Page 144 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

Ashford pressed his hands against the cool, stone parapet that separated the terrace from the gardens, looking out across Hawkscroft’s rolling lawns. Calm, he reminded himself, calm.

‘I regret all the events that led to my behaviour yesterday,’ he said, without turning around.

‘I should hope so!’ the duke said, and from behind Ashford he heard chair legs scraping, and the sound of the his father seating himself. ‘Such dishonour, Ashford.’

He made a little tut tut sound with his tongue. The embers of Ashford’s temper reignited in one great rush, and he wheeled about, glaring at him.

‘You pushed me there!’ he accused, before he could stop himself. ‘What did you think the effect of your decree would be?’

They ought to remove to a private room to discuss such matters, but in that moment, Ashford did not care.

‘I thought it would nudge you into forming a genuine attachment,’ the duke said. ‘And I was correct!’

‘No, you were not,’ Ashford insisted. ‘I told you, last night – I never felt anything for Miss Hanworth. It was all a ploy.’

The duke chuffed out a knowing laugh that made Ashford want to yell in frustration. ‘It did not seem a ploy, to me. I have not seen you laugh in such a way for years.’

Dear lord, why was everyone so obsessed with his laughter? It was just laughing! It did not mean anything.

‘Perhaps there will be more time for laughing,’ he snapped, ‘once I can be certain we are not on the point of ruin.’

‘Such dramatics,’ the duke tutted. ‘We are not going to be ruined!’

‘If you had read Ellery’s letter!’

‘Men of business, it’s their job to find problems,’ his father said. ‘It’s our job to ignore them!’

He chuckled. Ashford did not.

‘I care a great deal more about you,’ the duke went on, ‘than silly financial matters.’

‘These are not frivolous issues, Father. We need drains, and money to build them, or we will have to begin selling land!’

‘We’ll solve all that.’ The duke gave a dismissive wave of his hand that had Ashford seeing red.

‘Who is we, Father?’ Ashford said derisively. ‘You? Do you intend to do so, all the way from Scotland?’

The smile fell from the duke’s face.

‘One must take time for oneself,’ the duke said, with great dignity. ‘If I might pass on one piece of wisdom, Ashford, it is that.’

‘Yes, you have always made time for yourself,’ Ashford said savagely. ‘Sauntering up to Scotland, resting in Bath, as if you have anything to rest from, spending days in bed after Mother—’

He broke off. Even now, he could not say it.

‘You were incapacitated!’ he rallied after a pause. ‘For months you could not do anything. My uncles had to solve everything, for you. I had to—’

His voice cracked and he turned away to collect himself, staring across Hawkscroft’s grounds. In the distance, two gardener’s boys were hauling a gigantic potted palm in the direction of the greenhouse, and he fixed his eyes upon them until they disappeared from view.

‘I will not apologize for my heartbreak,’ the duke said after a long pause, adding, in defensive mutter: ‘At the time you said you wanted to take on more duties.’

Ashford let out a humourless laugh. ‘I was ten and six.’

He had become the duke that day, in all the ways that mattered. To be cut so shockingly adrift, the gilded softness of childhood abruptly rendered into grey – it had been terrifying. With his father unable to explain this awful new world, he had had to look to his uncles, with their rigid Ancaster propriety, for guidance. Their intervention had been blessed relief, at the time. For however nauseating it had felt, in those early days, to act as if the duchess had passed away – as if that were a better, more reasonable loss – it had shown Ashford a way forward. Had proven that, with calm and reason, one could carve order out of chaos – indeed, with the proper prioritization of rationality over sentiment, one could easily ensure that such hurt never occur again.

It was a system that had worked very well until approximately ten days prior.

‘You were always so strong,’ His Grace said, but he had not truly listened. After all that guff about Ashford unburdening himself, he did not wish to hear it when it was unpleasant.