Betrayal Read online

  Georgina gaped at him. Truly, this was beyond extraordinary! Had he really just called her his wife? And—Lady Ashburnham’s testimonial? Whatever did that mean? Had Lady Ashburnham told her son that Georgina was having an affair with his cousin? It seemed too fantastic. Surely, not even the dowager countess would resort to such base, malicious lies!

  His big body exuding menace, Ash took another step towards Guy. “Do you know how she has lived? Do you? A lady’s companion, that’s what became of her!” he yelled, the famous Ashburnham control and decorum all but vanished into thin air. “Just look at her! Ugly, drab dresses and a horrible coiffure, that’s what has become of her! And for all you’ve cared, she could have ended up in the gutter!” As he stopped, the room rang with the sudden stillness. His chest heaved with the force of his outburst.

  Guy eyed him for a moment, then he turned and walked to the man who had come with him. “I believe I have forgotten to properly introduce Mr. Sherard,” he said lightly.

  Georgina’s breath caught as she realised what he was about to do. “No, Guy...”

  He threw her a look full of regret and sadness and love all mingled, yet unerringly continued to strode forward. “Oh yes, my dear. It’s way beyond time.” When he had reached Mr. Sherard, he took his hand and turned. “May I introduce Trevor Augustus Sherard”—his gaze strayed from Ash to the man beside him—“my good friend, partner...”

  “You would not dare!” the dowager countess hissed. And louder. “You would not dare!” Her hand reached for the support of the side table.

  Guy’s lips curved in a very private smile. “...and lover,” he ended, and raised Mr. Sherard’s hand to his mouth for a kiss.

  “What?” All colour fled Ash’s face. He turned a sickly grey. If Georgina had ever wanted revenge on her former husband, his expression now would have fulfilled her wildest wishes. As it was, it only filled her with sadness.

  Paper white, his mother sank onto the settee. “Don’t believe a word of what he says, Ashburnham.” Her voice a dissonant screech.

  Guy overrode her easily. “To be brutally honest”—he flicked Georgina a rueful glance—“much as I love Georgina, I doubt I would have been able to actually lie with her.”

  Ash swayed, and for a moment Georgina feared he would crumble and fall. Without conscious thought she took a step towards him, her hand outstretched. “Ash...”

  Yet he didn’t even spare her a glance. Instead his expression hardened and his eyes remained trained on his cousin. “My mother told me she had seen the two of you together. That she had witnesses who would swear you had been involved in an... in an illicit affair for months. Why should she lie to me like that?”

  “Oh, that is easy.” Guy gave a humourless laugh. “After all, I had time enough to figure it out.” He gazed at the dowager countess, who seemed to have aged years in the past few moments. His lips thinned. “She wanted you for herself. Only for herself. I was your best friend and Georgina your beloved wife—there was no room for us.”

  “You were not worthy of him,” his aunt muttered. She raised her eyes to her son. “They did not deserve you, Ashburnham. Do you hear me? It was for you. For you!”

  Ash’s jaw clenched.

  “Indeed,” Guy continued, his tone light and almost mocking, his words dancing over the tragedy of their lives. “And so you got rid of us, aunt. It must have seemed such a lucky strike of fate to you when you discovered my secret. In one go, you could now remove both of us from your son’s life.” He focussed his attention on Ash. “She threatened to expose me if I should not disappear from your life.” He grimaced. “My only excuse is that I was young and too frightened to stand up to her.”

  Ash didn’t pay him any attention. He stared at his mother as if he had never seen her before. “You told me you had seen them together,” he said, his voice so hoarse Georgina almost didn’t recognise it. “You told me my cousin had an affair with my wife and that he had fled before I could find out because he feared my wrath.” With each word, he took a step towards the dowager countess until he towered over her. “You let me divorce my wife.” A shudder ran through his big body. “And it was all lies?”

  The older woman’s hand trembled as she reached out to grasp his wrist. “I did it for you, Ashburnham. You must see that! You deserved so much better! Only the best for you.” She tried to shake his arm, but he stood still as a rock.

  Never in her whole life would Georgina forget the expression on his face. The utter, utter bleakness she could see in his eyes. And despite all, her heart bled for him.

  “Best for me?” he repeated hollowly. “I loved my wife. I loved her more than my own life.” He drew a shuddering breath. “And I let you destroy all of it when I believed your filthy lies.”

  Something in Georgina eased. She had always blamed him for not loving her enough, for not trusting her enough. If he had truly loved her, wouldn’t he have known the stories about her and Guy to be falsehoods? But now, listening as he blamed himself, she remembered what Guy had said,“...I am no longer a frightened boy.” Had they not all been impossibly young back then? Just a few years older than her sons were now. And while, looking at them, she could already see the men they would one day become, they were still unfinished; young colts with gangly limbs. Would she expect them to weather the storms of life like men full-grown and experienced in the ways of life? How could she have expected Ash to withstand the ties of blood when he had been barely older?

  She took a deep breath. “Ash...”

  He shook his head, not taking his eyes off his mother. “How could you?”

  Georgina became aware that Guy watched his cousin intently, and something about the look of cool speculation on his face alarmed her. “But this was not all she told you,” he said very slowly. “Was it?”

  Ash’s head jerked around. The two men exchanged a long glance, and Georgina thought his face became even more ashen.

  Guy came towards him. “There was still one other person who could demand your love.”

  Ash swallowed convulsively. “St. Asaph.” It was almost inaudible.

  No! Georgina’s hand flew to cover her mouth. Please, God, no.

  The cousins came to stand face to face. Guy cocked his head to the side as he searched Ash’s eyes. “Since you believed I had slept with your wife and since our colouring is so similar, you could never be sure.”

  With a moan of pain, Georgina clasped her hands over her eyes. But she could not drown out Guy’s voice.

  “You could never be sure if the son you reared as your own was really yours.”

  The silence in the room was absolute.

  Somebody drew a shuddering breath. A rustle of clothes. And then the Earl of Ashburnham spoke, in those terrible, terrible icy-cold tones she had heard him use only once before. “Lady Ashburnham, you will remove yourself from this house within an hour. If I’m not mistaken, my father had a summer-house in the Lake District. I believe this will be a sufficient establishment for one person and a few servants.”

  “Ashburnham!”

  Georgina opened her eyes again. Ash’s expression was dreadful to behold, his face bone white. Despite the tight control he exercised over his emotions right now, she feared he would shatter into a million pieces any moment.

  “Ashburnham!” the dowager countess repeated more forcefully. “You cannot possibly do this. I am your mother!” The next moment she shrank back under the look of disdain he cast her.

  “You are mistaken, madam,” he said coldly. “I have no mother.” And with that, he turned his back on her.

  For a second or two, Georgina thought the older woman would break down then and there. Yet a lifetime of iron discipline came to her rescue. She straightened and raised her chin at a haughty angle. “Very well, Ashburnham. But do not forget that I did it all for your own good.”

  Ash went to stand in front of one of the windows, his back to the room. “For my own good?” His hands gripped the window sill. “You wrecked my life and made me into
an emotional cripple. For my own good?—I think not.”

  But she had already left the room.

  “Freddie,” Guy began.

  “Is she gone?” Ash turned. His eyes flicked from one object in the room to the next. “You will stay the night, of course?—Good.” He nodded. “If you will excuse me? I have...” His voice faltered. Georgina hurt for him when she saw how much effort it cost him to regain control over himself. “I have business to attend to.”

  “Ash,” she tried again.

  “No.” He shook his head violently. “Not now, Georgina. God, not now...” He rushed out of the room, without ever sparing her a look.

  Guy cleared his throat. “Well...”

  A feeling of faintness passed through her and she quickly sat down on her chair. “Well,” she said brightly. “Shall I ring for tea?” And burst into tears.

  Chapter 16

  Some time later her sons bounced into the room, as gangly and eager as young hounds. They shot Guy and his Mr. Sherard curious looks, but for once their need for reassurance won over manners and they honed in on their mother instead. Finn sank down on the armrest of Georgina’s chair and took her hand. “Lady Ashburnham has left.”

  “Good,” Guy said, savage satisfaction evident in his tone, and handed Georgina his handkerchief. “Here, dearest.”

  She blew her nose, yet still registered the dark scowl her eldest shot Guy.

  “You will stay now, won’t you?” Gary said to her. “It was Granddame who wanted you to leave.” He glanced at his brother. “You cannot leave now,” he added fiercely.

  She reached for his hand. “I hardly know, sweetheart.” Strong and brawny, his fingers curled around hers. Almost a man, yet still so young. With her free hand, Georgina took Finn’s hand. “But I know that you two will not be separated again.” At the thought of leaving both of her wonderful sons behind this time, tears welled in her eyes once more. “From now on you will always have each other.”

  Gary’s expression darkened. “And what about you?” he demanded.

  Jones’s entrance spared her the need to find an answer. And what could she have told her son anyway? Weariness dragged down her bones. Even before she had come to England, to Ashburnham Hall, she had known what price she would have to pay for her return. But to see her sons reunited had been worth any price.

  Georgina shook her head and focussed her attention on the seemingly distraught butler. “What is it, Jones?”

  “My lady...” He gulped. “Mrs. Crawley...” He took a deep breath while he visibly struggled to regain some of his normal butler aplomb. “His lordship has closed himself into his study and won’t be persuaded to let anybody enter. In view of the recent events, we found this deeply... worrying.”

  “The study?” Letting go of her sons’ hands, Georgina stumbled to her feet. An icy band seemed to snake around her heart and tightened painfully, driving the breath from her body.

  The study—where Ash kept several of his firearms.

  Guy’s thoughts apparently ran along similar lines. “Blast it!” he swore. Then he turned towards her. “He wouldn’t—”

  “Wouldn’t he?” A strange calmness overcame her. The same calmness that had gripped her when one of Farmer Heuzer’s half-wild dogs had cornered five-year-old Finnian. Armed with a thick branch, she had stepped between the animal and her son. She knew she would have killed the dog if it hadn’t left off and run away. Later she had tried to forget she had ever been in the grip of such primitive urges. The urge to kill in order to protect those she loved.

  She looked at Guy. “After his world came virtually crashing down his ears?”

  He blanched a little.

  She nodded. “I thought so.”

  “What?” Gary’s gaze flicked from one to the other. “What is it?”

  And Finn, who knew her so much better, stood and touched her arm. “Mama?” She could hear the fear in his voice, yet now was not the time to see after her children.

  “It will be all right,” she said firmly, and stepped away from him, already on her way out of the room. “You will stay here.”

  “But—”

  “No.” If something happened, she didn’t want her sons to witness it. “Jones, you lead the way.”

  In the blink of an eye, Guy was at her side. Wordless, he took her hand.

  “Have we no right to know what is going on?” Gary said, his voice belligerent. “You cannot just keep us here.”

  Exasperated, Georgina whirled around. “Gareth Crawley, you will not move from this room, else I will show you how well I can take a green stick to your hide.”

  His mouth slightly open, he stared at her.

  “Understood?”

  “Yes, Mama.” Finn drew his brother down onto one of the settees. “We shan’t move an inch.”

  “And I shall keep them company.” For the first time, Mr. Sherard spoke up. “Don’t make such a face, Guy. Off you go.” He went over to the settee facing the twins.

  And so Georgina, Guy, and Jones rushed down the hallways and found the door of the study still locked and closed. Guy thudded his fist against the thick door. “Frederick? Open up, will you.”

  They listened. “He never answers,” Jones murmured.

  Georgina stepped up to the door and put her fingertips against the gleaming wood. “Ash? Ash, it’s me, Georgina. Will you let me in?”

  For a moment, only more silence greeted her. But then—

  “Go away,” she heard him say, his voice muffled by the thick wood.

  Thank God, he’s still alive. With a sigh of relief she leaned her forehead against the door. “Ash—”

  “For heaven’s sake, go away and leave me alone!”

  For Guy, this was apparently the last straw. He shouldered her aside, thumped against the door and bellowed, “If you don’t open up right this minute we’re going to knock down the door!” His chest heaving, he stood and looked daggers at the hapless door.

  Georgina snorted. “Don’t be a ninny. This is sturdiest oak. You would more likely break your arm than anything else.” She brushed a loose lock of her hair out of her face. “There is another entrance to the study,” she added quietly. “I will go in.”

  His scowl was fierce to behold. “Alone?”

  Jones, too, was obviously more than a little worried at the prospect. “Oh, my lady, do take care!”

  “Of course.” She laid her hand on Guy’s shoulder and rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “This is something I should have done seventeen years ago.” With that, she turned and strode towards the central staircase to climb to the first floor. Seventeen years since she last went down that particular corridor. Seventeen years since she last stepped into the master bedroom of Ashburnham Hall. Seventeen years was an awfully long time to shut away memories of the past. Now they rose one by one, not the dark, bleak birds she had feared for so long, but the bolder, gayer ones.

  Georgina quietly closed the door behind her and leaned against it, her legs suddenly as weak as syllabub. Spicy bergamot mingled with the scent of fresh linen and beeswax. Helpless, her gaze was drawn to the enormous four poster bed, enveloped by the same heavy, green drapes she remembered so well. A pile of books on the small bedside cabinet—sometimes he would wake her whispering poetry into her ear. And, at another time, lasciviously, the raciest scenes from Thérèse philosophe. By the time she had come fully awake, she had been wet and quivering for his touch, panting to feel him inside her.

  Leaning her head back against the door, Georgina closed her eyes.

  How he had tormented her that morning. How he had delighted in showing her the illustrations that made her flush with embarrassment. Yet each and every time he had teased and coaxed her until she had imitated the positions in the pictures. She had been his to mould. She would have done anything for him that morning.

  Her eyes snapped open.

  They had been young and lusty and had not known how much more there was to love. But now she did.

  Determinedly, s
he shoved the memories aside and pushed herself away from the door to march across the room towards the fireplace. Her fingers glided over the decorations of the panelling until she had found the right rosette. She pressed the center and the secret door slid aside to reveal a narrow staircase. “Should you ever feel lonely,” she heard a younger Ash tell her, a cheeky grin on his face, “you can always slip through here down to my study and... do... whatever you want to do with me, and nobody will be the wiser.” She remembered how he had walked toward her, forcing her to step back until her back was pressed against the cool stone wall—a delicious contrast to his hot body in front of her. “It will be,” he whispered, and with each word let his lips brush against hers, “our very own... sweet... secret.” Finally, his lips had captured hers, teasing her with imagined possibilities. Soon, his kisses had turned hot and passionate as his tongue had swept into her mouth and he had proceeded to ravish her.

  Georgina shook her head to dispel the memory. Quickly she fetched a candle from the golden candelabra on the desk of drawers and lit it. One hand shielding the flame from the draft in the staircase, she went into the stony darkness. The air smelled stale, and dust had gathered on the steps—a testimony to how long it had been since this secret passage had last been used. To her right and left flickering shadows sprang up from the walls, as if the staircase was inhabited by a horde of monsters. A dozen copies of Cerberus, guarding the passage into the Netherworld. Yet she was no longer a girl, but a grown woman, and the monsters of the night held no longer any terror for her. She had long since learnt that it was the human variety one had to fear and fight against. Her steps slowed as she neared the end of her journey through the dark. Quietly she stepped up to the door, pulled the leverage, and—

  Daylight flooded the darkness. She blew out the candle and slipped into Ash’s Underworld. Here the scent of beeswax was overlaid by the smells of old paper and ink, of potent spirits and human sweat.