by Liz Tyner
*
Bellona stared at the face of her father, noting the bluish tone around his lips. Her oldest sister had already visited him—a quick discreet visit in the night. Their middle sister, Thessa, might never see him alive again because she was at sea. But the ship could dock any moment, or a year hence.
His condition was uncertain. She had asked his wife if she might stay a bit longer and her father’s wife had agreed. They had sat, side by side, watching him breathe.
Lady Hawkins wore a dressing gown and no rings or jewellery of any kind. Her face had little more colour than her husband’s. Her shoulders stooped. ‘This is the end of our years together, I suppose. He is falling more and more away each day.’ She took the cover and tucked it closer at his side. ‘I don’t think he is here any more.’
Bellona tried to think of questions she would ask her father if he roused, but none mattered. The answers would not change anything.
If he hadn’t acted so badly, she wouldn’t have been given life.
But it had seemed uncaring of her to leave him. Much like he had left them on the island. She stayed at his bedside, if only to prove to herself that she would not do as he had done.
She’d met her half-sisters and brother, and knew they’d only spoken to her begrudgingly after their mother had insisted. She’d felt no kinship for them at all, and yet, for his wife, she did.
‘There are no secrets between him and me any more,’ his wife said to Bellona, looking at the wan face of her husband. ‘They were his secrets, yet he was the one who could not accept them being displayed.’ She shook her head. ‘The truth of his skill, though, that is what concerned him the most. When he discovered he had no true gift for painting.’
‘I am sorry for my part in that.’
‘Nonsense.’ She waved the words away. ‘It’s not as if he’d not had it pointed out to him a thousand times before. He just finally accepted it now.’ She leaned forward and let her hand rest on the bed. ‘His paintings have rarely sold for more than the price of the canvas and frame. The best ones, oddly enough, were the ones of his children and your mother. If he has any talent, it is for capturing people, and of course, he thoroughly detests creating anything but landscapes. Endless landscapes. He doesn’t like people. To paint them would mean he might have to look at them. Spend time with them.’
She put her hand on the counterpane covering his arm. ‘He lied as much to himself as he did to everyone else. He sneered at the knowledge of others—only believing himself capable of thinking correctly. If he had gleaned from others and used his dedication in the right way, then perhaps he could have had what he wanted most. No one worked as hard to destroy his talent as he did.’ She shut her eyes. ‘I am only sorry for the pain of my children. For all his children.’
‘I cannot begrudge him the past,’ Bellona said. ‘If I did, then I would be saying he changed me and he does not have that honour. I am who I am because of my mana and my sisters and myself. I thank you for what you have done for me.’
‘I hated the thought of you children living with nothing. I am sorry he told such lies of you and destroyed your chance of marriage to Rolleston.’
‘He did not. Rolleston asked me to wed him. I told him I could not. I was not sure.’
‘Bellona.’ Her eyes opened wide and she leaned forward to look in Bellona’s face. ‘After… When you were discovered together, the duke proposed?’
Bellona nodded. ‘Yes, but I did not wish…’
‘Oh, you may be a bit more your father’s daughter than I realised,’ she said. ‘He turned down his chance to create art because he did not wish to follow his talent of painting portraits. And you turned down a chance to become a duchess—because?’
‘I thought he felt he was doing me a boon just asking for my hand.’
The woman took her hand from her chest and clucked her tongue. ‘Well, you have the attitude of a duchess already.’
‘I will not be married because of pity, or duty or any reason I do not like.’
‘Something—perhaps my knowledge of this world—tells me that Rolleston could have tumbled his choice of women into bed and yet he chose you, and then he had the brazenness to ask you to wed him. The cad.’
‘He told me we should be married.’
‘Perhaps he’s a bit fonder of you than you think?’
‘He could be. He thinks he is.’
‘I’ve known his family my whole life. Rolleston is, or was, rather a stick. Much more the saint than most. Pleasant to look at, I thought, but as interesting to talk to as a land steward—’
‘He is actually very interesting to talk to,’ Bellona snapped.
Her father’s wife paused before continuing. ‘…And quite the duke, until the last fortnight when your father began to denounce you as an extortionist. Then tales about Rolleston’s fury began to blossom like weeds in a garden left untended. He became terribly unsettled for a man who’d never caused any kind of stir before.’ She raised her brows and looked at Bellona. ‘Terribly unsettled.’
‘But he was included in the tales. It was said I was using him for gain as well.’ Bellona could not keep the pique from her voice.
‘He could have easily shrugged it off. Perhaps you should go to him and ask him what madness has grown in him that he had to be restrained in White’s because a man dared speak slightingly of you.’
‘I had not heard of that.’
‘My sister has tried to schedule as many soirées, nights at the theatre and morning calls into her world as she can the past few days to keep me abreast of all the on dits because she considers it her duty to know what is being said about her family. Particularly when it concerns my husband. The duke, whether he means to or not, is not letting the talk wither away. His anger over you causes people to note you even more.’
‘Rolleston can do as he wishes. I don’t know that he cares enough for me even though he says he loves me. I don’t know that I can love him enough for both of us if he does not.’
Lord Hawkins’s wife looked again at the bed. ‘Whomever you marry is a risk. If you don’t marry, it is a risk, too. You might look back later and have missed so much.’ She took her eyes from her husband and looked at Bellona. ‘At least the duke doesn’t like to paint.’ She smiled.
Bellona didn’t nod, or acknowledge the words with anything more than her eyes, but the next morning, as she walked to the carriage, she longed for Rhys more than she’d ever longed for anything in her life.
*
After directing the servants away, Bellona stepped into the duke’s library and saw him at the desk with his man of affairs. He looked up and twisted a pen between his fingers, his eyes fixing on the movement. ‘Leave us, Simpson.’
The man stood and hurried by Bellona, but his eyes flashed concern as he passed her.
‘I don’t think you need worry yourself about my father saying anything bad again,’ she said.
‘Are you well?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘I left before the end came. His children did not want me there. I knew his wife understood. I do not need to be present. As I sat with him, I realised that when he sailed from Melos the last time, he died in my heart. It is as if he is someone I hardly know.’
The duke placed his pen atop his papers. He shifted in his chair and his knee hit the desk leg, but he caught the ink bottle before it tumbled over. ‘Blast it,’ he muttered. ‘I can’t keep these things upright any more.’
Still he held the liquid in his hand. He looked at her. ‘That never used to happen before.’
She walked to him and took the bottle, their fingers brushing, shaking her in a way she would not let him see.
He put his elbow on the desk, his jaw on his fist, and his eyes flicked her direction. ‘What day of the week is it?’
‘I’m not certain,’ she answered.
‘Simpson would know,’ he said.
‘You can always ring for one of the servants.’
‘And let them know I am unaware of
even the date? If they have not surmised it already, I will not enlighten them that I am completely distracted.’
‘Rhys, why did you ask me to marry you?’
‘If you had said yes, we could have discussed it in detail. For years perhaps. But as you said no, I decline to even think about the moment, much less speak of it.’ He stared at her, then he took the ink bottle back off her and set it aside.
She put fingertips under his chin and guided it in her direction. ‘I have tried to sketch you, but I don’t have the skill. I’ll learn, then I will always have a likeness of you.’
Eyes, weary with sleeplessness, watched her until his face turned into her hand and he pressed a kiss to her skin. ‘You will always have me in person, Bellona, if you wish it, wedding or no. I have committed my heart to you and you will always hold it. You are truly my first love. My only love. If you do not plan to marry me, I understand. That does not change my heart.’
‘You think you can continue in your life without a wife?’
‘I have not been married in the first decades of my life and have managed very well, and when I look at you and know that it leaves me free for you, I’m very thankful.’
He pushed the chair back as he stood, his body brushing against hers. His hands rested on her hips. ‘I will only ask you once more, today, but the question will remain open every day for the rest of your life, if you do not say yes now. Will you marry me?’
She nodded.
Epilogue
Bellona could hardly believe the change in her sister. Thessa had returned from her sea voyage with a young son and enough tales to keep them all laughing for hours, but somehow the talk had changed from the voyage to the husbands, and had become something of a verbal competition to see who had married the most delightful man.
‘He talks in his sleep,’ Thessa said of her husband, Captain Ben. ‘And I find it most entertaining.’
‘Rolleston… Well, I do not know if he talks in his sleep or not,’ Bellona admitted, covering a yawn, and then aimed a smug smile at Thessa. ‘He does not sleep.’
Melina grimaced. ‘You are not learning how to be a proper duchess and he is acting more like you every day. You both disrupt all around you.’
A young female shriek of laughter sounded from outside the room.
‘See what I mean.’ Melina shook her head. ‘Willa,’ she called out, standing to move to the door. ‘Do not—’
Warrington walked in, carrying his daughter under his arm, snug against his side and grasped around her middle, her hands and feet flailing as she laughed. ‘I don’t know what we will do with her. She thinks she is as big as her brother Jacob,’ he said, bending enough so she could put her feet to the floor and right herself. ‘Willa, you must not shout when I toss you about. Jacob does not.’
‘He does,’ she said. ‘And he has a pail of worms hidden under his bed.’
‘No,’ Melina said, rushing to the door.
Warrington put out an arm, catching his wife at the waist. ‘Don’t worry. I have told him we will go fishing. I’ll see to the worms.’ He gave his wife a kiss on the forehead.
Ben walked in behind him. ‘Rhys and I have decided to teach Jacob how to fish. We cannot trust his father to such a simple task. And we all know—’ he looked at his wife ‘—that I am very good at catching things from the sea.’
Warrington snorted. ‘But we will be fishing in a pool and you always claim the fish are not biting.’ He looked over his shoulder at Rhys. ‘And you claim the sun is in their eyes.’
Rhys shrugged. ‘That was when we were children. I say now that the fisherman who fares worst will be tossed into the pool by the other two.’
‘Challenge accepted,’ Ben said.
‘Wait.’ Warrington held out a hand. ‘I will be the judge of the winner. You two can compete.’
Ben looked at Rhys and winked. ‘Certainly, War. We will see that you do not fall into the pool and get your cravat wet. But I suggest you wear old boots.’
‘You could use a dunking as well. You hardly look like a sea captain,’ Warrington said. ‘You are all Brummelled.’
Benjamin shrugged. ‘I had a portrait sitting in the library. Thank you, Bellona, for recommending your tutor.’
‘I think Ben looks quite dashing,’ Thessa said. ‘And the blue waistcoat matches his eyes so.’
Warrington made a choking noise. ‘A good reason not to choose it.’
‘I’m only too happy to wear it for my wife, even if it is a bit tight under the black coat.’ Benjamin’s smile broadened. ‘It was worth the trade—worth standing for my own portrait just to have a painting of my wife as I saw her the first time.’ He straightened the sleeves of his coat. ‘She’ll always be my mermaid.’
Melina frowned. ‘I’ve seen that painting on your ship of Thessa in the water. Not something that didn’t happen every day on Melos.’
Warrington turned to the artwork above his fireplace of the three sisters on the island. The old painting created in their childhood. ‘That is the one I cherish.’
‘This is the artist I cherish,’ Rhys said, putting a hand at Bellona’s back. She looked into his eyes. He often sat near her, reading aloud while she sketched or practised with oils.
She’d never expected to love painting and she didn’t care if she ever became any good at it, but strangely, it made her feel closer to her mother’s memory and her homeland. During her childhood, their house had always smelled of pigments and she’d learned to mix them quite young.
Her sisters did not see painting the same way, but they had all agreed to travel to the museum in France when their children were older. They wanted another look at the statue they’d found—now that the armless woman had a home—and they wanted to show their children the woman from Melos.
Melina turned to Bellona. ‘I will have a picnic prepared and brought to us at the pool. The nursery maid can watch the children, but we will watch the boys.’
Melina and Warrington left the room, followed by Thessa and Ben. But Rhys lingered a bit, looking into Bellona’s eyes.
‘Do you wish to go with the others?’ he asked. ‘I’d prefer to visit the pool in the moonlight with you.’
‘Oh, that would not be a good idea,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Ben and Thessa are planning a stroll there tonight.’
‘Well, then,’ he said. ‘When we return home, we can visit the small room in the servants’ quarters. I’ve had a good latch put on the door.’
‘You did not,’ she said, slapping at his sleeve. ‘The servants will…’
He laughed. ‘I did. I will take a book with us—to give us something to do, of course. I gave strict instructions to the servants it is not to be disturbed. A good book should not be interrupted—ever.’
She shut her eyes and put her hand to her temple. ‘What must they think of us?’
He reached and snatched a pin from her hair and palmed it as she tried to take it back, then he trapped her close for a soft kiss. ‘I hope they think we are rather fond of each other.’
Her face was not that of a goddess—well, perhaps it was the face of his goddess. But to him, she was his angel. And when he bent to kiss her he did not care if all the doors of the world opened and everyone saw them together. For ever.
***
Keep reading for an excerpt from HER ENEMY HIGHLANDER by Nicole Locke.
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Her Enemy Highlander
by Nicole Locke
Chapter One
Scotland—September 1296
Mairead Buchanan tried to calm her heart and failed. She didn’t even know why she tried. She knew it wasn’t possible. It had been pounding like this for over a fortnight and now it was only worse. Inside her thumping heart, grief clawed sharp.
But she didn’t have time for grief, didn’t have time to be reasonable, or to think. She was about to break; she just needed to do.
This nightmare had to end. And here, tonight, where she stood observing the shadows of a disreputable inn and freezing in the night’s damp cold, it would.
The candles on the inn’s ground floor were finally extinguished. The windows were black; the main shutters were closed. Not even a woman laughing in the distance marred the soft rustling of the night breeze. It was late; it was time.
Yet even now she fought what she had to do. Even now, she wanted to shake herself, to run in circles like a madwoman trying to escape what she had seen, what she had done. What she could not ever repair. Her brother, Ailbert, collapsing to the ground. His eyes going vacant, losing their sight. She clenched her eyes shut. Grief clawed. She clawed back.
It wouldn’t do to think of Ailbert now. Her anger or her pain. She must still her heart and retrieve what was stolen from him. It was the only way to save her family from Ailbert’s recklessness. If she didn’t retrieve the priceless dagger, the laird would certainly punish her family.
Scotland was being ravaged by war and conflict. Her mother and sisters would never survive the humiliation or the certain banishment from the clan. Without the clan, there was nothing to protect them from the English. They had nowhere else to go. No other family to turn to.
For her family’s sake, she followed Ailbert’s murderer to the inn. The man had actually paid for a room. Had probably eaten his fill and was now sleeping soundly. Ordinary actions her brother would never do again. Fury swamped Mairead’s grief and she welcomed it. Grief and desperation consumed her, but only anger would get her through this night.
