Embracing Ashberry by Serenity Everton

straight ahead.
“You are being presumptuous again, my lord,” she said quietly.
    “I do not believe I am,” the marquess
disagreed calmly. “I am merely confident.” The marquess slowed the
horses for a moment before deciding to circle the park once more.
The conversation was going well, and he had no intention of cutting
it short without reason.
    Ellie sighed. “There was a time, my lord,
when I thought I was confident. I assumed, falsely, that nothing
could disrupt the life I had planned for myself. Papa later told me
it was a foolish supposition.” As she spoke, Ellie inclined her
head in reply to two of the great matrons of London society who sat
primly in their carriage as their coachman approached them on the
avenue. Still, the marquess noted that Ellie’s hands were trembling
in her lap, as if she was struggling to conceal a compelling
emotion. He decided to oppose convention and not pause for the
interrogation the two women expected. The early morning hour should
suffice as an excuse.
    Ellie looked at him in astonishment as they
passed without stopping. “My lord?”
    Her voice was clearly questioning, and the
marquess shook his head. “Call me Ashberry if you wish to be
formal, Ella, though I would prefer Shane or Stephen. I may be a
lord in public, but when we are private, I choose otherwise.” He
smiled as her astonishment turned to shock before answering her
earlier question. “I did not think it was quite the right time to
consult with Lady Jersey about your bonnet or your mother’s
afternoon tea next week.” He glanced behind him at Edward and
Charlotte, who had stopped to chat, before slowing the phaeton to a
mere crawl. “I am sure that Charlotte is making my excuses.”
    “Perhaps she will be able to salvage
whatever stature you have with the
grandes dames
.”
    “Charlotte is a quite competent in that
way,” he assured her. “I would like to take all the credit for her
education, but I suppose my aunt and cousin should receive most of
the due, not to mention Caroline.”
    “Cousin?” Ellie inquired.
    “Sarah Shelling, who was the girl’s nurse
and governess.” At Ellie’s nod, he added, “She is managing Ashberry
Park in my absence but plans to come here to London when I return.
She does not see a need to stay in Cumbria with only me and she
claims to be unable to continue being the mistress of a large
household. Here in London she’ll have the freedom to do as she
wishes, Sebastian and the girls, not to mention Aunt Lucy, will be
able to look after her.”
    Ellie laughed while she considered the
second of the Trinity children. “Sebastian is independent?”
    The marquess nodded. “He is 27 and my most
trusted agent. He handles a great many of my affairs here in London
and has done quite well with his own, too. I am arranging for him
to run for Parliament.” He paused for a moment and then added,
“Aunt Lucy never had children of her own—Westhouse died less than a
year after they married in a racing accident. Aunt Lucy made the
boys her heirs.” He was quiet for a moment and then mused, “My late
stepmother and Aunt Lucy are the sisters of the Duke of Shelly but
the children were never close to the Shelly clan—I suppose that was
my fault, for I never wanted to send them away to a stranger’s
hospitality and could not take them myself.”
    Ellie noted the affection in the lord’s
voice and now she dared a look at him. He was older than she had
always dreamed—Sebastian was more her age—and the marquess could
hardly be compared to the classical face or body so ideal to the
women of France and Germany. The unusual color of his hair was
coupled with dark brown eyes and a craggy rugged face that had seen
a great deal of the outdoors. She knew that their drive was nearly
over as the phaeton rolled out of the park and onto the busy street
but the change in noise and pace did not disturb her as it
sometimes did. Ellie turned her head and concentrated on the horses
clopping