Ashton: Lord of Truth (Lonely Lords Book 13) (14 page)

“You make it sound as if eccentricity is one of the seven deadly sins. I’m not the one who wrecked a dinner out of pique. What should I name
this fine beast?”

Hazelton stopped and glanced down at the donkey. “It’s appealing, in a hideous, pathetic, noxious sort of way.”

“Another deadly sin?”

The earl’s lips twitched. “Name him anything you please. I’ll have your list in a week or so.”

“I’ll name him Marmaduke,” Ashton said. “Duke, for short. The stable lads will appreciate the humor and treat the beast well as a
result. My felicitations to your countess. Send word around to the Albany if you need me.”

 Ashton collected his horse and led the donkey to the Albany by way of Piccadilly. He was tempted to detour down through St. James’s—let
all the dandies in their clubs have a look at the Earl of Kilkenney’s first purchase at Tatts—but the donkey was probably hungry and weary.

Ashton was too.

“I would like to tell you a story,” Mr. Fenwick said.

He stood on the threshold of Matilda’s parlor, looking magnificent in his riding attire. His boots were dusty, and he’d been gone most of the
day. Matilda had listened for his footsteps on the stairs, both hoping and dreading to hear him returning to his apartments.

He’d seen Kitty, and he’d sensed a connection between her and Matilda. That wasn’t a disaster.

The worse problem was that he’d offered to help, and Matilda had been tempted. She couldn’t accept his help, lest he be named an accessory
after the crime, but she had wanted to unburden herself, to talk through the whole problem with somebody who hadn’t been terrified for six straight
years and angry for longer than that.

“Have you had your supper?” Matilda asked.

“I’m not telling you my story over supper, Matilda Bryce, unless we’re taking a plate out to the wee garden where none will disturb
us.”

Matilda occasionally took her mending outside, because sunlight made close work easier on the eyes. She’d been mending half the day, making tight,
even stitches in the plain fabric that characterized her wardrobe now. Never again would she take for granted the beautiful creations fashioned at the
expense of a poor woman’s eyesight.

“We can enjoy the evening air,” she said. “For a short time.”

“Oh, aye, a short time. My story isn’t complicated, and it has a happy ending.”

“You don’t sound happy.”

He bowed her through the back door, a ridiculous courtesy. “I’m not, but my troubles are minor and easily resolved. The matter wants
determination, is all.”

Matilda took the only seat, a worn bench along the wall of the house. Her herbs sat in pots and raised beds, and a small plane maple straggled up toward
the evening sky. Mr. Fenwick came down beside her, the bench being too small to allow for any distance between them.

For a moment, they sat in silence, though Matilda liked too well the solidness of him beside her.

She liked
him
too well, and that was a problem.

“Once upon a time,” he began, “there was a young man, a fine, braw, bonnie lad, sent off to university.”

“That is not a very original story.”

He took her hand. “Haud yer wheesht. It gets more interesting. This lad was handsome, from a good family, but from the wrong side of the blanket.
Have you noticed that many of the handsomest lads are illegitimate?”

“I have not.” His levity was telling, though. A by-blow would have all the airs and graces of a legitimate son, but less of the arrogance, for
polite society would never let a by-blow forget his antecedents.

“Well, they are. Fine lot of specimens, but this particular lad had two problems. The first was a miserable temper. He was a good-sized fellow, and
when he was vexed, he’d let fly with his fists.”

Matilda withdrew her hand. “I have no patience with foul-tempered men.”

“He was little more than a boy, and years of minding the horses kicked that temper right out of him. He’s the soul of patience now.”

Ashton Fenwick was very patient. Matilda couldn’t deny that. “What was the other problem?”

Apparently, illegitimacy was not a problem, suggesting the lad’s family had been very well-to-do indeed.

“This young man was lonely. He had only the one brother, several years younger, and they were not raised to be as close as most brothers. Though the
family was loving, and nobody dared ostracize the young man overtly, there was talk.”

Was there any creature more tender-hearted than a small boy? And if that small boy had been Ashton Fenwick, he would have sensed the talk and the
unkindness behind it.

“There’s always talk, Ashton. You can’t mind it.”

“You can’t ignore it if you’re a very young man at university, where scholarship comes a distant second to bothering tavern maids and
learning to hold one’s liquor. I fell in with a bad lot. I knew better. I didn’t even like them. They were spoiled, mean, not too bright, and
headed for trouble, but they allowed me to drink with them and invited me to their houses during the holidays.”

Matilda allowed Ashton to take her hand again. “You promised me a happy ending, Ashton.” To the story, at least. Not too much to ask.

“That I did. One of the party, a rotten little devil who’d been sent down from one school after another, took it into his head to anticipate
the wedding vows with his fiancée, an earl’s daughter who lived on a neighboring estate. A kidnapping of sorts followed, and it became very
clear to me that the lady was not receptive to her intended’s advances. I rode off to seek help, but my efforts were in vain. The young lady was
grievously wronged, her sister badly injured. She broke off the engagement.”

An earl’s daughter?
“As well she should have. I hope her family pressed charges.”

“You know they did not. She withdrew from society, her sister left the area, and public opinion was divided. Most engaged couples anticipate their
vows, after all, and she and her sister ought not to have been out riding on their own land without a groom, according to some. That was utter tripe,
according to our young man.”

The temper Ashton claimed to have mastered simmered below his words.

“One takes a groom for safety. Any horse can come up lame, or toss a rider in a bad moment.”

“So she rode with her sister, over familiar terrain, on her family’s land. The group that abetted this crime was a half-dozen drunken
lordlings. A groom would not have prevented what happened and might have lost his life trying to. I blame myself for not realizing sooner that the outing
would turn malicious. My need to be accepted by those young jackanapeses blinded me to common sense, and two young women paid a very high price.”

“What happened?” Because Matilda could not envision any happily ever afters following such a scandal, except for the violent, dishonorable, pig
of a young man, of course. He’d probably found another fiancée with a larger dowry.

“When the young lady withdrew from society, I attached myself to her household and made sure her safety was never at risk again. She and her sister
both met good men and have started families of their own.”

That was two happily ever afters—if the men were truly good. “And the rotten little devil?”

Ashton patted her hand. “A lovely, fatal accident befell him. Divine providence at its finest.”

Matilda sat in the lengthening shadows holding hands with a man and simply enjoying the contact. She ought not. She ought to pretend she’d never
kissed Ashton Fenwick, hadn’t listened for his footsteps all day, and hadn’t tucked his laundered handkerchief into her clothes press, between
her spare chemise and her only pair of silk stockings.

“Why are you telling me this, Mr. Fenwick?”

“Ashton. Because I want you to understand that I know how men can be. I know that a woman can find herself entangled in problems not of her own
making. The law is a fine concept, but its enforcement is an unreliable undertaking, particularly when your neighbors, the Bow Street runners, are paid
rewards for convictions rather than for thorough investigations.”

“And they have been known to manufacture evidence, intimidate witnesses, and mistreat the accused.” Every time Matilda saw a runner, the fear
nearly choked her.

“Your hands are cold,” Ashton said. “Shall we go inside?”

Darkness was falling. Matilda stayed where she was. “I was not wronged by a fiancé, Ashton. I was married in a church, my family in attendance,
and when I spoke my vows, I meant them.”

“That was the unkindest cut of all, I’m guessing. You meant them, your husband meant something else entirely. Is he truly dead?”

“Yes.”

“And is that wee lass in the park your daughter?”

Well, of course he’d think that. “She is not. If she were my daughter, I don’t know how I’d bear the separation, but she is not my
daughter.”

He enveloped Matilda’s hand in both of his, his grip warm. He’d let her go if she withdrew her hand, though. Of that, Matilda was certain.

“You would die for that child, Matilda. If she’s not your daughter, who is she?”

“I prided myself on a modest competence solving mysteries and puzzles,” Hazelton said. “Fenwick bought a damned donkey, Maggie mine. What
am I to make of that? A belted earl, and he sashays into Tatts, passes up the finest blood stock in the land, and buys an odoriferous little wretch he can
have no possible use for.”

The Countess of Hazelton prowled around the billiards table and took Benjamin’s cue stick from him.

“You are too easy for me to best in this mood, my love. I suspect the greater puzzle is that Fenwick turned down membership in your club. Are you
concerned or annoyed?”

In the few short years of their marriage, Benjamin had come to rely on Maggie’s judgment, though he was still surprised when her discernment made
short work of his own moods.

“Both, I suppose. I belong to only the best clubs.”

Maggie kissed him. She was a voluptuous armful of redhead, and her kisses were the surest remedy for Benjamin’s foul humor.

“You belong to only the most expensive clubs. Fenwick is a Scot anticipating all the bother of a social Season. If he already belongs to a few clubs,
why take on another?”

Maggie’s explanation was simple, and it fit the facts, but it did not fit Ashton Fenwick.

“Fenwick is not tight-fisted,” Benjamin said. “But he’s proud as hell. Are we finished for the evening?”

The hour was early by the standards of the upcoming Season. Some families would have just sat down to their evening meal. Benjamin’s household
included two sons, the younger less than a year old. Maggie kept the schedule to country hours, though that would probably change once the social whirl
began.

“Let’s go upstairs,” she said. “Fenwick has aroused your curiosity to the point that you’re pacing my carpets. You
haven’t been this overset since your second-born had the audacity to waste six hours in the birth process.”

Benjamin settled his arms around his wife. Nothing in all of creation brought him as much pleasure as simply holding the woman he loved—well, almost
nothing.

“Perhaps Fenwick has aroused my temper. A donkey, Maggie? What could he have been thinking? Every gentleman, horse, and groom at Tatts watched him
leading that beast from the premises. And then there’s this business of avoiding the Albany until the last possible moment. Fenwick is putting up at
some lodging house, while one of the finest apartments in London sits empty, and at a price that would buy many donkeys their freedom. He’s forbidden
me to attempt any sort of surveillance.”

“Spying is ungentlemanly,” Maggie said in ironically prim tones.

“Also unladylike. What do you know that I don’t?”

Prior to his marriage, Benjamin had dealt with various delicate problems for the realm’s better families, and done so discreetly. He’d used
logic, dogged persistence, audacity, and common sense to stop the occasional elopement, retrieve a purloined journal, or find missing valuables.

Maggie’s intuition eclipsed Benjamin’s pedestrian deductions by leaps and flights.

“Fenwick’s tiger is a young girl,” Maggie said. “When he first called upon you, I saw her walking his horse up and down the street.
At one point, a braid came loose from beneath her cap. Boys can certainly have long hair, but the way she stuffed the braid back out of sight was feminine,
a very young lady vexed by her coiffure.”

“This grows alarming,” Benjamin muttered, turning Maggie under his arm and escorting her to the door. “Fenwick asked me to research
scandals that occurred between five and seven years ago. He was precise about the time and not about anything else.”

“Perhaps he’s already chosen somebody to wed, and she has a shadowed past.”

“Chosen somebody to wed in less than a week? Even Fenwick doesn’t work that quickly. I was hoping you’d review my journals with
me.”

Maggie had been firmly on the shelf when Benjamin had married her. As the daughter of a duke, she’d seen many Seasons from a vantage Benjamin had
not. A minor scandal might have escaped his notice. It would not have escaped hers.