Ashton: Lord of Truth (Lonely Lords Book 13) (5 page)

“Your lordship is tired from the journey,” Cherbourne said. “London can be overwhelming, I know. Your brother took some while to adjust
to the demands made upon a titled gentleman here in the capital, but I’m sure, in time, you too will move effortlessly among your peers.”

For three years, Ashton had been Cherbourne’s work in progress, his Galatea, a block of stone to be fashioned into a titled paragon.

Helen shot Ashton a look, as if he’d missed his lines.

“Cherbourne, I will write you a glowing character, if that’s what you want. In London, you should have no trouble finding employment worthy of
your skills. Here’s what I want: No more subtle laments, sermons, or scolds. I pay your salary, you give me your loyalty and your service. Me, not
Ewan, not Lady Alyssa, not your cronies among the staff. You don’t tattle on me as if I’m a naughty underfootman. You don’t presume to
criticize my need for a little privacy. You are the valet, I am the earl. Keep to your place or find another position.”

Three years ago, Ashton could not have carried out the threats he was making.

“I… but…”

“Or I can write you a modest character, confirming dates of employment and competence only.”

“My lord, you cannot… that is... This is most irreg—”

Helen drummed her heels against the side of the trunk.

“No character at all,” Ashton said. “Out on your ear. I’ll save some coin and get shut of that most disgusting exponent of
dishonor, a spy under my own roof. I can shave myself. Did it for years.”

“You should apologize, Mr. Chairbug,” Helen said. “Turns ’em up sweet, and you might get a cobbler.”

“Do we understand each other?” Ashton asked.

“Say yes,” Helen chirped. “I don’t think you’ll get a cobbler, though.”

“We understand each other, sir.”

“Delightful. That took only half an hour I shouldn’t have had to waste. Hector, let’s be off. Cherbourne has much to do, even if he
isn’t sending hourly missives to people who have no business meddling in my life.”

Helen hopped off the trunk and darted to the door. She’d shown up at Mrs. Bryce’s exactly on time and peppered Ashton with questions the whole
way to the Albany. Her opinions were marked, original, and incessant.

And, bless the child, not a one of those opinions came with a “my lord” attached.

“So you’re a nob?” she asked as they made their way down the steps.

“I’m Mr. Ashton Fenwick.”

She gazed up at him. “Mrs. Bryce don’t hold with lying. I’m fair warning you, because I’m your general tote ’em, though you
haven’t given me nuffink to tote yet. If I take your coin—and your cobbler—then I should look out for you.”  

“You will carry my confidences. My name is Ashton Fenwick. Whatever else I might be is of no moment, and you won’t mention it.”

Helen hopped down the stairs. “Right, guv, and I’m the Queen of the Fairies. Mention that all you please, especially to old Sissy when she gets
in a taking about one of her flats.”

Flats were the men who hired prostitutes. That Helen knew of such goings-on wasn’t wrong, because what she grasped she could take steps to protect
herself from.

That she
needed
to protect herself from her sister’s customers was very wrong, indeed.

“Time to introduce you to my horse,” Ashton said. “Then you’re to show me where we can find some supper.”

“I’ve never met a horse before. Met plenty of horses’ arses.”

“So have I.”

“Mrs. Bryce doesn’t like bad language.”

“I do, when it’s done properly. Don’t tell her I said that.”

Helen stopped at the foot of the steps. “Cost you a cobbler.”

Ashton continued out into the early evening sunshine. “No deal. Mrs. Bryce will hear my bad language herself if the situation arises where I’m
inspired to express myself colorfully. You will not comment on my behavior before others lest I turn you off without a character.”

“What’s a character?”

“A reference. A written testament to your competence and ability.”

Helen skipped along at his side as he made his way back to the mews, and damned if the child hadn’t the knack of skipping like a boy.

“Can’t use no written character if nobody can read it. Only nobs and reformers can read. Parsons too, but they’re all reformers. Mrs.
Bryce can read.”

“Get Mrs. Bryce to teach you to read, Helen. It’s not that difficult once you learn the letters.”

“I know my name. H-E-L-E-N. How many letters are there?” 

“Twenty-six.”

“Twenty-two to go. That’s a lot. If you teach me one a day for a fortnight, I’ll still have eight left.”

“You can do sums, but you don’t know your letters?”

“Sums is money, guv. I know all about sums.”

The introduction to Dusty—Destrier in formal company—went well. The horse was a good soul, patient, happy to please, and tolerant of barn cats,
reluctant earls, and stable boys who whistled off-key.

“He’s big,” Helen said, brushing a hand down the gelding’s long nose. “He’s big as an elephant.”

“Not quite. I was encouraged to find a more refined mount, but he suits me.” Ewan all but groaned every time Ashton climbed into Dusty’s
saddle, but the horse was proof that Ashton hadn’t always been the earl, and thus as precious as a holy relic.

Helen proposed dinner at the Unicorn, based on her scientific comparison of its middens and clientele with those of its competition. Her judgment was
vindicated by the fare. Hot, hearty, plentiful, and plain—Ashton’s favorite kind of meal.

He used the dinner hour to acquaint her with the letters
d
, for Destrier, and
b
, for Mrs. Bryce, by drawing with his fork in her gravy.

The girl could eat like a horse, but had some manners, probably as a result of Mrs. Bryce’s ceaseless efforts.

“I should take this last bit to Sissy,” Helen said. “She’ll be out and about now. She starts by the theaters in case any of the
gents want a go before the performances. They usually do, but there’s more business later.”

Helen’s blasé recitation made Ashton’s dinner sit uneasily in his belly.

“If any of those gents ever make you feel awkward, you tear off. Don’t be nice, don’t smile, don’t ignore the look they’re
giving you. Don’t give them any warning you’re getting ready to bolt, Helen. You run like hell and scream bloody murder. Up a drainpipe, down a
coal chute, but run.”

Helen licked the last of the butter from her knife. “Sissy says the same thing. I’ve pulled a bunk a time or two. They can’t catch
me.”

Not yet, they couldn’t. When Helen was hampered by skirts, they might.

“Here,” Ashton said, holding out a few coins to Helen. “Buy your Sissy some food, and then it’s back to Mrs. Bryce’s with
you. A general factotum who’s not at her post isn’t worth her hire.”

Helen looked at the coins in Ashton’s hand, then up at his face, a question in her eyes.

“I’m not looking to become one of your sister’s flats. This is a vale, a little extra coin for starting off your job on the right foot.
Keep up the good work, and you might earn a bit more.”

The money was gone, and Ashton hadn’t felt Helen’s fingers touch his palm.

“Good evenin’ to you, guv. I’ll tell Sissy I found the blunt in the street.”

The child apparently never walked. She skipped, ran, strutted, scampered, and fidgeted, much as Ashton had at her age.

He’d been the bastard firstborn, perhaps subject to sterner discipline than the heir, but he’d never had to worry about his safety, not as
Helen had to.

He was still pondering that injustice as he neared his temporary lodgings. Pastry Lane was what an Edinburger would call a wynd, more of a courtyard at the
end of a covered passage than a proper lane. The houses on either side hung out over the passage, though they didn’t quite meet. No conveyance would
fit down Pastry Lane, and little sunshine leaked onto the worn cobbles.

Keeping intruders out would be easy, as would keeping an eye on the neighbors. Mrs. Bryce’s abode opened onto the small courtyard where the lane
ended, a space shared with four neighboring houses.

Ashton was across the main thoroughfare one street up from Pastry Lane when he saw a familiar brown cloak and straw hat bobbing along the walkway twenty
yards ahead of him.

Mrs. Bryce, apparently returning from the last shopping errand of the day. She carried a parcel under her arm and made her way briskly in the direction of
home.

Ashton watched for a moment, appreciating the energy in her stride and the good fortune that had put them in each other’s path. Two weeks of hot
porridge, simple meals, and freedom from servants, sycophants, and meddling family would be heaven.

He was about to cross the street and offer the lady his escort when he became aware of another man trailing Mrs. Bryce about thirty feet back. Close enough
to keep her in sight, far enough away to avoid detection.

He wore the uniform of the man of business. Plain brown breeches and jacket, slightly worn, no walking stick or other distinguishing accoutrements, not
even a hat. When Mrs. Bryce stopped to chat with an older woman leading a child by the hand, the man following examined the wares on display at a
potter’s shop.

Mrs. Bryce bid the other woman farewell and went on her way, and the man behind resumed walking as well.

Ashton was across the street in long strides and kept on moving until, as if in an effort to overtake Mrs. Bryce, he bumped the package from her grasp.

He stopped, tipped his hat, and picked up the parcel. “You’re being followed,” he said, beaming to all appearances sheepishly. “Let
me carry your package, and please accept my escort.”

Those fine gray eyes took a casual inventory of the surroundings. “Thank you, sir. I’m sure there’s no damage.”

Ashton winged his arm, and bless the woman for her common sense, she took it and let him lead her away from Pastry Lane.

If Matilda believed in one eternal verity, one immutable law of nature that would hold true down through the millennia, it was that Men Were Dreadful. Not
all men, not all the time, which meant a woman had to be that much more vigilant to dodge the worst transgressors.

But most men, most of the time, were dreadful. They displayed petty dreadfulness, such as the tenant who was too lazy to carry his dirty dishes downstairs
even on his way out for a morning stroll. He made more work for Pippa, the maid, and wasted her time. Was any disrespect quite as purely rotten as wasting
a busy person’s time?

A tenant who nipped off to France without paying three months’ rent was more dreadful still and left Matilda to wonder if that tenant would have
treated a landlord with the same disregard as a landlady.

No, he would not.

In a league of their own were men who arranged a daughter’s future so she was bound to an ungrateful tyrant, one who held her accountable for matters
even the Church agreed were the exclusive province of the Almighty.

Worse yet were the men whose ungovernable urges meant their wives died in childbed, or suffered regular violence for no reason.

Dreadful, dreadful-er, and dreadful-est, as Helen would have said.

Matilda could have fashioned her own version of the circles of hell based on the transgressions which the male gender considered its casual right, simply
because that gender had more muscles and less sophisticated procreative apparatus.

She was at a complete loss when Mr. Fenwick appeared at her side, her parcel in his hands, and a warning on his lips. She took his arm, very much against
her inclinations. A woman who could work eighteen hours every day and still stay awake through Sunday services most weeks was capable of walking down the
street unassisted.

And yet, if Matilda
was
being followed, she was in Ashton Fenwick’s debt. “Can you describe the person following me?” she asked
quietly. 

“He’s dressed to blend in,” Mr. Fenwick replied while, to all appearances, wandering along on a pleasant spring evening. “Plain
brown clothes, no hat, no gloves. Medium height, medium age, medium everything. The perfect invisible man. Let’s have a cup of coffee, shall
we?”

“I don’t care for it.”

“Neither do I.”

Mr. Fenwick was adept at eluding pursuit. One moment, Matilda was walking down the street beside him, the next, she was inside a coffee and pastry shop
more genteel than most around Haymarket proper.

“I’ll order for us,” Mr. Fenwick said. “Chocolate for you?”

Matilda loved chocolate, but seldom took the time or spent the coin to indulge. The shop wasn’t crowded, the dinner hour having arrived, but neither
was it deserted. Clerks and shopgirls, housewives and older men occupied scattered tables. A young waiter in a bib apron moved about, cleaning up dirty
dishes and scrubbing tables.

“Chocolate would be delightful.” The scent of the place was heavenly, full of baking spices, with the aromas of coffee, chocolate, and black
tea blending as well.

“That table,” Mr. Fenwick said, passing Matilda her parcel. “The one in the corner, so we can both sit with our backs to a wall.”