Page 70 of Lady Guinevere & the Rogue with a Brogue
“And when did you learn you were not illegitimate?” she asked.
“My mother told me shortly before she died. She said that, at first, she kept it a secret from me, allowed me to think I was a bastard and she a woman of easy virtue because she thought it better than knowing that my own father had not wanted me, had denied me. But my grandfather died shortly before my mother, and when he did, my father sent a solicitor to my mother to tell her my father wanted to—and was prepared to—claim me as his.”
Asher paused, took a long breath, and released her hand to curl his own hand into a fist upon his chest. His gaze came to her, full of anger and agony. “My mother gave me the letter from my father, told me it was up to me whether I responded or not, but then told me it was her dying wish that I meet him and forgive him.”
Asher paused again, and Guinevere could hear him sliding his teeth back and forth.
“Even after everything he had done to her, even after all she had endured so I would not know the truth that my father had denied me, had not wanted me, and was too fearful to disobey his own father and be cut off, she still wanted me to forgive him.” Asher’s voice shook, and Guinevere felt it to her core. “She said it did no good to hold a grudge and that if he had finally understood the wrongness of what he had done and wanted to claim me as his, I should make peace with him.”
“So you came to London after she died,” Guinevere said into the silence.
Asher nodded. “I couldn’t deny her dying wish. I had already started my distillery business, but it was struggling and I needed more backing. I suspected right away that my father’s relationship with Pierce was not a good one—he already imbibed too much and gambled—and I thought perhaps that was why the old devil had finally conceded to acknowledge me.”
Guinevere sucked in a sharp breath of realization. “Your brother was a disappointment to your father.”
“Aye. I will not say my father didn’t feel guilty about what he’d done to my mother and me. I think he did. He did not come out and say it in those words, but he said he wished he had been stronger. But when I got here, he wanted to control me, and—”
“And you were not like your father.” She pressed a kiss to his chest, then his mouth. “You are not a man to be controlled.”
His lips curled up slightly. “Nay, I’m not. So when he told me not to pursue ye, I did.”
She frowned for a moment at the reminder, but Asher gave her a long, deep kiss, and said, “But within a moment of listening to ye speak about the plight of the orphans in London, which ye informed me Parliament needed to take up, I was captivated.”
“Did I really say that?” She honestly did not remember what she had said when she had first been introduced to him. She’d been utterly struck foolish by his handsomeness.
“Aye, ye did,” he said, kissing her nose, forehead, and lips. “Ye know the rest.”
She certainly did, and she did not want to think on it for another second. “Did you go back to Scotland after that because of your distilleries?”
“Aye, but it was not the only reason.” He let out a long sigh and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Once everything occurred with us and Elizabeth, I didn’t want to stay. I did not want any part of thetonor, honestly, my father. I wanted to succeed or fail on my own.”
“Unlike him,” she said.
“Unlike him,” Asher echoed.
“So why come back?” she asked. “Why return to London when he died? I assume he reached out to you over these last five years.”
“He did.”
“You did not respond?” she asked, though she knew the answer from the hard look in his eyes.
“Nay. I denied him as he had denied me so many years before. I suppose that was why I came back in the end—guilt and a realization that in doing what I was doing, I was behaving just like him, which made me no better than him. I wanted to be better, as my mother had wanted me to be, too, so I returned to claim the title and try to find forgiveness.”
“And have you forgiven him?” she asked, watching him.
“I want to.” Asher looked contemplative and grim. “But he made it hard. Even from the grave, he tried to control me.”
She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
Asher stared at Guinevere for a long moment, thinking about what to say. He did not want to tell her of the will and have her think he had married her because of the money. It had been, and always would be, about her.
He stroked his fingers over the silken skin of her shoulder. The trust growing between them was new and fragile. He wasn’t about to jeopardize that.
When they had more time together, he would tell her. When he trusted that she would not be hurt, that she would believe, when he had told her whatmo ghraidhandmo chridhemeant.
Instead of answering her question, he kissed it away, which led to much more than kissing.
When they were spent once more and lying with their damp bodies molded together, Guinevere yawned and her eyes fluttered shut. Asher traced his fingertips over her back and into her hair, enjoying the feel of her, the smell of her, the gift of her as his wife. He could trust her.
