Brooke didn’t know what to think when she read that last page. So her brother didn’t just take Ella’s virginity, he’d left her pregnant? Lied to his own parents about it, refused to take responsibility for it, even laughed when Ella told him? Brooke was horrified that her brother could be that cruel to Ella, and he didn’t even care about his own unborn child! Brooke cried when she realized she’d lost a niece or nephew when Ella died. Yet, Dominic didn’t just blame Robert for seducing his sister, he blamed him for her death. Did Dominic think she took her own life—because of Robert? Was it in those missing pages? Just those two last lines might have made Dominic think that. If that was so, he didn’t just hate Brooke because her brother caused the death of his sister, but also the death of his niece or nephew.
Why couldn’t someone here at Rothdale have just told her that? Or did everyone else think Ella’s death was a tragic accident? But Brooke was no closer to feeling comfortable about asking Dominic about it.
She’d lied the other night when they’d had their second dinner together, telling him she had an earache so she couldn’t hear well. That had helped to keep her from reacting to his barbs. For the next two days he stopped trying to get her angry enough to leave; he simply stopped talking at all, waiting for her “deafness” to go away. While the quiet had been nice for a couple days, it wasn’t getting her anywhere. His fever and the inflammation were gone, and so was her excuse to enter his room.
Now that she’d finished reading the diary and had even more questions about what had happened to Ella, she decided her ears would make a full recovery by tomorrow morning.
Chapter Twenty-One
“THIS IS WHY YOUsent me off on that errand!” Gabriel accused when he returned to Dominic’s room and found him standing at one of the back windows. “So you could sneak out of your bed again?”
“I don’t sneak.” Dominic didn’t glance back, though he lifted the cane in his hand to show how he’d gotten to the window. “I hobbled with this.”
“Still—”
“There’s nothing wrong with the rest of me, Gabe. The fever broke a few days ago, and I’m damned if I can see any redness around the wound.”
“That’sgood news.” Gabriel joined Dominic at the window. “I’ll let Miss Wichway know her—”
“No, you won’t.”
“But it will give me an excuse to seek her out.”
Dominic glanced to the side. “Why would you want...?” He didn’t finish. Gabriel’s expression was quite explanatory. Dominic rolled his eyes. “You haven’t noticed she’s too old for you?”
“She’s nothing of the sort.”
Dominic snorted. Those two women were wrecking his household, charming his cook, charming his best friend. Even his reticent valet had smiled more in the last five days than Dominic had ever seen him smile before. And Wolf didn’t even bark at either of the women when he should have. The dog didn’t like strangers. If Dominic didn’t know better, he’d think both women were witches.
But the younger of the two sat on a bench beneath a white willow reading, shielded from the sun that flooded the park, her long black hair no longer tied back but flowing loosely around her narrow shoulders. Like a young girl, she didn’t appear to care about her appearance when she thought no one was around—or watching her.
Her lips were plump. He imagined she was biting the lower one as she read, as he’d seen her do three times since she’d arrived here, his eyes drawn to her mouth each time. Bloody hell, he was counting? Her eyes were fascinating, so pale a green, like dew-glistened grass. Lightly tanned skin, which indicated how much she enjoyed the outdoors. How unladylike was that?
She should be fashionably pale, but she wasn’t. Other ladies rode and walked outdoors, but only with hats, veils, or parasols to shield their delicate skin from the sun. She should be demure but was bold instead. She should have been mortified to enter his bedroom the day she’d arrived, but he hadn’t noticed pink cheeks. She had pretended to be cowed, but how quickly she’d dropped that pretense.
She was a wisp of a girl, only slightly taller than most, narrow of frame, and yet the plumpness of those breasts she’d flaunted at him in that yellow gown her first night here... Good God, how was he surviving this?
It had been a gut-wrenching blow that she looked as she did. Unexpected, unwanted. And why hadn’t she run crying from the room when he’d kissed her...?
He wasn’t going to think about that backfiring failure again, but her reaction to it suggested she wasn’t a virgin. Was she as immoral as her brother?
She’d been hiding in her room the last few days, according to the staff. He thought her ears might be paining her, yet she’d showed no evidence of discomfort when she’d rushed in and out of his room to apply the salve with barely a word the last couple of days. She seemed more distracted than anything else. He’d had to repeat himself too many times, loudly, to want to continue baiting her. Yesterday they’d barely said two words to each other. He didn’tlikethe silence.
“Is she appealing to you yet?” Gabriel asked, following Dominic’s gaze if not his thoughts.
Dominic looked toward the pastures before he said, “Like fungus.”
Gabriel tsked but didn’t comment.
Good. Dominic didnotneed to hear her praises sung again. “My guess is George didn’t know what he was sending me or he would have added her to his own tally. Our prince has led a life of dissipation, wild extravagance, escapades, and has had too many mistresses to count, yet he can raise a brow over a few duels? Someone put this scheme in his ear. I would like to know who to thank for it.”
“You mean who you can challenge to a duel next?”
Dominic didn’t answer. He felt an urge to look down at the park again, so this time he focused his attention on the pasture. “Royal needs exercise.”
“Don’t look at me! You know my uncle is afraid of him, too.”
“Do I need to hire a rider? Find someone willing.”
