Chapter Eighteen #2
“He doesn’t know. He never will. Unless you don’t stay away from me.” Ashley tried to pull away, but Carstairs held firm.
“Make certain of that.” His voice dropped, losing all pretense of pleasantness.
“Because if your husband interferes in my plans and comes after me, if he tries to expose what really happened that night, I will make good on my original promise and reveal your sister’s love letters to me.
” He paused and looked around. “Your sister Ivy is such a pretty girl, isn’t she? I’d hate to see her have an accident…”
Ashley’s heart stopped. “Don’t you dare—My brothers would kill you.”
“She’s here tonight, actually. I saw her earlier, dancing with young Lord Ashford.
So innocent. So trusting.” Carstairs leaned closer, his breath hot against her ear.
“It would be remarkably easy to ruin her or worse. An anonymous note suggesting she’s been meeting with unsuitable men.
Especially if I reveal her notes to me. A compromising situation arranged in a darkened corridor.
Or perhaps something more…permanent. Accidents happen, after all.
Young ladies fall from balconies. Contract mysterious illnesses.
Disappear on their way home from balls.”
The casual way he described such horrors made bile rise in Ashley’s throat. “You’re a monster.”
“I’m a survivor.” He released her wrist, stepping back with that terrible smile still in place. “And I protect myself from danger. Currently, your husband poses a threat.”
“What do you want?” The words tasted like ashes.
“I want you to redirect his investigation.” Carstairs straightened his cuffs with deliberate care. “Do you remember Lord Berring? He died last year in a hunting accident. Quite tragic.”
Ashley nodded numbly. She’d known Berring—a dissolute gambler who’d blown through his fortune before putting a bullet through his brain. The hunting accident had been a polite fiction society had embraced rather than acknowledge suicide.
“Excellent.” Carstairs’s smile widened. “Lord Berring is dead and thus beyond consequences. You’re going to tell your husband that Berring was the man in the carriage that night.
That he attempted to abduct you, changed his mind, and left you by the roadside.
Your brothers arrived before anything untoward could occur, but the scandal had already spread. ”
“I won’t lie to him.” The words came out stronger than Ashley felt. “I won’t betray his trust.”
“Then you’ll be responsible for whatever befalls your sister.” Carstairs’s voice went cold as winter. “Your husband may want to hurt me for what I did, but if he tries, I’ll make sure Ivy’s letters go public. And that will ruin her.”
“No.” Ashley’s hands trembled against the stone balustrade. “Please, no.”
“Three days.” He checked his pocket watch as casually as if they were discussing the weather. “You have three days to tell your husband this tale about poor dead Berring. Three days to redirect his investigation away from me. Fail, and Ivy pays the price. She’ll be ruined.”
“How will you know if I’ve told him?”
“Oh, I’ll know.” Carstairs pocketed his watch. “I have eyes everywhere, my dear duchess. If Berring is named, it will be the talk at Whites. If the Duke of Blackstone stops asking questions about your scandal, I’ll know you’ve complied. If he continues investigating… Well, I’ll know that, too.”
He straightened, all charming gentleman once more. To anyone watching from the ballroom, they might have been discussing nothing more scandalous than the weather or next week’s charity bazaar.
“It’s been delightful catching up,” Carstairs said, his voice carrying the perfect tone of polite farewell. “Please give my regards to your husband. Such a formidable man. But what a man doesn’t know won’t hurt him. We can put this unfortunate episode behind us.”
He bowed—a perfect, mocking gesture—and walked back into the ballroom, leaving Ashley alone on the terrace with her heart racing and terror clawing at her throat.
Three days. Three days to destroy the trust she and Raven had built. Three days to lie to the man she loved or watch her sister suffer consequences too horrible to contemplate. Three days to besmirch a dead man’s name just to save her family and the life she was building with her husband.
Raven. Bloody stubborn man. Why couldn’t he have just let it go….
Because he loves you…
Ashley gripped the balustrade until her knuckles went white, fighting the urge to vomit. How had everything gone so wrong so quickly? Just hours ago, she’d been dancing in Raven’s arms, laughing with her friends, reveling in the happiness she’d never thought possible.
Now that happiness felt like sand slipping through her fingers.
She couldn’t tell Raven the truth—Carstairs would hurt Ivy. But she couldn’t lie to him either—not now, not after everything they’d shared. And what about Berring’s family? More scandal. The thought of looking into those green eyes and deliberately deceiving him made her physically ill.
“You’re not alone anymore,” Raven had said just this morning, pressing kisses to her bare shoulder as dawn light painted their bedroom in shades of gold. “Whatever threatens you, we face it together.”
Perhaps she could tell Raven and reveal what Carstairs held over Ivy? Ask him not to pursue it? But what if he told her brothers? They might be able to protect Ivy from a physical threat but one to her reputation—how could anyone protect Ivy from her own youthful foolishness?
“Ashley?”
She spun to find Raven standing in the terrace doorway; concern etched across his features. How long had he been there? Had he seen her with Carstairs?
“I saw you out here with Lord Carstairs.” His voice was carefully neutral, but she caught the edge beneath it—the protective fury he’d been learning to temper. “Did he upset you?”
“No.” The lie came automatically, years of practice making it smooth. “We were simply…catching up. He congratulated us on our marriage.”
Raven’s eyes narrowed. He knew her too well now, could read the subtle tells she’d thought so carefully hidden. “You’re pale. And your hands are shaking.”
Ashley looked down to find he was right—her gloved hands trembled against the stone. She forced them still through sheer will. “It’s nothing. Just…old memories. Seeing people from before the scandal sometimes affects me that way.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie. Seeing Carstairs had dragged up every terrible moment from three years ago—the fear, the helplessness, the crushing weight of protecting everyone but herself.
Raven crossed to her in two strides, his hands coming up to frame her face with devastating gentleness. “Tell me. Whatever he said to upset you, tell me right now.”
For a moment, Ashley teetered on the edge of confession. The words crowded her throat—He threatened Ivy, he wants me to lie to you, he might hurt her if I don’t, if not physically then via her reputation— desperate to escape.
But then Carstairs’s voice echoed in her mind: “I just need this marriage to go through.” Perhaps once he married, he’d give her back the letters.
“It’s nothing,” she whispered, hating herself for the lie but seeing no other choice. “Truly, Raven. Just old ghosts. Being here, in society again, sometimes reminds me of how things used to be.”
She could see him wrestling with whether to push, whether to demand the truth. But they were standing on a public terrace at one of the Season’s most prominent balls. This wasn’t the place for interrogations or confessions.
“We’re leaving,” Raven said firmly, his arm coming around her waist. “Make our excuses to Lady Vale.”
“You can’t leave yet. You’re meeting with the investors—”
“It can wait.” His voice left no room for argument. “My wife is more important than any business venture.”
The automatic way he prioritized her, the fierce protectiveness in his tone, made tears prick at Ashley’s eyes. How could she lie to this man? How could she betray the trust they’d built?
But how could she risk Ivy’s reputation, her life? Not only that. She worried about what Ivy would do when she learned she’d caused Ashley’s scandal…
Raven guided her back through the ballroom, stopping only long enough to make brief apologies to their hostess and alert the Sisterhood they were departing early. Ashley saw concern flash across her friends’ faces, but Raven’s presence at her side kept them from asking questions.
The carriage ride home passed in tense silence. Raven held her hand, his thumb stroking gentle circles across her palm, but didn’t press for explanations. He simply held her—steady, patient, waiting for her to be ready to share whatever burden she was carrying.
That patience, that trust, felt like knives against her skin.
At home, Raven dismissed the servants and led Ashley directly to his bedchamber—their bedchamber now, she corrected mentally. The room that had become a sanctuary for honesty and vulnerability and trust.
Trust she was about to violate.
“Talk to me,” Raven said, guiding her to sit on the edge of the bed while he knelt before her, unlacing her dancing slippers with careful hands. “Please, Ashley. I can see you’re terrified. Tell me, what were you talking to Carstairs about at the ball? You were upset? Is he the man?”
He knows, was her first thought. Could she lie to the man who would protect her with his life?
She turned away. “I’m tired. If you’re going to interrogate me, can you do it in the morning?”
Silence echoed in the bedchamber.
He came up behind her and massaged her shoulders which were taut from tension.
“When will you trust me? You say you love me, but how can you, if you don’t trust me?
” When she didn’t answer, he said, “Perhaps it’s best if you sleep in your bed tonight since you’re so tired.
” Then he moved to open the connecting doors between their rooms.
Trust. She’d trusted him too. She’d thought he had listened to her plea not to investigate but he’d been doing it behind her back.
How did a marriage work without trust? Could it?
She would not let tears well. Instead, she slowly rose and made her way towards where he stood in the darkened doorway.
As she made to pass him, he stopped her and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“We can’t go on like this. Think about us tonight and about trust and what it means for us.
For me, there can be no love without trust. I thought sharing my peculiarities and trusting my secrets with you showed how I trusted you. Can you return the favor?”
She wanted to but fear held her in its tight grip.
As she lay in her cold, lonely bed, Ashley stared at the ceiling and faced the impossible choice before her.
Three days to lie to the man she loved.
Three days to save her sister.
Three days to destroy everything she and Raven had built.
She had no idea how she would survive it. Had no idea if their love could weather such a betrayal.
But she knew with absolute certainty that she would make the sacrifice, that she would tell the lie. Would redirect Raven’s investigation and pray he never discovered the truth.
Because protecting her little sister wasn’t a choice. It was survival. It was love.
Even if it cost Ashley the only real happiness she’d ever known.