“Grier came to my house this morning. Marguerite was seen leaving with her. Hours ago.”

“Grier’s here, upstairs having a fitting with the modiste, but I haven’t seen Marguerite.”

Ash ignored him, not about to believe him when it came to Marguerite. He’d underestimated Jack once. Not again. When it came to marrying off his daughters, the ambitions of Jack Hadley knew no limit. He’d steal Marguerite away—

Ash grimaced, abruptly realizing he knew this because he was the same way. At least he had been.

Jack had taught him to be relentless, selfish, hungry for success above all else. Seize what you want, no matter the cost. That had been Ash, and it shamed him.

With this cold realization settling over him, he felt raw and exposed, a stranger inside himself, a man he didn’t like, didn’t want to be.

He’d abducted Marguerite simply to further his own goals. To win greater control over his business assets and force Jack to receive him as a son-in-law. As if marrying one of his daughters would make him whole, complete. As if that approval would rub out all the insecurities of his youth and erase from memory the boy he had once been.

Staring at the ruddy face of the man he’d looked to as a father for so many years, Ash shook his head. He no longer craved or needed the approval of Jack Hadley to validate him. He no longer cared about his past.

The only thing he craved now was Marguerite. In his arms. In his bed. Throwing back his head, he shouted her name again.

“Cease your shouting!” Grier scolded, advancing down the stairs, holding her amber-gold skirts as she descended. “You’re scaring the maids, and your wife is not here.”

“My housekeeper saw you leave together.”

Grier shook her head. “We went separate ways. Marguerite is not here.”

He shook off the footmen’s hold. They still hovered close, breathing thickly against his back.

Ash studied Grier closely, seeking the truth in her eyes. She had trouble holding his stare. She may not be lying, but she was certainly not telling him everything.

“But you know where she is,” he declared, tugging at the cuffs of his jacket.

Her gaze swung to the floor, to her father, to the wall beyond. Anywhere but at his face. Her voice emerged, brittle with falseness, “She didn’t mention—”

“Grier,” he said sharply. “Tell me where she is.”

She lifted her gaze to his face, her brown eyes beseeching. “I can’t.”

He took several careful steps toward her, cautioning himself not to grab her by the shoulders and give her a good shake. “Yes, you can.”

She shook her head doggedly, “She would not want you to know. And what kind of sister would I be if I couldn’t keep the first secret she entrusted to me?”

“A terrible one,” Jack inserted with undisguised relish. “Don’t tell him, Grier. Make him suffer. It’s his own bloody fault he lost her.”

She scowled at her father. “He didn’t lose her, so enough of that nonsense from you. You’re being cruel. Can’t you see they love each other?”

Ash blinked, and opened his mouth to deny that outrageous claim. But no words fell. His mouth and throat felt parchment dry, incapable of speech.

Grier angled her head to the side, smiling broadly at him. “What’s the matter? Did you not know that?”

He shook his head, dragging a hand roughly through his hair. “Know … what?”

She nodded with annoying confidence, clarifying again in succinct tones, “That you love your wife.”

He snapped shut his sagging mouth, absorbing her words, letting them sink deep, settle in his gut … trying to decide whether there was any truth to them. And he found his answer.

Yes. He loved his wife. And no, until that moment he had not realized it.

Shaking his head, he clenched his hands into fists at his sides. “You have to tell me, Grier. She’s my wife.”

“And …” she stressed, clearly requiring he admit his love, “you love her.”

He pressed his lips together, staring at her in silent mutiny. It was one thing to admit it to himself, another to confess his love before others.

Jack snorted. “Ash? In love?”

Ash turned on him, practically snarling.

“Jack,” Grier admonished.

“I’ve a right to know where my wife has—”

“And. You. Love. Her.” Grier glared at him, a most vexed expression on her face. A dog with a bone, she wasn’t going to stop. Suddenly, he felt sorry for whatever aristocrat Jack paired up with her. The fellow didn’t stand a chance.

He released a ragged sigh. “Very well,” he growled, casting a resentful glance toward Jack who watched on avidly. “And,” Ash admitted, “I love her.”

The words were not as difficult to say as he’d imagined. Not that he ever imagined uttering them. He shook his head once, marveling over himself. He was in love. With the woman he’d married, no less. The very thing he had vowed to never let happen had happened.

She nodded in seeming approval. “She’s gone to visit a seer. Madame Foster is her name.”

“In St. Giles?” he snapped, frowning.

He’d heard of Madame Foster. Many of the girls who worked for him spoke of her. Mary visited her regularly.

Pieces slowly clicked together. That would be what she’d been doing the day they first met on the street. Marguerite had never said what she was doing there, but what else could be the reason?

His frown deepened into a scowl at the thought of his wife alone in the stew. He’d told Marguerite to never visit that part of Town again. Course, he’d been nothing to her then, no better than street trash, but now he was her husband. Did that not count for something?

“Don’t be angry,” Grier admonished, clearly reading his expression. “She had to go.”

“Why?”

Grier’s gaze turned so bleak that a trickle of unease crept beneath his skin. Still, even with that foreboding sensation, nothing could have prepared him for her next words.

“She’s going to die.”

He pulled his head back, a hissing breath stinging past his lips.

“What do you mean?” he demanded, stepping forward to seize her by the arms. She winced and he immediately softened his grasp. “Please,” he whispered hoarsely, a terrible burn eating up his throat.

“She’s known for some time—”

“Is she ill?” he demanded, thinking of how he had dragged her across the country in the cold of winter. She was small, such a slight female, but he had thought her hearty enough.

“No. Nothing like that. Madame Foster told her.”

“Madame Foster?” He shook his head and released Grier with a curse. Pressing a hand to his temples, he asked quietly in a voice that remarkably reflected none of his impatience or frustration. “What exactly did Madame Foster tell her?”

“That Marguerite would die. Before the year is out …” her voice faded in such a way that he knew there was more. She averted her eyes, stared down at her fingers.

“And?” he prompted.

“She’ll have an accident of some sort … some time following her marriage to you.”

He pulled his head back as if he’d been dealt a blow. That would explain her contrary nature—wanting to marry him one moment and not the next. This is what she had been so afraid of.

This shed light on everything. The day they had wed, there’d been something in her eyes. A dimness, the light fading in the amber depths. She had considered her vows to him tantamount to death. The knowledge infuriated him.

“Madame Foster predicted her marriage to me?” He snorted with disbelief.

Grier nodded. “Yes.”

“Rubbish,” he hissed.

Something snapped inside him, a wire cracking in two. A feeling grew, built inside him, expanding his chest, tightening the skin of his face. sRage. Prickly hot and smoldering through him. His hands curled and uncurled at his sides, craving violence. He wanted to punch a wall. Or the swindler stuffing Marguerite’s head with such nonsense. He even felt rage at Grier for accepting the nonsense so simply. And yet the most dangerous of his emotions were directed at Marguerite for believing. For letting superstitious rot drive a wedge between them.

He whirled on his heels, ignoring Grier’s urgent voice. “Ash, please, understand! Don’t be angry, don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

Regret? He’d do nothing he would regret. He simply intended to shake some sense into his seriously foolish wife, and make her regret the day she ever decided to believe the prophecies of an artful con. Marguerite was not going to die. At least no time in the near future.

She wasn’t. He inhaled thickly through a chest that suddenly felt too tight, his lungs too constricted. She was not.

Against his bidding, his sister’s body, so sickly small, frail and broken at the end, flashed before his mind. The memory of his grief, his utter helplessness, swept over him in a bitter tide.

He would not endure that again. He blinked, cursing himself. Of course not. Madame Foster was nothing more than a clever actress.

Body rigid, he strode from the house, fighting the dark, unfamiliar emotions that stewed deep inside him. Beneath the rage a sliver of doubt sank into his heart. Remote and impossible, it still found its way inside him. What if he was wrong? What if this diviner was right?

At that notion, an emotion similar to the way he’d felt standing over his sister’s small casket pierced his heart. And yet even then, that feeling had been milder somehow. Bearable in a way that this was not. He’d known he would go on after Charlotte, fight to survive somehow after her death.

But this …

Marguerite …

At once he knew. The emotion that lurked beneath his rage was one thing only. Fear.

Chapter 22

Marguerite was finally admitted into Madame Foster’s parlor after sitting for several hours in one of several hardback chairs lining the wall of a cramped corridor.

Apparently, she’d chosen a busy day to call. Half a dozen females took their turns before her. A strange experience. On one side of Marguerite had been a maidservant in a soiled gown, her hems badly frayed and far too short. On her other side sat a girl dressed in pink muslin, a fine velvet cloak draped over her shoulders, her hands buried in an ermine muff. Marguerite felt certain the chit had escaped her governess for the afternoon.

She tried not to think about the minutes slipping past or that she had been absent half the day as she took her seat.

“So,” Madame Foster said, settling in her chair across from Marguerite. She lifted a steaming cup of tea to her lips and sighed as if her throat ached and was in dire need of relief. “You’re back.”

Marguerite’s lips curved ever so slightly. “You mean you didn’t know I would return?”

Madame Foster narrowed her gaze on Marguerite, her expression thoughtful. “Something’s different about you.”

Marguerite lifted her chin, holding silent. This was the last person who should have to be told anything.

Madame leaned forward, sliding a pudgy hand across the tablecloth and seizing hold of Marguerite’s hand. Marguerite willingly gave up her hand to Madame’s warmer grip.

Turning her fingers over, she studied the lines of Marguerite’s hand carefully before flicking her gaze to her face. “You’ve married,” she announced at last. “Just as I foretold.”

Marguerite nodded. “Inevitable, I suppose.” She smiled tremulously.

Madame Foster snorted, still clinging to her hand. “You say that with such acceptance. Now.”

“My marriage, I accept.” Marguerite leaned across the table drilling her gaze into the woman. “But the rest I do not. I’m not ready to leave this world.”

Madame snorted again. “We never are, my dear. We never are.”