Page 199 of Ashen Torment

“I did not ask you.”

“And yet,” I reply, “you seemed resentful.”

“Not at all.”

“There is something I am searching for.”

“The wife with the best title?”

I toss the cloth aside and cover his body with a sheet, trying to re-establish a modicum of decorum.

“You know,” I murmur, “that my parents died sixteen years ago.”

His face turns serious. “I know.”

I sigh, feeling the weight of the words.

“A carriage accident.”

“So I read in the papers.”

“I am not certain it was truly an accident.”

An eyebrow lifts on his face.

“Everything was too perfect, too calculated,” I continue, “names cropped up, discrepancies... therefore...”

“So you are playing investigator?” he says, a thread of sarcasm in his voice.

I stiffen, ready to turn away, but his hand catches my wrist.

“Go on.”

“I went to Brittany,” I confess, reining in my irritation, “to speak with one of my father’s old partners.”

“Your father, Lord Theodore Ashford.”

I nod.

“And did you prove it?” Evander whispers, his thumb tracing my skin.

“No, he wasn’t there. He seems to have vanished several years ago.”

He tilts his head slightly, his eyes studying me, and he laces a finger through mine.

“Truly, you shouldn’t drink anymore, Viscount.”

A brief laugh shakes his lips. He withdraws his hand.

“And what will you do if you discover it was not an accident? When you have that person in your hands?”

I feel the rage rising within me, a flame tightening my stomach, without being able to fully contain it.

“I—”

“Will you use your precious artist’s hands to end a life?”

“I cannot stop thinking about it. Every day. Every time someone looks at me as if I were their reflection. As if I were what was left. The heir. The devoted son. A good Ashford.”