Ashton: Lord of Truth (Lonely Lords Book 13) (34 page)

A power of attorney from Uncle would be easy to forge—Stephen had any number of examples of Drexel’s signature—and another disappearance
for dear Step-mama would be the work of a moment.

The best possible outcome, considering the woman had done murder or the next thing to it. A pity Uncle hadn’t been clever enough to see that.

Matilda remained by the unlocked door, hating her in-laws all over again. “I would marry you if I could, Ashton.”

He rose from the sofa, his hair in disarray, his cravat slightly askew. He looked anything but well pleasured, and his restraint had been for her sake.

“I was given to understand that your first husband is dead,” he said. “If that’s the case, you are of age, of sound mind, and free
to marry where you please.”

Matilda wanted to throw herself into his arms, but passion still hummed in places low and lovely. Ashton would oblige her—again—and
they’d still need to have this argument.

“A marriage for an earl and an earl’s daughter is a public undertaking,” Matilda said. “Even if we marry by special license,
you’ll have to procure that license. Drexel was clever enough to set thief-takers on me. He’ll be clever enough to set spies watching at
Doctors’ Commons.”

Ashton brushed her hair back from her shoulder. Without touching her skin, he yet made her shiver. “I can have Damon Basingstoke certify our
eligibility to marry and procure the license. Nobody needs to know we’re still in London.”

Matilda took his hand and led him back to the sofa. “You have learned how to stand alone and be seen as someone other than the Earl of
Kilkenney’s charming by-blow.”

He settled beside her, but with the air of a cat waiting for an opportunity to leap away. “I’m not feeling very charming now, Matilda
mine.” 

And yet, charm her, he did. With his passion and with his protectiveness.

“You fought to be seen for yourself, Ashton. I fought to remain hidden, and hiding well has kept me alive. Think like a criminal. If you wanted to
snatch Lady Matilda for a reward ten times the annual salary of most chambermaids, what lengths would you go to?”

His sigh was masculine and impatient, but not defeated. “I’d hang about Doctors’ Commons or the archbishop’s palace. I’d
watch Mr. Damon Basingstoke, whose office is conveniently located under the very roof where you were last seen. I’d bribe the clerk in the
archbishop’s office to tell me who had applied for a special license, and I’d watch carefully to see where all those licenses were
delivered.”

Matilda took his hand. “You would also nose about, asking questions regarding the two fine coaches clogging the lane before Basingstoke’s
offices earlier today. Two crested coaches, one of which bore a man in a kilt and a second man in court finery. Somebody might identify the crest on your
coach. Somebody else might have seen that same kilted man at the Albany.”

“Shite.”

“You’d set people to watching the Albany, and eventually, a casual remark would connect the Earl of Kilkenney with the Earl of Hazelton, so
Hazelton’s house will be watched as well. The countess might be kidnapped and held hostage to secure my cooperation. Kitty might become a pawn. Helen
has already been used by her scheming sister.”

Silence wrapped like a shroud over the hopes Matilda had begun to cherish. Ashton wasn’t arguing with her, because there were no arguments to offer.

“You’re saying we were better off as plain Mr. Fenwick and Mrs. Bryce?” he asked. “We were safer.”

“
You
were miserable.”

“We can run,” Matilda said. “Not to Scotland, because I’ll be too easy to find, but somewhere far away, somewhere beyond the reach
of the crown. I’ll be your wife in all but name, and nobody will be the wiser. We can be safe and happy.”

Ashton slipped his hand free of her grasp. “You don’t believe that. You had six years to be safe and happy, and you were neither. You looked
over your shoulder every day, made no friends, had the smallest life you could squeeze yourself into. The only people you allowed near were worse off than
yourself. Will you turn your back on wee Kitty now, and on me as well?”

Matilda rose, though she didn’t dare approach the desk or the sideboard. She’d break something valuable, make a stain on the carpet, and ruin
good furniture in a display of heartbreak that only looked like temper.

“I want to live, Ashton. I want you to live. Kitty’s life isn’t in danger, and right now, neither is yours. If I tarry here too long, if
I can’t find safety again, that could change. Drexel has a care for appearances, and he’s shrewd. Stephen cares for only himself, and
we’ve already underestimated him once.”

Ashton rose.

Matilda braced herself to be shouted at, held tightly, or possibly both at once. Instead, he regarded her steadily from across the room.

“You are not wrong, my lady. Your fear has kept you alive, and for that I’m grateful. Your fear will also keep us apart. I am the Earl of
Kilkenney, whether I want to be or not. I know well the stigma an earl’s bastard bears, and a loving father does not impose that burden on his own
children. Add to that, my family will lose the earldom if I can’t produce a legitimate heir, and you see that the scheme you propose for us—an
unsanctioned union in some far-off land—only shifts our peril onto our children.”

Matilda sagged against the battered desk. “I can’t be your lawfully wedded wife until we are in that far-off land, Ashton. Even
then…”

“By then,” he said, “it might be too late. We’ve already risked conception, Matilda, and my firstborn child will not be
illegitimate if I can help it.”

Now Matilda had no arguments. She’d been brought up in the lap of privileged respectability, and while the privilege had been a mixed
blessing—privileged young women were too often ignorant young women—the respectability had also saved her life.

Her upbringing had allowed her to become a respectable widow, a respectable neighbor. She’d fit right in at Sunday services, and she’d been
able to read and write in several languages. Her children deserved at least that much of a start in life.

“I want to bear your legitimate heirs, Ashton. I don’t see a way to do that while remaining in plain sight.”

“I want you to be safe, and if we run, that will never be the case.”

She reached for him, and he came to her. “So now what?”

“Promise me you’ll not leave without telling me.”

Life had made Ashton wise. He’d not asked her to promise she’d stay. “I’ll not leave without saying good-bye.”

By the time the Earl of Hazelton returned with his countess, Matilda had taken the opposite end of the sofa from Ashton, and Hazelton’s cat sat
between them, tail switching back and forth, like an impatient feline chaperone.

On Hazelton’s advice, Ashton did his best to impersonate an earl searching for a prospective countess. He waltzed by evening, he hacked out at dawn,
he played cards, he even flirted.

And he worried.

One week after parting from Matilda, he was ready to snatch up his claymore and go after Stephen Derrick, to the point that even Helen’s company in
the spacious rooms of the Albany annoyed him.

“You want to visit her ladyship?” Helen asked without looking up from her book.

“Of course I want to visit her. I want to marry her, I want to spend the rest of my life with her. What are you reading?”

The girl set the book aside. Breakables she handled with cavalier disregard, but books she touched reverently.

“I’m not reading anything. If you want to pay her a call, you hop on your horse and ride up the street. You were calling on Hazelton before,
and you can call on him now.”

How could a room with twenty-foot ceilings feel cramped? How could gorgeous carpets, gleaming gilt, and precisely draped velvet feel oppressive?

“I’m to avoid anything that reinforces my connection with Hazelton. His investigations are progressing, and I must be patient.”

“Patient? You? And you let old Hazelnuts order you about like that?”

Not exactly. Ashton had conducted a few investigations of his own, late at night, when Stephen Derrick was three sheets to the wind and enjoying the free
food and drink available at Mayfair’s best gatherings. A few quiet questions revealed that Derrick was disliked, but as an earl’s heir he was
welcomed by every hostess.

He had two illegitimate daughters about whom he cared not at all, a mistress who led him about by his nose, and enough bills overdue on Bond Street to
impress even King George. Ashton’s English tenants, on their most charitable day, would have torn the roof from Stephen’s head and charged him
for their labor.

And Stephen was next in line for an earldom full of English tenants.

“If you want to see her ladyship,” Helen said, “you tag along with the tom-turd-man of an evening, and nobody will come near you. Slip
through the garden, climb up the trellis to her balcony, and there you are. Stay upwind of the night-soil man, and you won’t even stink much.”

“The things you know, child.”

“Stink will keep you safe. Illness can keep you safe,” Helen said. “You ever get into a bad situation in the wrong sort of crowd in the
wrong sort of place, you just gag like you’re about to flash the hash, and they’ll back off three paces without even realizing they’ve
done it. Do you think those curtains would hold my weight?”

Flash the hash was likely a genteel reference—by Helen’s standards—for casting up one’s account.

“You are not to climb the curtains.” Though she climbed the doorjambs, as nimbly as an organ grinder’s monkey scaled a lamppost.

“You’re climbing the walls, guv. Go see her.”

A tap sounded on the door, two short knocks, a pause, then three more. Hazelton had at long last come to call, or at least sent an emissary.

“I’ll get the door,” Ashton said. “You go back to deciphering French.”

“That’s damned Frenchy?” Helen said, picking up her book. “No wonder it didn’t half make sense. You mighta warned a
girl.”

“I might have, but as soon as you’ve conquered English, French is the next logical step.” And she’d be on to Latin and German by
Michaelmas.

Two men waited outside Ashton’s door, one familiar from the evening of card playing, the other the Earl of Hazelton in footman’s attire.

“Hazelton, good day. You took your sweet, damned time paying a call. Sir Archer, welcome.”

Archer Portmaine was Hazelton’s cousin and, in the family tradition, an investigator at large. He was tall, blond, and attired with the exquisite
understatement of a gentleman of means. His gloves were the exact buff shade of his breeches—probably cut from the same hide—and his cravat pin
sported a ruby.

A touch of sartorial daring, for the hour was barely past noon.

“We’ve been busy,” Hazelton said, waiting for Portmaine to precede him into Ashton’s parlor. “I bring you felicitations from
Lady Matilda.”

“She’s well?”

“If you can call the ladylike version of a caged bear well,” Hazelton replied, “she’s thriving. Helen, greetings.”

“That is a girl,” Portmaine said. “A lovely little girl, for all she looks like she’s about to skewer me.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m deaf,” Helen said, taking a perch on the windowsill. “I’m his lordship’s general
factotum.”

“She’s also my resident bad influence,” Ashton said, “so tread carefully, but speak honestly. Helen has my trust.”

Helen abruptly found her fingernails—her clean fingernails—fascinating.

“Do you have her trust, though?” Portmaine asked. “Of sorry necessity, the ladies learn greater caution than we gentlemen do.”

That earned Portmaine a grin from Helen, but no reply. She returned to her window seat, opened
Candide,
and resumed puzzling over the
French—or pretending to.

“Here’s what we know,” Portmaine said, flipping out his tails and subsiding onto a blue velvet sofa. Footman-fashion, Hazelton remained
standing by the door. “The Earl of Drexel has taken ship from Portsmouth, bound for Rome. He filled three large trunks with valuables and left
instructions with Myron Basingstoke to pay only Stephen’s quarterly allowance. The bank draft Drexel took with him all but beggared the
earldom’s immediate resources.”

“Damn and bugger,” Ashton muttered, crossing to the sideboard. “Drexel’s the one who’s been stealing from Matilda. He’s
the one who could have prevented Stephen’s lies from being believed, and our best crack at getting Stephen to change his testimony. Would you
gentlemen care for a drink? I certainly want one.”

“Such fine manners he has,” Helen muttered from the window. “Doesn’t offer me no drink.”

“Nip down to the kitchen and have some ale,” Ashton said.

Helen glowered at him and went back to her farce.

“A tot of brandy would be appreciated,” Portmaine said. “A pity a footman never drinks on the job.”

Hazelton studied the ceiling.

“You should be glad Drexel has decamped,” Portmaine said. “As of this morning, Stephen Derrick has moved back into his uncle’s town
house, which makes him much easier to watch. The staff at Drexel House is less than respectful of their employer’s privacy when enough coin is
offered. The maids in particular have no use for Stephen, and the governess positively loathes him.”