Lord Lacy-Follett glanced at Ash, as if measuring the effect of his words. He conferred, behind cupped hand, with the man sitting to his right, and then looked up at Dalrymple. “That is not our current estimate of the votes,” he said.
“The votes have changed.” A tight smile crept over Dalrymple’s face—one that seemed at odds with his clutched fingers. “Lord Forsyth, and five others, have come to support my suit.”
Ash felt a muscle in his jaw twitch, but he kept silent. Forsyth had teetered on the brink of a decision for weeks, before tentatively declaring himself for Ash.
There was another exchange of glances. And then a man behind Lacy-Follett—Lord Dallington—spoke up. “I spoke with Forsyth just three days ago. Given…ah, given his financial situation, I find this news very unlikely.”
That smile expanded across Dalrymple’s face—not a pleased one; almost a grimace. “The earlier version of the Act of Legitimation, which you might have seen circulated before this? It’s changed.” He unrolled the papers he’d been gripping and spread the sheets in his hand. “This is the current act, which will be put to the vote.”
He slid the papers across the table to the men who sat in front of him. After a pause, and with some hesitation, he handed Ash a sheet, as well.
Ash took it and glanced down at the meaningless letters. In front of him, the men were silent. Reading. Ash felt a slow beat of fear inside him. He tamped it down; he’d bluffed his way through similar situations before. He could do it again.
“My God,” Lacy-Follett said. “I suppose that would take care of Forsyth. And his financial problems.”
Beside him, Lord Dallington licked his lips and set the paper down. “Mr. Turner. What think you of the proposed act?”
Ash ran a hand down the paper. “I don’t quite understand how this would mollify Forsyth’s concerns.”
“You do know what Forsyth’s objection was, don’t you?”
Ash did, but the more he could make Dallington explain, the less he had to pretend. “Humor me with an explanation.”
“The Duchess of Parford’s marriage settlements—or at least, sixty thousand pounds of them—had been set in trust for her lawful female issue. If the Act of Legitimation fails to pass, his sister the duchess has no lawful female issue, and the trust reverts to him.”
“I see,” Ash said slowly. Even though he didn’t.
“Now that the suit no longer names Lady Anna Margaret,” Dallington continued, “there is no danger of Forsyth losing the money.”
It was all Ash could do to keep from gasping. As it was, he felt as if he had been punched in the kidneys. He bent slightly, his hands striking the table in front of him, before raising his eyes to Dalrymple. “You—” He bit back the epithet he’d been about to hurl. “You left your own sister off. You’ll leave her illegitimate, just so you can have your dukedom back.”
Well. At least that explained why the man’s expression of triumph seemed so unvictorious. At least he had the grace not to be proud of what he was doing. Margaret had gone to Ash and begged on her brothers’ behalf. She might have had Ash. She might have been the Duchess of Parford herself. But she’d refused to abandon her brothers to illegitimacy.
“I didn’t hit you nearly hard enough the other night,” Ash growled. “Is that what you Dalrymple men do? You abandon your women to bear the brunt of society’s hurt, just so that you can have an easy life?”
“You think this was an easy decision?” Dalrymple demanded.
Ash took a step closer—swiftly enough that Dalrymple flinched from him.
“Gentlemen!” Lacy-Follett said. “The point of this meeting is to avoid further violence, not to foment it.”
Hitting Dalrymple had done little good so far. Violence would only convince more men to support the man’s suit. Dalrymple’s faithless, ugly suit.
Ash turned away, his hands fisting at his sides. What was it going to do to Margaret when she discovered that her brother had betrayed her into illegitimacy, as her father had? What would she say? How would she feel?
He could imagine her pain with a startling intensity.
And for just one second, Ash could see how to use this. Dalrymple still needed one of these men for his suit to go forwards. Instinct clamored inside him. A man who would betray a sister was no candidate for the dukedom. He could make the case. He could win all these men over to his side, settle the dispute once and for all.
But…but what if he did?
He had always thought of the suit in Parliament as pertaining to her brothers. Ever since Ash had met her, he’d been assiduously courting votes in Parliament to defeat the act that Dalrymple proposed. But until this afternoon, that act had included all the duke’s children. Including Margaret.
That little detail had seemed unimportant—so unimportant, in fact, that he’d never considered it, and she had never mentioned it. But if Ash won, he would be the one to betray her. He would make her a bastard, twice over. He’d been trying to keep her a bastard all this time.
He had not only destroyed her life unwittingly, before he’d met her; he had continued to destroy it, even after he knew who she was. Even after he loved her.
Ash opened his eyes and glanced at his foe. The man stood, his shoulders drawn together. For all of Dalrymple’s flinching cowardice, Ash felt a shameful sense of kinship with him. They’d both been too foolish to realize what they were doing to Margaret—or, perhaps, too selfish to care.
The other lords were looking at Dalrymple in barely concealed distaste.
“I do love my sister, you know,” Dalrymple said defensively. “It was either this, or have nothing.”
Ash’s stomach burned. Inside him, irrepressible instinct clamored out.
Fight. Win. He could still have the dukedom. He could have his vengeance. He could raise his brothers high—give them every last thing they’d ever dared to want. He would never fear again that he had nothing to offer. And all he would have to do was to betray the woman he loved. Ash swallowed, but his throat remained dry. He could look back over his shoulder and finally understand the devastation he’d wrought. So. This was how it felt to be a conquering hero.
There was no way to repair the damage, no way to heal what he’d done to her.
“Let me see if I understand this,” Ash said to the lords in front of him. “If the lot of you support Dalrymple, he won’t need Forsyth and the votes he carries any longer.”
“That is correct.”
When it came down to it, he had no choice at all.
Ash strode over to Dalrymple and yanked the last paper from his hand. “You sicken me,” he said. He ripped it into quarters and threw the pieces to the ground.
“My lords,” he said. “Here is your amicable solution. You vote for Dalrymple’s bill. But only—and I do mean only—on condition that he rewrite it to include his sister.”
Dalrymple’s jaw went slack.
Lord Lacy-Follett stared at Ash. “So there is some truth to those rumors after all. Mr. Turner, if you want a different solution, something else might be arranged.” He cast a glance at Richard, and sniffed. “I, for one, am not best pleased with the first scenario that was proffered to us. There are some things gentlemen ought not do, and sacrificing women for personal gain stands high on my list.”
Dalrymple flinched. But Ash simply shook his head, too weary to fight any longer. Not now. Not when he’d finally understood what he was doing to her.
Lord Lacy-Follett tapped his lips. “We shall be here all afternoon discussing the matter. But gentlemen, unless you have anything further to add, you are excused.”
Dalrymple took one shaky step towards the doors. As he did so, Ash grabbed his lapels. Not hard, not violently, but Ash twisted them just enough to let the man know that, had he wished, he could have sent him flying across the room. He leaned in. And then, as Dalrymple’s eyes widened in terror, Ash whispered, “If you don’t take care of her, I shall truly hunt you down. You won’t be duke long enough to enjoy it
.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“IT’S OVER.”
Margaret stood from the seat by the side of her father’s bed as Richard stepped into the room. The afternoon light fell on a lavender bruise on his face. The decoration made him look tired. Tired and almost limp. “That is, my part in this is finished.” He was looking down at the carpet, and so she could not see his eyes. She couldn’t tell whether he was weary in victory or weary in defeat.
The towel cut into her hands. She wasn’t even sure which outcome she should pray for. For Ash? For Richard? Either one would tear her in half. Her tongue felt too thick to actually use for anything so mundane as speech. Instead, she stared at him.
He sighed and shook his head.
“What happened?” she managed to croak.
Richard shook his head. “Turner, damn his eyes, abdicated.”
Her head seemed light, very light. She might have floated away in dazed, uncomprehending wonder. “Pardon?”