Page 30 of The Marquess Match (Love’s a Game #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY

A sh spent the morning riding through the park, but the crisp air did little to clear the chaos in his mind. He had woken up feeling like a man on the verge of something disastrous.

Clare had sent him away and refused to see him again. And instead of brushing it off, instead of moving on like he always did, he had barely slept. His thoughts were consumed with her—her laugh, her sharp wit, the way she fit against him as if she had been made just for him.

And that was the problem.

He wasn’t supposed to feel like this. He wasn’t supposed to care .

So what the hell was wrong with him?

By midday, he found himself in Southbury’s study, scowling into a glass of brandy. Southbury leaned back in his chair, watching him with his usual infuriating calm. “You look like hell.”

Ash tipped his head back and groaned. “I feel like hell.”

Southbury lifted both brows. “Let me guess. This has something to do with a certain scandalous young lady?”

Ash cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “I’m going to ask you something, Southbury. Something shocking. But I want you to react in your normal, steadfast manner and be completely honest with me.”

Southbury looked slightly concerned, but he nodded. “Go on.”

Ash let out his breath in a pent-up rush. “How did you know when you were in love?”

To his credit, Southbury didn’t even blink. “Ah. So that’s what this is about.”

“Just answer the damn question,” Ash grumbled.

Southbury exhaled, setting down his glass. He bit his lip and contemplated the question for a moment. “It wasn’t one thing. It was everything. I couldn’t get Meredith out of my head. I hated the thought of any other man having her. And, most of all, I knew my life would be less without her in it.” He paused, then arched a brow. “Sound familiar?”

Ash ran a hand through his hair, his pulse hammering.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

This was exactly what he felt for Clare.

The obsession. The possessiveness. The sheer, unrelenting need to have her in his life.

Southbury studied him for a long moment. “I know how difficult this is for you.” His voice was slow and calm, without a trace of pity—thank God.

Ash swallowed. Hard. Southbury had known his father. That’s what he was talking about. But Ash did not want to talk about his father. Not now. Not ever . “ Don’t ?—”

“Your father always said love was a weakness. That’s why you’ve been fighting it, isn’t it?”

Ash stiffened. “This has nothing to do with him.”

“Doesn’t it?” Southbury’s voice was quiet but firm. “That and your long-standing declaration that you’ll never marry? Never produce an heir?”

A growl issued from Ash’s throat. “I’m warning you, Southbu?—”

“Your father treated love as if it were a cage, something to be avoided at all costs. And you—well, you’ve made damn sure to follow in his footsteps. Haven’t you?”

Blood pounded in Ash’s head. He’d never been one for violence outside of a boxing saloon, but at the moment, he wanted to smash his fist into Southbury’s middle.

“I don’t know what you said to him on his deathbed, Trentham,” Southbury continued. “But I suspect it had something to do with informing him that he’d never be a grandfather.”

A muscle ticked in Ash’s jaw. His nostrils flared. His mind raced back. It had been years ago. But he still remembered it like it was yesterday.

He’d walked into his father’s sickroom, the giant bedchamber at his country estate. A place Father rarely visited in all the years since Mama died during Meredith’s birth. A place he’d left his two young children to be cared for exclusively by servants. A place where—when he had deigned to visit—he did nothing but berate and belittle his only son.

Ash had long since shut away any trace of emotion he might have felt for his father. To him, the man was nothing short of a monster. He had sold Meredith into marriage with a decrepit old lecher and had never once shown the slightest interest in Ash or his life. His father cared for no one but himself. And the only reason Ash had come to see him one final time was for a singular purpose.

Ash hadn’t wanted to see him again. He honestly didn’t care if Father died alone. But Meredith was there, of course, sitting in a chair next to their father, crying. She’d looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes, nodding when he’d asked to speak with the old man alone. She’d stood and hurried from the room, leaving Lord Harlowe Drake, the Marquess of Trentham, alone with his only son.

Ash had stepped forward calmly, a calculated look of indifference on his face. The old man was withered, wasted away. He still possessed the same storm-gray eyes that both of his children had inherited, but other than the eyes, there was little else resembling the healthy man he’d once been.

“You came,” Father croaked, reaching out a withered hand toward Ash.

“Indeed,” was his stoic reply.

His father tried to push himself up on his pillows but, too weak with the fever that ailed him, he failed, and Ash would not assist him.

“I want you to promise me,” Father said, coughing piteously.

Ash arched a brow. “Promise you what ?”

More coughing ensued. “I want you to promise me that you’ll take a bride. You’ll marry and produce my grandson. You never saw fit to do so while I was healthy, but now that I’m ? —”

“ Make no mistake ,” Ash had bitten out, his jaw tightly clenched. “I am not here to say good-bye. And I’m not here to make you any promises, save one.”

His father’s wrinkled brow had wrinkled further. His breath came in labored gasps. “Why are you here then, Ashford?” he managed.

Ash had taken great pleasure in leaning down, getting close enough to his father’s ear so the old man would be certain to hear every word. “My promise to you is that I will do no such thing . I just came from the King’s court, where I informed everyone present that I have absolutely no intention of either marrying or fathering an heir. The Trentham title will die with me.”

A look of horror came across his father’s decrepit face. It was a look Ash would never forget. A look he took pleasure in.

“You cannot be serious,” Father rasped before another coughing fit overtook him.

Ash allowed a slow, smug smile to spread across his face. “Oh, I’m serious. Entirely so. You spent your life ignoring Meredith and me, using us when it served your purposes, treating us like possessions.”

“But I… I…”

“Do you realize, Father, the only time you ever contacted me since I’ve been an adult was to ask me when I intended to marry?”

“That’s not true.” Father tried to sit up again. “There have been other times. After Meredith married. We met in my study in London. We spoke about ? —”

“We spoke about how you auctioned off your only daughter to a disgusting old man to pay a gambling debt,” Ash told him. “And the only reason Meredith remains by your side now is because I could never break her heart and tell her the truth about you. She actually sees some good in you. But I am not under the same illusion. I see you for what you are. I always have.”

“You would forego your duty, just to spite me?” Father asked, a snarl on his lips, his thin chest rising and falling with obvious anger.

“Oh, I’d do more than that, just to spite you.” Ash straightened himself to his full height and tugged on the ends of his coat. “You ordered me about when I was a child, but I’ve long since stopped caring about anything you have to say. There will be no Trentham heir. And you can rot in hell.”

And, his nostrils flaring with distaste, Ash had turned on his heel and walked away. There was nothing left to say.

Ash shook his head, forcing himself to stop reliving that hated memory. “You’re right,” he said to Southbury. “I did promise him he’d never be a grandfather that day.”

Southbury nodded sagely. “And all these years, it’s been an easy promise for you to keep…because you’ve never been in love .” Southbury paused a moment. No doubt for dramatic effect. “ Until now .”

Ash clenched his hands into fists.

But his friend wasn’t finished.

“And now that you’ve fallen in love, you’re questioning all of it. And I’m here to tell you that you should question it. No man remains the same throughout his life, Trentham. We all change over time, and if we’re fortunate, we become the wiser for it.”

Ash didn’t answer. He let his friend’s words settle like so many small anchors in his mind.

“And I won’t remind you that you once told me that if you were ever so ‘unfortunate’ as to fall in love, you’d come right out and tell the lady your feelings.” Southbury cleared his throat. “I believe you said you’d much rather be rejected than subject yourself to years of torment the way I did.”

Ash couldn’t help his smile. “Oh, you’re not going to remind me of that, are you?”

Southbury gave him an unrepentant grin. “Hmm. I suppose it’s too late now. But I must say, you were right. I should have told Meredith I loved her a hundred times before I ever did. I advise you not to make the same mistake.”

Ash growled in the back of his throat. He wanted to argue with his friend. He wanted to tell him to go straight to hell. But he couldn’t… Because— damn him —Southbury was right.

For years, Ash had convinced himself that love was something to be avoided, something that would trap him, control him, ruin him.

But sitting here now, the realization crashed over him like a tidal wave, and he understood the truth.

Love wasn’t a weakness.

Love was Clare.

And, God help him , there was every indication that he was in love with her.