Chapter 1 #3
Ash could only agree. ‘If anyone so much as utters the word “marriage”,’ he muttered, ‘I will have them locked in the tower.’
‘I suppose they wish to know who will be joining you,’ Jo said.
‘That and they all crave gossip,’ Lily added. ‘It is a more diverting topic than Father’s … than Father.’
Ash grimaced. It was an impossible choice: given the chance, he would prefer to talk about neither.
‘Do you still intend to head north this week?’ Penn asked.
‘I warned you about the tower, de Foucart.’
‘I did not mention “marriage”, Barden.’
Ash grunted. It was a fair question: he was supposed to head out to meet his potential wife that very day, but his father’s sudden death had put those plans in disarray.
It was a good excuse to call off the journey altogether, to claim that the matchmaking would be over until he had found time to grieve.
But musing on Roland’s words about his parents being reunited made him even keener to get it over with.
‘I do,’ he said. ‘It is too important to delay. I shall set out in a few days.’
‘So,’ Penn said, rolling a mug in his hands. ‘Agatha, is this one?’
‘Agnes.’
Ash didn’t look at him as he pulled the wine jug closer. Penn knew her name. He was being baited, like a hare.
‘I am surprised you have seen fit to actually speak to her,’ Penn said. ‘You have refused more women than I can even remember.’
‘I am not to blame if they are unsuitable.’
‘There was that woman Roland suggested,’ Penn said. ‘What was her name? Ruth?’
Ash scowled. Ruth had grimaced at his scars and spent the evening carefully looking away from him. ‘I recall.’
‘And of course we cannot forget Lady Louisa,’ Penn continued gleefully.
Raff shuddered. ‘I wish we could.’
‘She loved you, though,’ Penn said. ‘I still recall her expression when Michael informed her she had laid her attention upon the wrong brother. Is this why you intend to travel to Lady Agatha—’
‘Agnes.’
‘—this time? So she does not fall in love with Raff?’
Ash sighed. They had, in fact, extended her the invitation to visit Dunlyn.
And she had refused. She was a widow, she reminded them.
She had no heirs, and no family. She would not leave her lands without better reason, especially not when she knew that Ash could leave Dunlyn Castle in the hands of a capable brother.
Michael, his father’s steward, had scoffed at the perceived rudeness. He had intended to send another letter calling off the potential union, but Ash managed to stop him.
‘She seems to be a good match,’ Raff said, eying Ash from across the table.
Ash gave a half-nod of agreement. Agnes was a good match.
Her influence as a widow was stronger than if she had been unwed, and she was more experienced than many of the women he had been introduced to despite being a little younger.
She was Scottish, too, which while largely unimportant – save for the still-rumbling tensions that flared between the two countries – Ash appreciated.
It reminded him of his mother’s family, and he liked the idea of maintaining those roots in some way given how unlikely it was that his own blood would run in the veins of his heirs.
She intrigued him. No one else had turned him down in such a manner. Part of him wondered what may happen should she refuse him in person, too. Part of him wanted her to. It would prove he was a lost cause.
‘I suppose,’ he said. ‘Michael seems to think she may be what the family is looking for.’
Penn glanced at him. ‘But what are you looking for?’
‘What?’
‘There must be specific qualities you look for in a wife, elsewise you simply would have married the first eligible woman you could find. I assume there must be certain traits you require?’
Ash winced. ‘You make it sound as if I am going to buy a horse.’
‘If it helps at all, I am sure that she is having the same thoughts about you.’
‘That does not help.’
‘Assume I am asking for entirely selfish reasons. Whoever you wed will become a fixture in the keep, and as I happen to live here I’m keen to know what sort of person you intend to introduce into our lives.’
Ash glared at him. ‘Why did I allow you to stay, again?’
‘Because you cannot be bothered to look after the birds,’ Penn countered. ‘And Raff would be unbearable without me.’
Ash huffed. ‘Fine,’ he spat. ‘Fine! I need …’ He hesitated.
He had tried to imagine the sort of woman who would fit his needs: the sort of woman who would care for Dunlyn until any children came of age.
The sort of woman who would have those children, with or without his involvement.
He had not spoken her into existence before.
‘She needs to be intelligent. I need someone who understands running a keep and managing lands.’
‘A partner, then?’ Jo put in.
‘Exactly. I would not strike up a trade deal with a clueless lord. So I should not marry a woman who will not be able to manage the keep.’
‘What else?’ Penn said.
‘She must tolerate the Barden family’s … oddities. She cannot mock Lily’s choices, or force you two to hide your feelings. Although … Although I fear that may be impossible.’
The low noise of agreement from Raff made it clear that this was a thought he had mused on, too.
It would be unthinkable for him and Penn to continue their relationship quite so blatantly with a stranger living beside them.
It would be difficult to find anyone so tolerant as the rest of the Barden family.
They lapsed into silence. Penn broke it first, shattering through it as he so often did.
‘What else, then? What about her?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You will be spending your lives together. Surely you have an opinion on her personality? Should she be, I don’t know … curious, funny, serious?’
‘Does it matter?’ Ash said.
‘I should think it does, yes. I understand you won’t love her, but it would be good for you to be friends.’
Ash peered down at the table. Penn was correct in one way: he would not love her. He had only ever loved one person. His heart had since calcified too much to love another.
He would not love her – was incapable of it. But he didn’t need her friendship, either. He needed her skills, and her ability to provide him with an heir. Striking up a friendship with her was unnecessary: she would not be subjected to him for long.
He made a non-committal noise. He could sense that Penn was about to launch a rebuff at being so ignored, so he stood, swaying a little.
‘I need some air.’
Ash took himself to the garden, placing himself on one of the benches beside the high wall.
The garden had belonged to their mother.
Just thinking about her assailed him with the overwhelming scent of roses and earth, the smell that had seemed to follow her everywhere she went.
She’d attempted to cultivate a love of the garden in her sons, although Raff was the only one who ever held any sort of affection for flowers.
Ash had simply enjoyed spending time with her, listening to her sing and tell them stories.
She’d tended it even in the days leading up to Lily’s birth, always moving with rushing, unspent energy.
It was one of the last memories he had of her: the day before Lily arrived, she had plucked a strong-smelling herb from the bush beside her favourite bench.
She’d become obsessed with herbs those past few months, and had bidden Ash smell it.
It was betony. She’d smiled at him and told him it could be used to ward off nightmares.
Two days later, she was gone.
The garden had always been a poorly organised, chaotic affair.
She grew whatever took her fancy, not caring about colours or seasons or themes.
She fell in and out of love with different flowers so quickly that it was always changing, always blooming with something new and interesting.
It was the perfect garden for the former Maid of Kerr: the daughter of a laird who had thrown her family’s plans into disarray by marrying an English earl.
After her death, their father could not bear getting rid of the garden, but nor could he stand to keep it himself.
It passed into the hands of the housekeeper, Ellen, and the gardener: tended but never loved.
Raff had taken it over after his injury.
At first, it had been a way to keep himself busy when the wound on his shoulder flared, but soon he had fallen in love with the gardens as well.
He was by nature more serious and practical, yet he allowed the garden to grow in the same wild disarray that it had while their mother was alive.
Penn had also been drawn in, although was more likely to be found sprawled on a bench with a book purloined from whichever noble they had visited most recently, or attending to one of his birds as he flew them around the grounds. It was … sweet, Ash supposed. If a little sickening.
They loved one another. Ash had never seen his brother this happy. By marrying, Ash was sacrificing himself for that happiness.
Between the three Barden children, none of them had married, and so none of them had produced a suitable heir. Raff was their one other chance to pass on their father’s title, but doing so would force him to toss his true love aside – the love he had fought so hard for. Ash would not allow it.
He was not so cruel as to hate his brother’s happiness, no matter how much he teased him.
Besides, the circumstances that had led them here made Raff an unsuitable marriage candidate anyway; his shoulder never truly healed from the horrible injury he’d suffered at the hands of his lover’s father.
Raff was happy to accept his fate as a crippled second son.
Indeed, if almost entirely losing the use of his right arm meant he could stay with Penn, Ash suspected it was a choice he would make again.