Ashton: Lord of Truth (Lonely Lords Book 13) (10 page)

“A mistress might be a good idea,” Hazelton said. “The right woman could be a strategic ally, keeping you apprised of developments
you’d otherwise learn of too late. Then too, if you chose somebody of, say, Mrs. Bellingham’s caliber, you might elevate your status in the
eyes of your rivals.”

Ashton hadn’t taken so much as a bite of potato, and already his belly was sour. “You are telling me that if I pay the right woman for her
favors, her cachet will improve my own, though she’s disgraced and I’m titled? And what sort of loyalty goes only to the highest bidder,
Hazelton? What of friendship, or giving a fellow a chance on his own merits?”

“That’s all well and good on the cricket pitch,” Hazelton said, “but matchmaking in Mayfair is the biggest high-stakes gamble in
the realm. Finding the right spouse is deadly serious business, and if you sentimentalize it, you’re sure to end up with the wrong wife.”

Before Ashton could retort, the waiter reappeared, a sizzling piece of charred meat on a platter before him. He deposited the meat on Ashton’s plate,
bowed, and withdrew without comment.

Hazelton was trying not to smirk, while Ashton’s irritation was genuine.

“Somebody raised this animal from a calf, investing at least two years of pasture, fodder, and shelter, and then sent it off to market hoping for a
fair price. The meat is wasted, along with the fodder and the two years, because I’ve offended the tyrant in the kitchen who calls himself a chef.
Tell me why I should search for a wife in a place such as this, Hazelton. Why shouldn’t I choose a name at random from this list?”

Hazelton was saved from replying by the reappearance of the waiter, who put a dish of butter pats on the table, each imprinted with the shape of St.
Edward’s crown.

“You forgot the bread,” Ashton said.

The waiter bowed. “My apologies.”

The damned cipher was making excuses to disrupt the meal, the better to collect gossip. Ashton knew this, the way he knew when his horse was about to pitch
a fit out of sheer boredom.

“Shall you eat that?” Hazelton asked, gesturing with his fork at the ruined steak.

“I’ll take it home for my landlady’s cat,” Ashton said. “He’s fierce and none too particular about his
sustenance.”

“While you survive on what?”

“Apple tarts,” Ashton said, “fresh from the oven and slathered in cream.” Matilda Bryce also set her table with honesty. If she
didn’t approve of a man, she brandished a knife at him. She wouldn’t gossip about him behind his back or play games with steak and bread.

“You look dyspeptic,” Hazelton said around a bite of rare steak. “Not like a man contemplating apple tarts.”

Ashton waited until the bread had been brought to the table before replying.

“I’m contemplating lists, Hazelton. Your countess, without much thought, came up with two dozen names of young ladies I’m to avoid. My
name is doubtless appearing on lists all over Mayfair, or my title is, and without having met me, I’ll be deemed worth a look. I’m not a man
with whom some young lady will have to rub along, or make children, I’m a title and a bank account. That is no way to find lasting happiness.”

Hazelton paused, knife in one hand, fork in the other. “You are a romantic. My sister suspected as much.”

“I’m
human
,” Ashton retorted, “and you are a hypocrite. You didn’t find your countess by making lists and
eliminating the dubious contestants. You fell in love and snatched her up, and now you counsel me against letting my heart guide me similarly. Not well
done of you.”

Hazelton moved his potato to his plate and swam a bite about in the meat juices. “Maggie has cousins as yet unmarried. I’ll introduce you to
them, and Windhams generally marry for love. It’s not unheard of.”

As the rest of Hazelton’s steak disappeared, Ashton figured out what the master of discretion wasn’t saying.

A wealthy duke’s offspring married for love. An earl from the Borders whose pedigree was checkered probably wouldn’t have that luxury. Ashton
needed an heir if his brother’s progeny weren’t to be deprived of much of the family wealth upon Ashton’s demise.

And to produce a legitimate heir, Ashton needed not merely a wife, but a countess.

He parted from Hazelton without further mention of difficult topics, and yet, on the walk back to Pastry Lane, when Ashton should have been thinking about
prospective countesses, lists, and settlements, he was preoccupied with a soft kiss to his cheek, offered by a woman who trusted nobody, had no fortune,
and kept many secrets.

He wanted more of her kisses, and not just to his cheek.

A problem, that, or a challenge, and Ashton Fenwick relished a challenge.

“You seen Mr. Fenwick when he went off to dinner,” Helen said, settling to the carpet cross-legged. “You could do worse, Mrs. B.
He’s a gent, the genuine article.”

“As long as he pays his rent on time,” Matilda replied, “he can be a crossing sweeper, for all I care. You’re not to get ideas,
Helen.”

Though Matilda had had a few ideas at the sight of Ashton Fenwick in evening finery. His entire demeanor had changed, from gentry new to town, to a man
about town, complete with gold and amber cravat pin and cuff links.

Gold, not pewter or silver, and his walking stick had been topped and ferruled with gold. He’d worn a signet ring too and a grassy scent that had
tempted Matilda to steal another kiss from him.   

Helen watched Matilda’s embroidery needle in the flickering light of the parlor sconces. “I don’t dare tell Sissy what I’m about
with Mr. Fenwick. Sissy will take him away from me.”

Matilda put down her hoop. “I beg your pardon?”

“I saw him first,” Helen said, plucking at the carpet fringe. “He’s mine. Sissy can have all the other gents in London, but Mr.
Fenwick should be mine. I’m learning how to look after his horse, I look after his boots, he teaches me letters. I think we should keep him.”

We?
This went far beyond getting ideas. “Helen, people aren’t books to be hoarded up on a shelf. Mr. Fenwick is leaving in less than two
weeks.”

“He likes it here. You can ask him to stay. Sissy says gents are easy to persuade if you give them what they want.”

Mr. Fenwick had made no advances whatsoever, which was probably why Matilda could entertain odd notions about him.

She really ought not to have kissed his cheek. “Sissy will have diseases to show for taking that approach, Helen.”

“Don’t say bad things about my Sissy. She gives me food sometimes.” Lately, Helen had been doing more to look out for her sister than the
other way around, which might explain why her defense of Sissy had a perfunctory quality.

“Mr. Fenwick is an impressive gentleman,” Matilda said, “but he’s a lodger. Lodgers move on, and my job is to provide them
comfortable accommodations for a price while they’re under my roof. It’s time you moved on to bed, Helen.”

Helen grinned. “Oh, right. Bedtime. Will you tuck me in and read me a story, Mrs. B? Listen to my prayers?”

Helen might disdain that ritual aloud, but some part of her doubtless longed for it.

“I’ll swat your backside if you don’t take yourself off. If Mr. Fenwick wants to go for another gallop in the morning, you’d best
have his riding boots ready.”

“I already did ’em,” Helen said, rising from the floor in one move. “Being a general tote ’em is hard work, and I like
sleeping in a bed.”

Matilda wanted to hug the child good-night, give her a kiss, a pat on the shoulder, something. “You’re earning your wages, but if Mr. Fenwick
is asking too much of you, let me know.”

Helen paused at the door to the parlor. “Will you make him pay me more?”

“I’ll make him give you a half day, the same as Pippa gets, and time off for Sunday services.”

Helen shuddered. “No preachers, please. All they talk about is lakes of fire and eternal damnation. London winters are damnation enough for
me.”

“Get to bed, Helen, and don’t forget to clean your teeth and wash.”

The child darted away, her footfalls suggesting she took the steps two at a time.

“And tell your Maker you’re grateful for your many blessings,” a masculine voice called up the steps. Mr. Fenwick appeared in the door to
Matilda’s parlor. “I locked the front door, in case you were concerned.”

“I would have locked it before I went to bed.” 

Mercy, but he was a striking figure. Many gentlemen padded their shoulders, even their calves, to look more impressive in their evening attire. Ashton
Fenwick needed no padding. His adornments were understated by London standards, and yet, he dazzled.

“May I sit?”

Matilda didn’t usually allow her lodgers into her private rooms, but then, her lodgers didn’t usually ask admittance.

“You may. If you’d close the door, we’re less likely to be overheard by a certain general factotum.”

“Helen, go to bed,” he bellowed up the stairs, “or you’ll get no cream for your porridge in the morning.” 

A door closed on the third floor.

Mr. Fenwick also closed the parlor door and took the only other chair. “She needn’t have waited up for me. It’s not like I’d allow
her to be my valet.”

“Have you a valet?”

“My valet has me,” Mr. Fenwick said, staring at his tasseled Hessian boots. “He’s a fussy little martinet who makes much out of
nothing and spies for my family. I don’t like him. Did you have a come out, Matilda?”

Working-class women did not have come outs. “If you dislike your valet, why keep him on?”

“Because to discharge him would cause upheaval, and that I have been unwilling to do. My sister-in-law was carrying, or had a new baby in the
nursery, or somebody was teething. I always had a reason to keep the peace, and Cherbourne grew complacent. Then too, I was supposed to take a wife and I
had hoped she might replace my valet.”

Only very lofty gentlemen kept a valet when they had a wife. Perhaps Mr. Fenwick was newly wealthy, or not so terribly wealthy after all.

“Did you fancy a particular lady?” This was none of Matilda’s business, but in eleven days, Mr. Fenwick would be gone, and confidences
exchanged with his former landlady late at night would matter little.

“I fancy a rare and particular woman,” he said, removing his cravat pin. “She is a commonsensical creature, good-natured, though she
doesn’t suffer fools. She’s attractive without being vain, also warm-hearted at least where family and friends are concerned. She fancies me
for myself, not for my family wealth or connections, and she’s not afraid to laugh or cry, or dress me down should I need it. She has my undying
loyalty, and my only wish in life is to keep her safe and make her happy.”

“Ouch!” Matilda dropped her hoop and stuck her finger in her mouth. The taste of blood was metallic and unpleasant.

Mr. Fenwick took out a handkerchief, pried Matilda’s hand free, and wrapped the white linen around her finger.

“My lady also swears,” he said, “when the moment calls for it.”

He withdrew his hand, and Matilda was left holding his handkerchief around her finger. “You speak very highly of this woman, and yet, she must have
refused you.”

The idiot. Even drunk, Ashton Fenwick would never raise his voice at a woman in anger, never embarrass her before others, or blame her for problems she
hadn’t caused.

“I haven’t met her,” he said, smiling wistfully. “She’ll find me soon, I hope. I’ve grown lonely waiting for her. You
never did answer my question. Did you have a come out?”

Matilda was preoccupied with Mr. Fenwick’s admission that he hadn’t met his ideal woman, and yet, his list of attributes wasn’t that
ambitious. He sought a good woman, kind, pleasant, and affectionate. Not a paragon or a great beauty or an heiress. Why couldn’t Althorpe have sought
such reasonable qualities in a wife? Why had he needed silent, pretty perfection?

“I had a come out,” she said, “of a sort. My father’s wealth was tied up in investments and properties, and I had only an aunt to
introduce me about.”

Why bother introducing a niece to polite society when that niece was all but spoken for? Though Aunt Huberta had tried. But for her efforts, Matilda would
not have been presented at court, or had any Season at all.

“What was it like?” Mr. Fenwick asked. “Being a debutante during the London Season?”

Matilda might have expected that question from Pippa, if the girl left off mooning over the neighbor’s eldest son long enough.

“My come out was anxious,” she said, thinking back to the time before marriage had blighted her life. “And disappointing. I kept waiting
for some sense of radiance to come over me, some wonder, but week by week, I was more bewildered, tired, and disappointed. My gowns were the same simple,
pale creations worn by every other young lady, my dance partners the same spotty boys or gouty barons. I began to suspect that women sought marriage as an
alternative to sore feet and boredom.”

She fell silent as unexpected compassion for that unhappy, helpless young woman rose. Why had that girl’s expectations differed so greatly from
reality? She’d had no chance to defend her self-respect, to guard her heart, or develop allies.