Ash squeezed his eyes closed, gathering silence into his mind. Silence dulled thoughts’ sharp edges, lulling him to stillness, a vacant sort of peace.
Time passed while he remained suspended—an hour? Maybe more—until a commotion sounded outside his door.
“...in the study, I’ll wager.”
Hurtheven. He snorted. The man always appeared when least desired.
May you rot in the darkness you have chosen...
Right. Well, perhaps he could use a visit, desired or not.
“Your Grace.” Kent spoke to the Duke of Hurtheven with awe the manservant never quite mustered for Ash. Then again, he’d been the only servant who’d refused to settle elsewhere after the fire. “His Grace is not receiving.”
“Excellent,” Hurtheven replied. “Then we shall not be disturbed. And Kent?”
“Yes, Your Grace?”
“Ash never receives.”
“Quite so, Your Grace.”
The door flew open.
“Christ! A bat could not find his way in here.”
Struck by another voice, a voice he hadn’t heard in six long years, Ash stood so fast, he knocked over his chair.
“Chev!?” Ash gazed at his old ally in disbelief. Even Cheverley’s wife, though loyal, had given up hope the man was alive.
Hurtheven shushed. “Cheverley remains among the missing,” he said, giving a pointed look to the back of the servant still in the room. “Allow me to introduce Captain Smith, future occupant—we hope—of your uninhabited upper rooms. Captain Smith is the Admiralty’s man in charge of—” His sentence ended abruptly.
Kent lit the last sconce and then slipped from the room.
“What is it you are doing for the Admiralty, Smith?” Hurtheven asked.
“Nefarious deeds.” Chev stepped out from behind Hurtheven with a bitter exhale.
Ash’s long-absent companion, one-third of a secret society that dated back to their Eton days, had returned absent the lower portion of his arm.
Hisrightarm.
“The Admiralty,” Chev said, “feels I can be of more use on land.”
Damnation! At least he was alive. “I do not understand.” Ash frowned. After six interminable years, Ash expected Cheverley to be anxious to see his once-beloved wife. “Why must you stay here? Does Pen know you have returned?”
Hurtheven answered. “The Admiralty knows, I know. And now you know.”
Chev’s gaze remained blank. “Hurtheven said your staff consists of a manservant and his wife.”
“A discreet manservant,” Hurtheven added. “Since Chev must remain missing—” Hurtheven exchanged a meaningful glance with Cheverley, “—for now, I thought your rooms could provide comfort and concealment.”
Ash remembered to shut his mouth. “Concealment, yes.” His home had never provided comfort. “You may stay, of course.”
He preferred solitude. So much so he’d closed every room in the house. But this was Cheverley. Chev and Hurtheven remained his oldest, and only, allies. No one survived boarding school without allies, not even the son of a mad, murderous duke.
Or especially the son of a mad, murderous duke, as the unsubtle Hurtheven told the tale.
“If you become a restive host—” Hurtheven smiled, “—you can always seek comfort in Bianci’s arms.”
