“I’ll organize with the local dressmaker to set up an account for you. I assume you’ll need more than a few outfits. Once it’s become known we’re here, we might be invited to social events.”
“How lovely.”
“I just pray there is no one in attendance who knows Ashley.” He grimaced. “I don’t want you wandering Dublin without me by your side. The English are still not very popular here, and a high-born lady could be a target for kidnapping and the likes.”
Farah didn’t want to think what “the likes” might be. “Then you’ll have to escort me to the dressmakers in the morning.” He looked even more stern. She ignored his stare. “Then I thought we should talk to the local doctors. Lord Furoe is not a man easy to forget. Surely someone must remember if they treated him or buried him.”
Rockwell stopped eating, a piece of bread dipped in stew halfway to his mouth. “I have already talked with as many doctors as I could find. No one remembered him. In fact, I talked to the local saddlers, blacksmiths and taverns…and got nothing.However, I have a lead. I’m going to visit a grain merchant. He deals with all the local farmers. I thought maybe someone had taken him out of Dublin.
“And have you talked to the women?” At his quizzical look, she added, “I suspect women would not forget a man like Lord Furoe.”
“How so?”
“Don’t be obtuse. He’s as handsome as sin. Surely, the ladies of society who mixed with the officers would remember him. If he were still alive, and roamed the Dublin streets, it would be a woman who remembered seeing him.”
Rockwell laughed. “I would never have thought of that. But you’re right. I’ve been looking in all the wrong places. We need to check the brothels. Perhaps those near where the grain merchant is situated.”
Farah dropped her fork. “No. Wrong again. Lord Furoe was madly in love with Lady Courtney. He would never do—use—prostitutes.” Lucien wouldn’t disrespect Courtney ever. She’d envied what the couple had shared. They were so in love and so happy. Then she’d watched Courtney fall apart when Lucian had been killed, and for a moment, she’d thought how lucky she was never to have to go through that kind of pain.
“He might not have before he was supposedly dead, but if he hasn’t returned to the woman you say he loved, then perhaps you’re wrong, and Courtney wasn’t as important to him as you believe.”
She wouldn’t believe that—couldn’tbelieve that. Her friends were her guiding light when looking at who and when she would marry. “There must be another reason he hasn’t come home, because I refuse to believe that of Lucien. Did you not see them together? Or is it you can’t imagine the depth of their love? Have you ever been in love?”
He looked uncomfortable with her question. “No. I have never been in love.”
“Then perhaps he really is dead, because I cannot imagine him staying away from his fiancée.”
Rockwell’s mouth turned down. “I too have thought of nothing but that question on the journey to Ireland. Why has he not returned home? Is he really dead? Did I imagine seeing him when I was here last? But I have this feeling that he is alive. It won’t leave me.”
She could see how important this was to him. She reached out and covered his hand with hers. “If he’s alive, we’ll find him.”
Rockwell looked to where her hand covered his, and he dragged his hand away and took another drink. He didn’t want to feel things for Farah. She was not the type of woman who wouldn’t care that he left her behind time and time again. He could only hurt her. There was something in him that drove him. He had to know everything. He had to know about the world he lived in. Why did bees make honey? Why did the winds blow from the east? He wanted to see everything and experience all the world offered.
He would end up resenting a wife who made him stay in England.
A woman like Farah was looking for love and he couldn’t let her fall in love with him because he’d break her heart. He would never get over this wanderlust. And he’d already caused one woman’s death.
“Tomorrow, while I leave you at the dressmakers, I’ll visit the women of disrepute and see what I can learn. Perhaps he was faithful to begin with, but it’s been five long years. I don’t believe a man could go without—”
“Sex. He couldn’t go without sex.” She looked disappointed. Rockwell admired the naivety. She was purity herself. She wasn’tfor a man like him, who took pleasure wherever he could, but never gave his heart.
“Men have needs, Farah. One day you’ll learn that sex—passion, desire, is perfectly acceptable without love.”
She shook her head. “Not for me,” she said softly.
“That’s because you don’t know what you’re missing.” And the idea of teaching her about desire and passion swept through him. He forcibly pushed the idea away. He sat staring at her silently. “I hope you meet this man of your dreams, a paragon of virtue, and get your happy ever after.”
She looked away and sighed. “I never said I wanted perfection. That is unattainable. I know that most people don’t marry for love. Men seem to avoid love for some reason. I want to be happy, that’s all. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. Do you?”
He considered her as he would a painting. Why hadn’t some man, other than Lord Franklin, stepped forward for consideration? Well, one had. Conte Philippe Lambert. He didn’t really know the man, but obviously Blackstone hadn’t approved. Was this the man she still pined over? Was he the reason why the idea of marrying Lord Franklin was not to be born? If he recalled, Lambert had married another.
“Friendship and respect are a sound basis for any marriage. I think you are wise to want to wait for a man who can at least offer you that.”
“Perhaps I’d be better off remaining a spinster.”
He rose and moved round to take the chair next to her. “No. Desire and a shared passion are what make a marriage more—even without love.”
His fingers closed gently around her wrist and he turned her palm up and stroked his thumb over her skin. “You have no understanding of what you’ll be missing if you decide to remaina spinster. Passion between men and women can be quite remarkable.”
