Ashton: Lord of Truth (Lonely Lords Book 13) (33 page)

“You wear colors beautifully.” She wore them magnificently, the blue bringing out the beauty of her eyes and the roses in her cheeks.  

“You thought me beautiful when I wore brown homespun.”  

Ashton would like to see her wearing nothing at all, but in a lady’s attire, Matilda was stunning. He took her hand and kissed her knuckles.
“And you saw me when I badly needed to be put into my kilt. I’ve missed you.”

“I left you not two hours ago, and I’m the same person, Ashton Fenwick.”

“No, you’re not,” he said, leading her to the sofa. “You glow. I daresay had Hazelton and I not come along, you’d have dealt
handily with Drexel. Hazelton and I were discussing next steps.”

Marriage figured prominently on Ashton’s list, but so did kissing his prospective countess. He set about addressing that item as soon as Matilda took
the place beside him on the sofa.

“I liked wearing breeches,” she muttered against Ashton’s mouth.

“I like you wearing that scent. What is it?”

“French soap,” she said, straddling his lap. “Millefleurs, maybe. Skirts do have a few advantages.”

The scent she was wearing should have been named Loss of Reason, because Ashton could think of only one advantage to skirts at the moment: He could stroke
Matilda’s bare legs when she was wearing skirts, without anybody having to remove a single article of clothing.

“No stockings, my lady? You shock me.”

“This dress belongs to Lady Hazelton’s youngest sister, but we couldn’t find stockings that—yes, please.”

Ashton left off caressing Matilda’s calves long enough to undo the bow at the front of her bodice. Two more bows were secreted beneath that, for she
wore an extra chemise rather than stays, but diligence and manual dexterity soon saw her breasts freed.

“I feel a bit mad,” Matilda said, scooting closer. “I could be behind bars now, on my way to the gallows.”

“Don’t say such things. Don’t even think—”

She kissed him, and he could taste the frenzy in her, part triumph—they’d bested Drexel for now—and part terror.

What if Helen hadn’t found him? What if Samuels had taken Matilda straight to the magistrate? What if Stephen had chanced upon her?

“If Drexel can bribe a magistrate, he can bribe a judge.” Matilda knelt up and got hold of Ashton beneath his kilt. “I’ll not go
peacefully.

Despite the growing haze of desire, Matilda had raised a terrible specter. The whole criminal justice system, from the thief-takers, to the magistrates, to
the wardens, to the judges, was subject to bribery and coercion, and Drexel had a six-year start on Matilda in that race.

“You’ll not go at all, as long as I’m alive,” Ashton said. “I’d have you away to Scotland before—”

Matilda had settled over him, joining them in a slow, exquisite descent. Despite her finery, and her expensive fragrance, she was still his Matilda, still
the woman he’d sacrifice everything to spend the rest of his life with.

“This,” she whispered. “I want this, for all my days and nights, with you.”

Matilda was a fast learner. Though Ashton hadn’t made love with her often, she’d already figured out that she could torment him with pleasure,
turning mutual arousal into a game of endurance. As they made love, everything else—worries and plans, past and future—fell away. Ashton
feasted on the taste and feel of her, on the soft sighs and welling pleasure.

This was what he’d been searching for, this sense of union with a woman who knew herself well and valued herself highly. He shifted the angle of his
hips, and on the next thrust, Matilda surrendered to completion. For long moments, he held her, denying himself satisfaction.

“You’ll withdraw?” Matilda panted.

“I should. We’re not yet married.” Not even under Scottish law.

“I’ll bear your children gladly, Ashton. Surely you know that.”

He’d hoped, though her words bore a lurking rejection, despite their bodies being joined. “The protection of my name and title should be yours,
Matilda. I want to give them to you, and I thought you’d welcome them.”

Her sigh bore nothing of contentment. After another moment, she drew away, leaving Ashton with an ache both physical and emotional—a bad ache.

“I cannot marry you while I’m wanted for murder,” Matilda said, settling beside him. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been clear on
this. Marriage in England must be publicly documented to be valid. I expected you to understand.”

Ashton understood that Matilda had rejected his marriage proposal, also that he’d made a bad job of presenting it. Thwarted desire and a tearing need
to get to the bottom of Matilda’s stubbornness created an exquisite mixture of misery.

“You will explain yourself,” he managed. “Please. I will listen to you, and then you will hear me out as well.”

Matilda rustled across the room and unlocked the door. She even moved differently in that pretty dress, and yet, she was still his Matilda.

Or was she?

“What’s all this?” Stephen gestured to the three trunks open in the center of his uncle’s library. One held a few books, but was
mostly full of silver—pen trays, ink bottles, candlesticks, all piled inside without benefit of straw to prevent damage. Another held several
valuable paintings. The third was packed with snuff boxes and pipes.

“I’m going abroad,” Drexel said. “For an extended period. Basingstoke’s office will see to your quarterly allowance.”

Stephen took a closer look into the nearest trunk, though the idea of sending his lordship to the Continent was singularly cheering.

“These are my snuff boxes!”

Drexel folded up an exquisitely clever card table that had to be at least two hundred years old and tucked it in with the paintings.

“You purchased those snuff boxes with advances over and above your quarterly allowances, ergo, they are not yours. They are my security for the debt
you owe from the funds you’ll eventually inherit from your father.”

The previous night’s excesses had left Stephen somewhat blue-deviled, but his instincts told him something was very wrong, and his instincts had
never failed him.

“I can’t inherit from dear Papa until Step-mama has been brought to justice, and her portion of his estate either given to me or divided
between you and me. The worst case as you’ve explained it will be that the brat inherits Step-mama’s fortune, and then we get the use of it for
another ten years at least. What is this about, Uncle?”

Drexel stuffed another pair of silver candlesticks into an open trunk. “Your step-mother, God rot the woman, was picked up by your thief-taker
earlier today. Fortunately, he brought her to Basingstoke’s office, though word of her apprehension will be all over town by sundown. She slipped
away this time, but thief-takers are like hounds on a bitch. They’ll find her again.”

Stephen poured himself a drink, though lately, even the drink didn’t do much to clear his head.

“Finding Matilda is good. Now we can get on with her trial—assuming she doesn’t have a tragic accident while incarcerated—and then
Chancery will have to turn loose of her funds.”

“Stephen, I vow your mother must have strayed, for no one of the Derrick blood could be as stupid as you are. When a felony conviction is handed
down, the criminal’s personal goods are subject to forfeiture to the crown.”

“The juries don’t do that anymore,” Stephen said, tossing back two fingers of brandy. “They all say the bugger’s got no
goods, and—”

“Greedy as you are,” Drexel went on, collecting a marble pen tray from the reading table, “our sovereign’s ability to spend money
makes your expenses look like the puling efforts that have characterized all of your exertions. Thank God the French flu hasn’t robbed you of the
ability to procreate, or the earldom would be doomed.”

Talk of venereal disease unsettled Stephen’s belly. He should not have had three cups of coffee upon rising, but how else was a fellow to wash the
foul taste from his mouth?

“What’s Fat George got to do with our money?”

“Fat George will never allow a jury to state that Lady Matilda Derrick has no goods. He’ll intercede, if for no other reason than to see Lady
Kitty made a ward of the crown upon my departure from the realm. Matilda’s fortune will fall into George’s hands as well if she’s
convicted, and he might go so far as to tie up your portion of Althorpe’s estate too.”

Uncle spoke with entirely too much conviction, and much too quickly for such an early hour.

“That won’t wash,” Stephen said, setting his empty glass down with a bang. “It’s my money, Papa left it to me, and I need
it.”

“You will still have an allowance from the Drexel earldom,” Uncle said, hefting the family Bible, then setting it back down. “Damned
thing is too heavy, and you might get a fair bit of coin for it. I’ve left instructions that your allowance is to be paid quarterly, out of the
rents. Myron Basingstoke will know how to reach me, assuming he doesn’t take a repairing lease himself.”

This whole conversation wasn’t making any sense. “You’re leaving?”

“You might consider a tour of Italy,” Drexel said, surveying a library that looked as if pirates had come a-plundering. “Your lies to the
magistrate are what’s set this whole business in motion. If you’d been truthful, Matilda would never have turned up missing, and I
wouldn’t have been tempted to—”

“I did not lie, sir.” Stephen’s memory on this point was clear. “I related events to the magistrate in the exact sequence you
suggested. Matilda was unhappy with Papa, they argued loudly, and she was standing over him with an iron poker in her hand. What else was I to think but
that she’d killed him?”

Though Papa’s neck had been at a strange angle. Stephen had stayed drunk for most of a month, trying to forget the sight of Papa dead before the
hearth, his head flopped in that odd way. Matilda’s violence with the poker might not have broken Papa’s neck, but the fall she’d caused
had, and that was nearly the same thing.

Uncle snatched up a porcelain figurine of Aphrodite and stashed her among the snuff boxes.

“Thinking is not your greatest strength, Stephen. Try to attend those wiser than you when they offer to guide you. I wish you the best, provided you
sire at least three legitimate male offspring. Basingstoke can suggest a good barrister when the need arises.”

Uncle really was not making much sense. “For marriage settlement negotiations?”

“Right, marriage settlements.” Drexel strode across the room to retrieve a pink marble figure of Hermes. Uncle tried to wedge the messenger of
the gods alongside Aphrodite. Stephen heard a cracking sound, and Uncle set Hermes—minus a winged foot—on the table near the Bible.

“Stephen, do you understand the tempest that’s brewing?”

Stephen fished about in the trunk, because Hermes would mend fairly well—a few cracks made the replicas look more authentic—if that foot could
be retrieved.

“I understand that you are disappearing to the Continent,” Stephen said. “Perhaps taking the waters at some German spa, or maybe looking
for a young wife. Got it.”

He held up the foot and wing, a funny little bit of chipped stone.

“A fine story. Pay attention, boy, because there isn’t time for me to write this down, not that I’d be that stupid. Matilda has
apparently attached the affections of the Earl of Kilkenney, a Scot of no little consequence.”

Stephen fit the foot to the damaged statue. “Never heard of ’im, and I know everybody.”

“Do you recall the Earl of Hazelton?”

“He’s the fellow who went from snitching and snooping to marrying old Moreland’s red-haired gal. Can’t say as I care for
him.” Stephen set aside the statue and put the winged foot in his pocket. “What’s Hazelton to do with anything?”

“Kilkenney and Hazelton are apparently allied in defense of Matilda. The situation has grown complicated.”

The coach came clip-clopping around the corner, the grays put to. They were Uncle’s fastest team, and the door panel had been flipped so no crest
showed.

“You’re truly leaving?” Upon reflection, Stephen didn’t like that idea. He didn’t like his uncle either, but the old fellow
was generous enough, not too much of a bother, and he dealt with all the unpleasantness that accompanied the earldom.

“Stephen, for God’s sake, pay attention. Matilda has powerful friends now, and you thwart them at your peril. Recant your sworn statement to
the magistrate. Blame drink, upset, fatigue, youthful exaggeration, anything, but recant that confession.”

“Then she gets her money.”

“And you get yours, you fool! Now that Matilda has turned up, your father’s estate can be settled. If she goes to trial, we lose control of her
fortune anyway, and you could be revealed for a liar.”

“You persist in using a very ugly word, Uncle.”

“And you persist in being an imbecile,” Uncle said, moving toward the door. “Recant your statement, marry some fertile young lady, and
try not to bankrupt my estates.”

“Safe journey, sir.”

Uncle directed various footmen to pack up this and that, then left orders for the trunks to be sent to some ship in Portsmouth. Stephen sat in the well
padded chair Uncle had occupied on the occasion of so many lectures and remonstrations.

Godspeed, old man.
So Uncle had dipped his fingers into Matilda’s coffers and helped himself to some of Lady Kitty’s funds. No matter. Women ought not to have
more than pin money in the first place.

Stephen took out a sheet of foolscap, whittled a point onto a pencil, and drew himself a diagram.

If Matilda was convicted, the crown got her money, Lady Kitty’s money, and possibly Stephen’s money, at least for a period of years, while
Stephen eked by on a quarterly pittance.

Bother that.

If Matilda was either acquitted, or Stephen modified his recollections, then Stephen got his money. She got her inheritance, and her Scot would likely be
put in charge of Kitty’s funds. Not a good outcome, but not tragic.

If Matilda simply disappeared again… the arrangements put in place by Chancery remained as they were, with all that lovely money still managed by the
Drexel earldom. Twenty years from now, Chancery might realize Matilda should be declared dead, but they would be a very lucrative and enjoyable twenty
years.