Chapter Twenty-One

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

June 1816, The Duchess of Maxwell's Drawing Room

W eeks had passed, but Meredith still didn't feel any better. She'd been sick with regret all spring. Cutting Griffin out of her life had been the hardest thing she'd ever done. But it was the right thing to do. She knew it. He needed to forget about her. He needed to find a woman who could bear him children.

He'd wanted to hear her say that she loved him. As if love was somehow a cure for all things. It wasn't. Love couldn't make her able to have children. And love couldn't fix this.

But she was also angry with him. How dare he say those things about her father? About Maxwell?

" You were dead set on marrying that old man ," he'd said. " You actually thought you should do it for your father."

Yes. Yes to both. And Griffin, who damn well knew why she'd done it, had hurled those words at her like an accusation. He knew—she'd told him—that she hadn't had a choice. The papers had already been signed. The contract was already in place. It wasn't as if she'd relished marriage to an old man. She had been an eighteen-year-old girl. She didn't have the right to defy her father's wishes, even if she'd wanted to.

And Griffin hadn't stopped there.

" When you married Maxwell, it devastated me ," Griffin had also tossed out, as if it were an innocuous thing to say.

Had he meant that he'd loved her back then? If so, he didn't say that at the Onyx Club, and he certainly hadn't said it all those years ago. In fact, all he'd done back then was treat her as if she was a fool before making a half-hearted and, frankly, insulting offer of marriage.

She'd been devastated that night. Devastated to learn that her closest friend in the world had no intention of supporting her when she needed him most. She hadn't expected his recriminations that night. She certainly hadn't expected him to leave for years without even telling her he'd changed his plans. And now he thought a few carelessly uttered words could alter the past? As if love could fix everything. Love only seemed to make things worse.

The truth was she'd marry Maxwell again if she had to. Because Griffin was wrong about her father. He had loved her. He'd found a duke for her, precisely as Mama had wanted. Griffin hated his own father. That's why he assumed her father was just as awful. But Griffin was wrong. Wasn't he wrong?

A sharp knock on the door startled her from her thoughts. She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Come in," she called, expelling her breath.

The butler opened the door. "The Marquess of Trentham to see you, Your Grace."

Meredith nodded. Her brother was here. She hadn't seen him in weeks. "Show him in."

Moments later, Ash strolled into the room. He always looked perfectly put together and today was no exception. Ash was wearing tan breeches and an emerald waistcoat with a black coat and boots. Meredith watched as he silently made his way directly over to the sideboard and poured himself a drink. Apparently, he had no intention of speaking first.

"I've been expecting you," she said.

"Really?" Ash replied in his usual good-natured tone. He splashed a healthy amount of brandy into a crystal glass.

"For weeks now, actually." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I can only imagine why you're here."

Ash grabbed his drink and came over to stand next to the sofa where Meredith sat. "Good, then I won't waste time pretending I'm here for any other reason. I've been giving you time to think." He gave her a knowing smile and lifted his glass as if in a toast.

Meredith heaved a sigh. "You're going to tell me that I have made a mistake."

"Yes." Ash nodded.

"You're going to tell me that I should marry Griffin."

"Yes." Another nod.

"And?"

Ash took a sip from his glass. "And I'm also going to tell you that you are being an obtuse, hypocritical fool," he finished.

She frowned at her older brother. "Hypocritical?"

Ash's brow lifted. " That's the word you take exception to?"

"Yes, actually." She tightened her crossed arms. "How exactly have I been hypocritical?"

Ash took another quick sip. "Look, Southbury has been too scared to tell you how he felt about you for years. He's been in love with you for as long as I can remember."

Her eyes narrowed. "I fail to see how that makes me a hypocrite."

"You're scared too. Too scared to tell him that you love him . "

"I'm not scared. I'm…" She trailed off and bit her lip.

"Confused? So is Southbury. You're not the only one who can be confused, Meredith."

She drummed her fingertips along her arms. Her anger quickly ramped up again. "If he loved me so much, why didn't he tell me years ago?"

"He tried to tell you. The night you told him of your engagement. He said that he proposed to you that night."

"Yes, he proposed, but it was out of pity." Honestly, how could Ash not understand her anger?

"He was supposed to just blurt out how much he loved you that night after you made it clear you intended to follow Father's wishes?"

Meredith ground her teeth together. "I had to follow Father's wishes. I had no choice."

Ash expelled his breath and stalked over toward the window, where he took another hefty sip from his glass. "Damn it, Meredith. This has troubled me for years. I told you at the time that I would help you escape. I wasn't jesting. I never thought you should marry that disgusting old man."

"I wouldn't have run away, Ash. I would never have disobeyed Father."

"Don't you think I know that? That's the only reason I didn't abduct you myself. I knew you would have just gone back and done your duty."

"I would have," she exhaled. "Why is that so difficult for you and Griffin to understand? How can either of you blame me for it?"

Ash turned from the window to look at her again. He drained his glass and set it on the sideboard. "There's something we need to talk about after all this time, Meredith. Something I daresay neither of us has wanted to."

Meredith closed her eyes. "No. Don't say it."

"Father never loved either one of us." Ash's words weren't filled with pain. They were simply matter-of-fact, as if he were saying nothing more important than the state of the weather.

Meredith shook her head, eyes still closed. "Mama wanted me to marry a duke." She opened her eyes again. They were blurry with unshed tears.

"No, she didn't." Ash stalked toward his sister, abandoning his empty glass on the sideboard. "He told me the truth, Meredith. Years after you'd married Maxwell. The old bastard got foxed and told me the truth."

Meredith's lip trembled. She shook her head. "I don't want to hear it."

Ash put his hands on his hips. "I'm certain you don't. I can't say I wanted to either, but it's time you did. The truth is that Father sold you to Maxwell when you were a girl. To pay off a gambling debt . He insisted Maxwell wait until you were of age, but the contract was signed when you were fourteen. Do you remember him telling you that you would marry a duke one day? It was always going to be Maxwell, Meredith."

She couldn't stop shaking her head. "Father wouldn't sell me," she insisted, but her throat closed and her stomach roiled. She felt as if she might be sick.

"Yes, he would. He did. Think about it, Meredith. What was the cleverest way to get you to agree?"

Meredith swallowed hard. She closed her eyes again. She already knew the answer, but she waited for her brother to say it.

"He knew damn well that if he told you Mother wanted it, you'd do whatever he said."

Tears trickled down Meredith's face. Ash lowered himself to the sofa next to her, pulled her into his arms, and hugged her. "I'm sorry, Meredith. It's painful to realize your own father doesn't love you. "

"You've known it since we were children," she said on a sob against his shoulder.

Ash pulled back and nodded, his face grim. "Which is how I know how awful it is."

Meredith took a deep breath. Ash was telling the truth. He had never lied to her. And deep down, she'd always known that she'd had to try too hard to get the slightest bit of approval from their father.

Tears poured down her cheeks. Her heart felt as if it might burst in two, and she realized the only reason she was crying was because the illusion she'd clung to fiercely for years was finally gone. And she was free to despise her father just as Ash did.

Ash was right. The man who'd given them both life hadn't loved them. He probably hadn't even liked them. He didn't even know them. How could he love them? He'd rarely come home. Rarely spoken to them. He'd treated both of his children like little more than furniture. Just two more possessions that he owned and could do with as he pleased. And Griffin had always known it too.

"You and Griffin always saw him for who he was, Ash," Meredith sobbed. "I was a fool."

"You cannot blame yourself for that, Meredith. You saw who you wanted to see. A good father. But that man never existed."

Meredith nodded. She had seen who she'd wanted to see—a widower who'd been lost after losing his wife. A man forced to raise two children alone and who'd done as much as he could. A loving father who only wanted the best for his son and daughter. But he was none of those things.

A memory flashed across her mind. A vision of the pure anger that had played across the lines of her father's face the night she'd tried to challenge him about her marriage to Maxwell. That harsh, unforgiving look in his eye. How many times had her mother seen that look before her death? It was too awful to contemplate.

Meredith pulled out of her brother's arms and pressed a palm to her roiling gut. "I'm sorry, Ash."

Ash frowned. "For what?" He pulled a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and handed it to her.

Meredith took the handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. "For not listening to you all these years. For trying to convince you that Father loved us. He was…horrid."

Ash nodded. "Yes. He was. But that's why I'm here." Ash rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead. "Don't let Father make your life any worse than he already did when he sold you off to Maxwell. You have a chance for real love now, Meredith. Take it."

The hint of a sad smile curled her lips as she continued to dab at her wet eyes. " You believe in love, Ashford Drake?"

"No," Ash replied with a similar hint of a smile on his lips. "Of course not. Not for me. But for Southbury …absolutely."

A vise clenched Meredith's heart. Her brother didn't understand. How could he? "It doesn't matter, Ash. I still cannot marry Griffin."

Ash dipped his head low enough to catch her gaze. "Look, Meredith. You're scared of love. Believe me, I understand, but?—"

"No, it's not because I'm scared of love." She wasn't about to tell her brother she was barren. What good would it do? Just like Griffin and his mother, Ash would only try to deny that it mattered. It wouldn't change anything, and she couldn't bear to see Ash look at her with pity.

"Meredith, please."

"There's nothing left to say. I've made up my mind. You're wasting your breath."