“It is.”
“And what, do you propose, should I do to rectify the situation?” he asked through tightly clenched teeth.
Beecher gave him a superior look. “Oh, I think you know the answer to that, my friend.”
Praying for patience, Ash leaned back in his seat and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If I knew,” he managed, “I would not be asking you.”
“And they call me stupid,” Beecher muttered, heaving a world-weary sigh. “I believe the only thing that will soothe your considerable temper and keep you from working yourself down to nothing is to return to the Isle of Synne and your wards. As well as that wife of yours.”
Bronwyn. Pain sliced through him, more potent for the fact that over the past week and a half Ash had done everything in his considerable powernotto think of her. Something he had failed miserably at, but that was neither here nor there.
“I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about,” he grumbled, hunching back over the piles of books stacked on his desk. “I have already told you that my marriage is one in name only. My wards will remain on Synne with my wife, as was decided before we married, and as the girls wished. Now, as you can see, I’ve fallen behind in my work and have a considerable amount of catching up to do. Don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out.”
The man simply remained where he was, fiddling, like a bored child, with anything on Ash’s desk he could reach. Ash did his best to ignore him, but his concentration, such as it had been since his return to London, was well and truly lost. No matter how hard he stared at the columns of numbers before him, he could not recall a single figure once his gaze skimmed over it.
Finally, exhausted beyond bearing, he threw down his quill. It clattered across the ledger, leaving a spatter of ink. Ash didn’t care. Beecher was right, he had not been sleeping.
He’d tried. God knew he’d tried, forcing himself to rest, laying his head down on his pillow and resolutely closing his eyes, willing himself to drift off into dreamless sleep.
But time and time again it had eluded him. Or, when he finally did manage to fall under Somnus’s spell, he was plagued with dreams of Bronwyn, of losing himself in her arms and never letting her go.
Those occasions, when he could no longer fight against the pull of her, were by far the most painful of his already torturous days and nights. He woke from them in a sweat, his body aching for her, his heart crying out for her.
He’d thought, given time and distance, that he would forget about her, that he would finally cease loving her and he could get on with his life, such as it was. Now, however, it seemed he loved her more each day. And he knew, no matter how many years passed, he would continue to love her.
He must have stayed silent too long. Beecher let out an exasperated breath and pushed to standing. For a moment Ash thought the man had finally come to his senses and would leave him alone. But no, he only began striding back and forth across the thick rug.
“You have been back in London for a total of six days,” he grumbled as he paced, his thick brows drawn together in frustration. “How do I know it has been six days? Because I have counted them, hoping each day would be the day you came to your senses and realized you were not meant to be alone, that you need those girls and your wife in your life. And each day you seem to grow worse, more determined to wallow in self-pity and despair.”
“I cannot return to them, Beecher.”
“And why the hell not?” the man demanded. “Because you’re a prideful arse and you feel you don’t deserve them? I’ve no doubt that’s true. I cannot imagine anyone who would want to deal with you for any length of time, much less three—no, four now that you are married—young women. But that does not mean you cannot aim to deserve whatever happiness you can claim with them.”
“Who’s to say I was happy?” he rasped.
Beecher’s bark of laughter was rough. “The only time a man is this bloody miserable is when he’s denied what he wants the most. Though knowing you, you’re not being denied it so much as you’re denying yourself. You always were a damned masochist when it came to emotions.”
Ash threw his hands up in the air. “And what am I supposed to do about Brimstone while I’m hying back to Synne?” he demanded, ignoring the ache in his chest at the thought of doing just that.
“D’you think Brimstone will languish without your moody arse here? Sell your portion for all I care. There are plenty who would love part ownership in the place, you needn’t worry on that score.”
“I don’t know why the hell I put up with you,” Ash growled.
“For my delicate manners and sparkling wit, I suppose.” Another rough laugh, and finally the man headed for the door. When he reached it, however, he turned back, and his expression was more serious than Ash had ever seen it.
“Just think about returning to them,” he murmured. “For your own sake.”
Before Ash could think how to respond to that, Beecher was out the door.
For a long moment Ash stared after him, allowing, even welcoming, his outrage to take control of him at his partner’s interference. How dare the man deign to speak of what he needed or wanted? How dare he speak of Bronwyn or the girls at all?
But his anger did not last even a minute. He knew that, despite his gruffness and bluster, this was Beecher’s way of showing he was worried about him, that he cared for him.
Sighing heavily, he pressed the heels of his hands into his aching eyes. The last week and a half had been hell on earth. When it had just been him and the girls, and they had lived but a short distance away, life had been difficult enough. He’d had clear ideas of his place in their lives, and had known that in keeping his distance from them, he could protect them from the truth of their parentage and the shame of having the blood of such a person flowing through their veins. There was no battle within himself to get close to them. The last thing they needed to be burdened with was to know their true origins.
Once Bronwyn had come into their lives, however, the certainty that he could remain distant and unaffected had been destroyed; slowly and bit by bit, but destroyed all the same. She had touched his heart in ways he had not thought possible. He wanted things he had never allowed himself to want before, though he knew all too well that he did not deserve a single one of them. And though he knew he was a selfish bastard for wanting it, he would give everything he owned to have her arms wrapped about him again.
An impossibility. And the sooner he got that undeniable fact through his thick skull, the better off he would be.