Unveiled (Turner #1)(98)
Dalrymple flinched. But Ash simply shook his head, too weary to fight any longer. Not now. Not when he’d finally understood what he was doing to her.
Lord Lacy-Follett tapped his lips. “We shall be here all afternoon discussing the matter. But gentlemen, unless you have anything further to add, you are excused.”
Dalrymple took one shaky step towards the doors. As he did so, Ash grabbed his lapels. Not hard, not violently, but Ash twisted them just enough to let the man know that, had he wished, he could have sent him flying across the room. He leaned in. And then, as Dalrymple’s eyes widened in terror, Ash whispered, “If you don’t take care of her, I shall truly hunt you down. You won’t be duke long enough to enjoy it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“IT’S OVER.”
Margaret stood from the seat by the side of her father’s bed as Richard stepped into the room. The afternoon light fell on a lavender bruise on his face. The decoration made him look tired. Tired and almost limp. “That is, my part in this is finished.” He was looking down at the carpet, and so she could not see his eyes. She couldn’t tell whether he was weary in victory or weary in defeat.
The towel cut into her hands. She wasn’t even sure which outcome she should pray for. For Ash? For Richard? Either one would tear her in half. Her tongue felt too thick to actually use for anything so mundane as speech. Instead, she stared at him.
He sighed and shook his head.
“What happened?” she managed to croak.
Richard shook his head. “Turner, damn his eyes, abdicated.”
Her head seemed light, very light. She might have floated away in dazed, uncomprehending wonder. “Pardon?”
Richard came to stand near her. “He told them to support my suit, on condition that you be included in the bid for legitimacy.”
Those words returned her to earth swiftly, painfully. Her ears rang. Her knees threatened to wobble, and she locked them, grabbing hold of one of the oak posters on her father’s bed.
“What do you mean, on condition that I be included in the suit? I thought I was included.”
Richard picked up her father’s signet ring from where it lay on the table. Idly, he turned it about, and the sword carved in the stone reflected afternoon light at Margaret. As Ash had done long ago, he tried to slip the band around his finger.
It didn’t fit him either, and he set it once more on the table. Finally, he looked up. It wasn’t victory she saw in his eyes. It was something deeper, and just a little more shameful. “No,” he said softly. “I had you taken out of the bill to win Forsyth over.”
He couldn’t be saying this. It couldn’t be true. Margaret’s hands clenched. “Tell me it was Edmund’s idea.” It had to have been—Edmund was a little more hasty, a little less thoughtful. Only Edmund would have—
“No, Margaret.” Richard shook his head slowly. “It was mine. I knew when I suggested it that if I did, I would regret it the rest of my days. I just supposed that I would rather regret being a duke than regret being a bastard. I didn’t expect Turner to give it all up,” he added bitterly. “Just like that. And then what do you suppose that idiot did?”
She shook her head. Anything was possible—anything other than Ash giving up his claim on the duchy of Parford.
“He pulled me aside and ordered me to take care of you. As if I would do any differently.”
Margaret simply looked back at him. “No, Richard. I think you’ve demonstrated precisely how well you would look after me.”
He looked away, and it was as if that set her emotions free at last. Pain came first, scalding hot. And then the realization of what Richard had done really hit her. He’d been about to make her a bastard again. Her loyalty had meant everything to her. She’d been determined to prove that she wouldn’t betray her brothers the way her father had betrayed them all.
It seemed she had been the only one.
Richard heaved a great sigh. “And now, after what he’s done, I’m beholden to that impossible ass. For the rest of my life. It doesn’t sit well with me.”
Her own brother had just told Margaret that he’d tried to barter her place in society for his dukedom, and his primary concern was that because he’d failed to do so, he found himself in Ash’s debt?
And then there was Ash. Margaret swallowed hard. He’d given it up. He’d given it all up—for her. And she knew, more than anyone else, what the dukedom had meant to him. It meant his brothers. His security. His certainty.
From behind him, her father stirred. Richard shook his head. “Well,” he said. “I should let you get back to…get back to looking after him. Margaret, for what it is worth…I am sorry. The lords will be discussing the matter at Saxton House all the rest of the afternoon, and it makes me ill to think matters could have gone as I’d intended. To be honest, I think if Turner hadn’t acted as he had, they would all have spoken against me, and I’d have lost it all for nothing. It was that close.” He shook his head. “They’re still deliberating, but they’ll come round to me.” He spoke more as if he were still trying to convince himself than to convey information to Margaret.
“And if you had it to do over again, what would you tell them?” Margaret asked.
He looked at her and then shook his head ruefully. “Precisely what I did before,” he said. “Some things cannot be changed.”