But she needed time to herself to complete her work. And so he had kept the girls out as late as he was able. When the shadows began to grow long and the food in their basket was gone, he finally turned back for Caulnedy. Anticipation sizzling through his veins as they came up to the rear of the house and he sent the girls to their rooms to clean up before dinner. Perhaps, he thought as he hurried to the library, he might be able to steal a moment with Bronwyn while the girls were busy elsewhere. But she was not there as he had expected. Just as he was exiting the room to continue his search of her, however, Mr. Hugo approached, Mrs. Wheeler trailing behind him, looking for all the world like an avenging angel.
“Her Grace is currently in the drawing room,” the butler said in his monotone way.
“With those parents of hers,” Mrs. Wheeler interjected, pushing past the butler. “As well as some fancy nobles from London.” She glared up at Ash. “Your wife looks as miserable as anyone I’ve ever seen. You’d best go and join her, before I go in there myself.”
Ash, who had never seen the mild-mannered housekeeper looking so furious, didn’t pause before he was hurrying for the drawing room. He didn’t know what the devil was going on, why her parents were here—again—or who these people were that the Pickerings had brought. But he wasn’t going to waste time asking questions.
He never expected, however, just who their noble guests might be.
Thoughguestwas not a word he would have applied to Lord Owens. Ornoble, really. The man was a snake, having tried to ruin Brimstone’s reputation on more than one occasion with claims of rigged tables. All in an effort to distract from the fact that he had lost a small fortune—and several pieces of property and family jewelry as well—to Brimstone’s coffers.
“Ah, and here is our dear son-in-law,” Mrs. Pickering exclaimed, clasping her hands to her bosom and looking at Ash with adoring eyes. “Dearest Buckley, do come and meet our friends, come all the way from London to wish you and our Bronwyn their felicitations.”
“Oh, but Buckley and I are old friends, aren’t we?” Owens said with a wide smile and narrowed eyes. He laughed, an oily sound that sent shivers of disgust up Ash’s spine as he stood and held out a hand for Ash to shake. “What a small world, given my special friendship with Bronwyn—oh, but it isHer Gracenow, isn’t it. How lucky for you, Buckley, to have snapped up such a prize.”
Ash saw red. The implication was clear: Owens wanted him to think there had been something intimate between him and Bronwyn. He recalled what she had told him of the man who had broken her heart. Was it Owens, then? Was he the bastard who had purposely pursued her only to humiliate and hurt her?
A quick glance at Bronwyn, at her tightly pressed lips and the pallor of her cheeks, and he knew the answer to that was yes.
But as much as he wanted to plant his fist in the man’s smirking face, with an urge he had not felt since beating his father nearly to death, he would not give him the satisfaction. That’s what Owens wanted: to enrage him, to cause chaos.
Instead, Ash grinned a feral grin and stepped forward, grasping the man’s hand tightly. Very tightly. He was rewarded when Owens winced, the evil mischief in his eyes falling away to reveal a hatred so intense Ash was surprised it did not incinerate him on the spot.
Little did the man know Ash had been baptized in the fires of hell by growing up under his father’s cruel hand. Such an expression did not affect him, not in the least.
“Oh, I assure you,” he said in a low, dangerous voice, “I know very well the prize I have in Bronwyn.”
“Why, this is splendid,” Mr. Pickering said, puffing up his chest with his perceived importance, oblivious of the tension that filled the room. “Owens, I had no idea you knew Buckley. This reunion calls for something a bit more significant than a mere afternoon social call. You all must come to our home in Knighthead Crescent tomorrow evening; we shall serve a dinner in honor of this occasion.”
“What a wonderful idea, Mr. Pickering,” his wife effused. “Mayhap we might persuade Lady Tesh and the Duke and Duchess of Dane to attend as well. What an evening that shall be.”
“Oh, but I am afraid that is impossible, my dear Mrs. Pickering,” Lady Brindle said, her disgust for the woman clear in her flared nostrils and curled lip. “Owens and I are just passing through, you see. We are on the way to our ancestral estates in Durham, and shall be leaving Synne in the morning.”
“Such a shame,” her grandson stated, taking his seat once more—one that was far too close to Bronwyn for Ash’s comfort. He looked at her with interest, eyelids heavy and lips curved in what he no doubt thought of as a seductive smile. “I would so like to renew my acquaintance with Her Grace. It has been too long.”
Bronwyn, for her part, looked faintly ill. “Perhaps it is for the best,” she said, shifting ever so slightly in her seat to put distance between her and Owens. “I would hate to leave His Grace’s wards while we are all still settling into Caulnedy.”
When it appeared as if Owens would pursue Bronwyn across the sofa, Ash decided he’d had enough. “You don’t mind if I sit beside my wife, do you?” he asked. “We are newlyweds, after all.” Without waiting for an answer, he inserted himself between the two, nearly sending Owens to the ground.
“My apologies,” he said, without an ounce of sincerity, watching as the man, shooting daggers his way, dusted himself off, as if he had touched something polluted, and made his way to a chair beside his grandmother.
“Think nothing of it,” Owens gritted.
“But how refreshing to see a Duke of Buckley so besotted with his wife,” Lady Brindle said. “Your father was not one for the softer emotions, if I recall.”
Ash, in the process of receiving a cup of tea from Bronwyn, froze, his insides turning to ice.
“Did you know the previous Duke of Buckley then, my lady?” Mrs. Pickering asked.
“Indeed, I did.” The woman pursed her lips as she looked at Ash. “I knew him quite well, in fact. You resemble your father, Your Grace, with that dark hair and those unusual eyes.” She smirked. “Though I’m certain that is not the only resemblance you have to him.”
Ash’s vision went dark at the edges. It was not the first time his father’s cruelties had been brought up in his presence, usually when a lord had just lost his fortune and was lashing out at Ash in fear and fury.
He had been ready for them then, always aware of just whose son he was, welcoming the reminder. He had never wanted to be complacent, to forget where he came from and what sins had been committed beneath his very nose. To do so would be more horrible than the sins themselves.
But while he had never forgotten his lineage, since arriving on Synne and marrying Bronwyn, he had forgotten how the world saw him as part of that lineage—something he had to shield the girls from. Though they had all been cushioned here in this paradise, this was not the real world. No, the real world was cruel, and cold, and would not fail to crush the girls’ spirits with the same devastating shame under which Ash himself suffered. For a short time, he had forgotten what he had to protect them from.
And it was not just the Isle that had caused him to be complacent. Over the past week and a half Bronwyn had worked her way under his skin and into his heart. For the first time in his life he had been able to shed the yoke of his past, to embrace the possibility of a happy future, to let love into his heart…