Unveiled (Turner #1)(26)

But he’d found something better than mere animal satisfaction last night. Just as the natural curves of her body had been revealed by the night, so, too, she had slipped beyond the starchy disdain she’d directed at him these past days. There had been something raw and honest about that late-night conversation—something that had transcended the formal boundaries she’d insisted must stand between them. With those walls destroyed, anything could happen. Everything could happen. Ash felt as if he stood on the precipice of some tall cliff, readying himself to jump. In a few moments, he would know if the rush of wind he felt about him meant he was flying or falling.

He picked the paper up. And here he’d already refused one report. But then, this wasn’t a dry, business communication. He could hardly ask Strong to read this aloud.

He could imagine her slipping in here, just before dawn. She would have leaned against his desk, here, bending over the inkwell. A welcome image, that, if entirely distracting—the smooth fabric of her gown falling over the sweet swell of her bu**ocks, framing curves that were made to be cupped in the palm of his hand. And how had she got into this locked room? Ah, yes. The master key. With that, she might have stolen into his bedchamber. She might have come to him on silent feet, to press those beguiling curves against his chest, his groin… Hell. If he’d contemplated that possibility last night, he truly wouldn’t have slept. Not one wink.

But now was not the time to indulge in fantasy—not with Strong looking on, not when he held a more tangible—if less physically gratifying—reality in his hands. He unfolded her note gingerly. Only two short words on that paper, and a signature. Ash took a deep breath—it would have been idiotic to be nervous, and he tried to avoid idiocy—and read.

Two short little words. He read them, one by one. I’m. Sorry. He read it again to be sure, and the second time it said the same thing: I’m sorry, plainly spelled out for anyone to see. The apology was followed by an M and a wavering squiggle of ink.

Margaret? Or Miss Lowell? He couldn’t tell, and for a moment he almost considered asking Strong for his interpretation. But it didn’t matter what she’d called herself. That moment when she’d lobbed that bit of dirt at him—well, he’d wanted to see her in the throes of passion. Now he had. Not the passion he’d hoped for, true, but still it had been a candid, unstudied response. There would be more of those. Many, many more. Next time she looked at him with that much emotion shimmering in her eyes, he’d have better comfort to offer than a mug of warm milk.

When he looked up at Strong, Ash felt a tight little smile on his face. Those two words had warmed him more than the thought of her bending over his desk, her skirts touching the wood paneling. Her feet had been on the floor where he now stood. She had tiptoed into his suite, in the dark of night, while he lay sleeping a scant handful of yards away.

For the past week he’d been mired in place, making no progress with his brothers, the upcoming debate in Parliament, or her.

But he felt it now, a certainty burning deep inside him. It was all going to come right, and she was the key.

“Good news, sir?”

Ash folded her note in quarters. “The best, Mr. Strong. The absolute best.”

“MISS LOWELL. HAVE YOU the time for another lesson?”

Margaret stopped in the hall. She’d not been sure how to face Mr. Ash Turner again after last night—after her outburst and his too-kind response. But his younger brother posed no such difficulties. Still, she remembered her brother’s letter.

He’s a dangerous beast. She turned to him.

“Mr. Turner—”

“Mark.” He looked as innocent and unassuming as always, and dressed in white and silver, he seemed to glow with positive innocence in the sunlight.

“Mark,” she acquiesced. “I’ve been wondering. You aren’t exactly teaching me to fight by gentleman’s rules, are you?”

He shrugged. “What use would that be? You’ll never need to use what I’m teaching you against a gentleman who follows the rules.”

“I’m merely wondering how you learned to fight this way.”

He looked at her. “My brother—my other brother, the one you’ve not yet met—and I spent a bit of time on the streets of Bristol. You learn a great deal when survival is foisted upon you. Served me a few good turns when I was at Eton.”

Mr. Turner had made the same claim, that Mark had spent time on the streets. Perhaps that was why Richard had called him dangerous. This was yet another confirmation of the unsettling disclosure Ash had made last night.

But looking into Mark’s face, she saw nothing of the street waif in him. She didn’t know what to think. “From the streets of Bristol to Eton. That must have been…different.”

“Not so much. I made an excellent target those first few months at school. All the bullies looked to prove themselves.” His smile widened, ever so slightly. “If you have to fight off five boys at once, you can’t fight fairly.”

A small knot coalesced in Margaret’s stomach. “By chance, did you ever have to fight off Richard Dalrymple?”

“Him? Oh, no.” He smiled at her.

She took a breath in relief. Somehow, if he’d struck her brother, it would make her tentative friendship with him seem all the more disingenuous.

“Just Edmund.”