Never Love a Lord, page 2
part #4 of The Wedding Vow Series
But the emotions she raised in him were nothing short of dangerous to his vision for the future. And so, he had told himself to look elsewhere for a bride. A decided shame that no other lady had yet to rise to her stature.
She hurried through the doors now, face white and steps unsteady. He was moving closer before he could stop himself.
“Miss Bateman, Lady Moselle, are you all right?” he asked, hand cupping her elbow.
She yanked back out of reach. “Fine. Perfect. Never better.” Her smile was a ghastly parody of its usual warmth. “Enjoying the evening, my lord?”
Until this moment, immensely. There was something right and good about her being given her due. He could only applaud the prince for his decision to recognize her.
“A fine soiree,” he assured her, careful to keep his voice level. “Allow me to offer you my congratulations on your elevation.”
“My demotion, more like,” she said with a glance back the way she had come.
Ash stiffened. “If His Royal Highness has in any way discomforted you, I would be happy to take him to task.”
Where had that come from? The urge was rising again, to gather her close with one arm and brandish a sword at her foes with the other. He wasn’t some barbarian! He was an English lord, one who prided himself on his composure, his logic.
She rallied. “No need to trouble the prince, my lord. I can take care of myself. Excuse me. I should find my family.”
She hurried away, head down and coronet slipping.
That had been the longest conversation they’d had since the evening three years ago, when he’d told her he would not be making an offer for her hand. It had been the worst decision of his life, one he’d paid for with sleepless nights and endless days. This Season, he’d told himself to look closer, reconsider his decision. Perhaps it might be possible to rebuild the friendship they had once had. Such a friendship might lead to marriage. It was all very logical.
But something wasn’t right with the new Lady Moselle. Even the night he had rejected her, she’d shown more spirit, more fire. The prince had said something to her that had caused her to pull even farther away from Ash.
He owed it to himself, and her, to discover the truth.
Chapter Two
“And there it is in The Times,” Meredith Mayes, Lady Belfort, remarked the next morning over breakfast. “‘Miss Petunia Bateman, sister of Lady Kendall and Sir Matthew Bateman, was awarded an honorary title by the Batavarian court last night. One can only wonder what services she rendered to the crown.’” She made a noise that would have been better suited to the grey-coated cat curling around her lavender skirts, if her pet Fortune had been in a particularly angry mood.
Leveling her gaze on her husband across the table from her, she asked, “Did you know of the prince’s plans?”
“No,” Julian admitted, calmly applying apricot jam to his toast. The color was only a shade lighter than his red-gold hair, beard, and mustache. “But I can only applaud his good taste. About time someone recognized Tuny.”
On the whole, she agreed. Petunia was like a daughter to her and her husband, as were Larissa, Callie, and Belle. Very likely it was because they were related to those she and Fortune had aided years ago, gentlewomen down on their luck like Jane, now Duchess of Wey, and Charlotte, Lady Bateman. But she liked to think her girls were endearing in their own rights. And she had noticed that, on occasion, Petunia seemed uncomfortable in such august company.
“It is not the positive recognition but the negative that concerns me,” Meredith informed her husband now. “This is going to thrust her onto the attention of the ton anew.”
As if Fortune agreed, she hopped up onto her mistress’s lap. Although Meredith never fed her from the table, she allowed the cat to consider the toast and tea, gently running a hand down the silky fur.
“We must be ready,” she murmured to her pet. “We may find an unexpected number of gentlemen at her door.”
“And a dab of danger,” Julian said. “The prince and his family have been stalked and threatened to prevent them from claiming their ancestral rights. Any who align themselves with Batavaria may be targeted for similar treatment.”
Meredith’s mouth quirked. “I should like to see them take on Sir Matthew.”
Julian grinned. “Yes, the former Beast of Birmingham might have something to say.”
Fortune flicked her paw toward the toast, as if it were of only minor interest. Meredith picked her up and set her back on the floor. The cat cast her an arch look before disappearing under the table.
“She’s headed your way,” Meredith told her husband. “Don’t.”
Julian raised his brows. “Me? I assure you, madam, I am utterly immune to her pleas.” Crumbling off a bit of toast, he dropped his hand under the damask tablecloth.
Meredith tsked. “You spoil her. And you spoil me. Was that a first edition of Paradise Lost on the desk in the library this morning?”
“Perhaps,” Julian said, but he sent her a wink. “Lord Ashforde told me at the house party a couple of weeks ago that it might be coming on the market.”
“Kind of him,” Meredith allowed, returning to her perusal of the paper. “I take it he already had one?”
“And many other treasures in that library of his.” He was quiet a moment, and Meredith glanced up to find him watching her thoughtfully. “I still think he might be a good choice for Tuny.”
“That,” Meredith said with a snap of the paper, “is entirely up to Petunia. But I will feel better if we introduce Fortune to his lordship as soon as possible.”
^^^
Petunia’s reaction to the story in The Times was far less constrained.
“Services to the crown!” she sputtered as she perched on the sofa in her brother’s sitting room, newspaper spread across her muslin skirts. “What do they think I did, muck out the royal stables?”
“Probably something more salacious than that,” Charlotte remarked from beside her. Then she cast a quick look out the sitting room door as if to make sure her daughters, Daphne and Rose, were safely occupied upstairs with Mrs. Quince, their governess.
Tuny shook herself as she lowered the paper. “Well, they aren’t far off, are they? Not with His Royal Highness’ latest idea of services.”
Charlotte’s face tightened primly, warning Tuny that she was about to impart some knowledge. Funny how she recognized the look after seeing it for the first time more than a dozen years ago now, when Charlotte had first entered Matty’s house. Aunt Meredith, who managed an employment agency for gentlemen and gentlewomen down on their luck, had introduced Charlotte as an etiquette teacher when Matty had been about to be elevated to the rank of baronet. It had been the first big change in their lives since her brother had removed his sisters from their stepmother’s clutches and brought them to London to live with him. At least the second Mrs. Bateman had relocated to Ireland and had not troubled them in some years.
“From what you said, Prince Otto Leopold did not ask you to effect a seduction,” Charlotte informed Tuny now. “He merely asked that you attempt to reason with Lord Ashforde about the Batavarian question. My previous interactions with his lordship tell me that he responds well to reason, and you know more about what Leo and Fritz hope to accomplish than most.”
Put that way, it sounded quite logical. Only Leo didn’t realize the depth of Lord Ashforde’s antipathy toward her.
No one did. When you’d been crushed to your soul, you tended not to want to brag about it.
“Lord Ashforde is eminently reasonable,” Tuny agreed. “But I’m not the right person to reason with him.”
Charlotte reached out a hand to cover Tuny’s in her lap. Those grey eyes were so understanding. “Will you tell me what he’s done to so put you in a pucker, Tuny? You know Matthew and I will be at your side, no matter what.”
That was precisely the problem. She could imagine her proper sister-in-law taking his lordship to task and her brash brother taking him out into the garden and pummeling him flat.
“I know,” Tuny assured her. “But it is a mess of my own making, and I’d rather not talk about it. What I need now is to determine how I’m going to help Leo, without making Lord Ashforde think I’m attracted to him.”
“A simple conversation will not do?” Charlotte suggested.
“No,” Tuny said. “Believe me.” She sighed. “I’ll call at Weyfarer House. Larissa and Callie have more experience with dealing with diplomacy.” And Belle had more experience in turning people up sweet. But Tuny would not say that fact aloud.
^^^
They thought her a seductress. Ash noticed the paper was crumpling in his fist and set it on the tablecloth beside his plate at the breakfast table in his townhouse. What was it about Petunia Bateman? Simply reading her name rattled his senses. He’d long ago decided she was entirely too upsetting to his equilibrium.
Yet he could not seem to get her out of his mind.
“More tea, my lord?” his butler asked. Peaves stood ready with the silver pot, look concerned. It was his habitual demeanor, long nose slightly wrinkled, narrow cheeks hollowed, as if he were holding his breath in anticipation of what Ash would say or do.
“No, thank you,” Ash said, pushing back his chair and setting his servant to scuttling out of the way. “I have a meeting with His Majesty’s advisors this morning. Have the carriage out in front by half past.”
“Very good, my lord,” Peaves said, inclining his head. His hair had been thick and black when Ash was a lad. Now it was silver and thinning, and Ash wasn’t entirely sure age was the sole cause.
You have no right to look at me so disapprovingly, boy. I sired you, I pay them. I can do as I like. And what I like is to have a little fun.
Ash thrust his father’s words from his mind as he strode down the corridor for the stairs. Fun—at least the sort of fun his father had indulged in—had never brought this family anything but sorrow. Calm consideration, proper planning, and advised action were the course of the day. That had been his approach to pulling the estate out of the hole his father had dug. That had been his approach to ordering his life. That had been his approach to selecting a baroness.
Until he’d met Petunia Bateman.
He climbed the stairs to the next story and entered his bedchamber. Cool blue walls, clean white linens, polished walnut furnishings. All belongings neatly organized. His valet, Theban, would have had it no other way, and neither would Ash. The older man, more slender now than when he’d first come to work in this house, moved forward. Hands trembling just the slightest, he helped Ash out of his banyan and into a proper coat—dove grey with tasteful silver buttons—and shoes—polished black leather with no ostentatious buckles.
Ash glanced in the Pier glass mirror. His hair was as dark as his father’s, his eyes as deep a blue. But the red veining was missing from his nose, the bags from under his eyes. And he carried himself tall and confident, knowing himself in control.
Usually.
“There’s a curl at my left temple,” he observed.
Theban peered closer. “A curl, my lord?”
“There,” Ash said, pointing at the offending lock of hair.
Theban made a conciliatory noise before locating the scissors and snipping off the impudent strand. “Better, my lord?”
Ash studied himself a moment more, then nodded. “Yes, thank you, Theban. I’ll be out most of the day today, but I expect to dine in tonight.”
“Very good, my lord,” Theban said, inclining his head. His hair, Ash couldn’t help noticing, was also turning silver.
Look at yourself! You walk like you have a stick up your…
Ash turned from the mirror and strode for the door.
Why was his father’s voice dominating his thoughts this morning? He dwelled on the fellow less and less often these days. It had taken him the bulk of five years to undo all the wrongs his father had done. The properties now flourished. The family coffers overflowed. The title was unencumbered, free of any whiff of scandal, and respected again. He had been unable to retrieve the Ashforde rubies from whatever crony his father had given them to in payment of a debt, but he intended to keep trying to locate them. His goal now—aside from serving in the halls of Parliament and ensuring those who depended on him were well cared for—was to find himself a bride and continue the line to the next generation.
And now it wasn’t his father’s drunken face leering at him in his thoughts but the knowing smile of a dusky-haired blonde. As he settled back in the seat of the carriage, he allowed himself to remember.
A summer night. A garden. A cool breeze, welcome after the heat of the soiree. The loveliest of ladies strolling on his arm. Stopping near a climbing rose, the scent still hinting in the twilight. Her face turned up to his, sweet, expectant.
A longing that shook him to his core.
The words he had regretted ever since.
“I fear I have raised expectations, Miss Bateman. I should tell you right now that I have no intention of offering for you.”
The shock crossing her face, swiftly followed by fury. “I never really thought you would, my lord. Good evening.”
The pride in even the way the skirts of her satin evening gown twitched as she walked away.
He shook his head now. Fool! He’d worked so hard to eradicate the emotions that had caused his father to stray far from what a gentleman should be that when one of those emotions had dared to blossom, he’d snipped it faster than Theban had attacked that errant curl.
Marriage, he’d reasoned, should be about commonalities, companionship. He wasn’t sure he had anything in common with Petunia Bateman, even if he enjoyed her companionship. And he refused to set foot on the path his father had dashed down so merrily. Admiration was one thing, adoration a slippery slope that led to heartache for all concerned.
The trouble was, no other lady held a candle to her. This one lacked her intelligence. He doubted he had the patience to spend the next thirty or more years of his life explaining even the simplest of facts. That one refused to so much as squeak in his company, and nothing he had done had encouraged her to relax in his presence, despite or maybe because of her mother’s urging. And another had had a petty streak. He had lived under judgment long enough.
And so, he was once again faced with the possibility of courting a lady who might bring out the worst in him.
The other lords he met in a private room at White’s gentlemen’s club had no idea of the thoughts swimming through his mind. He had enough composure to remember to remain aloof, to merely nod at their greetings, and to take a seat at the very edge of the deliberations, where he could observe his colleagues as they sat in the paneled room.
Canning, the Foreign Secretary, paced before the white marble hearth, chin nearly on his chest and balding head catching the light. The more corpulent Wellmanton filled one of the upholstered wingback chairs, smiling genially around at the others. Trelawney, the current favorite of the king, sat on the matching chair, attempting to appear bored even though his cold grey eyes swept the room. The brown-haired, brown-eyed Greville, Clerk to the Council, had taken his place at the center table, on which he had a quill and parchment at the ready. Apparently, he expected them to issue some profound statement in need of immortalizing.
“But are we agreed?” Canning demanded in his reedy voice. “Britain ought not to interfere in matters of state on the Continent.”
Trelawney leaned back in his seat, short blond hair brushing the fabric. “Much the same way we have not interfered with matters of state in Ireland or South America.”
Canning flushed. He’d been the architect of Britain’s renewed relations with various now-independent countries in the southern hemisphere.
“Now, now,” Wellmanton said. “Let us not argue, friends. I think we can agree that it is best not to unmake what Castlereagh so aptly wrought at the Congress of Vienna.”
Canning stopped his pacing to shoot the older lord a look. Had Wellmanton forgotten that the late Lord Castlereagh had once fought Canning in a duel? His name was not conducive to facilitating agreement now.
“But Prince Otto Leopold is very persuasive,” Greville put in with a swish of his quill. “We would not stand for a British lord to be stripped of his estates and left only with a title.”
Canning rubbed his chin. “An extraordinary move, I grant you. But to take a stand against King William of Württemberg?” He glanced at Ash. “What say you, Ashforde?”
“I can see several sides to the argument,” Ash answered. “King William’s family is related by marriage to our king, so it would seem we owe him some allegiance. On the other hand, he neither conquered Batavaria nor married to achieve its throne, so I struggle to see what right he has to hold it, particularly when its ruling house is very much alive and willing to resume its leadership. And any change could well upset the fragile peace we have built.”
Canning nodded. “Well spoken. I for one will be advising His Highness to refrain from taking up the cause.”
“As will I,” Wellmanton assured them all.
Greville wrinkled his nose. “I’m for the Batavarians.”
“I find myself in agreement with Greville,” Trelawney said.
They all looked to Ash.
“I am as yet undecided,” he said. “But allow me to consider the matter more fully, and I will give you my answer before the prince returns from Windsor in three weeks.”
Chapter Three
Petunia fully planned to call on Larissa, Callie, and Belle as soon as the fashionable hour arrived, but she soon found herself besieged. The first person to arrive was Mr. Huber of the Imperial Guard. Their maid-of-all-work, Betsy, showed him into the sitting room just as Tuny and Charlotte were about to head upstairs and change for making calls.
