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But Mark was looking at hi off all that blond hair, Ash wouldn’t have been surprised if his brother had pulled a fla and proclaimed him barred from Eden forever “Say it,” Mark repeated

And besides, his little brother so rarely asked anything of hi as he just…well, wanted

“Very well” He ht the evidence of the Duke of Parford’s first e before the ecclesiastical courts, and thus had his secondfroiti-hated fifth cousin, twice removed, as the presuain “I didn’t do anything to the Dalrymples I just told the truth of what their own father had done all those years ago”

And he wasn’t about to apologize for it, either

Mark snorted and started his horse again “And you didn’t have to do that”

But he had Ash didn’t believe in foretellings or spiritual claptrap, but froh that word sht have been that he possessed a sheer animal instinct As if the reactive beast buried deep inside hience, dulled by years of education, could not

When he’d found out about Parford, he’d knoith a blazing certainty: If I become Parford, I can finally break my brothers free of the prison they’ve built for themselves

With that burden weighing down one side of the scale, no moral considerations could balance the other to equipoise The disinherited Dalry Besides, after what Richard and Edmund had done to his brothers? Really He shed no tears for their loss

The servants had finished gathering, and as Ash trotted up the drive, they held theawk, too polite to let idity infect their es to do rouse about the upstart heir the courts had forced upon them

They’d like hih Everyone always did

“Who knows?” he said quietly “Maybe one of these serving girls will catch your eye You can have any one you’d like”

Mark favored hiet thee behind me”

Ash’s steed came to a stop and he dismounted slowly The manor looked sold, not bleak and i It had shrunk from the unassailable fortress that had loomed in Ash’s head all these years Noas just a house A big house, yes, but not the dark,edifice he’d brooded over in his memory

The servants stood in painful, ordered rows Ash glanced over them

There were probably more than a hundred retainers arrayed before hiray He felt as sober as they appeared Had there been the slightest danger of Mark accepting his cavalier offer, Ash would never have made it These people were his dependents now—or they would be, once the current duke passed on His duty Their prosperity would hang on his whihty responsibility

I’ to do better than that old bastard

A vow, that, and one he meant every bit asup at this building

He turned to greet the majordomo, who stepped forwards As he did so, he saw her She stood on the last row of steps, a few inches apart froh The wind started up again, as if the entire universe had been holding its breath up until thisdirectly at him, and Ash felt a cavernous hollow open deep in his chest

He’d never seen the woman before in his life He couldn’t have; he would have rehtness of it She was pretty, even with that dark hair pulled into a severe knot and pinioned beneath a white lace cap But it wasn’t her looks that caught his attention Ash had seen enough beautiful women in his time Maybe it was her eyes, narrowed and steely, fixed on hi in the world Maybe it was the set of her chin, so unyielding, so fiercely determined, when every face around hersabout her resonated deep within him

It reminded him of the cacophony of an orchestra as it tuned its instru into har precursor, tre on the horizon It was all of that It was none of that It was sheer anirabbed him by the throat Her Her

Ash had never ignored his instincts before—not once He sed hard as the majordomo approached

“One thing,” he whispered to his brother “The woht? She’s mine”

Before his brother could do more than frown at hi of sparks coursing through his veins, theand

introducing himself Ash took a deep breath and focused on the man

“Mr— I mean, my—” The man paused, uncertain how to address Ash With the duke still alive, Ash, a mere distant cousin, held no title And yet he had come here as heir to the dukedouess at the careful calculation in the ht well be his next ht he adhere to the strict formalities required by etiquette?

Ash tossed his reins to the groom who crept forwards “Plain Mr Turner will do There’s no need to worry about how you address me I scarcely knohat to call myself”

The man nodded and the taut e a tour, or would you and your brother care to take some refreshment first?”

Ash’s eyes wandered to the woaze, her expression implacable, and a queer shiver ran down his spine It was not lust itself he felt, but the premonition of desire, as if the wind that whipped around his cravat hispering in his ears Her Choose her

“Good luck,” Mark muttered “I don’t believe she likes you all that much”

That leaned from the set of her jaw

“No refresh, and the sooner, the better I’ll need to speak with Parford, as well I’d best start as I lanced at the woman one last time, and then e”

FROM HER HIGH PERCH on the cold stone steps, Anna Margaret Dalryentlemen who approached on horseback But what she could see did not bode well for her future