On the rare times Lewis angered his father, he’d duck his head and say a quick, “Sorry, sir,” and all was forgiven.
This time, he kept his gaze on Ash, with a strength Ash had seen budding in him for some time. “When you were ill, sir, you stayed far from us for our own good,” Lewis said. “I am insisting on this for the same reason.”
Ash shook his head before Lewis finished. “Not the same thing at all. You do not interfere with another man’s personal business, or his life, or choose his path to happiness, no matter how well-meaning you might be.”
Lewis pushed out his lips, rendering him a sullen little boy instead of the well-reasoned man he strove to be. “You interfere with our lives all the time. We want a mum and someone to look after you. Why must you be so unyielding?”
“Unyielding,” Lily echoed in a whisper.
Ash climbed to his feet. “That is enough. Go.” He pointed to the house
His children had learned to obey when he took that tone. Lewis and his sisters rose, all looking more unhappy than chastised. Lewis clasped Evie’s and Lily’s hands and they started together down the path. Lewis had retained the letter, Ash noted.
As they went, Lily looked over her shoulder, the sorrow on her face enough to break Ash’s heart.
“Well,” Guy said, coming to stand next to him. “That seems to be that.”
“It is. I am finished with this. If Mrs. Courtland is still staying with her friend, I will have her sent back to London.”
Guy wrinkled his forehead. “A bit much. You can’t order her about, you know, unless you do make her your wife. Then again—I don’t readily picture Mrs. Courtland obeying your orders, no matter what.”
“Her friend lets the cottage from me—it is part of my estate,” Ash managed to answer. “They stay or go at my pleasure.”
He squared his shoulders and marched for the house. He heard Guy’s voice behind him— “This will be interesting …” but Ash resolutely ignored him.
A few days later, Helena was pleased to accept Lady Florence’s invitation to a garden party at Middlebrook Castle.
She’d heard nothing from Ash after their quarrel in the carriage, hadn’t even seen him, though she’d kept an eye out for him everywhere. She knew he surveyed his estate each morning, but she hadn’t been able to contrive a reason for turning up at one of his outbuildings, or at the home of one of his tenant farmers. Nor had she been able to glimpse him riding across the fields, upright and handsome on a horse.
She was bewildered then, as she strolled a path in Ash’s beautiful garden, very near to where he’d kissed her, for Mr. Lovell to fall into step with her and exclaim, “Good heavens, you’re still here, Mrs. Courtland?”
Helena blinked at him. They were relatively alone, Millicent having charged off to gossip with Lady Florence. Helena had preferred to wander, lost in wistful memory. “Still where?” she asked Guy.
“Here. In Somerset. I thought you fleeing back to London.”
Helena halted in puzzlement. Ash’s neighbors milled around them, enjoying a spate of warm weather that had returned with late September and engendered the impromptu garden party.
“Why should I be fleeing to London?” Helena asked. “Millicent has invited me to stay through Christmas, and I saw no reason not to accept.”
Guy looked confused. “Didn’t Ash tell you to go?”
“Ash? No. I haven’t seen him since he declared himself well and fit again.”
Helena did not add that he’d stormed at her and had kept himself scarce ever since.
Guy opened and closed his mouth a few times in a comical way, then he took on a look of grim determination. He seized Helena by the elbow and steered her toward an empty part of the garden.
“In that case, may I speak to you a moment, Mrs. Courtland? I have a very important question to ask you.”
“Papa!”
Lewis’s urgent whisper took Ash’s attention from a bishop he politely listened to—and thank heaven. The man was pompous and deadly dull.
Ash caught sight of his son crouched in the deep shadow between a hedge and a fountain. Lewis beckoned to Ash furtively but desperately.
“Will you excuse me, sir?” Ash said, cutting through an explanation of finances in a parish in Buckinghamshire—the man was trying, in a roundabout way, to touch Ash for money. “A visitor I must see to.”
The bishop looked annoyed but bowed his head on his thick neck. “Of course.” He moved on in search of the next guest he could beleaguer.
Before Ash could demand, “Lewis, what is the matter?” his son tore free of the bushes and bounced on his toes in agitation.
“You must come, Papa. Quickly, before it is too late.”
“Why? What has happened?” Ash’s heart raced, fear for Evie and Lily clawing at him. Were they hurt? Lost? Fallen into the stream? He started for the end of the garden, but Lewis caught his hand and pulled him back.
“This way, Papa. It’s Mrs. Courtland. And Mr. Lovell. He’s proposing to her. This very minute!”
Chapter 7
Helena withdrew with difficulty from Guy’s grasp. He’d walked her to a remote area of the garden and halted behind a trellis of roses that climbed over the path, shielding them from view of the rest of the party.
“Whatever are you doing, Mr. Lovell?” she asked him worriedly.
“Only declaring my devotion.” Guy put a hand over his heart then fell dramatically to one knee. “Ash is a fool, Mrs. Courtland. He does not see that you are a beautiful, kindhearted woman whom any man would want as a wife. Do tell me you’ll make me the happiest man in the world, Mrs. Courtland. Helena …”
Helena stared down at him in shock. What on earth had she done to make Ash’s closest friend spring out with a proposal? Had he observed her stolen kisses
