Embracing Ashberry (11 page)

Whitney knew he was defeated. He had no
doubt that the marquess was earnest in his threat. If Ashberry
carried it out, as he very well could, Whitney would lose face at
Westminster, not to mention in the society pages and even his
clubs. He shuddered inwardly to think of the impact it would have
but he resolved suddenly that someday Ashberry would feel his
revenge. Some time, some how, if for no other reason than forcing
the match on him against his will.

His face grim, he nodded to his wife, his
words short. “If that’s the way it’s to be, my lady, you will
manage this fiasco—and when she comes running home to us, you will
be responsible for cleaning up the shambles she leaves behind.” He
left without a word, and without a second look at his daughter.

Lady Whitney drew a deep breath. “Ashberry,
you will be my favorite son-in-law,” she promised.

The marquess smiled, once again drawing
Ellie against his side and tracing one ear with his index finger.
“My good lady, I will be your only son-in-law.”

FIVE

Ellie’s wedding day dawned clear and bright.
She sighed as she stood at her window, staring into the garden.
“They say,” she told the maid, “That it is a good omen to have rain
on your wedding day.”

The maid harrumphed. “Sounds like an
excellent way to ruin your pretty gown, miss,” she answered quietly
before straightening the bed. Ellie turned and looked around the
chamber.

It was a comfortable room, but didn’t seem
like her home anymore. All of her personal things had already been
packed and moved to Ashberry House and those that were left seemed
unimportant now, childish even. Her mother’s maid would pack them
and send them to her in the coming days.

Ellie wondered idly if she’d even bother to
unpack them but reminded herself it would be silly to do so.
Ashberry wished to leave for Cumbria on the tenth day of their
marriage, so they would arrive at Ashberry Park during the second
week in January. Four days of carriage travel over roads that were
rougher the further north they traveled, with three nights along
the road.

Ellie smiled, for the first would be at
Harlan Chase, the estate closest to London, and the following two
nights in places where, he claimed, she would have the best room in
the house. His eyes twinkled as he told her, “I will not subject my
new bride, or even a servant, to the vagaries of tavern houses,
Ella. I know you must have slept in a few on the Continent, but we
will stay in more respectable establishments where I have permanent
arrangements with the owners.”

She wouldn’t come back to this house after
the wedding. The breakfast, the public affair, would be small but
still too large for the Whitney house. Ashberry House, led by a
trio of hostesses—Lady Whitney, the Countess Westhouse and the
Countess Eldenwood, who was Charlotte’s twin sister
Caroline—organized the event. Ellie gave a brief word of thanks for
Caroline, who had begged her new husband to emerge from their
honeymoon in Ireland when she had heard the news. They returned to
London just in time to celebrate her twin’s wedding and then help
arrange her eldest brother’s.

Both sisters were thrilled at the
announcement. Charlotte rushed to the Whitney house nearly
squealing in her glee, the Gazette still in hand. Ellie was amused
to learn that Ashberry had neglected to tell his family of the
engagement, leaving them to discover the news two mornings after
the scene in the Whitney drawing room.

“We were all eating breakfast together,”
Charlotte confessed, “And I nearly spilled my plate.” Her
excitement transparent, Charlotte added, “That devil of a brother,
he looked at me as if I had lost my head and said, ‘Charlotte dear,
are you well?’” Her frown turned then to Edward, who immediately
held up his hands in contrition. He claimed to be under the
formidable threat of the marquess. Charlotte, of course, gave no
quarter and Ellie watched, smiling, as Charlotte forced him to
abjectly apologize.

Caroline’s congratulations were more sedate
and delivered by special courier a week later from Ireland—Ashberry
rushed the news off on a vessel headed for Ireland the very day of
their engagement—but the new countess proved to be as warm and
supportive as her sister. Charlotte was vivacious and
charming—destined to be a mistress of society—when her sister was
elegant but much quieter and extremely organized.

Dressed alike, one could hardly tell the
difference between them but their personalities swung in opposite
directions. Caroline, between her obligations to her new husband
and home in London, had also calmly taken control of the chaos at
Ashberry House, delegating the final details and arrangements of
Charlotte’s wedding and breakfast to Lady Westhouse and sharing the
burden of Ellie’s own wedding celebration with Lady Whitney.

Lady Westhouse, too, was surprised by the
news but the marquess spared her the surprise of reading it in the
papers. Instead, he arrived at her townhouse nearly at dawn that
morning, insisting on seeing her before her staff brought her the
morning news. Both she and Sebastian were pleased by the engagement
and Ashberry was relieved to find his brother did not resent the
possibility that the title might be lost to him.

Ashberry explained to Ellie and her mother
that he confided the story of an ‘illness’ to the countess, as it
was the one that was also confided to Charlotte by Lady Whitney
some weeks earlier, in order to explain Ellie’s previous isolation
from the colorful whirl of London. The courtship between the two
stirred questions that erupted into a conflagration of curious
callers at the announcement. The attention prevented the couple
from spending any periods of time together since the engagement,
though Ellie smiled as she remembered his words on a terse note,
delivered the day following their engagement with a beautiful
hothouse rose in full bloom.

“The announcement will be in the Gazette and
Court Circular tomorrow morning. I have a great deal of work to do
at Westminster before our wedding and return home, but I shall do
my best to see you at least once every day. My apologies for my
neglect over the coming seven weeks and for my impatience
yesterday.”

She kept the note, folding it away like a
piece of fine silk. Of course, he often repeated the gentle caress
he initially called ‘impatience’. The kiss on her forehead was
comforting to her, and when she told him so, he closed his eyes,
drew her close and rested his lips against her brow, his breath and
lips warm against her skin.

* * * *

Edward and Charlotte married first, at the
end of November. Ashberry walked his sister into the church,
unashamed at the tears pooling in his eyes as he left her to
Edward’s care. The next day, he presented Ellie with her own
betrothal ring, a beautifully wrought piece of gold featuring an
exquisite pear-shaped diamond with two deep green emeralds on each
side.

“The emeralds remind me of your eyes,” he
whispered, holding the back of her head and kissing each temple.
Her hands trembled, as they always did, when his fingers touched
her, but as he slipped the ring onto her finger both smiled.
Ashberry tenderly brushed each perfect nail with his thumb.

Ellie’s father was adjusting to the fact
that she would marry, though he and her mother still weren’t
speaking. He had told her two days earlier in a resigned tone that
when she needed to leave Ashberry, she could go to Rose Hill in
Cornwall or return to the London house. In a voice just as
dispassionate, he informed her that Edward would continue managing
her trust, with her allowance delivered quarterly. Ellie swallowed
heavily and nodded, accepting finally that her father could not see
past society’s mores and his own prejudices to welcome his daughter
as she was.

“I will write to you, Papa,” she promised,
“And tell you how we manage.” Together they entered the Whitney
library to sign the marriage settlements that, as promised, he left
to Lady Whitney and the family’s solicitor. Ellie signed her name
with only a slight shake to the pen. Ashberry’s eyes met hers,
unwaveringly, while Ellie’s father signed his name alongside the
large, bold penmanship of the marquess.

Later, Ashberry held her hand on his arm and
assured her that he would provide for all her desires—he had not
been bluffing during that painful encounter with her father. “Your
dowry, Ellie,” he had told her tenderly, “And its income, you do
not need. Spend as you please and send your bills to me—save your
allowance, or advise your brother to invest it, for our sons and
daughters.” At her surprised look, his voice had deepened even
further. “I wish more than anything to care for you,” he had
murmured, brushing the back of his hand against her cheek.
“Providing for you myself is simply the most material way of doing
so.”

Ashberry had kept his word about seeing her
each day, though some days he did not see her until dusk. They did
drive in the park occasionally, typically on Saturdays, and he now
stopped to allow Ellie to discuss her upcoming nuptials with the
few society matrons who remained in London.

More often, he would arrive at Ashberry
House as evening came, where he was admitted to the drawing room to
sit and chat with Ellie or discuss wedding arrangements with her
mother and his aunt before the dinner hour. Occasionally, he would
be permitted to draw her out of doors through the frozen garden and
sit with her in the conservatory, affording them a few minutes of
private conservation though both knew they were never truly out of
sight of the staff.

The conversations varied, from the political
to mundane preparations for their new life. Upon hearing that Ellie
did not have her own maid, Ashberry hired one for his new wife, a
young woman named Wendy who had served Caroline before her wedding.
She was already installed at Ashberry House, having never left
after Caroline married but helping instead to prepare the new
marchioness’ apartment.

Murmurs of war against France were already
being heard at Westminster and both young lady and lord read the
stories of French refugees published in the London papers. “What
would we fight for?” Ellie asked one day, her voice morose at the
devastation of the life she remembered in France.

“I don’t know,” the marquess answered
honestly, his heart aching for her pain. “The nobility has been
forced to flee for only their lives, as what they knew of rank and
privilege are gone.” He had sighed and squeezed her hand before
adding, “War will not restore the lives lost or the wealth
destroyed. No matter what happens in France now, though, English
electoral reform is dead in Parliament for the foreseeable future.
I’ve no pressing reason to come back when the new sessions begin.”
He looked at her with a smile. “We’ll be able to extend our
honeymoon until September, I hope, and then for a month or two each
year before the hunting begins.”

They had even discussed her father and
mother. “They don’t speak,” she told him. “At least not in front of
any of us. He believes she interfered in what should have been his
domain and that her interference will end up hurting me more later.
She says he was determined to make me into a lonely and bitter old
woman.” Ellie had shaken her head. “No one except Edward seems to
think I could have made a decision on my own.”

Ashberry’s lips had tightened, for he
regretted his part in the dispute. “I would that I could soothe
this pain for you, Ella.” He had covered her hand in his, squeezing
her thumb between his thumb and index finger. “But your parents
managed through the last three years—I hope they will manage this
as well, in their own time.” They had circled the conservatory in
companionable silence for a moment before he added thoughtfully,
“As to the other, I am quite sure you could have made a decision—in
fact, it seems to me that you did.”

Ellie had smiled inside, for in truth she
had never been asked directly to be the marquess’ bride. She knew,
though, that she had not refused and the marquess had intuitively
understood that her silence during the tense scene with her parents
had been acquiescence to his plans. She wondered if she would have
gone had he actually taken her from the Whitney house that day.
When she admitted to herself that the answer was yes, she nodded in
agreement, knowing even as she did that Ashberry was hiding the
smile that would have naturally appeared on his face.

Much of the wedding morning passed in a
daze, with Ellie wondering alternately why the clock moved so
slowly and then cursing it for turning so fast. Wendy arrived from
Ashberry House to help Ellie bathe and dress, hardly disturbed at
all by the raised, pink scars that Ellie had at first tried to
explain.

“We all have scars, my lady,” the girl said
politely, turning until Ellie sunk deeply into the bath. Ellie knew
then that Ashberry had spoken to the girl and wondered anxiously
what had been said.

Wendy told her without even being asked.
“His Lordship, he told me you had a terrible accident not very long
ago. I imagine you must have hurt an awful amount.”

Ellie nodded, keeping her head bent so that
the girl wouldn’t see her eyes beginning to water. “Yes, I was ...
in a lot of pain.”

The girl came back to the bath, pouring in
an extra dose of the fragrant soap that Ellie so loved. “If it
still hurts you, my lady, there is an apothecary at Ashberry House
who can make you creams and lotions. Mrs. Jones, her name is. She
made a wonderful lotion for pain in my mother’s hands.”

Ellie smiled at the girl then. “Are you from
Ashberry Park?” she asked curiously.

“Yes, my lady. My father is a book printer
in Carlisle and my mother is a dressmaker. Miss Shelling found me
sewing for my mother and asked me to come to Ashberry Park as Miss
Charlotte and Miss Caroline’s maid.”