Ash closed his mind firmly on the notion of Della in a wild passion. “I have answered your question. I did not regard myself as worthy of your affections and behaved accordingly.” And that was the truth. “I apologize for any hurt I’ve caused you.”
They rounded a corner in the path and might as well have walked into a remote corner of the New Forest. The bustle and crowds of London were a distant memory, and the loudest sound was birdsong.
“Are you well, Ash?”
Della’s question held potential absolution for all the times he’d pretended indifference, and her words held worry—for him. Worry he did not deserve.
“I am in robust physical health, thank you. About Chastain?”
Della picked up the pace. “The less said, the better.”
“You went with him willingly?”
She peeled her hand free of Ash’s arm and crossed the clearing to a bench sitting in the sunshine.
“I went with him of my own free will,” she said, taking a seat. “He wanted out of his betrothal, I wanted to be ever so slightly disgraced. The plan was, after his father caught up with us—which should have happened within five miles of St. Albans—Chastain could go wenching and wagering on his way. I could finally return to Kent, a confirmed spinster who had had a quiet, not-that-close brush with disaster.”
The tale was plausible, particularly given the annoyed attitude of Della’s posture. She hunched forward, hands braced on the bench, gaze on the lush fall grass.
And she was lying.
Ash came down beside her. “Della, you won’t shock me, you won’t disgust me, you won’t in any way offend me, or reduce my esteem for you, but I must know: Did Chastain hurt you?”
She untied her bonnet and set it on the bench, perhaps to give her time to choose her words. “No duels, Ash. I cannot have anybody fighting a duel over this. Nicholas is a dead shot, and Chastain is merely a dull-witted lout. It’s not as if I was as pure as the vestal virgins anyway.”
Something heavy and primal shifted inside Ash, bringing with it both a deadly calm and a banked rage.
“I don’t care if you comported yourself like White Chapel’s most infamous strumpet. According to every immutable law of masculine decency, the lady alone chooses with whom to share her favors. Did he hurt you?”
Della took a deep breath, her shoulders lifting and settling. “Chastain was too drunk, but the notion of turning our shared outing into a true elopement had taken hold of his imagination. He had me on the bed and was fumbling about when his father burst in with the innkeeper’s wife and two footmen at his side. I was somewhat clothed, also in some disarray.”
A woman somewhat clothed could nonetheless be raped. “No duel, then,” Ash said. “But give me the word, and I will hurt him badly.”
She leaned into his shoulder. “You are very dear. Mostly, Chastain frightened me. He’s quite strong, and he’d been drinking for much of the day. I don’t think he could have done anything, but he was intent on trying.”
Ash allowed himself to drape an arm around her shoulders and pull her close. “Give me leave, and I will address the slight to your honor, Della. I will bring you his pizzle on a platter. I will cut off his balls and serve them to Willow’s dogs. You placed your trust in him, and he not only bungled the whole business, he violated your person.”
She curled closer. “No, he did not. He pushed me onto the bed and more or less fell on top of me. Sorting out my skirts defeated his limited coordination, and in another minute I would have applied my knee to his breeding organs.”
That was courage talking, the shaky courage of somebody who’d had a near miss. Applying her knee would have required that Chastain give her room to aim and fire, and even half drunk, few men would have been that heedless.
“Hold me, please,” she said. “Since Nicholas retrieved me from the inn, I have been groped, pinched, and nearly fondled, but nobody… Please just hold me.”
Ash obliged, wrapping her in his arms. She fit his embrace like she was made for him, like homecoming and Christmas and every good and dear thing.
“You need never see Chastain again, Della. He betrayed you, but the worst of his schemes failed. You’re safe.”
She wasn’t crying, not that he could tell, but she was resting against him as if winded and weary.“I’m not safe. Not yet. Another few weeks of pretending to be a woman who has committed no serious wrong, and I might be allowed to slink off to Kent.”
And I will slink off to Dorset. Again. “That’s the spirit. Noli desperare, and once more unto the breach.”
He remained with her on the bench until she sat up a few precious, torturous moments later. “You won’t say anything to Nicholas or Jonathan? About Chastain and the bed?”
“Not a word. You have a leaf…” He untangled it from her chignon. “Better.”
She took up her bonnet, but didn’t put it on. “Thank you, Ash Dorning.”
“For?”
“Asking if Chastain misbehaved.” She untangled the bonnet ribbons, blue satin the same color as her eyes. “He frightened me. I hate that. I hate him. I hate myself for allowing the whole farce to happen.”
Ash rose and offered her his hand. When she stood, he took her bonnet, placed it on her head, and did up the ribbons in a loose bow.
“A man who outweighs you by a hundred pounds spent all day getting drunk. He broke his word to you and then menaced your virtue. He and he alone is responsible for what transpired. You did not allow anything, Della. Put the notion from your head and toss it into the midden.”
They stood improperly close, but Ash was determined to make his point.
Della braced a hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek. “Thank you. I have missed you so very much, Ash Dorning, but you’re here now, and you’re still you. I thank you for that.”
You’re still you. She could not know how those words puzzled and pained him.
She took him by the arm and led him back to the walkway, while Ash marveled at what had just happened. Soon—too soon—he’d remonstrate with her for casual displays of friendship. Soon, he’d talk himself into believing a peck on the cheek meant nothing.
Soon. But as Ash wandered down the leaf-strewn path with Della at his side, the lion in his mind was for once purring.
Chapter Four
Grey Birch Dorning, Earl of Casriel, was a profoundly happy man. Despite the burden of an old and vast estate, which seemed to ingest money much more quickly than it produced same, despite the tedium of his duties in the House of Lords, despite the little urchin whose damp grasp hopelessly wrinkled his cravat the instant he appeared in the nursery every morning, he was a very happy man indeed.
Particularly when his countess, wearing not one stitch, was draped about his person and in a friendly mood.
“Afternoon naps are so restorative,” Beatitude observed. “Why more adults don’t indulge, I will never know.”
“If we napped any more frequently… Do that again.”
She licked his nipple, then blew on it. Then she licked him Elsewhere, a skill at which Beatitude was fiendishly clever, and Grey—being a gentleman, a devoted husband, and all-around good sport—got in a few licks of his own, so to speak, until Beatitude hauled him over her and commenced their favorite shared pastime, seeing to the succession.