Page 8

When I entered the dining room, Arthur was in his usual seat at the head of the table, but Colonel Wright was in the seat I usually sat in, clutching a glass of brandy and still speaking.

I was expecting a man who matched the voice I was hearing, but Colonel Wright was relatively handsome, perhaps a few years older than myself, with the blond hair that was clearly a family trait and piercing blue eyes that immediately flicked to me upon my entrance.

“Oh, is this your guest?” he asked, and he must have read something in my face because he gestured to where he was sitting.

“Sorry, but I never sit with my back to the door. Dangerous, you know. Even if I’m eating at a restaurant, I never let them put me anywhere where someone could sneak up on me.

It’s the lowest of the low who would stab a man in the back, but it’s been known to happen, especially to military men like me.

You understand. Besides, you can sit with your back to the door for one night. Won’t kill you.”

I looked at Arthur, who was sipping from his own brandy glass, and found that he was looking at me in return.

As always, the expression on his face was unreadable, but there was a pinched quality to his eyes that told me I’d come to the dining room in the nick of time.

“Oh, I wasn’t married to that seat,” I said, taking the seat directly across from Arthur.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Colonel. I’m—”

“Thomas Whitmore, attorney at law,” he said, cutting me off before I could finish my introduction.

I kept the smile plastered on my face, annoyed, but was pleased as could be when the serving girl poured me a glass of brandy as well.

“Law’s a funny profession for a man to take these days, isn’t it?

Now, military, that’s something to be truly proud of.

A man can do no wrong when he’s in the military.

Court has so much peril in it, so many people who are lying to you or trying to do you wrong.

It’s dreadful, truly. I don’t understand how you can possibly do it.

I’ve never had that sort of trouble. Knew I wanted to be military just as soon as I knew what the military was, you know. A selfless sort of thing.”

The message of luck from Felix made sense now.

James Wright was possibly the most grating man I had ever met, his need to self-aggrandize so obvious and so overwrought that simply listening to him made my skin prickle with annoyance.

I was accustomed to men who enjoyed hearing themselves speak, but the sheer volume of nonsense coming from the colonel was hard to deflect.

I took a sip of my brandy to consider my response and found that Arthur was still looking at me.

To my surprise, I could read his expression as easily as I could read Charles’s.

A sudden surge of camaraderie swept through me despite the last week of being given nothing but ice; Arthur was as little a fan of the colonel as I was.

“Have we met before? You seem to know quite a bit about me.”

“London is a small city, Mr. Whitmore, and your relationship with my dear friend Charles is well known. I’ve kept abreast of your work out of a common interest. After all, I’m sure you’ve benefited from your friendship with Charles in terms of your legal career.

It seemed prudent for me to make sure that you were conducting yourself well.

” He smiled at me like he hadn’t just said one of the most obnoxious things I’d ever heard, the idea that I had been unwitting gossip material for a man I’d never met flooding me with irritation.

“It really is something incredible, you know. A man of your standing, no title, no land, to graduate from both Eton and Cambridge. Among the more refined ranks, you’re seen as quite the enigma. ”

“An enigma because I was capable of pulling myself out of the middle class?” I asked, as patient as could be—which, to be entirely clear, was not all that patient at the moment. “I don’t see what’s particularly enigmatic about it.”

“Oh, don’t get all offended, Mr. Whitmore,” James said, rolling his eyes in the most exaggerated fashion and looking at Arthur for support.

“You would think a lawyer would have thicker skin. In the military, you know, they teach you not to allow yourself to be upset by words. If every lawyer had to go through military training, I think our justice system would work a lot more smoothly, don’t you, Arthur? ”

“I believe the justice system already works quite well,” Arthur said, and it stunned me to hear him say that before I realized that he would say anything as long as it was the opposite of what James was saying.

“In fact, Charles tells me that our lawyer friend here is a shining example of the modern legal system.”

“I do say that,” Charles said, entering the room with Felix hot on his heels.

Unshaken by the clear tension in the air, he took his seat at Arthur’s right side; the moment he sat down, the maid returned with dinner, serving us each quickly.

It was clear that she had no desire to stay in the room any longer than she needed to as she served the meal faster than she’d served any since I’d been at the estate.

Once she was gone, though, Charles busied himself with cutting the meat off his quail, looking across the table at James.

“Were you complaining about the quality of Tom’s legal services? ”

“Oh-ho, seems both Ashford men are your ardent defenders, Mr. Whitmore. Makes a man wonder if you had a hand in assisting with that nasty legal trouble a few years ago.” Both Arthur and Charles stiffened at this, Arthur’s eyes darkening as he glanced first at his brother and then at myself.

James, however, looked pleased, as though he had been waiting for an opportunity to reveal this bit of information.

It seemed separate from the blackmail case that had caused the ruckus on the first night I was here, but I soon had my answer.

“Unless I misjudged. Did you not help with that case? I would have thought that a man who was so close with Charles would have been the first one to come to his aid.”

“What year was this?” I asked, looking at Charles and offering him a direct way out of the situation. “I remember you reaching out during that big murder trial, but I was too busy at the time.”

Charles, thankfully, realized what I was doing and latched on.

“I did reach out to you about it,” he said, nodding.

“But we had to hire someone else, you’re right.

” He smiled at James, looking as easy as could be.

“Of course, Tom is our preferred lawyer in these situations, but in the poaching case, we didn’t have a choice. ”

I made a mental note to have Charles fill me in on the poaching case later, although it didn’t surprise me.

There had been an uptick in poaching convictions on these large estates, and while I found the entire idea of prosecuting people for hunting on ground that was often disputed between estates a hopefully dying practice, it didn’t particularly shock me that the Ashfords had been caught up in something like that.

The wind out of his sails, having clearly been spoiling for a fight, James looked over at Arthur, who had been keeping quiet since Charles had appeared.

“A lawyer from the middle class, though. Seems like a poor way to protect your assets. In the military, at least, men can prove themselves useful, work their way up, really climb without—”

“Enough,” Arthur said, voice low, and it was so startling that the table fell quiet at the sound, even James getting the hint.

“You are both guests here, which means that you are on the same footing while under this roof. I have no way of knowing why you dislike Mr. Whitmore so much, James, when you’ve made it clear that you don’t know the man.

Perhaps you should give him a chance.” He looked at me, and the weight of his gaze caused my stomach to twist up in knots, an electric desire flooding through me.

Before I gave myself away, I took a bite of my dinner just so I had an excuse to no longer look at him, no longer subject myself to that gaze that filled me with hunger.

“Of course,” James said, but I could see on his face how irritated he was about this redirection from my flawed upbringing.

A man like James Wright thrived in gossip-mongering, in bringing people down to make himself look better, and it was clear that he had arranged this entire visit as a way to size me up.

It made me wonder what exactly he was looking for among the Ashford brothers, but the dinner lapsed into a terrible silence broken only by the scraping of forks on plates and the truly dreadful sound of James drinking from his glass.

After the longest dinner I had ever been subjected to in my life, pudding was brought and we thankfully dispersed.

It seemed that Arthur’s grand plan to rope James into a game of cards was abandoned, because after a bit of inane chatter in the great hall, James went off to bed, followed closely by Charles, who paused only to promise me he would fill me in on the details of the poaching case in the morning.

Left alone with Arthur, I had turned to go up the stairs when Arthur spoke. “Wait,” he said, using that same tone he’d used at the dinner table to shut James down.

I looked back at him, heart twisting up at the sight in the dim light of the great hall.

The shadows cast by the candles were doing nothing to mar his beauty, and for a moment I was seized by the utterly irrational desire to close the distance between us, run my hands through that feather-soft hair, kiss those lips that undoubtedly tasted of brandy at the moment.

I attributed this momentary madness to my own drinking and forced it down, unwilling to expose myself even in the slightest. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” Arthur said, and for the second time that night I was stunned by the other man. “For the way he spoke to you. I know how James is, and I knew he would target you over myself or Charles, but I still asked you to entertain him knowing you would bear the brunt of it.”

“I don’t doubt that you’re sorry,” I said. “Do you not think that the conversation tonight was an echo of the one my first night here, though?”

It was Arthur’s turn to be surprised, the vaguest flicker of realization in those green eyes of his. “Did I sound like that?”

“More or less,” I said. “Although James was slightly more… long-winded.”

“Well, then, I’m sorry for that as well,” Arthur said. “My brother enjoys your presence.” He paused, and for the briefest of moments he looked as though his confidence was wavering before he regained it. “That’s all,” he finally said. “You can go to bed now.”

I nodded, unable to say anything else in response.

It had seemed like he wanted to say more but had stopped himself, a process I understood all too well.

It was a strange walk up to my room, wrestling with the idea that Arthur might have left something unsaid, but I feel now that I know what had caused his turmoil that night and can understand it all too well, as it was the same feeling I’d been struggling with since first seeing him in the gardens.