“I was schooled at Eton, and I did not…” His face turned dark. “I was quiet. I was not in the direct line for the title, and I did not easily find my way there with the other boys. I preferred my time in the stables.”
His eyes eased from troubled to relaxed. “And by the nature of the refugee, I found myself in the good graces of the stable master, Freddie. He was crusty, old—liked very few people. But I was always around. I pitched hay, cleaned stables—just to be doing something—and he eventually took to me, as did the rest of stable hands. Freddie was the one that woke me in the middle of the night to watch a mare foaling.”
Rowen’s head tilted back as he paused, his eyes in far-off memory. “That was the moment. A little black foal. A star-shaped white splotch on his nose. Wobbly legs. That…that was the moment.”
Rowen’s eyes stayed on the ceiling for a long moment in silence.
It wasn’t until Rowen’s look dropped to her, that Wynne realized she was leaning far out from behind the canvas, arm resting on the table next to her and staring at him, fully entranced at the genuineness of the tale.
It took her a breath to recover, and she cleared her throat, sitting up right.
“And that was it? That became your life?”
“Yes. I became rather good at getting my schoolwork done as quickly as possible. I made Freddie into my de facto tutor, and I learned everything I possibly could from him. He had seen thousands of the most well-bred horses in England come through the stables at school. And he came from a long line of horsemen. He had family, connections all over the continent to the best breeders.”
Rowen nodded to himself. “As hard of a nut as he was, he was generous in introducing me to his connections. Which was why I was recruited during the wars to save the important lines—I not only knew how to recognize the essential horses, but I knew the right people to navigate me to them. Many of those people just did not have the means to get the horses to safety. I did.”
Wynne blinked, realizing Rowen was done talking. Blast it. She was leaning on the table again, transfixed by his story. She was going to get nothing done on this painting if he continued to draw her in so.
She set her paints and brush on the table, picking up a piece of thin paper and a nub of charcoal. Rubbing the edge of the charcoal into a point with her nail, she glanced up at Rowen.
“I have not heard of it, but I presume Eton is a prestigious school?”
A wry smile appeared. “Yes. One could say that. I forget sometimes that you do not have the English history.”
“And did you live there?” Wynne asked without looking up as she arched a line down the side of the paper, the exact cut of Rowen’s jaw. “What about your family?”
“Yes, I lived there. It was after my mother died. I was eleven. The last duke, my uncle, sent me there along with his son. My cousin found it a befitting place for himself. I did not.”
“You did not ask to be removed?”
He shook his head. “It was better than the alternative.”
“Which was?”
“Live here.”
The answer was short. Clipped. Wynne wasn’t yet ready to delve further into that history.
“Tell me about your family.”
“I would rather not.”
She glanced up from the outline of the right side of his face she had sketched. “You do not wish to continue?”
The sudden thought that he did not want this, would not sit for her, unsettled her. She needed him here. Needed him to help her through this. She didn’t think she could do it on her own.
He opened his mouth, about to say something, but then he swallowed the words. A relenting sigh. “What do you want to know?”
Relieved, her gaze went down to the paper before her. “Anything. Everything. Your father. What was he like?”
“Dead.”
Her eyes went huge to him.
Another sigh. “He died when I was four. I never truly knew him.”
“How about your mother? What was she like?”
“She…she was a gentle soul. We came here to live after my father died. And her gentle soul did not survive well in a home such as this.”
“What does that mean, Rowe? A home such as this?”
“It means she endured things here that no person should have to. It means I know exactly what a mother would do to save her child.” He stopped speaking as he leaned forward, his eyes intent on her.
Her breath had sped at his words, panic setting into her chest. She could feel the blood draining from her face, her cheeks tingling.
She shouldn’t have asked him about his mother. Stupid. All it did was to explode that gnawing pain in her heart once more. Explode it until it reached every nerve on her body.
Rowen stood, moving to the doorway. “We need to stop for today, Wynne. I have to get down to the stables.”
Wynne tossed her paper and charcoal onto the table. She didn’t want him to leave her. Not now. Not when she was about to break again.
“Stop, Rowe.” She ran over to him as he went to the door, sliding in front of him before he could reach the doorknob. “Stop. Do not leave.”
“We can continue this tomorrow, Wynne.”
“No. Please.” Desperate, her hands went on his chest. She needed him to stay. She needed to not break. How could she get him to stay? “Kiss me.”
“What?”
“Kiss me.” Her fingers went up, circling his neck. “Kiss me.”
Slowly, he raised his hands, settling his palms along her jaw, cupping her face. His dark eyes searched her features, her gaze, until he exhaled slightly, his voice rough. “You are not ready.”
Shocked, she blinked, but her body remained frozen. “I…”
“You are not ready, Wynne.” He shook his head. “Do not misinterpret. I want you, Wynne. I want to kiss you in this very moment. Your breath on mine. Your hands around my neck. Your body brushing up to me.”
His fingertips swept across her cheeks. “I will kiss you when you are ready. You are not ready now.”
He dropped his hands from her face, taking a step backward.
It effectively removed her fingers from his neck, and when she didn’t move, still stuck to the spot she was in, Rowen gently grabbed her shoulders and shifted her to the left. Just enough room to get past her and out the door.
A full minute passed before Wynne could tear her eyes away from the door. Her legs moved without conscious thought, bringing her to the chair Rowen had sat in. She sank onto it, drawing her legs up under her as she curled into a ball.
She expected tears. But they did not come.
She expected anger. But it did not come.
It was then she realized her body, her mind, had nowhere to go. Confusion so thick, she was at a standstill.
If she was to ever be anything again, she was going to have to fight.
Fight for a path away from this grief. Away from what she had done—what she had not done.
Her grandfather would have demanded of her.
Fight.
~~~
Wynne stared at the likeness of Rowen on the canvas in front of her. It was still just an outline—details, shading not present, but it was there.
True to his words, they did not stop—Rowen would not allow her to. And over the past week they had covered a gamut of topics—what it was like to fight in the wars and to have a friend die in one’s arms; Rowen’s favorite foods; why he didn’t care for cats, save for the rats they caught; what he knew about the stars; where he had travelled.
For every tiny piece of information she got from him, she wanted ten more. And he humored her through all of it. But of all the many topics, both of them had skirted far away from any talk of family.
She knew Rowen did not want to set her off again. She realized that now. On that day she had first started asking him questions, he had immediately realized her reaction to his talking about his mother—before she even did—and he was trying to cut the session short just so she wo
uldn’t break, wouldn’t regress into wallowing again.
Wynne’s eyes swept over the canvas. The light wasn’t as bright as it was in the middle of the afternoon, but during the past few days Rowen was needed down at the stables. His friend, Lord Luhaunt had returned from Scotland with three mares they were adding to the stables, and they were testing temperaments and deciding on breeding—so the painting sessions had switched to after dinner. At least the moonlight was pretty, pouring in the far window to lend a glowing light to the yellow from the lanterns and fire.
She had begun creating Phalos in the upper left corner, charging—bold and snorting—but retaining gentleness in his eyes. She liked how he was coming along, but she needed to get Rowen to take her to see him running. She wanted to study his form in full gallop to get it right.
She ducked her head around the canvas to look at Rowen. He was sitting, head down, reading The Times. He had held true to answering her every question, never bothered when his reading was interrupted.
“Have you ever been in love?”
Without moving his head, Rowen’s eyes shifted up to her. “Is that one necessary?”
Wynne could already feel pink burning her cheeks, but she smiled. “It is for the art. The most complete picture of you, all in all. Love is a part of that.”
He stared at her, his dark eyes burning into her.
Her smile widened. “Fine. Also for me. My own curiosity would like to be sated as well.”
He smirked, shaking his head in a chuckle. “You are the only one who would ever dare to try to charm something like that out of me.”
“Did it work?”
“Your honesty did.” He set the paper down on his lap, his full attention to her.
“So?”
“I thought I was in love once. At the time it seemed real. At this point though, I know it was not true. I believe I mistook my own pride for something more serious.”
“What happened?” She fiddled with the brush in her fingers. “If I can ask that?”
Rowen shrugged. “I was younger—she was younger still. She was from this area and I first knew her when we were children. She was gentle bred, from a wealthy, but not titled, family. Her name was Victoria, and I courted her years before I came into the title. I was truly never to have one, but I was wealthy, which she liked. We were near to engaged.”
“But then?”
Rowen’s hands clasped in his lap. “But then a man with both a title and wealth came sniffing about—and she liked the option of the title even more than what I could offer her. She was willing to trade herself for that title. And the man, Lord Vutton, was worthless as a human being.”
“You disliked the man?” She rolled her eyes. “Silly question—of course you disliked him.”
“Yes. But beyond Victoria, I disliked him even more for the beating I saw him give his horse. He has an estate about two days from here and was participating in a local horse race. The beating told me everything I ever needed to know of the man. I tried to buy the horse from him—a beautiful brown mare—but Vutton refused.”
“The horse caused you more alarm than losing the woman you were to marry?”
“No…Yes. The horse had no say in the matter. Victoria did. I tried to convince her of Vutton’s nature—whether she stayed with me or not, I did not care—I just wanted her safely away from him. But she made the choice—she was not to be swayed from Vutton.”
“What happened to her?”
“She married him. Got her title. Lady Vutton.” Rowen’s arm went onto the wooden table next to him, fingers tapping. “Any occasion I ran into her after that, she was always dressed in the finest, her red hair impeccably coifed. And she would end up cornering me, crying, professing what a mistake she made leaving me. But there was nothing I could do at that point. She had made her choice. A year later, she died in childbirth. The baby as well.”
Wynne frowned. “It is very tragic for her. I am sorry for your loss.”
“She was not mine to lose.”
Frown still in place, her head shook. “It is hard for me to understand why any woman would choose a title over you.”
Rowen’s head cocked, sideways grin lifting his mouth. “No? Tell me more.”
She laughed. “You would like that, would you not? Be careful, or this is how I will paint you—cocky smirk, begging for compliments.”
“Begging?”
“Shamelessly.”
Rowen’s laugh kept a smile on her face as her head went down to her paint board, and she started mixing yellow and brown to a skin color. “These paints—they are of such high quality. I am not used to such luxury. The pigments I had grown accustomed to using took so many layers just to get proper saturation. But these remind me of the ones I used in New York when I was young. I have been meaning to tell you they are a delight, so thank you.”
“I cannot take credit—I just asked for the best they had, and those were what they sent.”
Wynne could feel Rowen’s eyes on her as she got the skin shade just right. Satisfied with the color, she looked up to him, only to be startled by how intense his gaze was.
“What?” she asked, suddenly on guard.
He gave a contrite smile. “I apologize, I was just wondering what happened to your father—your family was obviously wealthy when you lived in New York.”
Wynne set down the brush, fingers moving unconsciously from one wooden handle to the next on the row of her brushes. “We were wealthy. Even young, I knew we had much more than most. But it was all lost right before my father died—or at least that is what I believe happened.”
“You do not know?”
She shrugged. “I asked many times, but my mother never told me. I do not know if she was trying to protect him—his memory for me. The day before he died, I heard them arguing—it was something about him losing everything. It was the only time I ever heard my mother yell at him—the one and only time I had ever heard her yell at anything. The next day he died. Trampled by a horse and carriage. And the day after his burial, we left for the mountain.”
Her fingers found the brush she wanted and picked it up. “We brought nothing with us. Not our clothes. Not my paints. Not my brushes. Nothing. We left it all behind.”
“Which is why you believe everything was lost?”
“Yes.” Wynne ducked behind the canvas, out of Rowen’s sight. Closing her eyes, she took a steadying breath. Even after the many years, the pain of her father’s death—of leaving her home in New York, her friends, her life—still stung. Still made her heart feel like it was going to pound out of her chest.
Rowen fell into silence, letting her hide for the moment, and she was grateful for it. She worked on the line of his jaw in silence for a few minutes, her mind wandering through thoughts of the dead.
“I want to go back there.” The words came out of Wynne’s mouth before she realized they hadn’t stayed in own her mind as intended.
“New York?” Rowen asked.
Wynne took a breath. Now that she had said it, she might as well finish the thought. “Tanloon.”
Seconds of uncomfortable silence came from Rowen. She pulled her brush from the canvas, leaning to look at him. His jaw had gone hard.
At her look, he cleared his throat. “Why? There is nothing for you there, Wynne.”
“There is my mother. I need to know what happened to her, Rowe.”
“No. That landlady is dangerous, Wynne. She was lying for a reason, and she would only do that if she knew something.”
“Which is exactly why I have to see her again—to get her to tell me something.”
“She is not going to tell you anything, Wynne.”
“Well, then, someone else in the town will remember me. Someone else has to know something. The neighbors. They would know.”
“No, Wynne, no. You will not go back there.”
She blinked, her head snapping back at his harsh words. “You are deciding where I will or will not go?”
Rowen opene
d his mouth, then clamped it shut, half shaking his head. “I do not want you in that danger, Wynne. Whatever happened to your mother—it was evil. And evil spreads—it does not exist as a singular entity. The landlady is already involved, and who knows who else. And those same people that you know may be the exact people that are dangerous.”
She closed her eyes against his words. He did not understand. Did not understand how important this was to her. “I have to go.” She opened her eyes to him. “I have to know. You do not understand the hole I have in my heart from this, Rowe. What happened to her—I need to know. I owe her that.”
“I will go. You will stay here, and I will go,” he said. “They will not know me in that village.”
“But you are a duke—would they recognize you?”
“They may have possibly recognized my cousin—he was heir. But my estate does not stretch that far in that direction. No one will know me. I will go and search for the answer. And I will take Luhaunt with me as another pair of ears.”
Rowen leaned forward in the chair. “Tell me that will suffice. Tell me you will not disappear from here and put yourself in that danger, Wynne.”
Wynne bit her lip. Rowen was pleading with her—in his demanding way, but yet, pleading.
Against her better judgment, against what her heart wanted her to do, Wynne nodded.
Unsettled, she picked up a new brush and disappeared from Rowen’s view, hiding behind the canvas.
He had just overridden her.
And she had let him.
{ Chapter 13 }
Rubbing his ribcage, Rowen walked out of the stable into the descending twilight. Five steps, and he sank onto a sagging plank bench that lined the front of the stable.
Luhaunt collapsed next to him. “I do not even recall the last time you got me into trouble like that, Rowe.”
“Too many years.” Rowen shook his head, his left forefinger probing the corner of his split lower lip. “You have grown weak, Seb.”
“I did not see you faring much better, my friend.”
Rowen grimaced, easing himself onto the wall behind them. His fingernail went across the cut on his eyebrow, splitting open the crusty scab that had formed. “I was not expecting that—the town looked benign when we were there the other day.”
Worth of a Duke Page 13
