Page 26 of Lady Guinevere & the Rogue with a Brogue
“To the person who has laid the rules before me,” he relented.
“Ah, I see. Why not to you? Given what I saw, I would think—”
“Ye misinterpreted what ye think ye saw, Lady Constantine. Lady Guinevere is, it would seem, in much the same situation as ye.” She had said she wasGuinto Kilgore, after all.
“Oh?” She arched her eyebrows. “I think not. You are aware of how gossip works in theton, are you not?”
“I’m aware,” he replied. He knew it had been whispered that he threw her over for Elizabeth, but he also knew the truth. She had not wanted him in the first place.
“And you still say she is in the same situation as I am?”
“She is,” he assured the woman. “Her affections are reserved for another.”
“Hmm… I think you are incorrect, but—”
“My ears and eyes do not lie,” he ground out, his patience expired.
“Sometimes,” she rejoined slowly, “what you think you hear is not what someone is saying.”
“Well thissomeonetold me bluntly that another called her by a very intimate pet name.”
“Then I would say thissomeoneis attempting to lead you to jealousy.”
Asher paused. Could it be? He shook his head. No, it could not. The past was proof enough. Wasn’t it? “Ye are incorrect. I also saw that this someone did indeed have affections engaged elsewhere.” Just as before.
Lady Constantine grinned at him. “Sometimes what you think you see is also not what it seems.”
“Exactly,” he said, looking meaningfully at her. “You look rather frail and meek, and I suspectthatis purposeful.”
“True,” she replied with a smile. “You know, if it were possible, I should very much like to be your friend. I don’t have many. I don’t rub along well with women usually, and it’s not acceptable for men and women to be friends when the woman is unwed. Oh! Could we be secret friends?”
That sounded like trouble, but he’d known what it was like in his life to have no one to talk to, so he nodded.
“Excellent!” She clapped her hands together. “As friends, I shall be very honest with you and give you some advice.”
“Do I need it?” he said on a chuckle.
She nodded. “You have a passion for Lady Guinevere, and she has one for you.” She held up a staying hand. “Please do not continue to be tedious and deny it. You may not like it, but it is so. It was on your faces and fairly crackled in the air. Now—” she took a deep breath “—even if the lady’s affections are engaged elsewhere, she is not, as you said, like me. I know this to be true. Servants talk a great deal, you know.”
“I can imagine,” he said, thinking of his conversation with Cushman. “How is the lady unlike ye, then?” he inquired, deciding to go along with her fantasy for the moment.
“Well, she has sisters who must wed, and they cannot do so until she weds, so she surely feels the need to wed very urgently now. She also has no fortune of her own, so that is an additional consideration. You say her affections belong to another, but I cannot agree given what I saw. Still, to go along with you, for I know you shall argue if I don’t, this unknown fool of a man must not know her worth if he has not declared himself yet.”
“One could say yer situation sounds very much the same.”
She scowled. “One could, but I have the luxury of being resolute in my decision, right or wrong, and I have never had a passion for any other man than the one who has my heart. I propose you test my theory and see if she harbors the flame I know I saw.”
He thought immediately of the kiss and the heat that had been undeniable between them, but on that thought came the familiar terms she was on with Kilgore and her betrayal of years ago. And directly after that came thoughts of all the people who relied on him. He had to save his distilleries. The question was, exactly how far would he go to do that?
Would he pursue Guinevere, a woman who had betrayed him, and who may well still want the very man with whom she betrayed him? Or was Lady Constantine correct in that what he thought he’d seen between Guinevere and Kilgore the other night—or more correctly, what Guinevere had wanted him to see—was not the truth of the matter? Perhaps Kilgore played a game with her and she did not want Asher to know. Or perhaps she had simply been vexed with Asher. He had not handled the dance with her well, nor the encounter in the library, for that matter. He should not have let his lust for her overcome him. She had once been his Achilles’ heel, but she never would be again. He desired her, yes, but that was all. He would not be a fool for the lass a second time. If they wed, it would be a marriage of convenience. But could he pursue her, wed her, if she loved Kilgore?
He should let go of his pride completely for all those who relied upon him, but he could not do it. He could let go of a portion and pursue the perfidious enchantress he’d once disavowed to save his company, but he would not wed her if her heart truly belonged to Kilgore. He would simply have to find another way, though he had no damn notion what that would be. For years his pride had been the only thing he had when he and his mother had possessed next to nothing. His pride had given him determination and relentless drive to make their situation better, and he’d done it.
He had to discover the truth of Guinevere’s situation. The future hinged upon it.
Chapter Eight
Guinevere was handed down from the conveyance she’d ridden in with Vivian and their mother, and she had no more than reached for her skirts to shake out the wrinkles in her travel gown when the door to Farthingate Manor was opened and Lilias surged out of her country home. Her skirts were fisted in both hands and she moved at the pace of an eager, unschooled girl of seven rather than a proper lady of two and twenty.
