Chapter Eleven
CHAPTER ELEVEN
W ednesday at Whites was sacrosanct. Whatever was going on in their lives, Ash knew that he could count on his three friends to meet with him here. Sometimes they would share what was happening to each of them; other times they would play cards or, like Ash was doing right now, they would sit in relative silence and enjoy being in the company of men who knew everything about them. This evening the others were talking quietly among themselves. Ash wasn’t properly paying attention to their conversation. Every so often snippets would cut through, something about an heiress and deep frustration as to how things were going. But Ash was too sunk in his own contemplative mood to pay attention.
Ash stared at the liquid at the bottom of his glass. This was his second glass; by now some of the irritation that had followed him around for the past few days should have dulled. Nothing seemed to be taking off the sharp edge wedged uncomfortably in his chest. He knocked back the last dregs; the liquid hit the back of his throat and he coughed.
‘Are you not enjoying that?’ asked Hawk, nodding at Ash’s glass.
‘It’s fine but…’
‘It’s not reaching the right spot.’ Hawk seemed almost happy at the thought.
‘It’s not even getting close to what I need right now.’
Hawk reached into his jacket and pulled out a hip flask. ‘This might help.’
Ash jerked his glass away before Hawk could fill it up with goodness knows what.
‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing terrible. In fact, it’s the cure for whatever ails you. Come on, have I ever done you wrong?’ Dubiously, Ash held his glass still as Hawk tipped some of his flask’s contents into it.
‘What type of alcohol is it?’ Ash held it up to the light; the drink shimmered like liquid gold. It looked delicious but he’d been fooled before. During his soldiering years he’d drunk some true abominations, liquids that could only very loosely be described as drinks. But then, war was a desperate time and you’d take your pleasures where you could find them because you had no idea what tomorrow would bring.
‘Try it,’ urged Hawk.
‘It’s strong,’ warned Adam. ‘Take it slowly otherwise it’ll make your eyes water.’
‘Ignore him. It’s heaven in a glass.’ Hawk had the eyes of a fanatic. Whatever the truth, his friend clearly believed this was the best thing anyone had ever or would ever drink.
Ash took a cautionary sip. The drink burned his tongue and lit a fiery path down to his stomach. ‘That,’ he said, holding the glass up towards Hawk, ‘is exactly the right stuff.’
Hawk grinned at him like a proud father. Ash took another long sip and his body loosened perceptibly; this was what he’d needed, the edges of his irritation fading away with every swallow. He half listened as Hawk pontificated on the values of his whisky and how he was going to make a fortune just as soon as the drink became legal in England. Ash found he couldn’t hold the conversation in his head for long enough. It was hard to follow his reasoning, especially as the drink was now swimming through his blood, although Ash wasn’t convinced Adam and Ezra were following along, either. Both men were probably thinking of the new women in their lives. They were both sickeningly smitten.
By the time Ash had finished his glass and Hawk was refilling it, he was the most relaxed he’d been in days; since he’d seen Amelia gazing at Stanmere while out walking with him, in fact. Lord knows he’d been so furious then he could have taken on a whole army of Frenchmen by himself. It had been bad enough knowing that Amelia had married someone else; the idea that some faceless man got to hold her in his arms, got to laugh at her jokes or gaze at her while she slept had been torture. But to see her looking at her current object of affection while Ash had been standing right next to her… Ash’s grip tightened on his glass and he took another sip before all that jagged anger could rush back in.
He didn’t know why he was so furious about it. He no longer wanted Amelia for himself, no matter how much his body craved her in his weaker moments. Like right now, in this moment, he wanted her with a ferocity that almost frightened him. It was not like the sweet adoration he’d had for her as a young man. Instead, it was heady and potent and all-consuming. But it was not love; he’d felt that emotion before and knew that what he was experiencing now was nothing like the reverence he’d once had for Amelia. It was something far baser. He wanted her beneath him or over him or in any one of the positions from Ezra’s book. He also didn’t want her to have a lover who wasn’t him. And that was entirely reasonable, wasn’t it?
‘I hear you’re going to take a mistress,’ said Hawk, turning to Ash when his lecture on whisky laws was finally over.
‘I am.’ Ash had forgotten all about it but now he remembered what a fine idea it was. Everyone else had one, so why shouldn’t he? He frowned. Was that right? Did his friends have women they saw on a casual basis? Now that he thought about it, he thought perhaps they didn’t. There had been Adam’s almost near constant talking about his wife, and Ezra was constantly harping on about Seraphine, who would become his wife very soon. He shook his head, the room spinning slightly as he did so. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘What doesn’t matter?’ Ezra flashed him a grin.
‘Did I say that out loud?’ He hadn’t meant to.
Adam sighed. ‘I don’t think he should have any more.’
‘No,’ agreed Ash. ‘He definitely shouldn’t.’ Somebody laughed. Was it him? Wait. Was Ash talking about himself in the third person? He looked at his glass. He’d only taken a few sips of this second drink but he really thought that perhaps he had better stop. He didn’t drink a great deal anymore, not after the night he’d had so much to drink he’d thought it was a fine idea to sign up to fight in a war about which he hadn’t had a particularly strong feeling, only to bitterly regret it the following morning. He didn’t want to make the same level of hideous mistake this evening. He slowly put it down on the table. ‘I may have had enough.’
‘I think we can safely say that is the case.’ Adam picked up the glass and sniffed it. ‘How strong is this exactly?’
‘Well…’ Hawk started up about the whisky again as Ash slumped back in his chair. What had he been thinking about? Oh, yes, taking a mistress. That was a very good idea. Perhaps he could parade her outside Amelia’s house and see how she liked feeling jealous. Not that he was jealous of Stanmere, of course. Or of the fact that Amelia had a man in her life. He was glad for her; it was just that Stanmere was such a…such a…
‘That is a very fierce frown.’ Hawk was grinning at him again. If Ash hadn’t had so much whisky, he’d find it very annoying indeed. Instead, he reached up and touched his forehead. It felt smooth to him.
‘Are you checking for one?’ Hawk was openly laughing at him now and, as he glanced around his friends, Ash realised they all were.
‘Of course not.’ He dropped his hand and pushed himself into a more upright position. He was never drinking any of Hawk’s whisky again, even if it was the most delicious drink he had ever tasted. It made him forget how to act like his usual self and that was dangerous.
Ezra leaned forward. ‘Are you quite all right, old chap? You are not yourself.’
What Ash wanted to say was that he was perfectly fine, thank you very much; never better, in fact. But what came out was, ‘What do you know about Lord Stanmere?’
He didn’t miss the glance between Adam and Hawk but he decided to ignore it. Ezra cleared his throat, not making eye contact. ‘I don’t know much about him but he seems to be a decent man.’
That couldn’t be right. Ash was fairly certain Stanmere was a bounder and a blackguard. ‘What about his financial background?’ Stanmere was surely after Amelia for her money, or at least partially. He could also be interested in her because she was warm and kind, ferociously intelligent and had the most delectable skin a man could ever have the privilege of touching. But it was far better for Ash’s peace of mind if he did not think about any of those things in relation to his former love.
‘As far as I know,’ Ezra continued cautiously as if trying to avoid standing on hot coals, ‘Stanmere has a modest estate in Shropshire and a decent house in London. He is not one for gambling and takes an active interest in parliament where he advocates for social reform in particular with regards to the poorest in our society.’
‘You’ve been investigating him.’ Ash wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
‘I thought it prudent to know details about a man we might meet on a duelling field one day.’ This time it was Ezra who glanced around the rest of the group. Ash couldn’t be sure but it looked as if Hawk was trying not to grin, which was understandable because Ezra was being ridiculous. Ash may find the idea of Stanmere anywhere near Amelia as… His fists clenched before he loosened them again. He may not like it but that did not mean he was going to turn to violence; that was not the person Ash was. After the war, Ash only wanted peace; it wasn’t his fault Stanmere made him bloody furious. ‘I’m not going to fight the man. I just wanted to know if he was decent. Amelia is an old friend.’ Ezra snorted before trying unsuccessfully to turn it into a cough. ‘She is,’ insisted Ash. She may have been more at one stage but she had been a friend for even longer. If things went well with the investments perhaps they could get something of that friendship back. Ash did not wish for more. If he allowed himself to fall back in love with her and she married another person again, Stanmere perhaps this time, then Ash did not think he could survive it. His friends were looking at him with varying levels of pity in their eyes, which did not help his mood. ‘I’m not developing feelings for her, so there is no need to look at me as if I am a fool.’
‘No,’ said Ezra quietly. ‘We don’t think you are developing feelings for Amelia Smythe.’
‘Washbrook,’ Ash snapped. ‘Her surname is Washbrook because she got married, in case you had forgotten.’
‘None of us have forgotten that,’ said Adam gently.
‘Not likely to forget those dark days,’ muttered Hawk.
The days after Ash had discovered the news had been very bleak indeed. Already struggling with the horrors of war, the letter informing Ash that the sweet girl he had loved had married somebody else was like receiving a knife wound to the chest. He’d barely functioned, had almost got himself killed on the battlefield and hadn’t even cared. If it hadn’t been for the three men sitting around this table, he might not have made it through. Then he’d been given the care of ensuring other soldiers made it through the war. It had given him a purpose but it had also destroyed him further. He had failed some of those men, men who would not be returning to their families; men who visited him often in his nightmares. ‘I think I had better head home,’ he said. He was dangerously close to becoming a morose, belligerent drunk and he didn’t want to act like that before the three men who cared for him. They deserved better. ‘That whisky has scrambled my mind.’
‘Would you like the use of my carriage?’ offered Ezra.
‘No, thank you. I will walk.’ Ash pushed himself to standing. ‘The fresh air will help to clear my head and perhaps prevent a terrible headache tomorrow.’
‘It’s good, though, isn’t it? The whisky, that is.’ asked Hawk, looking up hopefully.
Ash patted him on the shoulder. ‘I drank lots of it, didn’t I?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘It’s good, Hawk. I’m sure it will make you a very rich man.’ Maybe, when things weren’t so tight, Ash would offer to invest in Hawk’s future whisky-making company. He liked the idea of supporting his friend with his dreams. And on that happier thought, he meandered out into the night.