Chapter Thirteen #2
“What was she afraid of?” Raven asked quietly. “What threat was hanging over her that made her prefer social ruin to the truth?”
“I don’t know.” Wolf’s admission sounded like defeat. “I’ve wondered for three years, and I still don’t know.”
“Blackstone! Wolf!” Rockwell’s voice carried across the room as he approached their table. “What a coincidence finding you both here.”
No coincidence at all, Raven suspected. Wolf had probably sent word the moment Raven had requested this meeting. The brothers were protective of their sister—he’d give them that much.
“Rockwell.” Raven stood briefly as the other man joined them, signaling for another glass. “We were just discussing Ashley.”
“Were you?” Rockwell settled into the third chair, his gaze moving between them, assessing. “Nothing concerning, I hope?”
“That depends.” Raven returned to his seat, studying Ashley’s younger brother. Where Wolf was direct and forceful, Rockwell tended toward subtlety and observation. Different approaches to the same fierce protectiveness. “How much do you know about your sister’s scandal?”
Rockwell’s expression barely flickered, but Raven caught the slight tensing of his shoulders. “I know what everyone knows. Why do you ask?”
“Because I’m not convinced everyone knows the truth.” Raven looked between both brothers. “Did either of you ever consider that Ashley might have been protecting someone? Taking the blame for another person’s actions?”
The look that passed between Wolf and Rockwell was brief but telling. They’d considered it. Of course, they had.
“The thought crossed our minds,” Rockwell said carefully. “But Ashley insisted she wasn’t. That the scandal was her own doing.”
“And you believed her?”
“We believed she wanted us to believe her,” Wolf said. “There’s a difference.”
Finally, some honesty. Raven leaned forward, lowering his voice.
“Then help me understand. Who was she protecting? Who was important enough that Ashley would sacrifice three years of her life? I want this scoundrel punished or at least to know who he is in case something should happen in the future.”
“We don’t know,” Rockwell said, and the frustration in his voice seemed genuine. “We’ve speculated, of course. Considered which of her friends might have been in trouble that spring. But Ashley was close to several young ladies. The Sisterhood was just forming. It could have been any of them.”
“Or it could have been exactly what it appeared,” Wolf added, though his tone suggested he didn’t quite believe that. “An impulsive decision that Ashley regretted.”
“Except that’s not who Ashley is,” Raven said. “Neither of you believe that’s who she is. So why did you accept it?”
“Because she asked us to.” Wolf’s voice went quiet. “Because she begged us—actually begged—to let it go. To stop investigating, stop asking questions, stop trying to restore her reputation. Said it would only make things worse.”
“Worse how?” Raven pressed. “Worse for whom?”
“She wouldn’t say.” Rockwell swirled his newly arrived brandy. “Just kept insisting that pursuing the matter would cause more harm than good. That the scandal would fade with time if we simply let it.”
“And did it? Fade?” Raven already knew the answer.
“No.” Wolf’s jaw clenched. “If anything, it grew worse. The speculation, the whispers. Three years of social isolation for our sister while the man who put her in that position—whoever he was—faced no consequences whatsoever. I hated what society did to her.”
There it was. The anger Raven had been looking for, the frustration that mirrored his own. Wolf and Rockwell had failed Ashley, but not through lack of caring, but because they’d been outmaneuvered by whatever threat or obligation had kept her silent.
“I want to find him,” Raven said, the words emerging with quiet intensity. “The man involved in that scandal. I want to know who he is, what he’s doing now, whether he’s still a threat to Ashley.”
“Why now?” Rockwell’s gaze sharpened. “It’s been three years. You’ve been married three months. What’s changed?”
Because I’ve realized my wife spent three years carrying a burden that wasn’t hers to carry. Because I’ve discovered she’s not the fallen woman society painted her as. Because someone needs to finally care enough to demand justice for what was done to her.
But he couldn’t say any of that without betraying what Ashley had told him in confidence.
“Because she’s my wife,” he said instead. “I’d never let anyone hurt her again. If there’s even a chance this man could resurface, could cause trouble or threaten Ashley’s position, I need to know.”
“We tried finding him,” Wolf said. “Three years ago, immediately after the scandal broke. We made inquiries, offered rewards for information. Nothing. It was as if the man was a ghost. No one saw him, no one knew him, no one could describe him beyond the vaguest details.”
“Lady Featherington only saw his back,” Rockwell added. “She saw Ashley getting into the carriage with a trunk, saw a man’s silhouette in the shadows. But she didn’t get a clear look at his face, no description of his clothing or bearing. Just…a man.”
“Convenient,” Raven said darkly. Did Featherington know more? She was the last person he wanted to converse with. She was the merry widow now, and he suspected, still into her games. How many other young bucks had she corrupted? But you liked the corruption…
“Too convenient,” Wolf agreed. “Which is why we wondered if Ashley had helped obscure his identity deliberately. Made sure no one could identify him.”
To protect whoever she’d been protecting. To keep her secret safe.
“There must be something,” Raven insisted. “Some detail you overlooked, some question you didn’t ask. Where exactly did you find her?”
“Thirty miles north,” Wolf said. “On the road to Cambridge. She was sitting by the roadside, looking…” He trailed off, his expression pained.
“Looking how?”
“Scared.” Rockwell’s voice was quiet. “Not disheveled or compromised or any of the things one might expect from a woman who’d spent the night in a carriage with a man. Just scared. And when we tried to comfort her, tried to tell her everything would be all right, she flinched away from us.”
The image struck Raven like a physical blow. Ashley, frightened and alone on a dark road, flinching from her own brothers’ comfort. What had happened that night to leave her so damaged?
“Or,” Raven said carefully, “Ashley was actually trying to help. The person she mentioned to me last night, the one whose elopement she was trying to prevent.”
Both brothers went still.
“She told you that? That…would make sense,” Wolf said slowly, as if the pieces were finally falling into place. “She wasn’t running away. She was stopping someone else from running away.”
“And somehow got caught in the scandal herself,” Rockwell finished. “She let everyone believe she was the guilty party to protect whoever actually attempted the elopement.”
“But who?” Raven demanded. “Who would have been foolish enough to plan an elopement? And with whom?”
“The Sisterhood was in its infancy then,” Rockwell said thoughtfully.
“Lady Courtney—was mourning Lucien’s death, so it was unlikely to be her.
Lady Farah—my wife, I doubt it was her. She’s your sister, Raven, and you had her under your thumb.
Lady Tiffany—Wolf’s wife again, was a bluestocking with no money, so why would he try to elope with her?
There were others too—Claire and Valora could be possibilities as they have large dowries.
Claire, I doubt, as her brother Fane is a rake, and Claire avoids men like the plague.
And Lauren, Lucien’s sister was also in mourning and poor as a church mouse.
Oh, and of course there is our other sister Ivy. ”
Ivy. Ashley’s younger sister, who would have been…what? Sixteen? Seventeen at the time? Could it have been Ivy?
Wolf saw the look on his face. “It wasn’t Ivy. She was with me all day at the races.”
I could not allow this person to be hurt, so I did what I needed to do, even if it made people think the worst of me. I was stronger.
“Did any of them show particular interest in unsuitable men that Season?” Raven asked.
“Not that we noticed,” Wolf said. “Though we were hardly monitoring every young lady’s social interaction.”
“What about after the scandal?” Raven pressed. “Did any of them marry quickly? Form sudden attachments?”
Both brothers fell silent, thinking.
“No. Tiffany was the first to marry,” Rockwell said finally.
“Tiffany and I married last year,” Wolf added.
“Farah and I wed recently as well,” Rockwell noted. “We have no secrets. She would have told me.”
“What about men?” Raven asked in frustration. “Any gentleman from that Season who disappeared suddenly? Left London unexpectedly? Changed his circumstances?”
“Dozens,” Rockwell said dryly. “Young gentlemen are notoriously mobile. Gaming debts, family obligations, military commissions—there are countless reasons a man might leave London.”
Raven bit back his frustration. Three years was a long time. Memories faded, details blurred, and whoever had orchestrated this mess had clearly been careful to cover his tracks.
“There must be something,” he insisted. “Some thread we can pull.”
“I take it, sister dear is still insisting on you leaving it alone, just like she did with us,” Rockwell asked. Raven acknowledged his assertion with a slight tip of his head.
“Why?” Wolf’s question was blunt. “What do you hope to accomplish, Blackstone? Even if you identify the man, even if you prove Ashley’s innocence—society won’t care.
They’ve made their judgment. Nothing you do now will restore her reputation.
Your marriage protects her now and has elevated her back into society. ”
“Then I’ll settle for justice,” Raven said, his voice hard. “Someone needs to pay for what was done to her.”
The brothers regarded him with something like surprise, as if they hadn’t expected such vehemence from the duke who’d married their sister out of obligation.
“She’s gotten to you,” Rockwell said quietly. “Ashley. You actually care about her.”
“She’s my wife,” Raven repeated, but even to his own ears it sounded inadequate. Because yes, damn it, he did care. More than he’d ever intended. More than was wise. Kitty’s death had taught him that love hurt. It could be snatched away in the blink of an eye. He wouldn’t let that happen to Ashley.
“Then you should know,” Wolf said carefully, “that Ashley won’t thank you for this. For digging up the past, for trying to clear her name. We’ve tried. She stops us every time. Says it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie.”
“Because she’s still afraid,” Raven said. “Whatever threat kept her silent three years ago, it still exists. And until I know what that threat is, until I can neutralize it, she’ll never be truly free.”
He rose from his chair; the conversation having given him more questions than answers but at least it had confirmed his suspicions.
Ashley had been protecting someone. The brothers knew it but couldn’t prove it.
And whoever had put Ashley in that position was still out there, still a potential threat.
“If you remember anything else,” Raven said, “anything that might help identify the man or the woman Ashley was protecting—tell me.”
“And what will you do with that information?” Wolf asked.
Raven’s smile held no warmth. “Whatever is necessary to ensure my wife’s safety and peace of mind. Whatever the cost.”
He left them there, his mind churning with possibilities and fury. He had more information now, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
But it was a start. And Raven had always been a patient hunter when properly motivated.
Someone had destroyed Ashley’s reputation, her happiness, three years of her life.
And the Duke of Blackstone would make absolutely certain they paid for it.
It was just a pity that the only person he could think to converse with on the subject, who saw anything that day, was Lady Featherington.