The Duchess’s Secret. Elizabeth Beacon

but now it sounded so hard and stern she wanted to shiver. A moment ago she felt almost too warm from hurrying down the hill, then dashing about the village to find Jenny, but now cold was nipping at her fingers and toes and she was shivering.

      ‘Good, I was on my way to see you,’ he said grimly.

      ‘Why? It will only stir up gossip.’

      ‘Your neighbours will be even more interested if I throw you over my shoulder and carry you there, if that’s the only way we can talk out of the cold.’

      ‘I didn’t make you turn up here like a bad penny. I will struggle and cry out if you even try it and they will all come to my aid.’

      ‘If you prefer us to have an open and honest discussion of the past and the state of our marriage right here and now, where anyone can listen who cares to risk frostbite, then let’s get on with it. I don’t care what a pack of strangers think of me, but I suspect you do.’

      ‘I don’t want my friends to think ill of me.’

      ‘They don’t really know you, though, do they?’

      She shivered at his implied threat to say who she really was and gave in. Jenny wasn’t there, so did it matter if Ash was inside her home? Except it had been her sanctuary for so long and he would look down his aristocratic nose at its humble proportions and low-beamed ceilings. Telling herself his contempt for her humble home was the least of her worries, Rosalind led the way. The snow was still only an odd flake of feathery whiteness, but heavy clouds were cutting out more and more daylight. They walked in silence, but she was conscious of every muscle and sinew of this newly powerful man loping alongside her. He even felt furious, as if suppressed rage might keep winter at bay. A familiar ache deep inside shocked her with stupid fantasies of his newly powerful body intimately entwined with her own and how could it betray her at a time like this? Maybe she had longed for him so much it hurt at times during the last eight years, but she was only six and twenty and she still had the usual womanly needs. She dreamt of him as well—warm and loving again as he was for one glorious night all those years ago. Then she would wake up with tears on her cheeks and feel so terribly lonely it hurt. Now here he was, about to rip her whole world apart again and those eight years of longing felt like a traitor force inside her defences. She frowned up at him before she tapped on her own back door to warn Joan she was back. She opened it just wide enough for him to follow her in before even more warmth escaped.

      ‘It’s only me, Joan,’ she called out as they stood in the narrow hallway shaking snowflakes off their outer wrappings. Through the half-open door to the kitchen she could see a fire still burning and there was no sign of hasty preparations for a reckless journey. Rosalind sighed at her own idiocy—fancy her believing there was any chance of getting away in such weather.

      ‘There’s going to be far too much snow for us to go anywhere until—’ Joan stopped on the stairs as soon as she was far enough down them to see Ash’s towering figure in the tiny hall where the shadows cast by the rush light burning in its holder made him look even more alien. Joan glared at him before descending the rest of the way in tight-lipped silence.

      ‘Do continue,’ he invited so smoothly Rosalind glared at him as well.

      ‘I have nothing good to say to you, young man,’ Joan said sharply.

      ‘You used to like me,’ he said, a half-smile smoothing away the thunderclouds for a moment as if he was pleased to see her.

      ‘I used to be a fool then.’

      ‘No, I think Rosalind and I were those,’ he said with a hint of regret in his voice to make Rosalind think so as well, until she remembered why he was here and hardened her heart.

      Joan glanced warily at Rosalind, who shrugged and could not say where Jenny was in front of Ash, since there was still the faintest chance he would not find out about her.

      ‘I know I have a child,’ he announced as if he could read their hastily exchanged looks far too easily. ‘I presume you left her at the local vicarage to keep her out of my way?’

      ‘Yes, and my daughter is very happy at the thought of snowball fights and sledging before breakfast in the morning before you accuse me of neglecting her or being a bad mother,’ Rosalind said defensively. Not only had she almost agreed Jenny was his, but they were back on the treadmill of accusation and defence she remembered so clearly from the time they travelled back to London together, yet so very far apart.

      ‘Did I do anything of the sort?’ he asked Joan.

      ‘Don’t drag me into your arguments. You two must talk through your differences for the sake of the child now you have finally arrived home. I am going out now, but if you ever hurt Miss Rosalind again you will have me to deal with. And the child will never take to anyone who makes her mother miserable, so think on that as you pick over your grievances.’

      ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Ash said to Joan’s back as she seized Ros’s russet cloak from where it was drying in front of the fire in the kitchen and marched past them and out of the back door. Her grand exit fell flat when she came back for her boots, but she pushed her feet into them without doing up the laces and stamped out without another word. ‘Where will she go?’ he asked Rosalind and she tried not to like him for sounding anxious about her oldest friend.