up every spare minute of her time, she wasn’t likely to do so anytime soon. Unless…
“Jackson,” Isabel leaned out the carriage window at a busy intersection, “please take me to Lancaster House on Park Lane.”
“Yes, Miss Aubrey.” The coachman didn’t sound perturbed in the least that a block away from Seven Dover Street they were changing direction, or that she was heading to parts unknown without her lady’s maid. Their household staff was split into two camps: those in cahoots with her mother’s spy, Norris, and those who despised the old tyrant and rejoiced in caballing behind his back. Since Jackson was listed in the second camp, she could count on his discretion.
She wiped her clammy hands on her pink muslin day gown and pulled on her kid gloves. Delicious nervousness turned her stomach. What wickedness possessed her! To call on a single gentleman twice in one week, uninvited, unchaperoned…But then, Ashby had always awakened the brazen streak in her. She hoped she looked presentable. Not that she had any illusions about Ashby. He wouldn’t notice her if she pranced naked before him—now where did this outrageous thought spring from? She didn’t dare probe too deeply or she might lose her nerve altogether. She took a deep breath and concentrated on what she would say to him.
“Lancaster House,” Jackson announced from his perch. His son, the footman, opened the door and flipped open the steps. He took her shaky hand and helped her down.
Arching her spine, Isabel made herself walk instead of run up to the imposing facade and thumped the brass knocker against the door. Phipps appeared in the threshold. “Miss Aubrey!”
“Kindly inform his lordship that he has a visitor,” she said, straight-faced.
Phipps dithered for a moment before a resolute gleam etched his eyes. He stepped back to let her pass and closed the door. “Right this way, if you please.” He took the lead, crossing the magnificent foyer and ushering her deeper inside the house.
She took that as a promising sign. Yesterday she’d only been permitted in the front sitting room. She was definitely moving up in the world. He stopped outside a door and bade her wait. When he reemerged, shutting the door behind him, Isabel nearly wept, but instead of showing her out, he smoothed the bulge in his breast pocket that hadn’t been there before and marched on.
They arrived at a wood and iron door. He opened it to reveal a narrow flight of stone steps; it only led downward. She followed mutedly, but when she became aware of steady metallic thumping that grew louder the deeper they descended, she asked. “Where are you taking me?”
“To the wine cellar.”
Isabel was horrified. “Lord Ashby spends his days in the wine cellar?”
“Not as often as he used to. The first six months, it was impossible to draw him out. Now he only spends the better part of his nights there.”
Poor Ashby, Isabel thought; drowning his despair in one bottle after another. Thank God she had the sense to come back despite his hostile dismissal.
They reached the bottom of the stairs, a dim little room, a wine cellar, similar to the one they had in Seven Dover Street. There was no sign of Ashby. “Miss Aubrey, I must beg you to wait again.” Phipps disappeared behind one of the bottle racks. The thumping stopped.
“What?” She heard Ashby’s deep, short-tempered voice reverberating inside.
“My lord, you have a visitor.”
“Get rid of him.” Something hard hit the floor.
“It’s Miss Aubrey, my lord.”
She heard a steady rasping noise. Unable to contain her curiosity, she tiptoed past the bottle rack and peeked through the arched opening. A cavernous chamber sprawled before her, aglow with candlelight in various heights and niches. Although outside the sun had yet to set, inside this chamber night ruled. The walls were stacked with wine bottles up to the vaulted ceiling. Sawdust coated the floor. Sculptures, furniture, and raw timber occupied most of the space. She stretched her neck and saw long, sinewy legs clad in glove-tight breeches braced apart at a work table.
He circled the table to stand facing her. “Did she say why she was here?”
“No, my lord, she didn’t, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would say it had something to do with the package you sent her.”
Goodness. Ashby was naked from the waist up. Powerful shoulders topped thickly corded arms. His broad chest tapered to a wasp, muscle-winged waist. Hard sinew undulated in perfect symmetry across a flat abdomen. Perspiration covered the hairless skin in a fine glistening sheen.
She was highly disappointed that his overlong hair veiled his features as he forcefully filed a slab of timber smooth. Undeterred, her eyes caressed his beautiful body, entranced by the play of muscles beneath the smooth, burnished skin. She had seen sturdy stack boys shirtless, but none of them looked like that—a masterpiece of masculine brawn carved in marble-like flesh.
What a strange and wonderful creature he was, Isabel thought. The rich and powerful earl, who instead of hiding behind his lofty title at home had ridden against Napoleon without the slightest regard for his personal safety, was a carpenter. That was how he filled his lonely hours, by creating beautiful things—like Vulcan, the suffering, deformed god of craftsmanship.
“Did she come by herself?” Ashby demanded to know.
“Yes, my lord, I believe she did. She has a carriage waiting.” Phipps reached inside his breast pocket and produced the black satin mask. He set it in front of his master.
A moment passed. “Show her in.”
She jumped back, loath to be caught snooping. She wrung her hands while pretending to examine the dim antechamber. Phipps materialized. “You may go in now, Miss Aubrey.”
Tension knotting her nerve-endings, she drew in a steeling breath and walked in. Her gaze fell on a shapeless stump covered with an old sheet. Carpentry tools were scattered around it.
“Don’t touch anything,” a voice commanded.
She spotted Ashby’s tall back bending over a dresser near the far wall. An antiquated, four-poster bed stood there, draped with a red counterpane. Water splashed in a sink. He washed his face, then plowed his fingers through his thick, dark mane, smoothing it back past his nape. He reached for a creased shirt and dried his face. The next object he reached for was the black mask. He tied it around his head and spun around to face her in all his semi-nude glory.
She snapped her jaw shut. “Lord Ashby.” She curtsied, curbing the impulse to lick her lips. It galled her how instead of outgrowing it, her fascination for him had evolved into something far more disturbing and physical. “I apologize for—” Her breath caught as he swabbed his sculpted, glistening chest with the crushed shirt. She never imagined men could look so…delectable.
“Why are you here?” His voice summoned her gaze back to his head.
She forced herself to concentrate. “My lord, I…I came to—”
“Ashby,” he insisted, his green eyes glittering against the black satin. “I hear enough ‘my lord’ to make me gag.” He tossed the crumpled shirt aside and started in her direction, his boot heels pounding along the stone-flagged floor. “Didn’t I specifically tell you never to return?”
She
