Page 33 of Venus in Disguise

“His grace is expecting you,” the butler intoned, and led Ash through the hall and up the stairs to an elegant receiving room before discreetly leaving.

The duke was standing before the fireplace, arms folded. His expression as he regarded Ash was that of a man looking at something unpleasant that must be dealt with swiftly. It was a moment before Ash registered Narcissa was there, too. She sat rigidly still, her face pale and set, and she did not look at him.

“Mr Anson, thank you for arriving promptly,” the duke said. “I will not beat about the bush, for I’m certain you wish this to be over as quickly as I do.”

“That rather depends on what this is,” Ash replied dryly, watching Narcissa, who was staring straight ahead as if neither he nor the duke were there at all.

“This, sir, is a warning. I have been plagued before by social climbers and fortune hunters, who have learned to their cost that I will not be manipulated or blackmailed. So, let me make this plain. There are no circumstances under which I would allow you to marry my daughter. Narcissa has confessed all to me and explained that you wheedled your way into her affections. How you could dare to meet in private with an innocent girl who knew no better, and what’s more, a daughter of mine, is frankly beyond my comprehension, but then perhaps your kind knows no better.”

“My kind?” Ash repeated with a sneer. “You mean, a man who actually cares for the fate of a woman, who considers her happiness of greater import than whatever monetary or social gain you can get out of her?”

Fury flashed in the duke’s eyes. “No, sir, that is not what I mean, and you damned well know it, you impudent cur! By God, I ought to thrash you for having the temerity to lay a hand on what is mine.”

“Try it,” Ash said darkly, the rage in his chest burning with such heat he wished the bastard were not twice his age, for he would have given him a thrashing he’d not forget in a hurry.

“I would not lower myself,” the duke replied, his lip curling. “But you will stay away from my family in the future, or you will discover to your cost I am not to be trifled with. The Lady Narcissa deeply regrets the shame she has brought to me, and to herself by her association with a man so far beneath her notice. Is that not so, my dear?”

“Yes, your grace,” Narcissa replied, her voice apparently calm, her gaze fixed on some distant point as she looked neither at Ash nor at her father.

The duke nodded, satisfied.

“Is that all?” Ash replied, his heart beating very hard. The desire to go to Narcissa and shake her, to demand if that was really what she thought was hard to resist, but he would not demean himself in such a way before her father.

“That is all,” the duke agreed. “I trust I have made our position clear.”

Ash tore his gaze from Narcissa to look at the duke, hoping the man could see the depth of loathing in his eyes. “Abundantly.”

He turned and walked away, not looking back. He did not take one last look at Narcissa, nor did he slam the door or hurry for the room. He thanked the butler for his hat and gloves, and walked away from Kemble House, and kept walking until he got to the club.

Then he went in, picked up two bottles of cognac and found a private room.

“You may go,” the duke said dismissively, once Mr Anson had gone. “We will catch the five o’clock train. I suggest you do not keep me waiting.”

Narcissa steeled herself, bracing her arms on the chair before she tried to stand, pain lancing through her. His grace had been entirely correct when he had told her she would not enjoy paying the price for her disobedience. She was still numb with shock, as for all her father’s vile ways, he had never actually laid a hand on her before. The beating he had delivered had been coldly brutal, swift and humiliating and the backs of her thighs were red raw with the marks of his retribution. Sitting down was an exercise in pain management as she concentrated on her breathing and in not breaking down. She would not cry in front of him. Never again would he see any sign of emotion from her, any sign that he had hurt her. She would not give him the satisfaction.

She walked stiffly but resolutely out of the room, head up, not looking at her father. With every step the tight, abraded skin on her thighs shrieked and burned, but she neither winced nor made a sound. After all, such physical pain was nothing to the agony in her heart.

That Mr Anson had been subjected to such a scene, that he must believe she agreed with all the vile things her father had said, made her want to curl up and die. Her soul had been crying out to him silently the entire time he had stood before her father, pleading with him not to heed the ugly words, not to believe that she could ever regret the brief moments they had shared together. Not enough, she told herself wretchedly. It was not enough to feel it; she had to tell him, somehow, that she was not the two-faced creature her father had painted her as. She wished she’d had the courage not to say the words the duke had put in her mouth, but the beating had been too fresh in her mind, and her fear of facing another was so paralysing that she could not find the courage to defy him.

Coward, she thought in disgust. Mr Anson had been right not to believe in her, not to put his trust in her, for she was too weak to speak her mind when it mattered the most. If she had been a woman worthy of him, she would never have denied him, never have agreed that she had shamed herself by associating with him.

Self-loathing uncoiled inside her and she wondered if it were possible to feel any worse than she did. Though she had always known her sister’s melancholy must have been because of something their father had done to her, she had never before had such understanding of how Fidelia must feel. The sense of utter helplessness, of having no autonomy over her own life, even her own body, had never been so cruelly brought home to her as it had over the past hours.

Her maid, Nancy, was waiting for her when she entered her room.

“Oh, my lady,” she said, her voice heavy with sympathy. “Shall I fetch you some willow-bark tea? Maybe it would help a mite?”

“No, thank you, Nancy,” Narcissa replied, her mind made up. Coward she may be, but she would get a message to Mr Anson, no matter the risk, no matter how pitiful a recompense that must be for everything she had put him through. Though the pain of sitting at the chair in front of her small travelling desk was enough to bring tears springing to her eyes, Narcissa reached for a sheet of paper. The words she wrote were a pale shadow of everything she truly felt, but she dared not write anything too incriminating in case she was discovered. Nancy was a kind-hearted girl, but she was terrified of his grace, and with good reason. If she panicked and betrayed Narcissa, things could get very bad indeed. She hoped that Mr Anson could read between the lines, that he could see the truth behind the things she wrote, and understand that she missed him, that she regretted every missed opportunity when she might have been braver, might have made him believe in her.

But perhaps it was just as well that he had not, as she had proven to them both she was not the dashing heroine she had once believed herself to be at heart.

“Well, everything is packed, and I’ve set a feather pillow aside,” Nancy said, taking the coat Narcissa would wear for the journey from the now empty wardrobe. “I thought perhaps if you sat on that for the train journey—”

Narcissa sent her a wan smile. “You’re very thoughtful, but if you really want to help me, there’s something else I would ask of you.”

“What, my lady?” the maid asked anxiously, regarding the sealed letter Narcissa held out like it was a venomous snake.

“Please,” she begged. “Please see this sent to Mr Anson. I will give you every shilling of my pin money, Nancy. I have a little over two pounds remaining, and it’s yours, if you can get this to him.”