but nothing firm and fast. The solicitor says it’s enough to go on, but we’d all feel better with that one bit tidied up.”
“You were dreadful in there,” she said, making it a compliment. “I thought you were going to give that man an apoplexy.”
“If I had ten more minutes I might have managed the trick,” he said.
