Unveiled (Turner #1)(38)
He scrubbed his hand—his unstabbed hand, that was—through his hair. “I suppose it’s just as well you find out.”
“Mr. Turner,” Margaret started. She stopped as his eyes narrowed at her. “Ash,” she continued. “Perhaps you may not have realized this, but I have discovered that you are imperfect before. This hardly comes as a surprise.”
She had discovered it. Over the course of their acquaintance, she’d been made aware of the many, many ways in which he failed at perfection. It was just that he kept making her forget them all.
“All things between the two of us considered,” he said slowly, “there is something else you ought to know.” His eyes met hers. “It’s rather a secret, and so I’d prefer you not spread it about.”
He could not have been considering all things, since he didn’t know who she really was. Still, his smile made her wish that he did know everything. And that, having been apprised of the truth, he still thought she was worthy to hear his secrets.
She felt a sick lump form in her throat. He might be the only person in the world who believed she mattered. It would be the most extraordinary gift she could imagine, if she told him who she was, and if he still looked at her with that light in his eyes—
“After all,” he said with a wry shrug of his shoulders, “if the Dalrymples ever discovered this, they’d tear me to shreds and leave my corpse to be ravaged by buzzards.”
—but no. He wouldn’t.
“But I’m babbling,” Ash said with a sigh. “Here it is.” He swallowed and blew out his breath. “I can’t read.”
Margaret’s wistful longings evaporated in a shocked curl of smoke. Her mouth dropped open, and before she could stop herself, a gasp escaped her.
“Oh, no,” he said. “Not like that. I’m capable of making out words on a page. I know my alphabet. It’s just…I am not any good at making sense of all those symbols. I can pick out words, but by the time I’ve got the next one down, I’ve practically forgotten the last. They never quite manage to coalesce into sentences.” His voice was whisper-quiet, but he spoke with a dire urgency.
Of all the things Margaret could have imagined Ash telling her, this…this came dead last.
“But you’re so…” Margaret waved a hand, almost futilely, trying to describe what she meant. “So competent.”
There were a great many people who couldn’t read. But most of them were chimney sweeps and milkmaids. Not heirs to dukedoms. Not nabobs from India, who had amassed personal fortunes in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.
“How have you possibly done all this?” She spread her arms wide as she spoke, indicating the library, the desk, the account books in front of him.
Ash shrugged and turned one shoulder away.
Margaret followed. “You’re a successful businessman. You don’t speak as if you were…”
He turned to her abruptly. “Stupid?” He was suddenly standing too close, his eyes tight, his lips compressed.
Margaret shook her head, unable to respond.
“Don’t ask me to explain,” he said. “I don’t know what it is. I just can’t understand words when they’re written down. They feel slippery in my mind. Now, if someone were to have a conversation with me about any subject, I could follow along, and gladly. And, for some reason, numbers have never posed a problem. I can figure. But I can never understand the back-and-forth of negotiations if I cannot look a man in the eyes. That’s what I need.”
“But how is it that you never learned? Your father was a wealthy mill owner. Surely you had tutors. Some sort of education.”
Ash shrugged. “I had a tutor. He taught me my letters. And once he realized there was a…a problem with the rest, he was as eager to hide the truth as I was. After all, if he couldn’t teach a five-year-old child to read, he’d have been sacked for gross incompetence. After my father died, there were no tutors at all. Perhaps if I’d gone to Eton, as my brothers did, I’d have learned.” He sounded dubious.
As he spoke, he looked into her eyes. Margaret shivered.
“Or perhaps I wouldn’t have. Paper isn’t enough for me. I need to see.” His voice dropped low. “To hear. To smell.” His gaze wandered down her face. She could feel a flush rise on her cheeks as he stopped at her lips. “To taste.” He raised his eyes to hers again, and a small smile played across his face. “I can understand anything, if I but look it in the eyes.”
She felt her chest expand on an inhale. The air was painful in the confines of her lungs. She knew this about him. He didn’t even know her true name. “Ash,” she said, her voice trembling, “that note I left you—I didn’t know.”
“I understood.” His fingers constricted around hers. “Even on paper, I understood.” He sat down again, this time sitting directly on the surface of his desk. As he did, his arm brushed hers.
“There you are,” he said. “I’m not very ducal, am I? Tell me you’ll keep my secret.”
It was a measure of how deeply she had fallen under his spell, that she had not realized until this moment that she could use this against him. The news that Mr. Ash Turner had difficulty reading would send a ripple of consternation through the House of Lords. After all, how many bills would pass his desk for a vote? How many papers would he be expected to keep abreast of?