He flipped to the next pages to find sketches of various portions of the gardens here at Wylde Park. One of a bird perched in the low-hanging limbs of a yew tree. One of the roses in bloom. A frog she must have spied by the lake. A few more of Roland. Then another which gave him pause.
“Your father the duke,” Pippa said.
Roland found himself staring down at the representation of his sire. The last duke of Northwich possessed a visage that was at once forbidding and stern, unsmiling. His jaw was rigid, stance tense. The disapproval he emanated was real. Mama had captured his father with the same loving attention to the slightest detail and devotion to her subject.
“He did not come to Wylde Park while she was in residence,” he said, “not since I was a lad. This must have been sketched from memory, for my father died when I was quite young.”
Not young enough to forget the way his father had looked at him. Nor to recall the duke’s displeasure at what he had perceived as the evidence of Mama’s American blood.
Little wonder his classmates call him a savage, he had overheard his father saying to his mother once.He has inherited the worst you could possibly give him.
Mama’s gentle response had been muffled. Roland had been listening from another room, unintentionally at first and then with rapt horror.
I would have never accepted a bride of tainted blood were it not for your fortune, his father had added in cutting tones.
Pippa’s hand was on his arm, calling him back to the present. “If this is too painful for you, we may save the rest for another day.”
“No.” He forced a smile. “It is not my mother’s drawings which have given me the doldrums. Rather, it is the memory of how much she loved him and how bitterly and cruelly he threw that love back at her, as if it and she meant less than nothing to him. I will never forgive him for the way he treated her.”
“How did he treat you?” Pippa asked, as if sensing more to the story.
And there was. So much more.
“The same.”
“Shall we set this one aflame then, do you think?” she asked, her tone serious.
So serious he could not squelch the smile tugging at his lips. “That would solve nothing.”
“Except for making you feel momentarily better,” she agreed. “After it was all turned to ash, you would regret ruining your mother’s impressive skills, I have no doubt. My suggestion was meant to lighten the heaviness of the moment.”
“And you have.” On impulse, he dipped his head and lowered his lips to hers.
Just one kiss, he told himself. But the softness of her mouth beneath his was enough to tempt a saint, and though this was indeed a sacred space, he was a man, made of flesh and bone and sin. And longing for her quite desperately.
How had he managed all these years without her? He did not know. But it did not matter. He had her now. She was his. His wife. His love.
She kissed him back, feverishly, lingeringly. Her tongue slipped into his mouth, and the taste of her, sweetness and tea and summer berries, was decadent and so delicious on his tongue. If he did not take care, he would have her right here on the desk.
Which he could not do.
Must not do.
Damn.
He broke the kiss with great reluctance, lifting his head. Their breaths were both ragged, her lips dark pink and swollen, her lashes lowered to conceal her gaze. The words he had been keeping from her, words he feared because of the power they would give her over him, rose.
I love you.
He tamped them down, kept them locked inside. It was too soon for declarations.
Her tongue flicked out over her lower lip, as if tasting him. Her lashes rose. Her hazel eyes were bright and mossy, flecked with cinnamon and gold. He could stare into them forever.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” she said. “For showing me your mother’s private space and her art. I appreciate it more than you know.”
“Thank you for wanting to come here with me.” On a deep breath, he forced himself back to the final pages in the notebook. They flipped through them together.
On the last, he nearly dropped the book altogether from fingers that had gone suddenly numb. Surely he was imagining the image before him. Like the others, it had been drawn in the same style. Charcoal on paper, every nuance incredible. But unlike her previous subjects—Roland, his father, the animals of Wylde Park—this one was different.
