Embracing Ashberry (38 page)

The party left for London the next day,
arriving by early afternoon. Only after Ashberry settled into the
rhythm of London and Ashberry House did he begin to sift through
the pages of notes delivered by his solicitor. It was slow work
that occupied his spare time, and most of the information he had
already gleaned from his conversations with Ellie and Lady
Whitney.

At times, he considered tossing the entire
affair into the dustbin, at least until he read a note written by
Riley about a woman the man had met.

It was the first week of October when he
summoned the underbutler without explanation. Ashberry questioned
him carefully and closely before sinking into his chair, his face
drawn with concern. “She’s still in London?” he asked.

“After Whitney stopped supporting her, it
didn’t seem as if she had much choice, I s’pose. She’s working at
one of the houses now,” Riley confirmed. “Not the type of place
you’d want to find yourself, if I might say so, my lord.”

Ashberry pictured how Ellie’s face, not to
mention his sisters’ and aunt’s, would contort if anyone ever heard
even the rumor of it. “I doubt I’d be allowed in anyway,” he mused.
“By what you’ve said, I’m sure the owners are aware of my ...
disinterest.” Ashberry had never had more than a single mistress
used simply for physical relief, and he had ended that affair even
before the dinner party of Charlotte’s that had precipitated his
marriage to Ellie. For the life of him, Ashberry couldn’t even
remember what the lady had looked like. London knew he had not
frequented the brothels or been a womanizer when he was single—to
pretend he wished to now would be simply unbelievable.

For several minutes he considered not
pursuing the lead, not digging more deeply into matters long ended
that might raise painful questions with no answers. However, the
notion that Ellie’s attacker had not been the anonymous face of a
transient and the attack not a mistake of fate was intolerable. If
Lord Whitney had somehow known Ellie’s attacker and not pursued the
man to the ends of the earth, Ashberry reasoned, then Whitney had
either had a very good, or a very appalling, reason. Ashberry’s
need to know, his guttural instinct to pursue Ellie’s nemesis and
exact punishment, overruled his instinctive caution.

He sighed, “I hate to bring this up to
Edward and disillusion him even more, but I don’t see any
alternative—I’m not comfortable just assuming this connection is
only a minor coincidence.”

Riley nodded, “I will try to arrange a
meeting, my lord, between you and the lady.”

“And Edward,” Ashberry frowned. “I hardly
wish to relate the tale later, or try to convince him to believe
me.” To involve Lady Whitney or his own beloved marchioness was
unfathomable but Ashberry knew that he could not meet with Riley’s
prize alone.

After dispatching the servant to seek out
Edward and then finding the man was not at home, Ashberry wandered
the house a bit before asking Alexander where he might find his
wife.

“At Lady Eldenwood’s, my lord,” the man
answered calmly. “She’s been going regularly since we came to Town,
mostly in the afternoons when you’re out.” At Ashberry’s
expression, he added, “Shall I send the carriage back to retrieve
her?”

“No,” Ashberry shook his head, the look of
purgatory in his face. “I should go and visit with my sister, too.
It won’t be long now.”

The earl’s house was not far, and Ashberry
found himself shown to Caroline’s sitting room before hardly any
time had passed. In addition to his wife and Caroline, Ashberry
greeted his Aunt Lucy and sister Charlotte, cousin Sarah and Lady
Whitney. The women welcomed him into their circle as he drew a
chair between Ellie and Caroline, and after a few moments of
teasingly attempting to engage him to join them in their sewing,
the women allowed him to state his business. “I was thinking,” he
glanced at his sisters, “That your confinements are rapidly
approaching.” He watched both girls smile as Ellie touched his arm
reassuringly.

Caroline corrected his misapprehension, her
smile rueful. “Mine, brother dear,” she told him, “Has already
begun. Eldenwood forbade me to leave the house yesterday unless he
himself was at my side.” She frowned, “And he didn’t seem too eager
about permitting it then. I had to threaten to set the house afire
to convince him to take me for a walk in the gardens.” She humphed
a bit before elaborating. “The doctor said about a week, you know,
and Eldenwood is getting a bit anxious about it all.”

Her sister frowned. “Don’t let him order you
around, Caroline,” Charlotte incited, “If you want to go out for a
walk and breathe a bit of fresh air, just go. What can he do
anyway? The earl would never hurt you. You’ll be stuck in the
house, or at the best very close to it, for an interminable amount
of time after the baby is born anyway.”

Ashberry scowled, a look of displeasure that
astonished Ellie. “She will not, Charlotte,” he decreed in a voice
that Ellie thought his ancestors might have used to quell an entire
army, “Disobey her husband. And you will not encourage her.” His
eyes fixed on Edward’s wife, the expression and voice of a tyrant a
revelation to his wife. “And if you try such a thing yourself when
the time comes, I will personally supervise Edward when he shackles
you to your bed.”

Caroline reached across her brother and
patted Ellie’s hand. “Ellie, dear, you’d best prepare yourself.
Ashberry will be unbearable when it’s your turn.”

Ellie had the sense to keep her mouth
closed. Ashberry answered for her, a militant glare in his eyes
that spoke more than words ever could convey. “I will do what is
best for Ellie when that day arrives, no matter how much any of you
object.” His eyes fixed on Lady Whitney as he spoke, and the woman
nodded. The marchioness sighed inwardly—if anyone was shackled to a
bed, it was likely to be Ellie, with her own mother guarding the
chains.

It was Lady Westhouse who calmed him, her
words quiet. “Ashberry, dear, Caroline and Charlotte will not
endanger themselves or their infants. You must allow Lady Whitney,
Sarah and I to watch over them for you.” Her gaze was gentle. “I
promise I shall inform the appropriate husband promptly if I hear
even a hint of rebellion from them. Now, tell us why you have come
so unexpectedly in the middle of the afternoon.”

Ashberry did not admit the truth of the
matter—he had needed to see his wife safe and ensconced in a scene
of familial domesticity like the one before him. His stomach and
heart had already stiffened in justified outrage at the suspicions
Riley’s news had planted in his mind. The marquess could not speak
of it yet, not to the women before him, the dearest treasures in
his life. Especially not to Ellie, whose happiness, he feared,
would be destroyed forever if his worst-case scenarios turned out
to be true. Instead, he said lightly, “I thought I might find young
Whitney here with Charlotte, but of course, he is not.”

Charlotte answered the question sweetly,
transparently confident in her husband’s whereabouts. “He left this
morning to visit the captain of a ship docked at Portsmouth. I
expect he’ll return late this afternoon.” Her smile played around
her mouth. “He was most pleased by the profits the man returned
from his last passage to Boston.”

“As were Ashberry and I,” Ellie
murmured.

“And I,” Lady Westhouse announced, a smile
to her lips. Ashberry, looking at her in surprise, silently asked
for clarification. “I have hired the young man to manage some of my
money, with Sebastian’s encouragement. He has quite a nice
portfolio with the lot of us contributing, and of course, his man
of affairs is excellent at the intricacies of the legal contracts
involved in it all.”

“Yes,” Ashberry supplied, a smile on his
lips. “As you well know, Aunt Lucy, since Edward retained Waring
for the job.”

Caroline was surprised. “Doesn’t he already
work with you?”

The conversation focused then on business
concerns, and Ashberry was surprised to find the ladies quite well
informed about their husbands’ businesses, and even better informed
about their own. Even Eldenwood, it turned out, had invested a
significant amount of money in Edward’s ventures. And Sarah had
convinced her nephew, the duke of Shelling, to trust a portion of
Sarah’s long-protected but unused inheritance in Edward's hands. It
seemed, he told Ellie later as he escorted her home, that Ashberry
and his siblings’ families were beginning to forge a formidable
alliance.

SEVENTEEN

When they arrived in Grosvenor Square,
Ashberry’s hand at her back surprised Ellie. Instead of turning
them to his study or the library, he guided her up the stairs. In
response to her questioning look, he allowed his eyes to wander
over her form freely, sparking her blood.

She did not object as he turned them toward
his sitting room and then into his own chamber, where the bed they
shared each night waited in elegant dignity.

Upon their return to London, Ellie had found
herself happily occupying a place in it beside Ashberry. And while
the boudoir had been comfortable, Ellie much preferred the current
arrangement. At Ashberry Park, Ashberry had made it unquestionably
clear to Ellie that while he would not interfere in her management
of their houses and other interests, she was his without fail
whenever he wished. Their presence in London had not altered his
views in the least. He had no wish to patronize the soirees and
ballrooms of Society and every desire to indulge his senses in the
silken luster of his wife. Once dinner was finished, once whatever
relations invited for the evening returned home or made their way
to a patroness’ event, Ashberry would take Ellie by the hand, his
claim on her accepted by them both, and whether he led them to the
drawing room or up to the privacy of their apartments was his
decision.

Not that daylight had ever deterred
Ashberry, Ellie remembered in a rush, a vision in her mind of the
couple urgently seeking each other in a secluded clearing on
Ashberry Park land. Regardless of the dangers of being stumbled
upon by locals, regardless of the flutter in her heart and on her
lips, Ashberry had stripped every stitch of clothing from her and
taken an eternity to kiss every square inch of her skin in the
sunlight.

Ellie caught her breath when, without
speaking, he jerked off his boots and with stocking feet, tread
silently through the room. At each window, he opened wide the
drapes so that the sunlight filtered through the thin white sheers
and flooded the room with light. “Now?” she asked quietly, her
words a silver question in the air. Not objecting, just
assuring.

“Now,” he grunted, taking one of her gloved
hands and guiding it to the front of his breeches. Beneath her
fingers, he throbbed, already heavy with desire for her. Ellie felt
her blood surge in the quiet of the room, inflamed by his
transparent need. Silently, she stepped back and removed her
gloves, laying them aside as he dispensed with his own. Neither one
broke eye contact as they undressed themselves. Ellie’s new dress
of cool yellow muslin was left on the carpet and her petticoats
quickly followed it, then her slippers. Already naked, Ashberry
dispensed with the corset when she turned her back—he unlaced it,
took it from her, and dropped it uncaringly to the floor.

Surprised by his intensity, by his need to
have her again after their late night romp the evening before,
Ellie began to lift her chemise over her head. He shook his head,
leading her instead to one of the low armchairs, which he turned so
that its back faced one of the large windows. Bathed in sunlight,
he pushed down his breeches while she lovingly opened his shirt,
her fingers running gently over the skin and hair of his chest.

When it hung open, and when his aroused
manhood was flagrantly exposed from beneath the shirt’s hem, he sat
down in the chair, drawing her first between his knees. As if
enthralled by the rays from the sun that shone on her face,
Ashberry lifted her hands to her hair, sliding his own down her
neck and to her shoulders only when Ellie released her curls from
beneath her small cap. It fell to the floor, unheeded, as Ellie’s
hair tumbled around her shoulders and pins scattered over the
carpet.

Ellie began to lower her hands but Ashberry
shook his head almost imperceptibly. “No?” she whispered, her heart
thudding heavily. Tentatively, her hands returned to tangle in her
hair, lifting her breasts higher, the submissiveness in her face
contrasting sharply with her wanton stance.

The sight intoxicated Ashberry more than he
could have imagined. “Leave them,” he insisted quietly, sliding his
index fingers over the wispy shoulders of her chemise. His hands
traced its edging, as if gauging the weight of the fabric and she
watched his fingers, fascinated, as they slipped inside it to
fondle the rising swell of her breasts. Almost before she knew what
he was about, he grasped the fabric and ripped it open, from her
breasts down to her belly, then lower to reveal her feminine curls
and the tight garters wound around her thighs.

Lower, below the hem, her legs shimmered in
the sunlight. Even covered in the transparent silk, they would be
the honey that surrounded him, that urged him deeper.

Ellie was hardly thinking at all when he
guided her to his lap, arranging her so that she straddled his
frame, kneeling with her buttocks resting on his knees. Her arms
grasped his shoulders as support, and she needed it, while she
settled herself but she returned them to her hair at his muttered
encouragement. Her head tilted back achingly when his hands splayed
over her stomach, reverently tracing her scars, then lower to rip
open the remainder of the shift. He bent his head to nuzzle her
throat even as two of his fingers made their way deeper, seeking
entrance to her steaming cavern.