Unveiled (Turner #1)(49)
“Rid oneself of what?” Margaret asked.
The two men had turned to her as one. It was only with the greatest difficulty that Margaret did not miss her next step. When Ash saw her, his face lit. In the dreadful heat of the oncoming noon, any additional warmth ought to have felt disagreeable. But instead, the flush that burned her cheeks felt welcome. As if he were a cool breeze and a raging inferno all at once. He didn’t say her name. He didn’t reach for her. Instead, he simply watched her as she descended the staircase, his eyes following her down. He placed one hand over his waistcoat pocket.
“You know what you need, Mark?” Ash said, not taking his eyes off Margaret. “You need a wife.”
She missed the last step at that, and barely caught herself from sliding to his feet by clutching at the banister.
“What?” Mark sputtered. “I’m too young to marry.”
“Women manage matrimony at a far younger age. And besides, with a wife, you’d discover more practical ways to rid yourself of…of lustful thoughts than whatever it is you came up with for your book. More importantly, if you had a wife, you would be forced to have at least ten minutes of conversation, once a day.”
“I haven’t met anyone I wish to marry.”
Ash slanted Margaret a sly look and winked at her, and she felt a stab of confusion. That early talk of tumbling women, she had understood. But this? Her brothers had never talked about other women like this. In fact, Edmund had complained bitterly when she told him to dance with her friend Elaine. He’d feared that Elaine might enlarge upon a single waltz until she believed herself about to be married.
Marriage, so far as Margaret had been given to understand, was a consummation devoutly to be avoided by men of good title and ordinary character—at least, until the passage of time and the complaints of female relatives made it inevitable.
“Is something the matter, Margaret?” Ash glanced at her. “Surely you’re not opposed to the concept of matrimony. I was thinking I ought to drag my brother with me to some of the society events this upcoming Season, so he can find a woman virtuous enough to satisfy his practical needs.”
“In point of fact,” Mark said dryly, “a wedding would be of little practical use, if she remained virtuous after marriage.”
At the thought of Ash and Mark descending upon polite society… Margaret wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to cry. A duke’s heir with several hundred thousand pounds, and his angelic-looking brother? Oh, the schemes that would arise. The women who would swoon. The furor that would rise up, if it were bruited about that either was actively seeking a wife.
Margaret shook her head. “Aren’t you worried?”
“Worried?” Ash’s eyebrows rose in confusion. “Ought I be? About what?”
“About…” Margaret spread her arms wide. “You know. Women. You’re wealthy. You’re young. You’re handsome, and if…if matters go your way, the two of you will be in line to inherit one of the most respected titles in all of England. Aren’t you worried that some scheming chit will trap you into matrimony?”
Ash and Mark both looked up at her, their expressions mirror reflections of concern.
Then Ash shook his head. “You have the strangest ideas in your head. In your experience, how many women are there who are intelligent enough to scheme me or my brother into matrimony, but also foolish enough to force a marriage with a man who doesn’t wish to have her?”
Margaret simply stared at him. “I don’t—that is to say—”
“Precisely. I’m not opposed to matrimony, should I find myself in love.” His eyes met hers, and she felt her toes curl.
He couldn’t mean her. He couldn’t possibly mean her. She was a servant, a nurse, a bastard. Dukes didn’t marry bastards. But then, Ash had always stood outside of her experience altogether. And she didn’t know what he intended. Not any longer.
The concept was so foreign to her—the notion of a man marrying without being bullied into it—that she could say no more. By the way he was looking at her, he no doubt remembered their conversation on this score. Her fiancé. The dreadful shame she had felt.
“Miss Lowell.” His voice was quiet. “I have no idea where you received your notions. No doubt you’ll tell me it’s no business of mine. But I find there is something I should—no, I must—say to you.” He paused and ran his tongue over his lips. “If a man ever lets you know that he sees marriage as a trap, and women as nothing but scheming connivers, you are by no means to marry him. Any man that sees your entire sex in so harsh a light has nothing to offer you.”
Put that way… Her emotions swung towards him, the needle on a compass pointing northward. Hope and despair collided within her, all twining into that word.
Marriage.
Frederick could never have thought much of her, or he’d never have used her as he did. She was better off without any of the men who had paid her court and then turned their backs on her when she was announced a bastard. There was only one man who’d looked at her and seen something worth seeing. But no. She couldn’t think of marrying him, either. Once he discovered who she was, he would despise her.
“But—” she began to say.
He chopped his hand down, as if to end all further inquiry. “But nothing. Either it’s an honor to marry a woman, or it’s not to be done at all, not at any cost.”