“Is that why…” she began hesitantly. “…the locket means so much?”
“It’s more than a locket.”
He lay his great coat and scarf over the back of an armchair and tossed his cravat atop the seat.
His neck felt bare. Exposed. But he was about to expose even more. He lifted the locket from beneath the linen of his shirt and allowed it to fall back against his chest.
“It’s beautiful.” She lifted her hands as if to touch the gold frame then let them fall without doing so. Her eyes met his.
“Go ahead,” he said. “You can meet my mother.”
Gently, she slid her hand between the locket and his chest and undid the clasp.
He held his breath.
From this angle, he could not see the portrait inside, but he had committed it to memory. Right now, he was not looking at the locket. He was looking at Noelle.
“You look like both of them,” she murmured. “Handsome as your father, but with your mother’s eyes.”
His throat grew tight. They wouldn’t recognize him now. “I suppose I’ve grown a bit since that portrait was painted.”
A soft smile curved her lips. “You’ll have to hang this next to your most recent likeness in your hall of portraits.”
He didn’t answer.
Her brow furrowed. “You haven’t a hall of portraits? I thought all titled families…”
“There aren’t any of me,” he said. Just the thought gave him chills. “After my mother died, my father never posed for another portrait. Neither did I.”
Her eyes widened, and she returned her reverent gaze to the locket. “This miniature truly is beautiful. I hope it has brought you the peace that you sought.”
“It didn’t.” Somehow, he kept his voice from cracking.
She glanced up sharply. “It wasn’t as you remembered it?”
“It was exactly as I remembered,” he said. “And nothing more. I thought… I was certain…”
She touched the locket’s delicate frame. “How did you lose it?”
“What I lost was my family. The locket wasstolenfrom me. My grandfather felt he had more claim to his daughter than a child did of his own mother.”
She drew in her breath. “That’s why you hated him.”
“I didn’t hate him. He hated me.” Benjamin took a deep breath. “Mother died of complications caused by my birth. She barely lasted a month. That was my fault.”
“It wasnotyour fault,” Noelle said sharply, her eyes fierce.
“Tell that to Grandfather,” he said with a curl of his lip. “I always thought if I could get the locket back, I could get my family back. Part of them, anyway. This was the one piece I had. The only tangible thing I could hold onto.”
“Until he took it,” she murmured quietly. “That must have hurt deeply.”
It had been devastating. This was the first time Benjamin had ever spoken about how it had felt. His pulse felt wild and uneven.
“I should have expected it,” he admitted. “Grandfather despised me from the moment of my birth. He blamed my father, too. I was a child. I didn’t understand. All I knew was that my mother was gone, but I still had a grandfather. My letters went unanswered, he was suddenly too busy to be disturbed any time Father brought me for a visit. As I got older, I realized he had no interest in getting to know me. He wished I hadn’t been born.”
Noelle gasped. “Surely he would never wish—”
“He said so to my face,” Benjamin said flatly. “That was my mistake, too. When he invited me five years ago, I should have suspected a trap. It turned out, he’d learned of the locket. I was so eager to finally make peace, of course I handed it over when he asked for a closer look. That was the last time I saw it. Grandfather threw me out of the castle—”
