“So why are you disinclined to the institution of marriage?”
She gave a snort of dismissive laughter. “Silly me. That was nothing.”
She had passed the matter off too quickly. He was sensitive to her. Denial was an ordinary response to an atrocity, banishing the ability to feel. He should know, he repressed the feeling every day of his life. He’d not push her to tell him, but her voice reached out to him like the unexpected tendrils of a swirling galaxy, where she was involved and impacted by some dust and stars, but a lot of it was exogenous to her. He shrugged, perhaps a childhood trauma or something that happened to her during the war with the Colonies.
“I’d never dream of perpetuating such a tragedy. I have no wish to be any man’s trouble, or wife.”
So, she was disillusioned toward the idea of a husband. The road narrowed for a mile, and far below a raging river churned and eddied over sharp rocks.
“So dangerous. I’d hate to think of anyone falling off the road.” She shuddered.
Clever how she changed the subject. He was sure there was more to her story. He had seen a glimpse of fear in her eyes when Bonneville had cornered her. How her manner contrasted to the natural way she took his hand and pulled him on the dance floor. The painting in the Rutland library came to mind.The experiences of our past are the architects of our present.What haunted Miss Thorne? What had happened in her past?
“What are you thinking of at the moment?” she asked.
He looked down at her rosy cheeks and full lips. “I’m thinking geometry.” He didn’t dare tell her the fundamental diagram of her face was the same as the one of the whole body; the link between the two, the height of the face is equal to the vertical distance between the middle of the body and intersection of the legs and the navel is equal to the distance between the tip of the middle finger. If he drew a line upward from the navel, he could measure two impressive spheres then estimate the height, weight and distance. And if he leaned in just a bit, his lips would meet hers…
Mesmerized by her rapt attention, he forced his gaze away. But, to be honest, the hell with all that geometry. He’d rather sample the spheres.
“It would give me insight if you told me what you were thinking.”
To tell her what he was thinking, would show his depravity. Definitely show his depravity. Concentrate. Think. “What did you ask?”
Rachel sighed. It was an exasperated sigh but on her, it was how he imagined a sigh would sound after a long, lovely night of lovemaking. Except Rachel was an innocent. And he was inexperienced. Nonetheless his body reacted. Rock hard reacted.
“My father is pushing me into the role of duke which means my brother… He sighed. It means he is beginning to give up hope of finding Nicholas. I refuse to yield to that notion. Nicholas is out there. I feel it in my bones.”
“The world is full of peril and there are many dark places, but we must always have hope.”
Her wisdom although inspiring, gave way to an unfortunate reality. “I have no inclination to be the duke. To idle over tenant disputes, bookkeeping and accounting. Pure hell. Already my father has forced me into some of the duties. I was never made for that role. Detest it. Nicholas was made for the task. Science is my first and last mistress.”
Her hood fell back and she tossed her chestnut curls. “I can understand your difficulty. After seeing a fraction of the estate, the duty is onerous. A mind like yours belongs in discovery.”
Silence reigned. The soft, muted thud of the horse’s hooves, the whisper of the carriage wheels over the snow and a woodpecker emerging from a hollow of a tree, a soft churr-churr invitation to its mate.
“I want to thank you for saving me from Sir Bonneville. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t arrived in time.” She shivered from the memory.
“I should have torn his right arm off and beat him with it.”
Rachel pealed out her laughter and the sound rippled over the cedars and firs. He frowned. As a scientist, he was compelled to follow what was most probable, but in speculative thought, he was compelled to follow the fact that he liked to see her laugh.
“You discuss brawling like the price of potatoes,” she said unable to control her mirth. “Oh, my, what is that?”
Anthony stopped the carriage, looking at the line of dormers set like a row of teeth in the third floor attic, visible now due to winter and the trees bare of their leaves. “That’s Elijah Johnson’s home, and old sea captain friend of my father’s.”
“Has he been at sea overlong? The disrepair”
Anthony regarded the swayback sheds, and tumbled down and forsaken mansion. Surrounded by high oaks, branches extending horizontally, harshly angled, twisted, interlocked, grasping downward and upward, casting shadows of gloom and threatening anyone to enter.
“He died. His brother, a retired sea captain who lives in the town has not had the heart to tear the house down and this grand old dame has decayed into ruin.”
“Sends chills up my spine…” she swayed into him. “…like someone is watching us.”
He could not have agreed to a more hostile environment that left him uncharacteristically on edge.
He snapped the reins as they moved along the undulating road, to the town declining sharply southward in the valley, close-girdling the crescent mountain to the west. “He was an odd recluse, a hoarder, making up for the loneliness and guilt of losing his wife at sea. She had insisted on accompanying him on a voyage despite his rabid denial of the dangers. A terrible storm swept her overboard.”
“What a sad tale.”
