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Perhaps that was why, when Ash had invited his brother to Parford Manor, the man had fobbed him off with excuses. But when Mark asked, he had dropped everything and come running.
His brothers had passed from discussion of art to some new philosophical text that had recently been released to great acclaim. Naturally, Ash hadn’t read it. In fact, he hadn’t even heard of it. Next to them, Ash felt profoundly empty and wistfully ignorant. He’d been trying to scrape together a fortune at fourteen, so that his younger brothers could study Latin declensions. He’d succeeded.
But he hadn’t known that in so doing, he was guaranteeing that he would never again have the privilege of engaging either of them in meaningful conversation. Mark and Smite were bound together with the threads of a thousand common experiences, everything from the hidden truth of those years when Ash had been gone, to their time at university. And Ash would never, ever be able to share any of that with them.
“Do you want some refreshment?” he asked. “The cook here serves the most amazing cream teas. I can ring for some.”
His brothers turned in unison, as if surprised that Ash was still present.
“I’ve been sitting in the coach for hours,” Smite said. “The last thing I want to do is sit again. Besides, I’m not hungry.”
Ash tried again. “Well, then. There’s a lovely promenade that follows the banks of the river. If you would care to join me…?”
Smite turned his head to look at Mark, his eyes widening.
“No,” Mark said gently. “I don’t think we’ll be walking along the river right now.”
It was that same rebuke he always got from his brother. Smite had never spoken his accusations aloud. He just rejected every gift Ash laid at his feet, every suggestion for camaraderie, one by one. Even the gentlest slap on the face came to sting, after it had been repeated often enough. And this particular slap was none too gentle.
They were trying to get rid of him. Ash felt that hollow lump in his chest, that distance between him and his brothers.
I’m sorry I ever left. I’m sorry for whatever happened to you out there. I’m sorry there’s nothing between us to stitch together into even a pretense of friendship. I’m sorry, Smite. But he couldn’t get the words out of his throat.
“Well,” he finally said. “I’ll leave you two alone, then. I have work to do.”
He turned his back on them. Right now, even the books waiting for him in the library seemed preferable to another rejection.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
UNSURPRISINGLY, THE mess of ink that faced him on the pages offered Ash scant comfort. The wide glass doors in the library looked out on the garden where his brothers stood. It was hot enough that the windows had been, by necessity, thrown open. The breeze that wafted in should have been cool and comforting. Instead, it carried to him the dim rumble of their laughter—an amusement he could not share, couched in words he could not make out.
He drifted to look out the window, with the sick sensation of a man scratching at a scab—knowing that the wound was best left alone, lest it fester, but unable to keep his hands away.
Mark was pointing out various features in the garden while Smite watched. Ash felt as if he were their geriatric father, stooped by age and bearded in white, rather than the sibling who was a mere handful of years their elder. His hands clenched on the frame of the window.
“Ash?”
At that quiet query, he turned around. Margaret was standing in the doorway, her brows knit in an expression of concern. He hadn’t seen her in days. He’d thought she was avoiding him.
She was dressed as she always was—in a loose frock of dark gray muslin, the only definition being the sash that pulled the dress about her waist. Her hair was pulled back into a tight knot at the nape of her neck and pinned into place. The picture would have made another woman seem severe. But the warm, interested light in her eyes softened the effect, and suddenly he no longer felt quite so isolated.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
His gaze strayed out the window once more, to Mark and Smite. They were happy, chattering back and forth between themselves. He wasn’t so selfish as to wish them miserable.
“No.” He swallowed the accompanying sigh. It sat like a lump of indigestible gristle, deep in his belly. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything is precisely as it should be.”
It must not have been an especially convincing denial, because she raised one eyebrow and placed her hand on her hip. “Usually,” she said, “when one speaks the truth, one answer suffices. You just answered me three times.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Well, then. Come see what has me in such a state.”
She came to stand by him. From this vantage point, they could see the shrubs of the formal gardens, trimmed into precise low squares. Rosebushes waved pink heads in the wind. And beyond that…
Smite’s hair was a shade darker than the bark of the walnut tree just beyond him. It gleamed in the sunlight. He was slightly taller than Mark, and he bent his head towards his brother as they talked.
“You see?” Ash said in his cheeriest tone. “My brothers are both here. What could I possibly have to grieve over?”
“You’re not grieving,” Margaret said. “I know that look on your face.”
“Do you, then?” He asked the question out of genuine interest. He’d not been faced with both his brothers before this moment. How could she possibly have seen it?
“Intimately.” Her voice was low. “I know what it’s like to stand on the outside and look in, believing I will never be accepted. I know what it’s like to yearn to be a part of something, and yet to know that it will never come. Trust me, Ash. I know.”
Of course she would know. Ash put little faith in labels; in his experience, a title had never made a man worthwhile. You judged a man—or a woman—by what he did, how he spoke, the way he met your eyes…or failed to do so. But too many others eschewed actual observation in lieu of proxies. Who your father was. Whether your parents had been married. How much wealth you had, and how long it had been in your family.
“I understand,” he said softly. “Your life would have been very different if you’d been Parford’s daughter, instead of his servant.”
She looked up at him, a sad tilt to her eyes. He had a sudden urge to burn every one of those dull, severe frocks. He wanted to replace them with vibrant silks—something to draw attention to her, to bring out the intelligent light in her eyes. Anything to chase away the haunting sadness that touched her features. It felt as if his own grief echoed through her.
She reached out and set her hand atop his. It was, perhaps, the first time she had deliberately touched him since he’d returned from London. He sucked in his breath, hoping. He could feel the warmth of her against him. He turned his hand to press hers. He hadn’t meant to grip so hard, but she did not pull away.
“I know precisely how you feel,” she said. “What I do not know is why you are in here, watching them, instead of out there forcing your way in. I can attest to the efficacy of your charm.”
She turned her face up to his, her dark eyes glinting.
“Can you, then? Attest to my charm?”
He had not let go of her hand. He ought to have, but he didn’t dare—and she was gripping him back so hard, her fingernails cutting into his palm with the best kind of pain.
“Intimately,” she said again.
He wasn’t displaying any of that vaunted charm now. He dropped her hand and looked away. “I wish to God,” he said passionately, “that I had never gone to India. I wish I had never left them. But I did, little knowing that the gulf my actions would open would be wider than a handful of years and a few thousand miles of ocean. I wish I had not gone.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Pardon?” She’d spoken so matter-of-factly that he could scarcely believe what he had heard.
“You heard me. You don’t wish any of this undone—not your time in India, not your stupendous fortune,
nor even the suit in the ecclesiastical courts. Certainly not your place as a duke’s heir. I know you, Ash. Had you stayed in England with your brothers—had you merely accepted your lot in life and sunk into poverty, you wouldn’t be happy. You enjoy your wealth. You live to shower your brothers with presents. You would despise being a poor man.”
He let out a sigh. “It’s a hard woman who won’t even let a man indulge in a little unreasonableness. That seems most unfair.”
“What is unfair is that you want to have the benefits of your voyage to India without paying the price. That’s what makes this world so damnably awful—the choices you must make that cost you what you most desire.”
