Cardiff Siblings 01 - Seven Minutes in Devon

by Catherine Gayle

  Serena’s eyes shot up, more wild with panic than they’d been earlier. She shook her head.

  Heavens, but Serena didn’t know where they were either. Not one of them knew where they were, so they couldn’t possibly know how to get back. While Serena was with them, Emma felt certain that Mr. Cardiff would blame no one but Emma if anything were to happen to Morgan. What if she tripped over a tree root or turned an ankle in a rut in the ground? Oh, heavens, this wasn’t good.

  Serena swallowed, casting her eyes around them. “Why don’t—?”

  Before Serena could finish her question, another loud hammering sound echoed in the distance, though in the opposite direction from whence they’d come. Kingley let out an excited yap and took off so fast that Morgan was forced to go with him or relinquish her grip on his lead. She giggled as she went, despite the few stumbles she had over tree roots and broken branches.

  Emma and Serena followed behind them, and after a brief time, Emma started to recognize the recently broken limbs. Kingley was taking them to the abandoned building that she and Morgan had chanced upon with Mr. Cardiff and Lord Jacob last week. This wasn’t precisely where Emma would like to be, three ladies off in the woods alone with a dog, but at least she knew her surroundings and could get them back to the manor house.

  Well, she could if Kingley would stop leading them in the wrong direction.

  With each step they took toward the building, the hammering grew louder. In fact, as they came upon it, it became perfectly clear that the hammering was coming from inside it.

  Morgan stopped suddenly and turned, her eyes alight with such joy more intense than Emma had ever seen. “He’s sculpting!”

  With that, she reversed herself and nudged Kingley forward. They raced to the door, she fumbled for the handle, then threw it open.

  “Damn and blast, Deering, I told you to leave me be,” Mr. Cardiff shouted.

  It was the dog’s bark more than anything else that finally got through Aidan’s frustrations and alerted him it was not Lord Jacob Deering interrupting his work yet again, but someone else altogether. He spun around, chisel in hand, fully prepared to berate Sir Henry or Miss Hathaway, or whoever it was who’d brought that beast out to the hermitage and decided to intrude upon him unannounced.

  But it was Morgan, not Sir Henry or Miss Hathaway, standing before him with a smile fit to light the heavens.

  Aidan dropped his chisel and bit back the oath that had been on the very tip of his tongue. “What are you doing here? How did you—?”

  “You are sculpting again. Why didn’t you tell me?” Morgan rushed inside, holding tight to the blasted dog’s lead in her right hand.

  Miss Hathaway and Miss Weston cautiously stepped inside, each bearing sheepish expressions. Miss Weston at least had the decency to blush. Neither would meet his gaze, instead casting their eyes about the floor.

  “I didn’t want—” Didn’t want what? To share this part of himself with anyone else, including Morgan. At least not so soon. He couldn’t say that, whether it was the truth or not. It would break his sister’s heart into a thousand pieces, and that was something Aidan could never bear to do. Never mind the fact that just this once, he wanted to live his own life, to do what he wished without worrying about how it would affect his sister. It seemed entirely too self-indulgent. “I couldn’t—”

  “What is it?” Morgan asked. “What are you working on?”

  Aidan scraped a hand over his face. “I—”

  Morgan dropped the dog’s lead and moved closer, reaching out with both hands to touch the marble. She moved her fingers over the piece with deliberate purpose, dipping them into the crevasses and gliding over the smooth expanses—exploring the sculpture as she did anything unfamiliar. Since her blinding, she’d had to learn to see the world through touch instead of sight. Her palms and fingers, the tips and the length of them, helped her to recognize what was before her in a way Aidan’s eyes never had been able to do.

  He watched her now: the studious crease in her forehead, the glimmer of recognition that added a sparkle to her gaze, in awe of how she had not only accepted her new lot in life, but instead had almost embraced it. Instead of wallowing in misery, as he’d done for so long, she reveled in learning and becoming more than anyone ever thought she could be.

  This realization struck him as if a horse had kicked him in the chest. His sister was far from incapable. She was no longer the fragile girl whom he must constantly oversee, to be certain she didn’t shatter like a vase knocked to the floor. Morgan had moved on from that stage of her life. For that matter, Mother and Niall had, as well. Only Aidan felt the need to remain permanently in the past—no one else.

  What an arse he was for trying to protect her so much he was preventing her from living. Preventing himself from living, as well. Damnation.

  In quick succession, Morgan proceeded to lean in, stretch up, bend almost to the floor, all the while exploring the piece with her hands. “Aidan, it’s beautiful.” Her voice was hardly more than a breath, a reverent whisper of adoration. When she lifted her face, bright tears pooled in her eyes and fell freely down her cheeks. “It’s been so long. Too long.”

  In that moment, he could no longer see the scars that had so long marred her delicate beauty. He could see the beautiful girl she’d once been, unmarred, unbroken, unfettered.

  A sniff sounded behind Morgan, and Aidan’s head shot up. Miss Hathaway brushed away a tear and stared at the floor—the perfect image of the marble angel before him, all the way to the angle of her head. Until that very moment, he hadn’t realized he’d been sculpting her. It had only been an angel. The angel he’d begun before had never had a face. Now he saw every resemblance, right down to the tears streaking their faces—the long nose, the too-wide mouth, the downturned corners of their eyes.

  How could he not have known? And yet, it had simply happened, his hands knowing how to create what his head had not yet fully embraced.

  What in God’s name did it mean? Why would he, whether he knew what he was doing or not, create a sculpture of the woman he’d hated for so long. Marble wasn’t a medium he could toss into the hearth and watch it burn. It was more permanent.

  It was absolutely, undeniably her.

  He couldn’t speak. With all the blasted emotion roiling through his veins, he couldn’t possibly trust his voice not to crack and betray him. So he stood there, watching and waiting as his sister experienced his artwork for the first time in years—the possibility of which he’d long ago denounced in his own mind, in order to bury the deep seated ache in his gut over her loss of sight.

  I’m a blithering idiot. There was no other explanation for how he could have himself been so blind as to think Morgan couldn’t experience his sculpting. For so long, he’d been utilizing a different medium—one which she had no possibility of sharing in with him—and trying to convince himself he couldn’t sculpt any more.

  He’d deprived her of the one part of his artwork she could have shared with him, all along.

  And why?

  To spite Miss Hathaway? She knew nothing of this part of him, so why should it matter to her if he’d been sculpting or working with pastels, or doing nothing at all?

  If he had thought, for even a moment, that his art could help Morgan, he would have started sculpting again in the span of half a second. But now, as her hands slid rapidly over the many contours as though she were trying to memorize every bit of it and store it in her memory forever, he could see how it might have helped her. How it was helping her even now. Her eyes sparkled with such joy, he felt like the greatest cad ever to walk the earth.

  So he waited, allowing his sister to examine it as long as she wished without interruption. Alas, that mangy dog let out a yap after a few moments. He’d never know how long she might have gone on were she not distracted. Morgan dropped down beside the dog to scratch his ears with such earnestness it was as though spoiling the beast was the only thing she was meant to do in this life.

&n
bsp; Then Miss Hathaway cleared her throat.

  His head shot up almost, and he locked his gaze with Miss Hathaway’s. The sun had started its descent, and streaks of pink and orange came into the hermitage around the two ladies, making it difficult to see them other than their silhouettes. After a moment, her eyes became clear in the dark shadows of her form. They were huge and almost black, forced wider than was their wont. Bewildered and dealing with his own shame, and indeed anger with himself, he knew his expression must be wild and terrifying.

  She flinched and took a half step back, which only confirmed his suspicions. “Morgan,” she ventured a moment later, her tone betraying none of the fear in her eyes, “shouldn’t we return to the main house? They’ll send a search party after us if we aren’t back soon.”

  “Why did you bring my sister here?” Aidan demanded. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from becoming far more aggressive with the chit than was called for. There was simply something about her that brought out the very worst in him, and he had not come close to discerning a way of stopping that change within himself. “Did they know this was your destination?”

  Miss Weston smiled, her auburn hair shimmering like flame in the setting sun. “Kingley was ready to lead Morgan, and so we all went for a walk with him. We didn’t truthfully know where we had gotten to.”

  Kingley was ready. Of course he was. Their absurd behavior could only be related to something equally as absurd. “How could you know the dog was ready? And why did Sir Henry allow you to go without his assistance?” When he saw Henry Irvine next, he’d demand an answer as to why the deuced baronet would let the three of them go off on their own, but that would be between Aidan and Irvine.

  Miss Hathaway pursed her lips tightly together and crossed both arms over her chest. “Berating us after the fact will hardly change anything, Mr. Cardiff. If you’ll excuse us.” She took the dog’s lead and pressed it into Morgan’s hand, then started to guide the lot of them out of the hermitage.

  But the sun was already setting, and it could be quite dark by the time they returned to the main house. That wouldn’t do. Niall would never let Aidan hear the end of it. Not if Aidan allowed them to return alone, and if Niall ever got wind of the situation.

  Especially not after what had happened, with Miss Hathaway stalking off alone through the woods the last time they’d been out at the hermitage.

  “Wait a few moments for me to clean up my work, and I’ll come with you.”

  His directive seemed to do the trick with Morgan and Miss Weston. The two of them—the reasonable ones of the bunch—stopped and waited. Miss Hathaway continued stalking off, tromping down the almost nonexistent path and stumbling occasionally. Blast, but she was going to hurt herself. Not only that, but she didn’t even have the damned dog with her this time.

  There was no time to sort out his mess. Aidan marched out the door and chased after her. When he reached her side, he took her by the elbow and forced her to stop. “I said to wait.”

  “I realize that,” she bit off. Her glare was fit to level a man at fifty paces. “I chose to ignore you. Kindly release me.”

  Never in his life would he understand his reactions to this woman. One moment, he was in awe of his sister and her appreciation for his artwork, and the next he felt ready to spit fire. And all because Miss Hathaway didn’t just annoy him, but she consumed him. His every thought was of her. Her image was in his mind even when she wasn’t present. For God’s sake, he’d even turned his sculpture into her likeness. It was more than he should have to bear.

  Before he allowed himself the time to think, Aidan picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder, ignoring her gasp of outrage, then turned to the other ladies. “Miss Weston, would you be so kind as to fetch the lantern by the hearth and then close the door to the hermitage?” Without waiting for her response, he whistled for the dog and started off back toward the manor house.

  This was not how he’d envisioned the completion of his day.

  After Miss Hathaway had voiced her displeasure with him the entire way back to the manor house, right up until the moment he’d set her upon her feet just before they broke through the line of trees into the clearing, he finished making certain the three ladies arrived safely and more or less intact. Aidan then went in for supper and attempted to go about the rest of the evening as usual.

  Such a thing was easier said than done, however. Particularly when he could not remove the image of his sister exploring his sculpture from his mind—the sense of wonder in her eyes, the pure joy alighting her features.

  For that matter, he couldn’t remove thoughts of Miss Hathaway either. She’d squirmed and struggled against him the entire way back from the hermitage, despite the teasing censure she received from Morgan and Miss Weston, and he’d been forced to hold her legs more tightly against him in order to avoid dropping her. Those legs were long and lean, as was the rest of her. But they weren’t bony and hard—there was a softness to them, one which sent his thoughts traveling to an entirely inappropriate place. No matter how hard he’d tried, he couldn’t remove the memory of how well she’d fit against him, how her very shapely, very long legs were nearly begging to be wrapped around his waist.

  He had no business thinking of taking her to his bed. There was no situation in which it would ever be befitting for him to think of delving between her thighs.

  And yet, that was essentially all he could think of throughout their entire jaunt.

  His thoughts ought to be focused instead upon the fact that Morgan was by his side but her hand was not upon his person as they walked through the woods. He ought to be marveling that, however unlikely he’d thought such a prospect, the dog truly was guiding her as Miss Hathaway and Sir Henry had intended.

  How could he think of such things, though, with Miss Hathaway’s entirely too enticing derriere situated over his shoulder, in perfect view? Well, in perfect view should he turn his head to the side. (An act which he discovered, much to his dismay, he was completing rather more frequently than was necessary.)

  He couldn’t possibly think of those things of which he ought to be thinking. He was a man. He thought like a man. As such, his thoughts invariably turned to those of bedding shapely females and the delightful sounds those very females would make in the process.

  Even now, sitting across the drawing room from those same three ladies as the houseguests conversed all around him, he couldn’t force himself to think in such a clear manner. The path of his thoughts inevitably turned to the slight downturn of Miss Hathaway’s eyes when she smiled, as she was doing just now for Sir Henry. It ought to make her look sad, despondent…but instead it simply made her appear intriguing.

  And that made Aidan want to look at her more than before.

  He watched her, noting how she crossed her ankles just so, when Niall came and took the seat across from him, blocking the lady from his view.

  Aidan bit back an oath.

  “How did Morgan fare with Kingley?” Niall asked. “Was she able to handle him? I know Miss Hathaway and Miss Weston say they had no problems at all, but…”

  “But you want to hear it from me,” Aidan finished for him. But damn, if he hadn’t really paid much attention. Still, they had made it all the way from the hermitage back to the main house, without anything involving either Morgan or the dog catching Aidan’s notice. That had to mean she’d managed quite nicely, didn’t it? He ought to have paid Morgan more attention, and paid less to Miss Hathaway’s derrière. “They did just fine together.”

  Speaking his approval aloud ought to have grated upon Aidan’s last nerve. It all came back to Miss Hathaway, after all. But instead of annoyance, a flicker of pride started to work its way through his body, warming his veins.

  “Miss Hathaway’s idea might not prove to be as disastrous as you first thought, then?”

  “I think perhaps she is not as careless as I’d initially thought her to be,” he said.

  “Indeed?” Niall smugly lifted a single br
ow. “So your opinion of her is beginning to change? Perhaps you could behave in a civil manner toward her after all.”

  Aidan coughed on a sip of brandy. “Don’t let’s take this too far, now.”

  “But you could, at least, stop depicting her death in your artwork.”

  After what he’d witnessed earlier, when Morgan had come so alive while exploring his marble, Aidan couldn’t imagine ever creating those fiery pastels again. Not with the same rage fueling it, at the very least. The realization almost hurt.

  “I could,” he finally conceded for his brother’s benefit, not that Niall seemed to be paying attention any longer.

  Aidan turned his head to see what had caught Niall’s attention. He was staring in the direction where Morgan and Miss Hathaway were seated with Miss Weston. The auburn-haired lady was tittering with laughter, her lips pressed together in a mischievous manner—and she had Niall’s full focus.

  Interesting. In the last many years, neither Aidan nor Niall had spent much time thinking about women for their own personal pursuits. All of their time and energy had been taken up with worrying about Morgan and how to convince her to live.

  Sure, Niall had said he was ready to move on since Morgan had obviously done so. But Aidan hadn’t thought about it being the truth—hadn’t thought about the fact that Niall must find a bride and procure heirs for the earldom. Aidan had thought only of himself and Morgan. Never of his brother.

  But the look in Niall’s eyes made it perfectly clear what he wanted.

  Blast, but that might only mean having Miss Hathaway in his life more fully, since Morgan and Miss Weston both seemed to be attached to her at the hip. His breath hitched at the thought, damn it all.

  Aidan pushed back from his chair, walked to the sideboard, and refilled his drink. Confusion always gave him a headache, and nothing could ease a headache quite like spirits.