Page 54 of A Lady’s Rules for Seaside Romance (The Harp & Thistle #3)

T here was the matter of one Mr. Felton Ashby that had to be dealt with and Victor suspected he knew where the cad was hiding.

Unable to sleep last night on the bench, or even this morning on the train, Victor had instead spent those hours trying to figure out where the idiot would have been.

At first, he wondered if Ashby had hidden somewhere in Gretna Green, apparently with little coin.

However, the man was far too pampered to allow himself to get stuck in a small, rural Scottish village and Victor suspected the man would have had no problem scamming his way onto one of the trains.

Victor supposed Felton had gone back to Brighton, but considering both his and Mary’s families were there, there was no chance of that.

Perhaps he would instead have been hiding in a London hotel, but if he hadn’t had enough coin for an inn in a small village in Scotland, then he certainly wouldn’t have had the coin for a hotel in London.

The man was too prim to settle for anything cheap and seedy in the East End.

It was possible he could be at one of the gentlemen’s clubs, but few nobs remained in London this time of year.

Anyone still here would be quite interested in why anyone else remained and would pester Ashby about it too much.

There was a fleeting chance he was at Bron’s gaming hell, but Bron didn’t seem to know him well and wouldn’t stick his neck out for a near stranger. Especially one Victor was going after.

That left only one possibility: the Ashby townhome. While this seemed like the obvious choice, it wasn’t a clear winner, either. The townhome would be closed up for the summer, the furniture covered and bedding removed.

Once Victor had figured out that, he determined all the ways he could beat Ashby into a pulp. That helped his horrendous mood.

Victor left after his row with Anne. He couldn’t face her after humiliating himself so terribly. She wanted a liaison—he wanted a lifetime. She would run off if they were married, never be around him again. She had made that clear enough. No use in getting emotional over it.

It took a visit to the postmaster, but, a little over an hour after leaving his house, Victor found the Ashbys’ London residence. Fortunately, they still had some time before the Brighton train—enough so he could take as long as he wished with Felton.

Victor rang and waited.

He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and forced a loose stance despite the roiling emotions in his head and heart. Anne may not have loved him, but he would always love her. And he would always love her children.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t remain friends after what had happened, especially if they were married. Remain friends with his wife, who refused to be in the same house as him? He wasn’t that pathetic.

He was foolish. Friendship couldn’t weather unrequited love! Now too much had happened between them and too many emotions were entangled to pull apart. But there was one last task that remained before he would leave Anne and her children in his past.

Dealing with the blasted idiot Ashby.

Ashby’s behavior made no sense. If Ashby were a halfway decent man, he could have landed Anne and had all the tumbles he’d ever want for the rest of his life.

All the coin he could ever want. He was too focused on satisfying his wants immediately.

If he had exhibited even a small bit of patience and played his hand correctly, he could have had it all.

And forever. By being idiotic and greedy, Ashby had lost something that could have been amazing.

The idiot had been so close to having the life Victor wanted.

Victor paused in his thoughts. Was that the life Victor wanted? Anne had questioned him about it. How could he love her, be married to her, but deny any affection between them?

How could he not want that with her? He didn’t want it with anyone else—and never would. But Anne was different to him, wasn’t she?

She was right. It didn’t make sense.

But it didn’t matter, he supposed. It wasn’t a conundrum that would ever need to be solved.

He should have been relieved by this. There would remain no risk of a child, no obsessive worry about losing everything and them ending up like he had. Yet he curiously wasn’t relieved in the least.

A rough-looking housekeeper answered the door, appearing as if she were still in her cups from the night before.

Her mousy-brown hair was a nest of a mess, her gray uniform wrinkled and crooked.

And she positively reeked of sour liquor.

Perhaps this was the best the Ashbys could afford.

“Yes?” she asked as she tried to straighten out her appearance.

“Ashby,” was all Victor could manage to get out. Just hearing that name stirred up the emotions in him even further. “Felton.”

“He’s not here,” the housekeeper said. But she looked away as she said this.

Instead of leaving as polite society dictated he should have, Victor barreled past the woman.

If Ashby were here, it would be just him and the house staff.

As the housekeeper scolded him and tried to drag him back out the door—she couldn’t even get him to falter on his feet—Victor cupped a hand around his mouth. “Ashby! You are a dead man!”

Upstairs, it sounded like someone had fallen out of bed and run across the floor.

Victor began to climb the stairs two steps at a time while the housekeeper followed him. “Sir!” she shouted. “Sir, please, you can’t go up there!”

But he ignored her. The first door he found, he flung open. Nothing was inside, other than covered furniture and threadbare beds.

Same for the second room. And the third.

The fourth room, however, had a bed with unmade bedding, as if someone had slept in it last night.

Victor stepped inside and looked around the room. There was no one in here. A window was open, though, and Victor crossed the room to peer out of it.

And then he heard the chaos behind him.

Victor turned around right as Ashby emerged from his hiding place—beneath the bed—and promptly ran out into the hallway, a loud crash of breaking glass following.

Naturally, Victor went after him, leaping over a fallen and shattered vase.

The house shook as if there were a stampede of elephants in its halls. A half-naked Ashby fled down the stairs, as if running for his life—and in a sense, he was—while Victor hunted him down.

Ashby ended up at the back door—but it was locked. The cad jiggled the handle, looked back over his shoulder, and squealed upon seeing Victor.

As Victor approached, Ashby apparently thought he could dodge past the angry man. He nearly succeeded, but Victor quickly caught the cad and threw him against the wall, causing the younger man’s spectacles to become crooked.

Ashby, panting hard, put his hands up in surrender.

“I think we need to have a little chat, don’t you?” Victor growled and got so close to Ashby’s face, their noses nearly touched.

Ashby whimpered. “W-W-What did you have in mind?”

Victor grinned but knew well how terrifying it looked. Ashby gulped. “Let’s talk about Lady Mary, hmm?”

Ashby straightened his spectacles. “I’m sorry. Could you remind me who that is again?”

One of the only good outcomes from living in Whitechapel as a young lad was that Victor had learned how to size other men up almost immediately. It had been crucial for survival. Otherwise, you could have been dead or maimed before uttering, “God save the queen!”

And though he’d had Ashby pegged immediately upon meeting him and knew the cad was a coward despite his size, it wasn’t until now that Victor realized how much he had let this idiot get to him.

Victor’s jealousy over the attention Ashby had given Anne had made the cad seem more powerful than he really had been.

Victor was a McNab. He was bigger, stronger, better. He would someday be a duke. He had more money, and even superior looks, if he were being honest with himself.

Ashby was nothing compared to Victor.

Victor wouldn’t hit the man. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he knew it wouldn’t need to come to that.

The best outcome for all of this, for everyone involved, didn’t require flying fists.

He was sure Ashby would be well in agreement.

Though Victor would still need to be threatening to make a point.

Victor wound a huge fist back and Ashby covered his face. “All right! All right.” When nothing happened, he peeked between his fingers.

“Do we need to have a long discussion about how you terrorized the people I love more than my own life?”

Ashby began shaking like a scared pup. “No. Just go on with it and hit me.”

Victor kept his fist wound back. “Did you lay a hand on Lady Mary?”

“No!”

“Ashby, I swear to Christ—”

“I didn’t! On my own life, I promise I didn’t. She…She kicked me in the bollocks when I tried. A man doesn’t come back from that.”

Victor had to resist a snort. “And that’s when you left?”

Ashby’s eyes darted to the fist, still at the ready. “It’s about when I gave up. I realized it was pointless and stupid.”

“So you left her behind.”

Ashby was quiet for a moment but then dropped his hands from his face. “It’s when I realized I had made a rather bad mistake and needed to quit while I was ahead. What was I going to do, take her back to Brighton with me?”

Victor lowered his fist but continued to block Ashby. “You do realize it’s not over, though, right? Lady Litchfield may not do anything, but I have no problem making up for that ten times over.”

Ashby let out a nervous laugh. “What do you mean? Lady Mary remains unmarried, unspoiled by men. Everything is fine!”

“No,” Victor growled out. “Everything is not fine. This scandal will ruin her life and my family’s lives when it gets out.”

“Your family?” Ashby’s face twisted in confusion.