Chev cut him a look and started again. “Admiral Stone’s doctor has produced a codicil to his will, dictated, supposedly, on his death bed.”
“The report said he died in battle.”
“Actually, no. He died later.”
“Rather spoils the story of the dramatic death on deck.”
Chev grimaced. “It happened just as described, except he lingered for a gruesomely painful hour. Enough time to dictate a codicil to his will, leaving his legitimate family penniless and his mistress enriched.”
“Allow me to guess.” Hurtheven’s tone dripped with sarcasm. “The Admiralty, out of altruistic kindness, is concerned for the widow.”
Chev rubbed his head. “They are concerned, as you well know, with the public. Stone went so far as to request his bastard daughter be given his name.”
Gossip was a level of hell Ash avoided, but even he had heard of Admiral Stone and his love affair with an exceptionally alluring actress-turned-countess and one-time muse of the nation’s most celebrated portrait artist. By all reports, the admiral had been devoted to his mistress and their child.
“From a distance,” Ash said, “what the Admiralty deems an embarrassment appears to be quite just.”
“His wife would be penniless but for what she brought to the marriage. Hiswife, Ash.” Chev’s voice vibrated with uncharacteristic anger. “The woman he swore to honor and protect.”
Ash caught Hurtheven’s eye, and heard Hurtheven’s thoughts as if he had spoken them aloud.Cheverley should be less concerned with the admiral’s wife and more concerned with his own.
When they’d been young and foolish, Ash and Hurtheven had helped Cheverley elope—a dramatic affair involving a stolen carriage hurtling over dark roads toward Scotland. But the elopement had happened a lifetime ago. Ash’s gaze traveled back to Cheverley. Neither he nor Hurtheven knew what Chev had experienced these past six years.
Ash expected Chev had a reason for not rushing home, and it was not his place to inquire.
“I’ve been to visit Lady Stone,” Chev said.
“Is she as frigid and cold as everyone says?” Hurtheven sounded hopeful.
Chev glanced up, startled. “I would not call her cold, though she’s grown more reserved over the years.”
“You know her then?” Ash asked.
“Does that not compromise your identity?” Hurtheven added.
“I did not think she would remember me. And she did not.” Chev rubbed his forehead. “Not by name, anyway. She asked if we met. I told her I was a young officer on Stone’s ship.”
“Were you?” Ash asked.
Chev nodded. “My first Atlantic crossing happened to be the fateful voyage that brought Stone to meet his wife. Stone cast himself as the hero in a dramatic rescue, and they wed in haste.”
“Much like yourself,” Hurtheven murmured.
Chev’s annoyed glance melted as he acknowledged the truth.
“I had forgotten,” Cheverley’s voice grew distant.
“Forgotten what?” Ash asked.
“I’d forgotten how taken I’d been by Lady Stone. She possesses an otherworldly quality—an expressive, almost angelic, face. Had I not been wed, even I would have been tempted to offer my protection.”
Ash blinked, leaning forward as if catching a scent. He had never heard that tone from Chev. Not for anyone else but Pen.
“Just the opposite of the countess,” Hurtheven observed, “who is so eager to please, every excited word drips with invitation.”
“Lady Stone has an altogether different kind of allure,” Chev said. “A guileless grace, as if she could make a broken man whole just by standing by his side.” Chev sighed. “It’s damn seductive—unintentionally so. We were all half in love.”
If Chev, whose wife gazed at him in adoration, had been so affected, what must this woman be like?
