Tarnished Amongst the Ton

‘Your parents give the lie to that—one only has to look at them.’ Phyllida followed him, refusing to let go of the subject as he had hoped.

‘Their story is almost a fairy tale—the hero rescues the princess from a fortress under siege, they escape across a hostile land, fight dacoits, elude pursuing maharajahs. How could they fail to fall in love? The whole thing must have been conjured up by some djinn. My mother jokes that if we ever fall upon hard times she will turn novelist and write tales of dramatic romance and make our fortune again.’

‘And you fear you will never find anything as wonderful as they have.’ He shrugged. ‘And so you will not hope, you will not seek it, because that way you will not be disappointed,’ Phyllida observed.

That was too near the knuckle. Ashe glared at a wooden-faced couple almost obscured by heavy varnish. He would not delude himself that affection, desire or liking were love and he would not risk hurting himself, or another woman, as he had so carelessly with Reshmi.

‘I must choose with my head, not with my heart,’ he said when he had bitten back the angry retort. ‘I cannot afford to drift around, hoping my fancy will fall upon a woman of the right breeding and temperament and connections.’

‘Instead you will approach the matter of marriage as you would buying a horse?’ Phyllida snapped, suddenly and inexplicably irritable. ‘You left out inspecting her teeth and checking for childbearing hips.’

The hold on his own temper broke. ‘And just what have you been doing to marry off your brother that is so different? Making lists of wealth, temperament, looks—and parents who want to buy a title.’

‘That is different! Gregory will be ruined if he does not make a good match. Everything that I have done will have been for nothing.’ She was sheet-white and there were tears in her eyes.

‘And my family have given up everything that was dear and familiar to come here and take up this responsibility. I do not give a damn about this lot.’ He swept an arm round to encompass the entire pantheon of ancestors. ‘But I will find someone to support my mother socially, help with Sara’s come-out, bring my father connections in politics and at court. I cannot play around living some romantic daydream.’ Damn it, I will not feel responsible for upsetting her! She started this.

‘I am going to ride out around the estate,’ Ashe said. If he didn’t walk away he was going to find himself with a sobbing female in his arms. ‘Get one of the footmen to help you and don’t lift anything heavy.’

Phyllida watched the tall figure stride out of the Long Gallery. ‘I am not going to cry,’ she said out loud as the door closed behind him with a thud. ‘You don’t have to run away.’

It would be pointless to weep just because Ashe had held up a mirror to all the things she had done since their father left them: all the work and the sacrifices and the bitter decisions. What he saw reflected back was a managing, nagging sister pushing her reluctant brother into marriage for convention’s sake.

That wasn’t true, was it? She found she was curled up on one of the broad window seats overlooking the gardens at the back of the house without any clear memory of how she had got there. If she hadn’t been strong, hadn’t bullied and cajoled and schemed, Gregory could have ended up like their father.

Movement pulled her out of her introspection. A rider was galloping at full stretch across the parkland beyond the ha-ha. Ashe, of course, riding as though all the devils in hell were after him, Lucifer soaring above him like a dark familiar spirit.

That outburst had not just been the irritation of a man being forced to turn his mind to marriage, she realised as the horse and rider vanished behind a copse of trees. She had touched a raw wound. Love… Ashe did not believe he could ever find it again and his spirit revolted at making a suitable, emotionless, match. Did he realise that was what was wrong? She doubted it. In her experience men would sooner poke out their eyes with red-hot needles than contemplate their own emotional state. His confidences about Reshmi had ended with him putting up the shutters again with a vengeance.

Phyllida put her feet up on the seat, wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. No wonder Ashe was so straightforward about proposing she should come to his bed. He had decided to put sex and marriage and affection into separate boxes and that way no unpleasant, risky, messy emotions could interfere.

No risk of loving a wife and being hurt by her lack of response. No danger of it with a mistress, someone paid to respond to his body’s needs, not his mind.

She ached for his hurt, ached for the walls he had built around his heart. And she feared for herself. It would be too easy, perilously easy, to let liking and desire for Ashe Herriard slip over into something dangerously like love.

Chapter Eleven

Green, peaceful… Ashe wondered if this was typically English. He reined in and began to look around him at the expanse of parkland that surrounded the house. His anger had evaporated in the clear air, leaving him lightheaded, as though he had been ill with a fever and was recovering.

Time enough to worry about that flash and spark of emotion between him and Phyllida just now in the Long Gallery. He knew he had overreacted and he was not certain why, for he could have sworn he had his emotions under control again after his weakness in blurting out the story of Reshmi. Nor could he fathom what he had said to distress Phyllida so deeply. She was not a woman who used tears as a weapon—that anguish had been genuine.

Ashe shook his head to clear it and made himself study the land around him. It was beautiful. The ground rose before him with a mass of curving woodland that clad the upper slopes in soft curves like the bosom of some generous earth goddess. There was a glint of water ahead, and coppices of slender trees of fresh green, unlike the heavy woodlands beyond.

But surely the parkland should be grazed? The grass was almost high enough to conceal large game. And there was dead wood in the coppices, bricks had fallen from the ha-ha and as he approached the lake he saw that it was muddy and overgrown with weeds.

There was money to make this right and surely there were men who would want the work? Had his grandfather really hated the place so much? Ashe rode on, found a hedge and a gate with farmland beyond. That was better. The methods of farming and the crops were strange, but this was well tended, in good heart.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ A man reined in a stolid cob.

A countryman, Ashe decided, looking at the sturdy, self-possessed figure in corduroy breeches and working boots. ‘I am Clere.’

The man doffed his hat, but showed no other sign of deference. ‘Then welcome to Eldonstone, my lord. I am William Garfield from the Home Farm. We look forward to having the family back at the house.’

‘There’s work to be done before then, I fear.’ The other man grunted. No doubt he knew what the house was like. ‘I know little or nothing about farming in this country, but your acres look in good heart.’

‘I’ve farmed this land for twenty years, my lord, and my father rented it from the marquess before me. I hope my elder son may carry on in his turn. But your small tenants are not in such good shape—the ones who rely on you for repairs to their dwellings and investment in the land.’

Ashe liked the direct look, the honest criticism. ‘Have you time today to show me?’