Ashton: Lord of Truth (Lonely Lords Book 13) (3 page)

Ashton had a very particular fondness for widows of discernment.

“True enough,” he said, putting a few coins on the bar and gathering up the cobblers. “My thanks for a good meal.”

A hearty meal. Not the refined delicacies Ashton had been expected to subsist on from the earldom’s fussy Italian chef.

Mrs. Bryce was dissuading Helen from licking an empty plate when Ashton rejoined the ladies.

“I have here three cobblers,” he said, setting the sack in the middle of the table. “I’m too full to enjoy my portion. Perhaps
Helen’s sister would like it?”

Fine gray eyes studied him from across the table. Mrs. Bryce’s gaze was both direct and guarded, which made sense if she’d lost her husband.
Widows were as vulnerable as the next woman, and yet, they had more freedom than any other class of female in Britain. 

“Sissy loves her sweets,” Helen said, kicking her legs against the bench. “I’m right fond of a treat myself.”

Ashton slid onto the bench. “I’m fond of young ladies who take responsibility for their actions.”

Helen shot Mrs. Bryce a puzzled glance.

“He means, you stole his handkerchief, and now we must decide what’s to be done.” Mrs. Bryce folded up Ashton’s handkerchief and
passed it to him.

Ashton set the cloth beside the cobblers. “What would you do, Helen, if somebody had stolen your lucky piece?” 

“Ain’t got a lucky piece. If I had a lucky piece, maybe I wouldn’t be stealin’ for me supper.”

Ashton snatched off the girl’s cap, and ratty blond braids tumbled down.

The child ducked her head as if braids were a mark of shame. “Gimme back me ’at, you!”

“How do you feel right now?”

“I’m that mad at you,” Helen shot back. “You ’ad no right, and now everybody will know I’m a girl.”

Ashton passed over the hat. Helen jammed it back on her head and stuffed both braids into her cap before folding her arms across her skinny chest.

“I gave you back your hat. All better?”

“You know it ain’t. Damned Treacher saw me without me cap. Now I’ll have to cut me hair again and stay out of his middens for
weeks.”

Mrs. Bryce watched this exchange, looking as if she was suppressing a smile. She had a full mouth, good bones, and a sunrise-on-summer-clouds complexion
worthy of any countess. She was that puzzling creature, the woman who didn’t know she was attractive.

Or perhaps—more puzzling still—she didn’t care that she was attractive.

“So, wee Helen,” Ashton said, setting the empty plates out of the girl’s reach. “You’ve returned my handkerchief, and
I’ve returned your cap. You still disrupted my day, gave me a bad start as I arrived in your fair city, and have inconvenienced Mrs. Bryce, who I
gather is something of a friend. How will you make it right?”

 The child scrunched up her nose and ceased kicking the bench. “I don’t have anything to give you. You could thrash me.”

From her perspective, that was preferable to being turned over to the authorities. Mrs. Bryce was no longer smiling, though.

“Then I’d have a smarting hand,” Ashton said, “and more delay from my appointed rounds, because you would require a good deal of
thrashing. Fortunately for us both, you are a lady, and a gentleman never raises his voice or his hand to a lady.”

Now the looks Helen aimed at Mrs. Bryce were worried, as if Ashton had started babbling in tongues or speaking treason.

“Your papa wasn’t a gentleman,” Mrs. Bryce said gently. “We mustn’t speak ill of the dead, but Mr. Fenwick is telling you the
truth. Gentlemen are to protect ladies, not beat them. In theory.”

“I don’t know what a theory is, ma’am. Can I ’ave my cobbler yet?”

“May I,” Mrs. Bryce replied. “I think Mr. Fenwick expects an apology, Helen, and you owe him one.”

“I’m sorry I nicked your lucky piece. If I’d known it was a lucky piece, and not just fancy linen, I might not ’ave nicked it. Next
time, keep your purse in your right-hand pocket, and nobody will be stealin’ your lucky piece.”

Helen clearly didn’t realize this earnest advice was in no way helpful.

The comforts of the Albany awaited, and those comforts had been sufficient for ducal heirs, nabobs, and Byron himself. Once Ashton stepped over the
threshold of that establishment, he declared himself the Earl of Kilkenney in new and irrevocable ways.

He’d rather be enjoying a plain meal at the Goose, and getting lessons in street sense from a half-pint thief.

“As it happens, I’m glad you didn’t get my purse, because I’m newly arrived to Town this very day, and to be penniless in London,
as you know, is a precarious existence.”

“Perilous,” Mrs. Bryce translated. “Dangerous.”

“Not if you know who your mates are and are quick on your feet,” Helen said—more misguided instruction. She was a female without
protection or means. Odds were, sooner or later, the London streets would be the death of her.

“You have nonetheless taken up a good deal of my time when my day was already too busy,” Ashton said. “I need to establish myself at
suitable lodgings. I need to hire a tiger for my conveyance. I need to get my bearings in anticipation of taking up responsibilities for the social
Season.”

Not only a busy day, but also a damned depressing one.

“You need a home,” Mrs. Bryce said, and she wasn’t translating for Helen. “Or a temporary address to serve as your home.”

Her gaze turned appraising, though not in any intimate sense. The tilt of her head said she was evaluating Ashton as a lodger, not a lover. A novel
experience for him, and a bit unnerving. 

His attire was that of the steward he’d been for years before he’d become afflicted with a title. Decent, if plain, riding jacket. Good
quality, though his sleeve had been mended at the elbow. His linen was unstarched but clean enough for a man who’d been traveling, and a gold watch
chain winked across his middle.

“What is your business in London, Mr. Fenwick?” Mrs. Bryce asked.

He was here for one purpose—to find a woman willing to be his countess. She’d have to comport herself like a faithful wife until at least two
healthy male children had appeared. Not a complicated assignment, and the lady’s compensation would be a lifetime of ease and a title.

Ashton had had three years to reconcile himself to such an arrangement, three years during which he’d tried to find the compromise—the woman he
could adore
and
marry, who might adore him a little bit too—but she hadn’t presented herself.

Though three wee nieces had arrived.

“My excursion to the capital is primarily social,” Ashton said. “I’m renewing acquaintances with a few friends and tending to
business while the weather is fair. I’ll return north in the summer.”

And be damned glad to do so. According to Ewan, house parties followed the social Season, and rather than hunting grouse, Ashton could pass his summer with
further rounds of countess hunting.

He could take up that apartment at the Albany some other day. Next week would do.

Or the week after.

A voice in Ashton’s head said he was putting off the inevitable, retreating when he ought to be marching forward. Another voice said Mrs. Bryce would
not consider offering a strange man lodgings unless she needed a lodger desperately.

“As it happens,” Mrs. Bryce said, “I have an apartment available. A sitting room and bedroom, with antechamber, and kitchen privileges.
Breakfast, tea, and candles are included, and your rooms will be cleaned twice weekly, Tuesday and Friday. Bad behavior or excessive noise is grounds for
eviction, and if you sing or play a musical instrument, you will do so only at decent hours. Coal is extra, payable by the week.”

“Mrs. Bryce makes the best porridge,” Helen added. “She puts cream on it if it’s too hot.”

Don’t put off what must be done. Don’t shirk your duty.
 

“What is your direction?” Ashton asked.

“Pastry Lane is around the corner and halfway down the street,” Mrs. Bryce said. “The rooms are quiet, clean, and unpretentious, but
suitable for entertaining such callers as a gentleman might properly have.”

No game girls, in other words.

“There’s a garden,” Helen offered. “Big enough for Mrs. Bryce’s herbs, but not big enough for a dog. She has a cat.”

Mrs. Bryce also, apparently, had something of a champion in Helen.

The child was skinny, but not starving. When truly deprived of food for a long period, the body lost the ability to handle a meal of steak and potatoes
washed down by a small pint of ale. Helen’s diet might be spare and irregular, but Mrs. Bryce’s porridge figured on the menu often enough to
keep body and soul together.

“I like cats,” Ashton said. “What about a mews?”

“No mews, I’m afraid,” Mrs. Bryce said, brushing a hand over the handkerchief on the table. “If you need a mews, I can suggest Mrs.
Grimbly, off of Bow Street, though you must provide your own groom.”

The fingers stroking over Ashton’s handkerchief were slightly red, the back of Mrs. Bryce’s hand freckled. No rings, and a pale scar ran from
wrist to thumb.

Not the hands of a countess, though, to Ashton, beautiful in their way.   

“I can stable my horses elsewhere,” Ashton said. “My brother is more familiar with London than I am and recommended an establishment he
and his friends use. What do you charge?”

She named a figure, neither cheap nor exorbitant, though her focus on the handkerchief had become fixed. The cuff of her cloak was fraying, her straw hat
was the lowliest millinery short of Helen’s battered cap.

Mrs. Bryce was in need of coin, while Ashton was in need of peace and quiet. The social Season hadn’t yet begun, and a week or two of reconnaissance
was simply the act of a prudent man—or a reluctant earl.

“Mrs. Bryce bakes her own bread,” Helen said. “And she serves it with
butter and jam
.”

“May we start with a two-week lease?” Ashton asked. “I am new to London, and a trial period makes sense for all parties.”

“That will be acceptable, though I’ll want the rent for both weeks in advance with an allowance for coal.”

Ashton extended his hand across the table. “Mrs. Bryce, we have a bargain.”

The angel of bad fortune had plagued Matilda Bryce for the past nine years, but since January the wretch had been perched on her very doorstep. Her last
tenant had fled to the Continent with three months’ rent and coal fees owing, and he’d kept his apartment roasting.

No suitable replacement had appeared even as London’s ranks of single gentlemen had swelled with spring’s approach. Ashton Fenwick wasn’t
suitable either, but needs must when the devil taxed every window and bar of soap a woman owned.

Mr. Fenwick’s nails were clean, not that clean nails signified anything. He was handsome, too, and that was the problem. Not in a pretty, Bond Street
way, but in the robust, muscular manner of the countryman. Dark hair and dark eyes suggested Celtic ancestry, and for all his brawn, his manners were fine.

In fancy ballroom attire, he’d turn every head, which was the last reaction Matilda wanted her lodgers to inspire.

“About the cobbler?” Helen asked as Matilda withdrew her fingers from Mr. Fenwick’s callused grip.

“Mrs. Bryce and I are having a wee business negotiation, child. We’ll get to your cobbler.”

Helen sighed gustily, despite having had a brush with disaster. The girl had no idea how lucky she’d been to pick Mr. Fenwick’s pocket, rather
than that of a less tolerant citizen.

“If I’m to rent from you,” Mr. Fenwick said, “I’ll need a servant of sorts, somebody to let my groom know when I need my
horse, to fetch my evening meal from the chophouse, to polish my boots. Have you a boot boy or underfootman who can serve in that capacity?”

Well, drat and perdition. If it wasn’t a gentleman’s horses Matilda couldn’t accommodate, it was his boots.

“I have only a maid of all work, though your quarters provide room for a servant in the attics, should you wish to hire one.”

Mr. Fenwick’s gaze roamed the interior of the Goose, a typical London public house. The ceiling was low and the beams exposed. The plank floor was
uneven and centuries of smoke had turned the rafters black.

The patrons at the Goose came from many walks of life: the swells and dandies dangling after the actresses, the working folk happy to end their day with a
pint, and the actresses and shopgirls who needed a safe place to take an occasional meal.

The highest and mightiest of polite society, however, did not frequent the Goose, and thus Matilda could tarry with Mr. Fenwick and try to haggle him back
under her roof.

“I’m sure we can send your boots out,” she said, “or my maid can have a go at them.” To do a proper job on a
gentleman’s boots was time-consuming. Matilda did not flatter herself that she had the skill, or she’d gladly take it on.

“I can be your boot boy,” Helen said. “Me da taught me how to shine boots, and I’m ever so fast if you want a note delivered or a
meat pie brought ’round.”

“Helen, you’re not a boot boy,” Matilda said. “You’re not a boy at all.”