Unveiled (Turner #1)(97)

“You do know what Forsyth’s objection was, don’t you?”

Ash did, but the more he could make Dallington explain, the less he had to pretend. “Humor me with an explanation.”

“The Duchess of Parford’s marriage settlements—or at least, sixty thousand pounds of them—had been set in trust for her lawful female issue. If the Act of Legitimation fails to pass, his sister the duchess has no lawful female issue, and the trust reverts to him.”

“I see,” Ash said slowly. Even though he didn’t.

“Now that the suit no longer names Lady Anna Margaret,” Dallington continued, “there is no danger of Forsyth losing the money.”

It was all Ash could do to keep from gasping. As it was, he felt as if he had been punched in the kidneys. He bent slightly, his hands striking the table in front of him, before raising his eyes to Dalrymple. “You—” He bit back the epithet he’d been about to hurl. “You left your own sister off. You’ll leave her illegitimate, just so you can have your dukedom back.”

Well. At least that explained why the man’s expression of triumph seemed so unvictorious. At least he had the grace not to be proud of what he was doing. Margaret had gone to Ash and begged on her brothers’ behalf. She might have had Ash. She might have been the Duchess of Parford herself. But she’d refused to abandon her brothers to illegitimacy.

“I didn’t hit you nearly hard enough the other night,” Ash growled. “Is that what you Dalrymple men do? You abandon your women to bear the brunt of society’s hurt, just so that you can have an easy life?”

“You think this was an easy decision?” Dalrymple demanded.

Ash took a step closer—swiftly enough that Dalrymple flinched from him.

“Gentlemen!” Lacy-Follett said. “The point of this meeting is to avoid further violence, not to foment it.”

Hitting Dalrymple had done little good so far. Violence would only convince more men to support the man’s suit. Dalrymple’s faithless, ugly suit.

Ash turned away, his hands fisting at his sides. What was it going to do to Margaret when she discovered that her brother had betrayed her into illegitimacy, as her father had? What would she say? How would she feel?

He could imagine her pain with a startling intensity.

And for just one second, Ash could see how to use this. Dalrymple still needed one of these men for his suit to go forwards. Instinct clamored inside him. A man who would betray a sister was no candidate for the dukedom. He could make the case. He could win all these men over to his side, settle the dispute once and for all.

But…but what if he did?

He had always thought of the suit in Parliament as pertaining to her brothers. Ever since Ash had met her, he’d been assiduously courting votes in Parliament to defeat the act that Dalrymple proposed. But until this afternoon, that act had included all the duke’s children. Including Margaret.

That little detail had seemed unimportant—so unimportant, in fact, that he’d never considered it, and she had never mentioned it. But if Ash won, he would be the one to betray her. He would make her a bastard, twice over. He’d been trying to keep her a bastard all this time.

He had not only destroyed her life unwittingly, before he’d met her; he had continued to destroy it, even after he knew who she was. Even after he loved her.

Ash opened his eyes and glanced at his foe. The man stood, his shoulders drawn together. For all of Dalrymple’s flinching cowardice, Ash felt a shameful sense of kinship with him. They’d both been too foolish to realize what they were doing to Margaret—or, perhaps, too selfish to care.

The other lords were looking at Dalrymple in barely concealed distaste.

“I do love my sister, you know,” Dalrymple said defensively. “It was either this, or have nothing.”

Ash’s stomach burned. Inside him, irrepressible instinct clamored out.

Fight. Win. He could still have the dukedom. He could have his vengeance. He could raise his brothers high—give them every last thing they’d ever dared to want. He would never fear again that he had nothing to offer. And all he would have to do was to betray the woman he loved. Ash swallowed, but his throat remained dry. He could look back over his shoulder and finally understand the devastation he’d wrought. So. This was how it felt to be a conquering hero.

There was no way to repair the damage, no way to heal what he’d done to her.

“Let me see if I understand this,” Ash said to the lords in front of him. “If the lot of you support Dalrymple, he won’t need Forsyth and the votes he carries any longer.”

“That is correct.”

When it came down to it, he had no choice at all.

Ash strode over to Dalrymple and yanked the last paper from his hand. “You sicken me,” he said. He ripped it into quarters and threw the pieces to the ground.

“My lords,” he said. “Here is your amicable solution. You vote for Dalrymple’s bill. But only—and I do mean only—on condition that he rewrite it to include his sister.”

Dalrymple’s jaw went slack.

Lord Lacy-Follett stared at Ash. “So there is some truth to those rumors after all. Mr. Turner, if you want a different solution, something else might be arranged.” He cast a glance at Richard, and sniffed. “I, for one, am not best pleased with the first scenario that was proffered to us. There are some things gentlemen ought not do, and sacrificing women for personal gain stands high on my list.”