The Look of Love

by Kelly, Julia

  Her creeping worry was now full-on dread. She knew that as baronet Gavin would have to make decisions about Oak Park, but he wasn’t speaking like a man who was planning to hand over all but the most urgent matters to his estate agent. He was sounding rather like a gentleman farmer worried about his land. Land he intended to live on.

  “What does this mean for us?” she asked.

  He looped his arm around her waist and pulled her to him. “It means I’m eager to take my mind off of all of this.”

  He drew her into a kiss and her resolve almost faltered, but tempting as it would be to lose herself in Gavin’s arms and shut out the turmoil of the afternoon, she couldn’t.

  She broke away from his embrace by leaning back in his arms. “Gavin, when are we returning to Edinburgh?”

  When he pursed his lips together, her heart sank.

  “I don’t know.”

  She shook her head. “Our home is in Scotland.”

  His hands slipped a little to frame her hips. At any other time the gesture would have felt intimate, but now, with the question of their future hanging between them, it felt as though he was pulling away and letting go.

  “I have responsibilities here,” he said.

  “And what of your responsibilities at home? The house. Your friends. Your work for the Lothian. Aren’t those important too?”

  And isn’t your promise to me important as well?

  Guilt settled around her like a heavy cloak. She had no hold over him other than the vows they’d exchanged under duress. Who was she to say what he should do with his life or where he should live?

  “Things are more complicated now,” he said, averting his gaze. “There are people depending on me now and in the future. I’m just a custodian of Oak Park, and I need to see to it that my heir receives the estate in better condition than I have.”

  His heir. They’d agreed they wouldn’t have children, but that had been before, when it had seemed impossible that their arrangement wouldn’t be one of friendship and companionship. Even now, when they sought passion in each other’s arms, they still hadn’t spoken of the fact that every time Gavin would pull out of her right at the moment of climax. She didn’t know how to speak of it when she didn’t know her own feelings about the matter, and so she simply hadn’t.

  Now that he was the baronet of Oak Park, he’d surely be thinking of children. Children that would tie them even closer to this house, for she had no doubt Lady Sophia would find a way to insist any heir be raised here so he could be taught in the model of Richard. Hadn’t Gavin told her his brother had twenty years of training when he’d died?

  “You’re frightening me, Gavin,” she managed through the emotion lodged in her throat.

  “What is there to be frightened about?” he asked, his voice softening.

  “I don’t want to stay here. You don’t know what it’s like in this house.”

  “I know my mother is difficult—”

  “She’s a nightmare come to life,” Ina said.

  He sighed. “Things will get better when she moves to the dower house.”

  A move that was supposed to have happened at the end of the previous week.

  “What if it isn’t a permanent change?” he asked. “What if it’s only for a few months?”

  She shook her head. Novelty could become habit in a few months. Intentions to leave could be superceded by excuses to stay.

  “This might’ve been your home once, but it’s never been mine. I’m meant to be in Edinburgh. The city is everything to me. It’s where my friends are and yours too. It’s where my art is. I have to get back to my sculpture.”

  “I know you’re worried about the exhibition, but perhaps this isn’t the best year for you to enter.”

  She pushed away from him, and when he tried to keep his hold on her she shoved his arms away and slid off his lap to sit next to him. “You don’t want me to enter the competition?”

  He pushed a hand through his hair and sighed. “It’s not a matter of wanting. Of course I want you to enter, but I don’t see how it’ll work.”

  “Quite simply. We go back home.”

  “Ina,” he said in a warning tone.

  “Or I go back home. I don’t need you there to sculpt. I can finish and make the arrangements for transportation. It’ll just be a month.”

  “I need you here,” he said, his voice strained.

  “To do what? Sit downstairs with your mother while she snipes at me and tells everyone who comes to call that I’m the new baronet’s wife in that disappointed voice she uses? Or is it so that I can make love to you in your study when you’re feeling frustrated? Because those are the only two avenues that seem to be open to me at the moment.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  She leaned in close, fury pulsing through her. “You do not get to take this away from me. This is who I am, Gavin.”

  “You’re also my wife!” he shouted. “Circumstances sometimes change and a husband and wife need to stick by one another.”

  “Then why do I feel as though I’m the only one giving things up?” she asked. “My home? My sculpting? What’s next?”

  Abruptly, he stood and began pacing the room. “What am I supposed to do, Ina? I can’t hand off the stewardship of Oak Park. It has to be me making these decisions.”

  “You say that as though I don’t understand what it is to be saddled with responsibilities I didn’t ask for.” She was on her feet now too, hands planted on her hips and her color rising.

  He threw his hands up in the air. “Do you? I tell you that I need to be here to work with Chase to sort this mess out, and all you can think of is how you wish to be back in Edinburgh—as though I don’t want the very same thing. But it’s not possible right now, and you aren’t hearing me.”

  The words were like a slap in the face. “Not hearing you? All I’ve done for these past two weeks is hear about your worries that you won’t live up to some ludicrous legacy that your father placed upon your brother. Gavin, you aren’t Richard.”

  “Thank you for reminding me of something I’m confronted with every day,” he said, dragging his hand through his hair.

  “You think I want you to be Richard?” she asked.

  “That’s what everyone’s thinking—you included!” he roared. “Everyone knows it would’ve been far better if he hadn’t died.”

  “Of course it would’ve been,” she said. “No one wished for your brother’s death, because no one wants to see a young man perish in an accident that could have been prevented if they hadn’t taken the carriage out on treacherous roads.”

  “And yet all I can see when people look at me is how much they wish it was my brother sitting across from them.”

  She shook her head in amazement. “You just said he was making poor deals and abandoning schemes that were costing Oak Park dearly.”

  “But he was the eldest. The right son. The one my father was proud of.”

  “And you’re being an ass.” That brought them both up short, and she shrugged. “I’m sorry, but you are.”

  “I don’t think a lady’s ever called me an ass before,” he said.

  “I’m learning today that there’s very little about me that’s ladylike.”

  “Who said that?” he asked.

  “Your mother.”

  His expression grew stormy and he made as though to stride out the door.

  “Gavin, don’t,” she said, stopping him with a hand on his arm.

  “She has no right to speak to you that way.”

  “And yet she does.” Ina sighed. “She speaks to everyone that way, Gavin. I’m not excusing it, but I can’t come running up to you tattling on your mother every time she says something sharp to me.”

  This time had been far worse, but she wasn’t ready yet to show him how hurt she’d been. N
ot while in the middle of this fight. It would be too explosive and she risked showing too much of her vulnerability.

  “I’m sorry about her, Ina. I have no excuse,” he said.

  “Nor should you. She’s the problem.” One of them.

  “She needs to move out of the house,” he said with a sigh.

  So tell her to move out of the house again, she wanted to shout. Instead she took a deep breath. “I’m sorry your brother and father died—I truly am—but their deaths shouldn’t define our lives.”

  “I don’t want to argue any more this afternoon.”

  He pulled her close and buried his face in the crook of her neck, his hand running slowly up and down the curve of her waist. Her body sparked, igniting at the mere touch of him as it always did. She squeezed her eyes shut, knowing that she shouldn’t want this. Not when his heart might be engaged elsewhere, with a woman living under the very same roof. And yet she was too human, too flawed to pull away when he kissed her neck and sent desire coursing through her.

  “We’ve an hour before the bell for supper,” he said against her skin.

  They were no closer to an understanding about any of what they’d just argued about, but all of the fight had gone out of her for the afternoon. She wanted to lose herself and forget for just a little while.

  “Then I suggest we use it wisely,” she said, threading her fingers through his hair to pull him into a kiss.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, Gavin sat in front of the crackling fire in Oak Park’s large library, a book on his knee. It was opened to a page halfway through the first chapter of the novel Moray had wanted him to write about before he left, but in truth he’d hardly looked at the words for the last ten minutes.

  Gavin was at an impasse. While he called Edinburgh home, Oak Park had served that role long before he’d moved. He might not have been the favorite son, but he still knew every nook and cranny of the attics he’d played in as a child. He still knew the names of some of the tenants who’d farmed there for decades. The sweet smell of the land, freshened by sea breezes, was familiar in a way Edinburgh never would be.

  Now he was responsible for the future of the entire estate. He felt the weight of obligation and duty in a way he never could’ve before, because it hadn’t been his destiny. Yet here he was, a baronet.

  He wasn’t a single man, at liberty to make a decision with only his conscience guiding him. There was Ina to consider. She’d put her life on hold for his family without a second thought, and for that he was grateful, but she needed to understand that their lives had changed the moment he’d assumed the title.

  All of those quite rational arguments aside, however, he knew he’d stepped in it when he suggested that she might not be able to exhibit this year. They’d been mid-argument and he hadn’t been thinking straight. All he’d known was the certainty that he couldn’t do this without her.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to rub away the memory of the look of betrayal she’d thrown at him. He’d make it up to her. He’d figure out a way.

  Perhaps if he could arrange to have Ina’s studio transported to Oak Park he might satisfy both of them. And he could invite her friends down for a visit . . .

  But that would never work. His mother wouldn’t dream of allowing three women to stay with them when the family was so fresh in mourning—never mind that his mother would view a carriage full of Bohemians with the same warmth as she would invading Vikings.

  He could see now that Ina had mentioned it, that the tension between his wife and his mother was thick enough to cut. He should’ve addressed it days ago, but the prospect exhausted him after long hours reviewing Chase’s account books and riding across the estate to handle various tenant disputes. It would be easier to simply allow the conflict between his mother and Ina to simmer and trust that both women would control their dislike for one another until the estate was in order and he and Ina could leave.

  Still, he made a note to inquire into the delays in preparing the dower house. It really would be best for them all.

  Ina shook out the skirt of her black moiré silk dress and adjusted the white lace cuffs at her sleeves. Already she missed her regular clothes. It’d be months before she could transition to the lavender, gray, and white of half mourning, and a little longer still until she could welcome real color into her life again.

  One thing was certain, however. She would not be spending her entire period of mourning in this dreadful house. Her argument with Gavin the previous day might’ve ended in bed, but it was far from over. She would make him declare a date when they would leave, and this time she wouldn’t let herself be distracted and placated by her need for his touch.

  Ina walked into the drawing room where the family gathered before supper every night, seeking out Gavin. Lady Sophia was perched in a chair, arms spread on the rests like a queen surveying her throne room, and Grace had a piece of needlework in her hand. Ina had hardly spoken a word to Grace outside of the usual pleasantries since learning that Gavin had once loved her. She’d never blame the woman for what had happened long ago, but the knowledge that her husband had loved Grace—a real flesh and blood woman and not some amorphous, anonymous mystery—had left her too raw.

  Grace had known what Ina would never know: Gavin’s love. He’d written words of worship he’d never bestowed on Ina, and he never would. She’d forever be the second woman—the one who’d forced him into a marriage he’d never wanted.

  Still, she couldn’t help a little thrill when the doors swung open and Gavin walked straight up to her to press a kiss to her cheek. Even though her wounds from their fight still stung, he was her husband and since the night in the ruined abbey that had come to mean something more.

  “You look beautiful tonight,” he said quietly.

  Her heart softened a little. “And you’re rather handsome yourself. Did you have a good day with Mr. Chase?”

  “Gavin,” called Lady Sophia from across the room before he could answer, “what was Mr. Chase doing with a letter to Lord Weathersby this afternoon?”

  Gavin’s gaze shifted to his mother. “I didn’t realize that you’d formed an interest in my correspondence, Mother.”

  It was a pointed remark—a warning. Lady Sophia, however, would not be deterred.

  “Lord Weathersby is known for his fine racing stock,” said Ina’s mother-in-law.

  “He’s also made it known that he wishes to expand his stables.”

  “And why would you be writing to him?” asked Lady Sophia.

  “I imagine you can draw that conclusion for yourself.”

  “Your brother purchased those horses with the intention of breeding them,” his mother said.

  “And I think such a foolish enterprise would be ruinous for Oak Park,” said Gavin, the force in his voice unmistakable.

  “Foolish?” The woman sounded taken aback that anyone might criticize her favorite son.

  “The estate is overdrawn on its resources, and it makes no sense to stable a herd of horses while we’re also trying to support sheep, wheat, and hops.”

  “Your brother had a mind to sell the lumber. There’s acres of mature hardwood there,” said Lady Sophia.

  “The forest needs to remain untouched so that the lumber ensures the income of the future baronet.”

  Lady Sophia raised a brow. “Your brother was attempting to diversify Oak Park industries and ensure against any decline in the market.”

  “Oak Park is spreading itself too thin. I’m selling all but a few of the horses to Lord Weathersby if he’ll have them. The decision has been made,” he said.

  Lady Sophia stared at her son for a long, cold moment. Then she inclined her head. “You are the baronet, improbable though it might seem sometimes.”

  Blood roared in Ina’s ears at the insult, and she would’ve shot to her feet if Gavin’s hand h
adn’t fallen on her shoulder, pressing her lightly down onto the sofa.

  “It is improbable,” he said, “but I intend to do my very best to ensure the prosperity of Oak Park for generations to come.”

  The words punctured her anger. They should’ve made her proud, but instead she felt ill. Securing the prosperity of Oak Park would take years of work—years in which her husband would likely have to be right here in Ashington.

  “Now that that’s settled, I wonder what’s taking Harper so long to announce that supper is served,” said Gavin, looking around as though the butler would materialize out of nowhere.

  A smile curved over Lady Sophia’s lips. “I’ve asked him to delay because I’ve had a letter of my own.”

  “From whom?” Gavin asked.

  His mother picked up the well-creased pages lying on a small table next to her and set the little spectacles she wore on a chain at her waist on her nose. “It’s from a man familiar to your wife. Sir Kier.”

  Ina wanted to crawl out of her skin at the mere mention of the man. She could still remember the sour scent of his sweat and the way his breath had panted in her ear as she tried to twist away from him.

  “I don’t want to hear this,” she said, rising to her feet.

  “ ‘My dear Dowager Lady Barrett,’ ” Lady Sophia quickly began to read:

  It wounds me to bring such unhappy news to Richard’s family at a time of mourning, but I’m sorry to say I can confirm the events you inquired about. I feel you should know something of your daughter-in-law’s behavior before she became Lady Barrett and how the nature of her own mother has no doubt tainted her.

  “Enough,” said Gavin, cutting his mother’s reading short.

  “Don’t you want to hear more?” asked her mother-in-law from over the edges of her half-moon glasses.

  “No,” said Gavin.

  “I do,” said Grace, lifting her head and fixing Ina with an icy stare. It was, Ina realized, the first time her sister-in-law had looked directly at her in days.