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“When I looked at myself, I never saw a servant. What do you suppose I see when I look at you?”
For months, everyone who had looked at her had seen a bastard.
What did he see? She couldn’t answer. She didn’t know. She wasn’t even sure what she believed of herself, when she passed by a looking glass. These days, she tried not to look. Under his perusal, she had no response.
What he dismissed with that lazy shrug of his shoulders was more than a delusion. It had been the guiding light of her life, the true constant of the North Star. Her belief that she’d been better than others because of her birth had seemed an unshakeable foundation. But that light had snuffed out and north had disappeared in a dizzying whirl. She’d been left fumbling in the dark for some hint of direction.
She hadn’t spoken yet, and he just smiled at her one last time and walked away.
Margaret had always thought a man seduced a woman by making her aware of his charms: his body, his wealth, his kisses. How naive she had been.
Ash Turner seduced her with the promise of her own self. She longed to believe him, longed to believe that the nightmare of the past month was nothing more than a delusion, that if she simply screwed her eyes tightly shut, she would be important again. And that desire was more alluring than any promise of wealth, more irresistible than any number of heated kisses pressed against her lips.
In her life, she’d met indulgent men, autocratic men, absent-minded men who forgot her existence when she was not around. But a man like him… He stood so far outside her experience that she’d not been able to recognize him. But there it was, the conclusion inescapable. He thought she was magnificent. And he meant it—really meant it—beyond all possibility of fabrication.
Of all the recent disasters to befall her, this one—that this man, of all men, admired her—seemed the most devastating. Could he not have been someone—anyone—else? For a long while, Margaret stared at the cup in front of her, the steam curling upwards and away.
She mattered. She was important. She clutched those thoughts to her heart, and they made her grief bearable. Slowly, she reached out and pulled the mug forwards.
The contents were every bit as sweet as she’d imagined.
CHAPTER SIX
ASH HAD INSTRUCTED Miss Lowell to sleep late, but he’d been up at first light himself. Work wouldn’t wait. And indeed, it did not. His morning messenger arrived just after the clock struck half-ten in the morning.
The fellow was one of the new men Ash had hired just a few months before—what was his name again?— Isaac Strong; yes, that was it. The man walked stiffly, his legs no doubt learning to move properly once again after being cramped in a carriage all the long voyage from London. The whites of his eyes were shot through with red, and as he was conducted into the front sitting room of the suite Ash had taken, he rubbed the black skullcap on his head wearily. He didn’t see Ash sitting on a sofa near the window. He looked as tired as Ash felt.
“Mr. Strong. It’s your first visit out, yes?”
As he addressed Strong, the man jerked to attention, all signs of his weariness evaporating in a flurry of consternation.
Operating at a few days’ remove from London had numerous disadvantages. Most of them, Ash had been able to alleviate by dint of having well-trained, competent men in London. A smaller number of them were needed here, though, and so his men took turns traveling out to speak with him.
Not so efficient as some of the alternatives. But then, the alternatives were rendered problematic by other considerations.
“It is Strong, isn’t it?”
Strong nodded, puffing his chest out. “Sir,” he said tightly, as if he were some newly commissioned subaltern. And then, like that selfsame hapless officer, he fumbled with the brass buckles on the satchel slung about his shoulder. Before Ash had a chance to ask him whether he needed to rest or refresh himself, he pulled out a fat sheaf of papers and held it out, as if an entire war depended on whatever was in those pages.
“Sir,” Strong barked out, “your report, sir.”
“My report?” Ash felt a prickle of consternation along the skin of his thumbs. “That’s my report?”
The words must have come out harsher than he’d intended, because Strong ducked his head farther. “The report you requested on the current inclinations of the members of the House of Lords regarding the proposed act. I—” he looked up into Ash’s face and must have read the distaste Ash felt curling his lips, because he swallowed, his throat bobbing “—I h-have a detailed listing, and that, along with the alphabetical appendix, should suffice to—”
“Ah,” said Ash, enlightenment dawning suddenly. “You made an alphabetical appendix, did you?”
That explained the ink-stained forefinger, the thick sheaf of papers. It certainly explained the rumpled wild-eyed look that Mr. Strong was giving him. Ash suppressed a grin. “Did you include the Latin translation in triplicate?”
“The Latin translation?” Strong’s eyes widened in abject fear. “Jeffreys made no mention of—oh.” Strong snapped his mouth shut, almost viciously.
Ash had never hired fools. Gullible geniuses, now…
Strong swallowed. “Please tell me you wanted a list of every invitation the Dalrymple brothers have accepted over the past two months, complete with an inventory of the nearest coaching-houses, and a calculation of the shortest distance from London by stagecoach.”
“That,” Ash said, “was an exceptionally creative addition. I’ll have to talk to Jeffreys. He’s not usually quite so…so aggressive with the new men. Come. Let’s talk in my study.” He jerked his head towards the room to the right—a former parlor that he’d converted for his use.
As Ash pushed himself to his feet, Strong let out a sigh. “Sir, how much were they having me on about, then?”
“The whole report.”
If silence could blaspheme… Paper crinkled as Strong’s knuckles clenched about his alphabetical appendix.
Ash shrugged. “I abhor lists. I despise reports, written on paper. If I wanted a useless stack of pages, I would just have you all send couriers out to deliver them, and never mind the expense of carting my men about England. But I don’t. The last thing I want to do, ever, is to sit down and read through a tangle of letters, just so that I can get to the point. I want all my reports delivered orally—that way, I can ask you questions as I wish, and I don’t have to trudge through extraneous material that will be of no use to any of us.”
“Did they…” Strong rubbed his skullcap again, a grimace on his face. “That is, is this because…”
“You mean, were they trying to get you sacked?” Ash shook his head. “Jeffreys was having me on as much as you. He knows how I feel about paper.” Mostly. Even his right-hand man didn’t understand the true extent of it.
“Well. That rather explains the first message I am supposed to deliver to you. Mr. Jeffreys has sent up a handful of agricultural texts for you, in answer to your last query, which he said betrayed a great deal of ignorance which could not be answered by a mere sentence or three. He told me to tell you to…to…” Strong paused and looked away.
“Out with it.” Ash paused at the library door. “I know they aren’t your words.”
“To be a man and just read through them. Apparently, he, uh, appreciates your views on reports.”
Ash smiled bitterly, feeling the exact opposite of appreciation. “Well, your first order of business when you get back to London is to tell him to go to hell. No—write that down. I don’t want you to forget. Here, I have paper—”
He stopped, looking at the makeshift desk he’d made in the parlor. He’d left it clear last night, all the spare scraps of
paper bundled away to whence they’d belonged—not that he had much use for paper as it was.
But set atop the oak surface of his desk was a solitary sheet, folded in two. It was weighted down by a clay mug. A familiar clay mug, he realized as he picked it up. It smelled faintly of honey and nutmeg. In that instant, his remaining fatigue dissolved in a cloud of anticipation.
“Wait a minute,” Ash said softly. He felt a prickle of excitement in his fingertips—an echo of the surprise he’d experienced on finding Margaret last night in nothing but a linen shift and a thin wrapper. Her hair had been down. Unbound, it had curled, and he’d longed to sink his hands in the silk of it. She’d looked like an apparition from one of his more sensual dreams. Even now, a part of him longed to go back to the conservatory, to start that conversation over again, and this time, to give in to his lust-filled imaginings. He was getting aroused, just remembering the pattern the moonlight had made on her skin.
But he’d found something better than mere animal satisfaction last night. Just as the natural curves of her body had been revealed by the night, so, too, she had slipped beyond the starchy disdain she’d directed at him these past days. There had been something raw and honest about that late-night conversation—something that had transcended the formal boundaries she’d insisted must stand between them. With those walls destroyed, anything could happen. Everything could happen. Ash felt as if he stood on the precipice of some tall cliff, readying himself to jump. In a few moments, he would know if the rush of wind he felt about him meant he was flying or falling.
He picked the paper up. And here he’d already refused one report. But then, this wasn’t a dry, business communication. He could hardly ask Strong to read this aloud.
He could imagine her slipping in here, just before dawn. She would have leaned against his desk, here, bending over the inkwell. A welcome image, that, if entirely distracting—the smooth fabric of her gown falling over the sweet swell of her buttocks, framing curves that were made to be cupped in the palm of his hand. And how had she got into this locked room? Ah, yes. The master key. With that, she might have stolen into his bedchamber. She might have come to him on silent feet, to press those beguiling curves against his chest, his groin… Hell. If he’d contemplated that possibility last night, he truly wouldn’t have slept. Not one wink.
