“Heath.” She flattened her palm over her racing heart, forgetting to annoy him by calling him “Your Grace” in her surprise. “I didn’t hear you approach.”
“I daresay not.” He entered the room, looking rakishly handsome in his riding clothes, and rather a bit irritated as well. His full lips were drawn in a tight, disapproving line. “You were too busy riffling through rooms you have no reason to be intruding upon.”
It would seem that the cool, aloof duke of the breakfast table was to continue. She supposed she couldn’t entirely fault him. For all that they were wed, she was yet an interloper here. He hadn’t wanted this room opened. The otherwise kind, round-visaged Mrs. Rhodes had been very firm on the matter of leaving the chamber as it was. Tia had ignored her husband’s wishes, and perhaps it had been selfish of her to do so, she worried now as she watched him.
There remained much of him that she needed to know. She well understood that Heath had welcomed her into his bed, had proclaimed her the lady of the manor before his servants, but had yet to allow her fully into his confidences. He had certainly not revealed more of himself to her than his sexual needs. Heavens, she may as well have been his mistress and not his wife.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, only half meaning the apology. After all, he couldn’t very well go about closing up rooms without expecting her to investigate them. She was a leopard who couldn’t entirely change her spots.
“You should not have come here,” he told her. “I’ll have the servants set the room to rights. Come.” He held out his hand for her to take, his intention clearly to lead her from the chamber as if she hadn’t just uncovered an extraordinary cache of beautiful paintings. As if his behavior were innocuous and normal.
It wasn’t, and she wasn’t forgetting those paintings, either. She crossed her arms over her bosom and stared him down. “No.”
He raised an imperious brow. “No?”
“Just so.” Perhaps taking a stand against him wasn’t precisely the wisest course of action, but Tia was stubborn to a fault. She wanted to know why he was overwrought over her discovery of the paintings and why he wished to keep them hidden away when they should be enjoyed. “I won’t leave until you tell me where these pictures came from and why in heaven’s name they’re secreted away in here.”
His eyes darkened and his expression hardened. “I’m afraid you’ll be waiting here a frightfully long time, then.”
She shrugged as if she hadn’t a care, when in truth she was very much invested in his response. She didn’t wish for them to be polite strangers as they had been this morning. She longed to know him—all of him—as surely as she knew his body and the pleasures it gave her. “Very well. I’m sure I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
He clenched his jaw. “I haven’t the patience for this, Tia. Not today.”
“Tomorrow, perhaps?” she couldn’t help suggesting, tongue in cheek.
But he was not amused. “Damn it, this isn’t one of your larks.”
The smile fled from her lips. “I know.”
Did he think she was merely toying with him because she was bored? His face was impossible to read. He held himself stiffly, as if he weren’t certain if he wanted to stalk from the room or stalk to her and shake her. It occurred to her that she’d never seen her husband angry before, and perhaps she had unwittingly enraged him with her little intrusion.
“They’re mine,” he ground out at last.
At first, she couldn’t be certain of his meaning. Of course the paintings were his. Chatsworth House and its lands all belonged to him. But there was something in the way he’d spoken the declaration that was different. It was as if he were saying he’d painted them himself. But that was ludicrous. Surely if Heath painted so sublimely she would have known.
Still, he seemed deadly serious, and she had to ask. “You painted these?”
He raked a hand through his hair. “I did. Damn it all, I should’ve bloody well had them burned.”
Tia didn’t think she would’ve been more shocked if he’d announced he was planning on sprouting wings and flying into the sun. She could scarcely believe he had painted the stunning canvases before her. The talent he possessed was incredible. While Tia had never been the book lover her sister Cleo was, she had always adored the art of painting. She had seen some of the finest art of their age on display, and she could honestly say that Heath’s work rivaled it.
“Why should you wish to burn them?” she asked, trying to gather her scattered wits. “These are some of the most talented pieces I’ve ever seen. To destroy them would be a travesty. Indeed, keeping them tucked away like this, as if they’re some sort of awful family secret, is travesty enough.”
He came to her then, startling her by taking up the cloth and flipping it back down over the canvases. “The real travesty is that I ever wasted my time painting them at all. It was a selfish lad’s fancy, nothing more.”
It was apparent to her that there was a rather large part of his story he was withholding from her. He had intended to keep this room, these pictures, from her. She’d never seen him display such an intensity before, other than when they were making love. Her heart gave a momentary pang as she couldn’t help but wish that she could move him the same way even when they weren’t caught up in the undeniable passion between them.
She caught his hand in hers on impulse. “Why do you hate them so?”
He stilled, his gaze locking with hers. “I don’t hate them. I feel nothing for them.”
“I don’t believe you.” She squeezed his fingers, imploring him with her eyes. “I may have had no business poking about in closed rooms, but I know you well enough to see that these paintings have an effect on you. Please tell me why, Heath.”
oddamn it. Heath had been right earlier that morning. The minx he’d wed would be the death of him. Tia had found his paintings. She’d been looking at the portrait he’d done of Bess when he walked in. The sight of his fiancée’s sweet face staring back at him had shaken him to the core. He’d begun the painting after she’d agreed to marry him. And he’d finished it after her death, in the days of drunken misery that had overtaken him. He’d intended to give the painting to her parents, but in the end, he hadn’t been able to part with the last piece of Bess he’d ever have. Even if he couldn’t bear to look upon it.
“Please,” Tia repeated, “tell me.”
His wife’s expression was soft. Concerned. It chipped away at the ice in his heart. He had never confided in anyone after Bess’s death. He had simply carried on, and when he’d been able to put down the whiskey and rejoin the world of the living, he’d never again spoken her name. Not to anyone. But there was something about Tia that undid him. Made him weak.
He pulled her against him, needing to feel her soft, warm, and alive in his arms. As she embraced him, he sank his nose into her hair, breathing deeply of the sweet scent of violets. “I was betrothed,” he forced himself to say.
She stiffened in his arms. Clearly, she hadn’t known. He hadn’t been certain. Bess’s family owned the estate neighboring Chatsworth, and their betrothal had not been announced in society. They had decided to wait until he had returned from Italy.
“When?” Tia asked simply.
“Six years ago,” he began, unsure of how much he would tell her. Perhaps everything. Perhaps only just enough.
“It’s her in the portrait, isn’t it?” Her voice was hushed.
He supposed it wasn’t much of a leap for her to make, but he couldn’t help but be startled. “Yes.” Emotions long buried rose within him. “Her name was Bess.”
“You loved her.” It was a statement rather than a question.
Heath swallowed, thinking of the compassionate, kind-hearted young lady he’d grown to know as a lonely young man who’d just inherited a dukedom. “Very much.”
She didn’t withdraw, continuing to embrace him. “I could tell by the way you painted her. What happened?”
“She died.” Five years after
the loss, he still felt it every bit as keenly. The shock, the bitterness. The guilt. “I was away in Italy when I received word of her illness. By the time I returned, she was being lowered into the ground.”
“Oh, Heath. I’m sorry.” She pulled back slightly, searching his gaze, and he swore he could detect the sheen of tears in her vivid eyes. “If I had known, I never would have intruded.”
How could he hold onto his anger in the face of her kindness? He traced the curve of her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “You’re my wife now. It’s only right that we shouldn’t have secrets between us any longer.”
She turned her head to press a kiss to his palm. “I understand why you wish to keep her portrait tucked away. But why the others? Why didn’t you tell me that you paint?”
“I don’t paint,” he told her, careful to keep his roiling emotions from his voice. He hadn’t discussed his past with anyone, and resurrecting it was not without its share of pain. “Not anymore.”
She gently trailed her fingertips over his beard. The urge to take her away from this chamber full of ghosts was strong. He longed for her. Needed to lose himself inside her, to blot out the misery of old wounds. She was silent, studying him for what seemed an eternity.
“Does painting remind you of her?” she asked at last.
There was something damn awkward about discussing the woman he’d loved and lost with his wife. But there was also something comforting about it. Something freeing.
“It reminds me of the way I betrayed her.” Devil take it, he may as well lay it all before her, all the ugliness, the scars. Let her see him for who he truly was. “I was a selfish bastard, so consumed by my desire to paint that I nearly allowed it to destroy me. We were going to be wed, Bess and me, but I wanted to take a trip to Italy to study the great artists. I asked her to wait for me, and I left her behind. Months passed by, and then one day, the letters from her stopped. I received a letter from her sister instead, telling me that Bess’s condition was grave.”
“You hardly betrayed her by traveling to Italy, Heath,” Tia told him firmly. “Was she ill when you left her?”
“No.” He thought back to the last day he’d seen Bess. She’d been laughing, her cheeks pink, wearing a bright-green day dress. He still recalled the way she’d worn her hair, the way her warm, brown eyes had laughed at him. “She was in perfect health.”
“You couldn’t have known something would befall her in your absence,” she said softly.
Of course he knew that. If he’d had the slightest inkling on the day he’d said goodbye to Bess that it would be the very last time he’d see her, nothing could have stopped him from staying by her side. Except that he hadn’t known, and he had merely kissed the back of her hand as he’d done a dozen times before, and left her without a backward glance. No, his lack of knowing what was to come didn’t mitigate his culpability.
“I should never have left for Italy in the first place,” he countered. “I was a fool, chasing a dream that could never be mine. Dukes don’t paint. They wed and produce progeny for the future of their estates.”
Tia stared at him. “Is that why you married me? For your heir and a spare?”
Christ. He didn’t know what to say to her. Surely she’d realized that he hadn’t wed her solely to bed her every night? She was a widow and the daughter of an earl. She could hardly be ignorant of the ways of the ton. But he saw the hurt glimmering in her eyes, and it cut through the grief that had returned to him the moment he’d caught sight of his paintings.
“Tia,” he began, hating the way she was looking at him.
“Of course it is,” she answered for herself, her tone cool. She slipped away from his grasp, setting some distance between them.
“It isn’t the only reason for our union,” he tried, taking a step toward her. Without the comforting warmth of her in his arms, he was suddenly bereft.
She shook her head. “No. You needn’t prevaricate on my account. I suppose I was a fool for thinking differently.”
“You’re not a fool.” Damn it, he felt like the worst sort of cad. “You know I desire you.”
“Yes, that is most reassuring.” She flashed him a smile that held no mirth. “If you don’t mind, I find I’m feeling quite exhausted. I’ll leave you to your memories.”
“Please don’t go,” he called after her, but she spun on her heel and fled anyway, leaving him standing alone in a chamber laden with dust and the remnants of the man he’d once been.
Her husband was in love with a dead woman. And not just any dead woman, but a woman with the face of an angel. An incomparable beauty who would forever be perfect in his eyes because he hadn’t known her intimately enough to recognize her failings. A woman whose death he felt somehow responsible for.
Tia had spent a few days considering precisely what, if anything, she could do with this unsettling information. Following her confrontation with Heath, their interactions had grown considerably colder. Meals were stilted and polite. On the first night, he had come to her chamber and she had turned him away. He hadn’t returned since, and she felt his absence like an ache.
The sudden wedge between them needed to be removed. Tia knew that as well as she knew her own reflection. She didn’t wish for a tepid union with Heath for the sake of securing his duchy only. She had spent herself on just such a marriage already, and it had ended with her more alone than ever, nothing but a widow’s portion to call her own.
Tia was not the sort of woman to simply wait about for life to begin going her way. No, indeed. She was a woman who took action. When Denbigh had thrown her over to marry another, she had gathered up the pieces of her broken heart and had in turn wed Lord Stokey. When Heath had invited her to be wicked with him, she’d followed him to his chamber.
Yes, Tia was a woman of action, which was precisely why she had requested a meeting that morning with her new housekeeper, the ruddy-cheeked Mrs. Rhodes. The door to Tia’s sitting room clicked open to admit the woman’s bountiful gray skirts.
“Mrs. Rhodes,” Tia greeted her with as much calm as she could muster. In truth, she was more than a bit uncertain of the plan she was embarking upon. “Please do have a seat.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.” Mrs. Rhodes did as she asked, the chatelaine she wore at her waist tinkling merrily. She appeared hesitant, almost as if she didn’t know what to expect from her new mistress. And Tia couldn’t blame her, for they’d only collaborated on a handful of menus thus far and their interactions had been frightfully limited.
“Mrs. Rhodes, I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a few questions now that I’ve settled in here at Chatsworth House,” she began, hoping she’d meet with little opposition. Some retainers could be dreadfully loyal to their old masters. Indeed, Lord Stokey’s housekeeper had never truly accepted Tia’s position in the household. The old bird had been bitter and unfriendly to the end.
“Of course not, madam,” Mrs. Rhodes said cheerily. “I hope you’re finding Chatsworth to your satisfaction.”
Tia harbored no complaints as to the running of Chatsworth thus far. It seemed that Mrs. Rhodes and the butler, Burnes, were eminently worthy of their stations. The servants were efficient, the household ran like a clock and there wasn’t even a dust mote to be seen in the sunlight.
“I find it most excellent,” Tia reassured her. “My questions aren’t concerning the household, I’m afraid. Rather, they concern the duke.”
Twin gray eyebrows shot upward, the only outward sign of surprise, before Mrs. Rhodes was able to firmly remove all expression from her face. “His Grace?”
“Yes.” Her husband was currently off on one of his customary morning rides, which provided her with ample opportunity to put her plan into motion. “I understand you’ve been the housekeeper here since His Grace was but a lad.”
“I have, Your Grace.”
Her lady’s maid had garnered that bit of information for her, bless Bannock’s dear heart. “Then perhaps you can tell me about Lady Elizabeth Rob
bins.”
Bannock had also employed her belowstairs skills to ferret out Bess’s full name. Tia was vaguely familiar with the family, but didn’t recall ever running across Lady Elizabeth in London. She presumed the girl’s family preferred the country, as some lesser lords were wont to do, few though they were. It seemed odd that she’d not been presented at court, but perhaps she had been too young, and her illness had claimed her before she’d had the opportunity.
Mrs. Rhodes considered her, perhaps carefully crafting her response. “What do you wish to know of her ladyship, Your Grace?”
Ah, here came the delicate part. “Mrs. Rhodes, I presume you are aware of His Grace’s…tender feelings toward Lady Elizabeth?”
“I cannot say to be privy to His Grace’s innermost thoughts, but I do know he and Lady Elizabeth’s father had an understanding. That was before His Grace left for Italy, and before Lady Elizabeth took ill.” The housekeeper looked distinctly uncomfortable with the vein of conversation.
But Tia was far from offering her a respite. “What can you tell me of His Grace after he returned from Italy?”
“I’m sure I shouldn’t carry tales, Your Grace.” Mrs. Rhodes appeared positively disapproving now.
Yes, of course it wasn’t proper to gossip about one’s master, but Tia rather hoped that when the gossiping was being done to said master’s wife, all was forgiven. “I applaud your loyalty, Mrs. Rhodes, but I merely wished to ascertain what His Grace’s reaction was.”
Mrs. Rhodes gave her a searching stare, seemingly determining Tia’s motivation. “He was devastated, madam,” she said at last, her voice quiet. “He has not been himself since the day of his return.” She almost said more but appeared to catch herself.
Tia had already suspected what the housekeeper had just grudgingly divulged. Her husband possessed great hidden depths she hadn’t known existed. He was ever-changing. Once, she had thought him horridly boring. Then, he had been a temptation she couldn’t resist, a handsome man with wicked kisses. When she’d agreed to become his wife, she’d imagined a life of shared passion and respect, not one marred by a past she hadn’t realized had been haunting him. But she’d meant what she’d said to Miss Whitney in the library that long-ago night. I’m brave enough to make anyone’s ghosts flee in terror, she’d told her charge.
Reckless Need (Heart's Temptation Book 3) Page 12
