Betrayal Page 11
Obviously still puzzled and not a little worried, he left the room.
~*~
Ash stood at the door of his study, waiting for the sound of her footsteps on the stairs. It bothered him that he still knew the sound of her steps; it bothered him almost more than the fact that he was standing here, pressed against the doorjamb.
“Hell and damnation,” he muttered. And then, “Bloody fool.”
But coarseness didn’t help. It never had. Not then, when there had been a hole in his chest, wide and gaping. Not now, when his thoughts were a damned mess.
He could feel himself unravelling and he hated it. An Ashburnham did not unravel. An Ashburnham was always in control of himself.
“Hell.”
He strained his ears for any sound from the stairs.
From his window he had seen Miss Simmerly leave earlier on. She must have called on his mother, he supposed.
Georgina hadn’t left. Not yet. He would have seen her... surely...
His fingers drummed against his thigh.
A lady’s companion.
He tried to imagine the girl he had known as a lady’s companion.
“Hell.” A third time. He wasn’t good with curses. Guy used to rib him about it.
God no, he didn’t want to think about Guy. Not now!
Sweat broke out on his forehead. The skin of his chest felt clammy, too.
Where did one look up curses? he wondered. In Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary? In Captain Grose’s? Read Shakespeare and take notes? The bard was good with insults, he seemed to remember.
“Scratching could not make it worse... such a face as yours.”
Ginny would have relished this.
And all at once he could see himself lying in bed, blowing out the candles before snuggling up to his wife. Darkness fell around them like a velvet cloak while his hand searched for her hip. “Did you know?” he whispered. “Did you know that the most astonishing insults can be found in Shakespeare?”
Her face rose from the shadows—not the face of a young girl, but the face of a woman. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see her lips curve. “Tell me,” she murmured, laughter in her voice. Her fingers touched his face, tracing nose and brow, before she cupped his cheek in her palm. He could smell her, he could...
His hand rose to touch his cheek.
Oh God...
Sweat trickled down his temple. His chest hurt as if it had been crushed in a vice. For a moment he feared he was going to be sick.
“Hell!”
He staggered away from the door, leaned against the wall, his head thrown back, his eyes closed.
The worst of it was that it had not been the face of the girl he had once loved beyond reason, but of the woman she had become. The woman he despised. Still, it had been the woman whose touch he had craved; the woman for whom his body had hungered—and still did.
Damn her! Even after all these years she still had the power to turn him inside out.
Ash shook himself like a wet dog, desperate to rid himself of the vision that had risen before his inner eye.
The hallucination, he corrected himself. He was turning into a Bedlamite who saw things that weren’t real.
Which had never been real, he reminded himself brutally. It had all been just a damn illusion: her sweet words, her demonstrations of love, her body snuggling trustingly against his in the middle of the night... Each kiss, each word, each touch a lie.
God! He rubbed his hands over his face.
At a faint sound from the hallway, he stilled and listened intently. Then, in a trice, he was at the door, wresting it open—and not a minute too soon, as she had already reached the stairs.
“Georgina,” he said, his voice harsh. “A word, if you please.”
She gave a start and turned. Good, he thought. He had surprised her. Yes, it would be a good thing to keep her off balance and break down that damned calm exterior.
He raised his brows. “Well?” he drawled.
Her eyes narrowed while she studied him. But then she nodded and walked towards the study.
He held the door open for her, yet remained standing in the doorway so she had to brush past him, almost touching him. He took perverse delight in the feeling of her skirts swishing against his nankeen-clad legs.
Her skirts—lud, but they were ugly!
With more force than necessary, he shut the door. “So...”
She turned. “So...” she echoed, arching her brows.
Was she mocking him? Ash gritted his teeth. How dared she? Anger formed a hot, tight knot in his stomach and burnt at the back of his throat. “So I hear you are a lady’s companion,” he launched his attack.
To his annoyance, her voice was utterly calm when she replied. “I am.”
Fresh anger bubbled up inside him. “And my son! You let him work in a warehouse! A warehouse! Like a common... a common...” She had preferred common work among strangers to being his countess. He felt as if he were going to suffocate with sheer outrage. “A Crawley! Working in a warehouse!”
Her lips briefly compressed into a tight line. “If anything, it has taught him the value of work. He has grown into a fine young man.”
“A sickly boy, you mean,” Ash sneered, more than happy to slash into her. He would have given her the sun and the moon, and she had thrown it all away. And for what? “When did you set him to work? At the age of nine? Gad!” He threw up his hands and turned away. He could no longer endure the sight of her.
“At fifteen,” her voice came from behind him. “You are being ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous!” he snarled, spinning around, so angry he could have throttled her. “When I think what he could have had if you had not taken him! Do you know what you have robbed him of?” She herself could have had silk and satins, and instead had chosen those drab abominations she was wearing these days.
Her eyes kindled. “Oh yes, I know! I robbed him of a cold and joyless home. And instead, I gave him love—”
“Love!” Ash gave a brief, mirthless laugh, even though it almost choked him. “What do you know about love? Look at what you did to what we had. Trampled on it!”
Colour came and went in her face. “I did not.” She took a step forward, her hands forming into fists.
What a laughable display of outraged feeling! Ash snorted. “And where is my dear cousin these days anyway?” he asked, cutting her short.
“Your—”
He gritted his teeth. “Guy.” Truly, enough was enough!
Her right hand rose, fluttered against her throat like an agitated bird. He watched the movement of those slender fingers, trying very hard not to imagine... to remember how they felt on his skin. Cool and teasing at first, they would turn hot and insistent soon. How many times he had lain beneath her, supine on their bed, reduced to a bundle of lusting and longing, his body screaming to possess her while her fingers danced over his skin.
The memory made him flinch. It was humiliating how he had submitted to her, how he had allowed her to destroy his control. But never again!
Clenching his teeth, he thrust the memories away. He loathed himself for his former weakness, for still lusting after her even now. But he loathed her even more.
“Did Guy leave you stranded once he realised you were bringing one of the boys? Poor Ginny,” he sneered. “You probably had expected better from your lover.”
She was chalk-white now. “Guy was never—” She bit her lip. Then she suddenly straightened her shoulders. “I believe we have already had this discussion, Ashburnham,” she said, her voice rock-steady once again. “You chose not to believe me back then, and you obviously do not want to believe me now.”
The cheek of the woman defied belief. Had he not had proof of her infidelity? That she would still insist on her innocence infuriated him. She must believe him the worst kind of featherbrained, gullible idiot! “Were you much shocked when he abandoned you and you had to become a lady’s companion?” he inquired. Indolently, he ran his
gaze over her body, stripping her naked with his eyes. “Look at you. Wearing drab clothes when you could have had silks.” His younger self wouldn’t have minded to lay a fortune in silks and gemstones at her feet. Yes, he would have found a way to give her the moon and the stars if she had asked for them! “God, I hope rutting my cousin was worth it all!”
She flinched a little at his coarseness. Not that he cared. His skin felt tight with anger, crawled with remembered hurt and humiliation.
He turned away from her and went to the window to stare sightlessly through the glass. His chest expanded. “You disgust me,” he said. And louder, “You disgust me.”
There was a sound behind him. A sigh perhaps.
And then he heard the door open and close, and then she was gone.
~*~
The door clicked shut behind her.
Georgina took a deep breath and forced herself to walk calmly to the stairs even though her legs felt like shivering, glittering jelly. Her hands shook while the familiar smells of Ashburnham Hall battered at her composure. Old stone and beeswax and a hint of citrus mixed with shattered dreams and long-lost love, with bitterness and anger. Enough anger to bring anybody to their knees.
Her foot nearly missed a stair, and she had to grip the handrail tightly to keep from falling, tumbling down polished marble.
She supposed she could have told him, but then, Guy’s secret was not hers to tell and had never been. When she had found out—quite by accident, really—she had promised him never to tell anybody of what she had seen. And she was not one to break promises lightly. Besides, Ashburnham wouldn’t have believed her anyway: Crawley temper and Crawley stubbornness formed impenetrable walls, as she well knew.
And Crawley pride!
When they had been young, she had teased him about it, not understanding the extent of that pride, not yet understanding what would happen if that pride was piqued.
Georgina sighed.
She wished she could hate him. It would make everything so much easier. She was angry, yes. But hate him? He was the man she had once loved—wildly, sweetly. The only man who had ever touched her. The only man whose body had been as familiar to her as her own. And how could she hate him when his looks and mannerisms had been imprinted on her sons?
No, she could not hate him. But it was all so impossible that her heart was ripped in two from the pain and hurt of the past and the present, from all the pain that was still in store for her.
She hardly noticed the footman who held the front door open for her as she crossed the hall and left the house.
Left it without a backwards glance.
Walked down the long, long drive and then further along through the meadows and fields where she had loved to roam as a young woman.
And because she couldn’t yet bear it to return to the inn and be surrounded by strangers, she kept on walking and visited all the favourite places of her youth. One last time she allowed the memories to rise—the good memories—while she revisited those blissful times filled with love and laughter.
How young they had been! And how certain their love would span eternity. Yet even then, it had already been doomed. Built on nothing but sand, it had not been able to withstand the storm. She still did not fully see where they had gone wrong. Was it his pride or her naïveté? Had they been too sure of their love, too sure of themselves?
She would never know.
Georgina let the gentle breeze dry her tears before she turned and walked the long, lonely way back to the village of Ashburnham.
When she entered the inn, the innkeeper was already waiting for her—and with him a stranger. His face grave, he said, “Mrs. Crawley? I must ask you to accompany me to Hastings.”
For a moment, she felt a flutter of panic, but she quickly quelled it. She had hoped it would not come to this. Still...
“Of course,” she said and preceded him outside and around the corner, where the small black carriage with the barred back compartment was waiting.
Chapter 12
She hadn’t come today.
Ash stood at the window of his study and looked out over the drive.
He would have seen her had she walked up to the house. And if he would have somehow missed her, surely he would have heard something. A commotion in the hallway, for example. The bell pull.
But no, he had heard nothing.
She had not come.
Perhaps he ought not be surprised given what he had said to her the day before. But damn it, he had been reeling from that... that hallucination! And besides—shouldn’t she be here to see her sons?
He frowned.
“My lord?”
Still frowning, he looked over his shoulder at his land steward. “Pray excuse me, Mr. Sambrook. What did you just say?”
“The fences. Do you wish—”
The door was flung open with enough force to bounce off the wall. His feet planted in an aggressive stance, his arms akimbo, St. Asaph glared at him. “What did you do to her?”
Still pale, his brother hovered behind him like an anxious mother bird.
Ash eyed his heir coldly. “Perhaps you might be so good as to knock the next time you wish to speak to me.”
He could see how the boy gritted his teeth. “She has not come. She is not at the inn. You must have said something to her.”
Finnian squeezed past his brother. “Mother has not come yet. This is most unusual.”
“Have you sent her away?” St. Asaph cut in.
Ash raised his brows. “Perhaps she has left? Have you thought of that?” He had wanted to appear cool and controlled, yet his words sent a shiver down his spine. Surely she—
“She wouldn’t!” Hectic colour appeared on St. Asaph’s cheeks. His hands slipped from his waist to hang down his sides. “No.” He shook his head, a little frantically as it seemed to Ash.
Finnian put a hand on St. Asaph’s arm. “Of course she wouldn’t,” he said soothingly.
The boys looked at each other. An unspoken message seemed to pass between them, and St. Asaph visibly relaxed. He took a deep breath. “Of course not.” But then his face darkened once more and he turned back to Ash. “You must have done something.”
“Must I?” Leaning against the window frame, Ash crossed his arms in front of his chest. Cool and controlled. Even though his heart hammered in his chest and his hands were clammy with sweat. “She might have simply gone for a walk, have you thought of that?”
“Indeed, my lord, Master Finnian, your mother has a great fondness for walking,” Mr. Sambrook cut in, and a slight smile lifted his lips. “She greatly enjoyed walking in the area as a girl. Perhaps now she just wishes to reacquaint herself with it all.”
At his land steward’s words, Ash’s fingers dug into his own arms. How could he have forgotten that the man had known Georgina in the past? A girl, he had called her. And a girl she had been.
For a moment, Ash had to close his eyes to master the dull pain in his chest.
He had been barely twenty when he had married her. And she not yet nineteen. So young—but he had not been able to wait any longer for her. He had to have her. So pure and cheerful and just a little wild, like a colt not yet quite grown. How often had she come home from her ramblings with her hair all in disarray, long strands flowing down her back, and her face ruddy from the crisp air? How she had thrown her arms around his neck and rubbed her cold cheek against his, as if she had wanted to snuggle up to the warmth he had to offer.
And like a fool he had given all of himself to her, body and soul.
Just in time, Ash bit back a groan. Angrily, he opened his eyes and shook his head. A maudlin fool, that’s what he was to let the past catch up with him like that.
Mr. Sambrook had continued talking, his voice deep and sure. “—so you might want to go to the inn in the afternoon and see if you don’t catch her there.”
For once, St. Asaph seemed at a loss for words. “Well...”
“We will do that.” His brother grabbed his
arm. “Thank you, Mr. Sambrook. My lord.” A wary glance in Ash’s direction, then Finnian dragged St. Asaph out of the room.
The land steward chuckled softly. “A veritable hothead, young St. Asaph.”
Ash scowled at him. “I don’t see what’s so amusing about this,” he snapped. “Back to business, Mr. Sambrook, if you please.”
She was out there somewhere, walking and letting her cheeks bloom in the fresh air, though he doubted she would now allow her hair to be disarrayed. She was out there, walking and most likely remembering how she had once taken him for a fool.
And this afternoon she would return and her mere presence would resurrect all the ghosts of the past to torment him.
His hands clenched into fists.
To torture him with the memory of her betrayal. With futile, foolish thoughts of if only.
Yes, in the afternoon at the latest she would return to see her sons and he would stand here at the window, like a kicked dog, waiting to catch a glimpse of her.
Ash gave a snort of disgust.
Fool, bloody fool.
But she did not return that afternoon.
Nor the next morning.
~*~
Barefoot and otherwise equally stark naked, Trevor Augustus Sherard, the youngest son of the Earl of Harborough, sauntered across the room to the window and lifted the drapes to peek outside. “Marvellous day.”
On the bed, the man who called himself Guy Richardson rolled onto his side, and, his head propped on his hand, admired the sight of his lover stretching in front of the window. His gaze wandered over the strong, smooth muscles flowing down Trev’s back to the two sweet dimples just above the buttocks. Guy grinned. The contrast between the dimples and Trev’s hard and toned body never failed to amuse him. A private joke of Mother Nature, two divine thumbprints pressed into the clay that had formed Trevor Sherard.
“Hmhmm, just marvellous,” Guy agreed.
Trev turned his head to throw him a look over his shoulder. When he noticed the smile on the other man’s face, an impish twinkle lit up his deep blue eyes. “I was talking about the weather.”