“So what do you think?” Ada jiggled the coins in the bag.
Chas thought she was the most maddening female of his acquaintance, and he was a hopeless mooncalf. “Think?”
“About the money, silly. What should I do with it?”
“I think you should keep it, of course. Use it to pay off some of those debts so you are not paying interest on top of interest. Use it to pay Kit Highsmith for the use of his stud ram. We’ve talked about a hundred things you could do to make this place pay for itself. Use the brass for any one of them.”
“But it’s not my money.”
“It may as well be, if no one else claims it. You must have been correct, that it was left by some passing contrabanders. They would have used your orchard once, perhaps, in an emergency. They won’t be back, I am sure, not with this area controlled by Leo Tobin and his men.” Which was another reason Chas financed his half-brother’s business, to keep actual criminals, ruthless and greedy cutthroats, from moving into the neighborhood. “The money was meant for you, I am certain.”
“I cannot feel right about keeping it.”
“Then give it to Tess, to stage her opera.”
“What, and make us the laughingstocks of the county? You’ve heard her music. Besides, she’d most likely expect us to perform in the thing. I, of course, am not tall or voluptuous enough to play the sea goddess, she has already informed me.”
“I think you’d make an excellent mermaid,” he said out of loyalty but without much conviction, not liking the image of her in Leo’s arms.
“You’d make a dashing Sebastian.” Ada thought Chas would make a dashing anything.
“Not nearly as good as Leo.”
“Can he sing?”
“Like a hungry hog.”
“Poor Tess, she will be so disappointed. Or else she will have to rewrite her opera, making it
Sylvia and the Swine Prince.”
“Seriously, Ada, if you are uncomfortable about keeping the cash for yourself, why don’t you give the money to Jane as her missing widow’s benefits? That way you might at least get the leeches off your back and out of your house.”
“No, she’d spend it in one month, but keep charging the Westlake accounts for another three. Then she’d be back here, making more demands for funds I do not have.”
“Then send some of it to Emery, dash it, to pay his ship fare home.”
Ada shook her head. “He wouldn’t leave his men. You know that. I daresay he’d think I ought to give the money to the War Office, to purchase ammunition for the troops. After all, the smuggling does finance the French, so it would only be fair that this bribe money benefits our own efforts.”
“No!” Chas’s protest came out a bit more vehemently than he’d intended. Give his blunt to those dodderers at Whitehall? They hadn’t managed yet to get the men paid on time, much less equipped and fed. “The politicians would likely use it to line their own pockets.” He maligned another group of friends, men he was working with to change those very conditions. “The soldiers would never see a shilling of it.”
“I suppose you are right. I’ll have to do some more thinking on the matter. Perhaps I will discuss the ethics of the thing with the vicar tomorrow.”
Chas wondered what time he would have to get up to call on Reverend Mr. Tothy before Ada did. Ethics be damned, that money was Ada’s, no one else’s.
“You do that. I’m sure he’ll tell you to keep it. By the way, you might ask him if he knows any gentlewomen in need of a position. My mother is considering hiring another companion.”
“Really? Miss Ellen Hanneford at the lending library said she heard this morning that Lady Ashmead was planning a house party, with a formal dinner and ball.”
“Confound it, and I swore to do the pretty by whomever Mother had stay, thinking she intended an elderly lady. A small entertainment, she said. Hah!”
Ada smiled in sympathy, knowing how Chas hated entertaining the type of guest his mother would be sure to invite. Ada could not feel comfortable with the viscountess’s usual visitors from London and Bath, either, feeling dowdy and unsophisticated next to them, unable to converse about the latest plays, parties, and romantic pairings. “Well, Jane is in alt even if you are not, declaring herself out of mourning a month early. Considering the dire straits Rodney left his widow in, I cannot fault her.”
“No, neither can I. Wouldn’t it be a blessing for everyone if Lady Westlake lands herself a second husband while she still has a face and figure to attract one, since she has no fortune? ‘Twould be a boon to everyone except the second husband, of course.”
“That’s mean,” Ada said, but with a smile that meant she agreed with him.
“That’s honest. Anyway, there are sure to be a few eligible gentlemen; not even my mother would fill the house with nothing but marriageable chits.”
“Oh, it’s to be that kind of party. I hadn’t thought.”
“Yes, well, now that you and I aren’t... That is… Mother feels I should ...”
“I see.” Ada did understand, knowing that Chas had to marry to produce an heir, eventually. She just hadn’t thought that eventually could come so soon.
“I had better be off, then, before she invites half the
beau monde
.
”
Chas stood to go, consulting his pocket watch, straightening his waistcoat, making sure his neckcloth was secure. “Before I leave, though, I, ah, need to ask you a question.”
Ada was on her feet, too. “No, Chas, please don’t
—
”
“Don’t worry, I am not going to ask you to marry me again. I swore I would never do so again, remember? The engagement ring is safely back in the vault and will remain there” —he almost said till Hell froze over, or until she asked him, which were likely one and the same— “until I find a suitable bride. But I just have to be sure of something that has been nibbling away at me. Something important.”
A V formed between Ada’s eyebrows. “I cannot imagine what you are talking about, Chas. You know you can ask me anything. Except that other, of course.”
He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “You do know that I love you, Ada, don’t you?”
She laughed, relieved. “Is that all?”
All? It was all he had been thinking about since Leo had prodded at him. All that mattered, all that he had to pin his feeble hopes on. All of him. “Do you?”
“Of course, you clunch. You love me better than your own sisters, haven’t you always told me so?” She reached up to brush a lock of dark hair off his forehead. “And I’d know it anyway, by how you are always looking out for my interests, and how you worry when I do something foolish, like going to the Mermaid Tavern by myself.” She stood on tiptoe to press a kiss to his uninjured cheek. “And I love you, even if you are like a mother hen with one chick.”
A brother? A mother hen? She thought of him as a bloody relative! Leo was right, which made Chas all the angrier. His Ada did not even think of him as a man, as a mate. Damnation!
“Do you know,” he said now, before he had a chance to think about not saying it, “I have a mind to try that pose Tess had you and Leo in, just in case I am needed when mighty Sebastian is off killing dragons, or running from the excise men.” With that, without a by-your-leave, Chas grabbed Ada in his good arm, tipped her toward the side, and kissed her firmly, fiercely, with fire and fervor and all the feeling he could fit in one—albeit lengthy—kiss. “Now,” he said with a gasp as he left, “now tell me that I love you like a brother.”
Somehow Ada’s legs managed to support her back to the sofa. She couldn’t imagine how, for her bones felt like blancmange. Her toes tingled and her lips burned and her mind— Oh, mercy, her mind had turned to mud. No, to mashed turnips.
That was certainly not a brotherly peck, nor even an affectionate buss under the mistletoe. Gracious, what did Chas mean by such a gesture, and had he been as shaken, as turned inside out, as befogged as she? Ada always thought of Chas as giving, always there with support and comfort and confidence, advice when she needed it, and even when she did not. He would have given her his wealth, his very name, to keep her safe. But this, this was a hungry kiss, as if Chas wanted so much more from her, as if he wanted a part of her soul.
Could it be that Chas had needs too, not just a man’s lustful needs, or a viscount’s need for an heir? Could he really be looking for his heart’s completion, not just a convenient helpmeet? Could she be it? Ada’d never dared hope, and now it was too late. He said he’d never ask her again, and Chas never went back on his word.
He must have kissed her like that to show her what she’d be missing, Ada decided, to prove what could have been. Now he’d find a bride among those beautiful London belles, accomplished flirts every one of them, eager for Viscount Ashmead’s title and wealth. They’d be eager for his kisses, too, if they knew Chas could make their blood flow backward. Unless it did not work for every woman, or with every woman. What was it he’d asked? “You do know that I love you, don’t you.’
Ada didn’t know anything anymore.
Chapter Ten
“Miss Ada Westlake is, possibly, going to make the church a sizeable donation, and if she does, I am going to refuse to accept it?” Vicar Tothy looked longingly toward his untouched breakfast. Even his sermon notes appeared more appetizing than this early morning interview with Lord Ashmead.
“That is correct.” Chas tapped his riding crop against his high-topped boots, not that a whip would have done him much good on the horse Coggs deemed him capable of riding one-handed.
“May I ask why I am to turn away this potential bounty?”
“No.”
The Reverend Mr. George Tothy was a third cousin to the viscount through the matriarchal branch. He was not in line to inherit any title, fortune, or property, only a great deal of instruction, interference, and embroidered items from his benefactress, Lady Ashmead The viscount himself, who in fact held the living and who had appointed Tothy, had used to be a decent sort, the vicar always thought. The younger man had gained George Tothy’s respect for his generosity, his sense of duty, for not putting on the airs of the lord of the manor, although he was, and for putting up with her ladyship.
Now Mr. Tothy eyed the whip and his lordship’s impatience. He wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead, and said, “I am sorry to disoblige, my lord but, as a minion of the Church, I am afraid I cannot refuse any largesse, large or small. Bigger donations, with their concomitant broader opportunity to benefit the congregation, are, regrettably, more difficult to decline.”
“Deuce take it, the church won’t be out a farthing. I will match Miss Ada’s gift, if you give it back to her. Or convince her to keep the blasted money in the first place.”
“That is generous indeed, and yet the bishop would
—
”
“Hell
—your pardon, sir—I will double the donation.”
“... Without a plausible excuse.” Mr. Tothy did not understand, he did not suppose it was necessary that he understand, but if his lordship’s dealings with Miss Ada were not aboveboard, the vicar knew his duty: he was to go directly to Lady Ashmead.
“Dash it, I merely wish her to have a proper dowry.”
Tothy understood even less. “Not that I listen to rumor, of course, my lord, but Lady Ashmead herself informed me that there was to be no match between your houses. Therefore you would not be the recipient of said bridal portion?”
Chas thought he might have an apoplexy before he saw his blunt—and his bride—go to another man, but he nodded. “That is correct. Miss Ada is to have the money for her own, for whatever purpose she chooses, except giving it away.”
“And you have no further involvement in the matter, my lord, except as a generous friend?”
“That, too, is true, Tothy.” Temporarily, at least.
* * * *
The vicar was, as a result of his lordship’s visit, not at all surprised to receive a morning call from Miss Ada Westlake. He was astonished, however, to see her accompanied by old Lord Ashmead’s brigand by-blow, and the baronetcy’s batty sister, who barely took their eyes off each other. The good Lord certainly did work in mysterious ways, Reverend Tothy reflected.
Tess and Leo Tobin did not stay past politeness, preferring to view the ships in the harbor for their new project. Mr. Tothy preferred not to know the nature of that project. Over tea, he heard Ada’s tale of finding the money in her orchard, and agreed that the origins of the purse were likely unsavory, and undiscoverable. That being the case, the vicar dutifully labeled Ada’s windfall a godsend, a stroke of good fortune, a blessing. He abjured her not to look a gift horse in the mouth, which was, of course, precisely what the Trojans should have done, and trotted out any other platitudes he could think of. Then he asked her to marry him.
Why not? With Viscount Ashmead out of the picture, the Westlake girl was dwindling into an old maid. Who would take her with that skipwit sister? Miss Ada was a good manager, though, with a kind heart, just what the parish needed in a vicar’s spouse. His own wife having gone on to her reward these five years ago, Tothy would not mind a reward for his own virtuous abstinence. A soft young body warming his bed at nights would be just the ticket, especially if it came with such a handsome dowry.
* * * *
“It was the strangest thing,” Ada told Chas later, when he came for tea. After the initial awkwardness that naturally followed yesterday’s sudden soul-searing kiss, each had privately decided to pretend that such an emotion-fraught event had never taken place. A certain heightened awareness, however, did sit between them on the sofa, and Ada was quick to fill any silences.
“Reverend Tothy would not take the money. He said I should keep it as my dowry, since I had given up mine to pay Rodney’s gaming debts.” She would have, had Sir Rodney not gambled her portion away long before his fatal wager.
“And so you should,” Chas said while spreading slices of toast with apple jelly. “Wise man, our vicar.”
“Then he said that the church was so well endowed, it had everything it needed. Whoever heard of such a thing?”
Chas scraped some of the jelly off. Laying it on too thick, Tothy, he said to himself. “Must be my mother’s munificence.”