Page 23 of Don’t Let Your Dukes Grow Up To Be Scoundrels (Dukes in Disguise #1)

Chapter Twenty-Two

“I should have known you would find your own level. Bad blood will out,” were the first words from the Duke of Ashbourn. “But even I could not have imagined I would have any connection, even one so tenuous as half-blood, to someone running a coaching inn.”

Muscles hardening with anger, Hal stopped stock still at the foot of the stairs, ready to do murder. But the light weight of Gemma’s hand on his elbow stopped him.

Hal looked at her, but her attention was on the man who was standing just inside the front door of Five Mile House. Tall and distinguished, he was dressed conservatively but very finely, in clothing that was tailored perfectly to his surprisingly muscular, athletic build. He had dark hair and eyes that defied easy description—an odd mix of gray, green, and blue. Paired with the set of heavy dark brows that slashed across his angular face, there was a certain something about the way he moved that set Hal on edge.

The Duke of Ashbourn moved like a man who knew how to fight.

But it was the cleft in his strong chin that made the family resemblance undeniable.

Gemma’s older brother. The man who had turned her and her mother and sister out of their home without a penny, before the last duke was cold in his grave.

Protective instincts going mad, Hal looked to Gemma to see how she was handling this sudden appearance of the relative who had rejected her so harshly. He was ready to do battle for her. It would have been his very great pleasure to slay this particular dragon.

But Hal was beginning to understand that he should never, ever, underestimate the woman he loved. Instead of wilting in the face of Ashbourn’s obvious disdain, or fretting over her slightly mussed hair, hastily donned gown, and kiss-swollen lips, her spine went rigid. She held herself like a queen, sweeping into the taproom as though it were her throne room.

When she spoke, her voice was cool and the slightest bit amused. “Well, Ashbourn. My dearest brother. No one has ever accused you of possessing an overabundance of imagination. Welcome to Five Mile House.”

* * *

As she’d expected, Ashbourn’s glare narrowed at her use of the word ‘brother,’ but he appeared to choose not to make an issue of it for the moment. Gemma cocked her head and smiled some more.

She felt as if she’d never stop smiling.

Poor Ashbourn, she mused, not without a bit of glee. He’d come all this way, presumably to disapprove and lord his money over them in person, and he’d found a half-sister who had completely disgraced herself in every possible respect—and who had absolutely no regrets about any of it.

“I have received multiple reports from various sources that my own half-sisters have sunk so low as to involve themselves in…trade.” Ashbourn’s frigid tone could have turned Westcote Brook to solid ice.

“I would say rather that we have gone into the area of hospitality, but I suppose that is a semantic argument that will not interest you.” Gemma felt her smile acquire sharp edges. “Since I know you to be a man for whom the entire concept of hospitality—the generosity of a host toward guests in his home—is entirely foreign.”

Stiffening at the insult, Ashbourn eyed her coldly. “I suppose you refer to the unfortunate circumstances of our last meeting.”

Despite her general mood of joy, Gemma found she was yet capable of less happy feelings. Like outrage. “You mean the day when you tossed your grieving, widowed stepmother and your own half-sisters out into the gutter like so much trash? Simply because our father had the poor judgment to assume he could trust you, trust in your sense of honor and simple damned human decency to take care of us.”

“The gutter,” he intoned, staring contemptuously about the room Gemma had worked so hard to turn into a welcoming, cozy place. “An apt comparison.”

She could feel Hal all but vibrating at her side, like a racehorse poised to leap forward the instant the starting bell sounded. She knew it was only her hand that stayed him.

And it was getting harder and harder to recall why she shouldn’t simply let him barrel into Ashbourn and knock him down like the bully he was.

“I wonder that you would deign to grace us with your presence,” Gemma countered. “As we are so far beneath your notice here in our little gutter. What on earth do you want, Ashbourn?”

A muscle worked in his tight jaw. “I am come to bring you back to London. You may have your old rooms at Ashbourn House, or I will establish a dower house for your mother, and you may live there with her. The choice is yours. If you can bear to tear yourself away from this…person.”

Shocked, Gemma stared at Ashbourn in silence for a long moment. Beside her, Hal drew himself up to his full height and stared down at her half-brother coldly. “I am John Henry Deveril Montrose, the Duke of Havilocke. And you are offensive, sir.”

To his credit, Ashbourn did not appear to feel the lick of fear most men would have experienced at being loomed over by the bearded, broad-shouldered man Gemma loved.

Instead, Ashbourn turned even colder. “Ah yes, the duke who has involved himself so publicly in my family’s disgrace. I wish I could say it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Before the two men could veer off topic and start challenging one another to a duel, Gemma attempted to haul the conversation back on course. “You may offer us your felicitations before you get back in your carriage and return to London, brother dear. We are to be wed.”

Ashbourn’s face went still, as cold and hard as marble. “I forbid it.”

Gemma laughed. “Very amusing. As if I care what you think.”

“What I think,” her half-brother said with quiet emphasis, “is that this man is a fraud. Oh, he may have the title, but his prospects are slender, at best. When an acquaintance approached me with several samples of the humiliating tittle tattle being bandied about, tying our family to the Havilocke name, I did some digging. Do you know how deeply in debt his estate has been?”

“I know everything I need to know about Hal’s prospects,” Gemma said staunchly at the same moment as Hal growled, “You can keep your nose out of my affairs, Ashbourn.”

“Touched a nerve,” Ashbourn observed. He was too well bred, too controlled, to sound snide, but Gemma could tell he was all smug satisfaction as he strolled the length of the room and back. “Perhaps you can afford a wife, especially one who has clearly abandoned all sense of decorum and decency. But can you afford to give her younger sister a proper Season?”

For the first time, Gemma hesitated, stricken, and her odious brother was clever enough to seize upon the moment.

“If you quit this place and come back to London with me,” Ashbourn said, “I will not only establish a dower house and an annuity for your mother. I will reinstate your dowry, and your sister’s. And I will sponsor your sister in her debut, and provide the funds for an appropriate wardrobe.”

It was a generous offer. Her dowry had been quite large, and the thought of what she could do with all that money was certainly tantalizing—although she realized most of her notions for how to use the funds seemed to come down to ways to spruce up and improve Five Mile House.

A London Season for Lucy was by far the more tempting proposition. The kinds of clothing and accessories required of young ladies participating in strolls along the Serpentine, paying calls, assemblies, balls, musicales, taking tea and ices at Gunter’s…it was a dauntingly expensive prospect.

Gemma looked at Hal, whose jaw was set. His mouth was a hard line behind his beard, but he said not a word, and she realized he was leaving it up to her.

She thought about Lucy, the bright, inquisitive, loving, loyal young woman she was growing into in Little Kissington—a hothouse flower transplanted to a country garden, and thriving.

And suddenly, coming up with an answer for her brother’s proposition was the easiest thing in the world.

“I have done well enough without my dowry thus far. You may keep it. As for Lucy, she is your sister as well.” Gemma stared him down. “It is entirely beneath you to hold her future over my head in order to get your own way, but I suppose I should not expect anything more of you.”

There was a bit of a commotion from behind the kitchen door, and all of a sudden, Lucy all but fell through the doorway to land on her hands and knees on the taproom floor, with Henrietta not far behind her. They had quite obviously been listening at the door.

“No, Gemma! Don’t you dare. I won’t have you sacrifice your happiness for mine, especially when I’m not at all certain a London debut is what I even want!”

Gemma moved to help her sister off the floor, and the two Lively girls faced their half-brother. To Gemma’s surprise, her mother stepped forward to stand with them, catching Gemma’s hand in hers.

It felt good, and right, to be there with them beside her, all facing together the man who was the author of all their misfortunes…and yet, he was the author of a fair few of their current good fortunes as well.

“There you are, Ashbourn.” Gemma lifted her chin. “We have no need of you or your money. If we decide to give Lucy a Season, we—her family—will accomplish it without any help from you.”

Gemma smiled at Hal and held out her hand, inviting him into the fold, and a smile like dawn broke across his face as he crossed the room to join them.

Ashbourn’s expression never altered as he glared at their little group, but behind his frigid facade, Gemma sensed a raging inferno. “You cannot mean you would all prefer to stay here and run a coaching inn, sullying our family name, when you could resume your rightful place in society.”

“Do you know, brother, I actually feel sorry for you.” Gemma cocked her head. “You could have had us as your family—and yes, it might have been a bit messy and awkward and imperfect, but it would have been loving, and warm, and fun too. Because that is who we are. But that’s not who you are. Without us, you’re nothing but an empty title, sitting in an empty house, all alone. While we have found a new family here in Little Kissington and this lovely coaching inn—which is becoming quite profitable, I might add. We have a family that loves and accepts and cherishes us for exactly who we are. I believe I can speak for my mother and sister when I say we all choose to stay right here. With our true family.”

Ashbourn actually flinched, his face going grey for the space of a breath before he recovered his equanimity. For a moment, Gemma wondered if she had wounded him. But in the next breath, he was stalking toward the door without another word.

Henrietta rushed forward, her hands outstretched, before Gemma could hold her back. “My dear boy, don’t leave like this! I tried to be a mother to you?—”

“You are not my mother, madam,” he replied hoarsely, shaking off her beseeching hands and turning a furious stare upon her. “The moment my father married you, I ceased to have any family at all. Stay and wallow in the muck here if it suits you. I couldn’t care less. Good day.”

And with that, he replaced his tall hat on his perfectly smooth hair and left the inn.

Gemma’s mother watched him go with slumped shoulders and tears in her eyes. She was just about to go to her when Hal beat her to it by taking Henrietta’s hand in both of his. “I don’t know how much of that interview you heard before Lucy’s, er, entrance. But I have something I need to speak to you about. I would like your permission to marry your daughter. I love her very much, you see. And I may not have always made the best choices where she is concerned, but I have always wanted her to be happy.”

“And you think you can make her so?” Henrietta asked, with a surprising degree of firmness.

Hal took a moment to consider his answer carefully. “I will cherish your daughter. I will share everything I am and everything I have with her. She has indicated that is what would make her happy, and I am doing my utmost to take her at her word.”

It was a good answer. Heart full, Gemma couldn’t stop herself from throwing her arms around him and peppering his handsome face with kisses.

Lucy and Henrietta rushed them, embracing them from either side with much laughter and joyful excitement and assertions from Lucy that she never had any doubt that they would end up together. While they were celebrating, Bess poked her head into the taproom.

“What on earth are you all doing in here? Come back to the fête! You’re missed.”

“Bess!” Lucy grabbed their friend and absorbed her into their group, sharing all their news as she jumped up and down with thrilled happiness.

Gemma and Hal stood at the center of it all, surrounded by their closest friends and family. They smiled into each other’s eyes and both of them knew, without any fear or doubt, that whatever came next, they would weather any storm and overcome any obstacle because they were together.