Unveiled (Turner #1)(42)
When he didn’t respond, she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “I can see I’ve offended you. I didn’t intend to imply— I apologize—”
“No.” He choked the word out, and she drew back further. “I mean, no, don’t apologize.” He was stunned, too stunned to form a response. But he caught her hand in his. Their fingers intertwined, his grip saying what his mouth could not manage. He squeezed all his pent-up helplessness, his secret shame into her fingers.
“I promised Mark,” he explained awkwardly. His inability to read was a guilty, secret part of him, something to be hidden away from the light of day under a mass of lies and misdirection. He’d invented excuse after excuse, pleaded his schedule a thousand times, ordered employees to summarize numerous documents.
But this…this, he couldn’t hide.
She’d looked into his darkest degradation and whispered that he was not alone. Maybe this was what he’d felt, that fine morning when he’d first seen her out on the steps. He’d felt an echo of this moment—as if he were somehow, finally, coming home.
He nodded at Margaret. “Very well,” he said. He knew his voice sounded harsh, almost devoid of emotion. It was merely because she had no idea how long he’d carried that burden in solitude. To think he might trust someone with his secret—and that she might offer to help, that she might bridge the gap between Ash and his brothers… He couldn’t even contemplate it. If he hid behind gruffness, it was because his throat felt scratchy, as if he were on the verge of weeping.
Not that he would.
That would have been ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as the rush of vulnerability that overtook him, as if he were some nocturnal insect blinded by the sudden light of her regard. If it had been anyone else at this moment, he might have scuttled away. But then…it was Margaret.
Instead he simply nodded at her. She took the pages from him and shuffled them into order.
“A Gentleman’s Practical Guide to Chastity,” she began to read. “By Mark Turner.” She cocked her head and looked at Ash. “A practical guide to chastity? What does that mean?”
Ash shrugged. So that was what the words on the front page had said. “I suspect we are about to discover that.” He put his hands on the arms of his seat, readying himself. It may have been a dry philosophical text of intellectual import, but it was his brother’s dry philosophical text. He was not going to think about the juxtaposition of her full lips and the words of chastity. He was not going to make some juvenile witticism.
“‘Chapter One,’” Margaret read. “‘Entitled: Chastity is hard.’”
Ash sniggered despite himself. So much for keeping his juvenile thoughts at bay. “Yes,” he murmured. “Hard is usually how I find myself after an unfortunate bout with chastity.”
She flicked a glance at him, her lips curving upwards in amusement, and then she shook her head and read once more. “‘Too often, moralists stress the need for upright behavior. But this emphasis is often impractical in its effect. When a man fails to meet one overly rigorous standard, his usual reaction is to give up on all of them.’”
With the words spoken aloud, Mark’s book wasn’t hard to follow. In fact, it even made sense. Ash nodded, and Margaret went on.
“‘For instance, we have all heard that if a man lusts after a woman, he has already committed adultery in his heart. This admonition is rooted in good intentions—after all, one ought to keep one’s thoughts uplifted at all times. Unfortunately, the base male mind, always keen on having its own way, often inverts the principle. Well, a man reasons to himself, if I am already damned for committing adultery in my heart, I might as well have the enjoyment of committing adultery in the flesh.’”
Ash let out a surprised bark of laughter—both because what his brother said was all too true, and because he could see Mark saying those words, his face lighting with irrepressible good humor. Margaret was smiling as she read, too. Dimples had come out on her cheeks.
He liked her dimples.
“‘The truth,’” she intoned, “‘is that chastity is hard. It is particularly hard for the young, unmarried gentleman who is besieged on the one hand by admonitions that he not even so much as consider a woman’s ankle, and on the other, by invitations to avail himself of the great multitude of opportunities available to any man with a few coins to his name. For most such young gentlemen, a choice between the impossible and the pleasant is no choice at all. That is why I have written this first practical guide to chastity.’”
“You know,” Ash remarked, “my brother is either going to win instant accolades with this book, or he’s going to be charged with blasphemy and these pages will join Thomas Paine and Fanny Hill on the list of forbidden titles.”
“Both, in fact, are possible.” Margaret stared at the pages in her hand. “For a book on chastity, he has already touched on adultery and ankles. It seems surprisingly outré, given the subject matter.”
“Only because you’re reading it. The word ankle is a thousand times more provocative when spoken by a beautiful woman.”
A light flush touched her cheeks. But she gave him a dry stare. “Do stop these compliments, or I might find myself sinning in my heart instead of reading.”
“Are you just starting that, then? My heart has been sinning for a very long time.” The dimple on her cheek deepened, but she pursed those sensual lips in a pretense of primness and gathered up the pages again.