Shit. Shit. Shit.
This was exactly what he felt for Clare.
The obsession. The possessiveness. The sheer, unrelenting need to have her in his life.
Southbury studied him for a long moment. “I know how difficult this is for you.” His voice was slow and calm, without a trace of pity—thank God.
Ash swallowed. Hard. Southbury had known his father. That’s what he was talking about. But Ash didnotwant to talk about his father. Not now. Notever. “Don’t?—”
“Your father always said love was a weakness. That’s why you’ve been fighting it, isn’t it?”
Ash stiffened. “This hasnothingto do with him.”
“DOESN’T IT?”Southbury’s voice was quiet but firm. “That and your long-standing declaration that you’ll never marry? Never produce an heir?”
A growl issued from Ash’s throat. “I’m warning you, Southbu?—”
“Your father treated love as if it were a cage, something to be avoided at all costs. And you—well, you’ve made damn sure to follow in his footsteps. Haven’t you?”
Blood pounded in Ash’s head. He’d never been one for violence outside of a boxing saloon, but at the moment, he wanted to smash his fist into Southbury’s middle.
“I don’t know what you said to him on his deathbed, Trentham,” Southbury continued. “But I suspect it had something to do with informing him that he’d never be a grandfather.”
A muscle ticked in Ash’s jaw. His nostrils flared. His mind raced back. It had been years ago. But he still remembered it like it was yesterday.
He’d walked into his father’s sickroom, the giant bedchamber at his country estate. A place Father rarely visited in all the years since Mama died during Meredith’s birth. A place he’d left his two young children to be cared for exclusively by servants. A place where—when he had deigned to visit—he did nothing but berate and belittle his only son.
Ash had long since shut away any trace of emotion he might have felt for his father. To him, the man was nothing short of a monster. He had sold Meredith into marriage with a decrepit old lecher and had never once shown the slightest interest in Ash or his life. His father cared for no one but himself. And the only reason Ash had come to see him one final time was for a singular purpose.
ASH HADN’TWANTEDto see him again. He honestly didn’t care if Father died alone. But Meredith was there, of course, sitting in a chair next to their father, crying. She’d looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes, nodding when he’d asked to speak with the old man alone. She’d stood and hurried from the room, leaving Lord Harlowe Drake, the Marquess of Trentham, alone with his only son.
Ash had stepped forward calmly, a calculated look of indifference on his face. The old man was withered, wasted away. He still possessed the same storm-gray eyes that both of his children had inherited, but other than the eyes, there was little else resembling the healthy man he’d once been.
“You came,” Father croaked, reaching out a withered hand toward Ash.
“Indeed,” was his stoic reply.
His father tried to push himself up on his pillows but, too weak with the fever that ailed him, he failed, and Ash wouldnotassist him.
“I want you to promise me,” Father said, coughing piteously.
Ash arched a brow. “Promise youwhat?”
More coughing ensued. “I want you to promise me that you’ll take a bride. You’ll marry and produce my grandson. You never saw fit to do so while I was healthy, but now that I’m?—”
“Make no mistake,” Ash had bitten out, his jaw tightly clenched. “I amnothere to say good-bye. And I’mnothere to make you any promises, save one.”
His father’s wrinkled brow had wrinkled further. His breath came in labored gasps. “Why are you here then, Ashford?” he managed.
Ash had taken great pleasure in leaning down, getting close enough to his father’s ear so the old man would be certain to hear every word. “My promise to you is that I will dono such thing. I just came from the King’s court, where I informed everyone present that I have absolutely no intention of either marrying or fathering an heir. The Trentham title will die with me.”
A look of horror came across his father’s decrepit face. It was a look Ash would never forget. A look he took pleasure in.
“You cannot be serious,” Father rasped before another coughing fit overtook him.
Ash allowed a slow, smug smile to spread across his face. “Oh, I’m serious. Entirely so. You spent your life ignoring Meredith and me, using us when it served your purposes, treating us like possessions.”
“But I… I…”
