Did the man not realize that her son, Sophia’s first husband who’d not been in the grave less than nine months before the birth of the baby, had had brown hair and brown eyes much like hers?
“Indeed.” She barely managed the word.
“Good Lord, when I think back to when Cecily was an infant,” Mr. Findlay continued, seemingly unaware of her discomfort. “It can be trying. Don’t think I slept a full night that first year.”
“Surely, you did not care for her yourself.” Loretta couldn’t imagine her husband tolerating the sounds of one of their sons crying in the night. Both Lucas and Harold had been ensconced in the nursery upstairs, far from the ducal chambers.
But Loretta had loved them. She’d spent as much time as was deemed proper with her sons. Would she do things differently if she could go back?
A pang pierced her heart. Her eldest, Lucas, now lay six feet under. And Harold…grown men and yet they’d left her far too soon.
She pinched her lips together.
Mr. Findlay chuckled ruefully. “I didn’t have much choice back then. Cecily’s mama only lived a few hours after giving birth. If I didn’t care for the baby, nobody else would. I couldn’t afford help until she was a few years old.”
Loretta raised her brows at such information. She found it nigh impossible to imagine this big, burly, and powerful man caring for a small infant. “You fed her? And changed her… clouts and pilchers?” Heat spread up her neck and into her face as she imagined it. Good God, was she blushing in this man’s presence? Surely not! In that moment, however, she wished she’d donned the black veil she normally wore in public.
But she was not in public. These gardens had always been her refuge.
She turned away from him to examine the trees in the distance. Only a smattering of leaves remained to adorn the gray branches. Beyond them, the sky hovered lower than usual, heavy with rain, or perhaps even snow.
“All of it, your grace.” He patted her hand reassuringly, as though he sensed the concept discomfited her.
Loretta studied the familiar scenery. “I think… that must have been rather…wonderful.” And suddenly the small spots of green in the trees blurred. She blinked away the stinging sensation behind her eyes. “Prescott and I never considered…”
She couldn’t speak past that dratted lump in her throat. The one that seemed to expand at the most inopportune of moments.
What had happened to her dignity?
Her ever present poise?
It was as though she had not only lost her sons, and her husband two summers ago, but she’d lost a part of herself. Her very identity.
“You could do it with that granddaughter of yours.” Mr. Findlay spoke quietly near her ear. So close that his breath warmed her cheek. Loretta shivered and stepped away. Almost as though he was suggesting something untoward.
Something scandalous.
* * *
Thomas Findlay had never knowna woman to be so damned aloof, so cold and haughty. The urge to needle her never failed to arise whenever he found himself in her presence.
He’d abstained from the needling thus far.
She was a duchess after all. Or was she? He’d thought she was a dowager but nobody addressed her as such, even though Cecily’s friend Sophia had taken over the title of Duchess of Prescott.
He’d first met Her Grace at Sophia and Dev’s wedding. It had been a small affair, as the family had been deep in mourning at the time. Damnedest thing. First, the younger son fell off a cliff in an isolated incident, playing around, teasing his new wife while on his honeymoon. And then, not two weeks later, a mudslide had stolen the life of the other males in the family. Her husband, her remaining son, and the present duke’s father.
Leaving this woman alone.
Well, not alone, per se. The new duke, her nephew, Devlin Brookes had married Lord Harold’s widow quickly enough. Unfortunately, rumors abounded – Couldn’t get away from the damned things. He had never paid much heed to the wagging tongues of society in the past and didn’t intend to begin doing so at this stage of his life.
The price of tea, the price of cotton, the price of brandy; these were things he paid attention to.
He ignored most of the rest.
The Duchess stumbled on a stone causing her to grip his arm tighter. Her small hand on him ignited all sorts of surprising sensations. As their acquaintance had grown, so too had this desire to rile her. But he also wanted to protect her.
Insanity.
