“Kilmarin is quite a sight,” Douglas said. “I’m sorry you weren’t with us.”
“I had my own share of discovery right here,” Alano said, sitting on the stack of bricks next to the furnace. “That Mrs. Williams of yours is a firebrand all right. Ignores me as if I’m a wall.”
“That can’t have pleased you,” Douglas said. “Given your reputation with the ladies.”
“She just needs a little extra persuasion.”
“I’d rather you didn’t try to seduce the female staff at Chavensworth.”
“It’s not the staff. It’s that one annoying woman,” Alano said, frowning.
Douglas bit back his smile. He knew only too well what it was like to be at the mercy of one lone woman. Women might act defenseless, but they had their own kind of armament. A hesitant glance, a tremulous smile. And tears. Good God, but he could handle anything but tears.
“Perhaps you could tell Mrs. Williams that we’ve returned,” Douglas said, giving Alano a reason to seek out the housekeeper. “Ask her to prepare an early dinner for us.”
He glanced toward the west, where the sun was beginning to set, orange streaks heralding its passing.
Alano stood. “I could do that.” He eyed Douglas carefully. “What’s got you snarling mad?”
Douglas shook his head, deciding not to confide the Duke of Herridge’s threats. “I’m going to need to see my solicitor,” he said. “I think I’ve gotten myself into a spot of trouble.”
Alano didn’t speak for a long moment. “Is there anything I can do?”
He glanced at Alano. “You’ve always been a friend, Alano, and I’m grateful for that.”
Alano smiled, but his eyes were worried. “You’ll let me know if I can help?”
Douglas nodded, then looked back at the observatory. “You’ve done plenty. Thanks to you, we’ll have hundreds of diamonds for the Duke of Herridge.”
Alano’s mouth twisted at that thought, but his expression soon turned to a smile when he remembered his errand, and his excuse to see Mrs. Williams.
Douglas watched him follow the path toward Chavensworth, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and his passage accompanied by a whistled tune.
He occupied himself in the observatory, removingthe silk fibers from the mature frames and feeding the smaller diamonds. An hour later, Douglas closed up the observatory and went back to the house using his own path.
The moon was an opalescent disc hanging among the scattered diamonds of the night sky. He was attuned to night, in a way he’d never understood, finding it friendlier, somehow, than stark daylight. Yet night had never been his friend, at least not as a child. Night meant hunger and cold, and being afraid.
He was no longer a child but a man who’d made his own way. He’d learned to think deeper thoughts than those focused simply on how to survive. He’d learned to ponder the imponderables of his existence.
What is the meaning of life?
He didn’t know the answer, but he was closer today than he had been years earlier.
What did he want from life?
To matter to someone. To scratch his name on the rock of existence and have some traveler a hundred years hence marvel that he’d been there. To care, and to love, and to experience all that he could know, see, do, taste, feel, and be.
Philosophy, now that was something to twist a man’s mind. Not as much as love, but it would do in a pinch.
Chapter 27
Sarah stood, walked to the pier glass, and surveyed herself in the mirror. She looked like a walking shadow. Her nightgown was black, her wrapper was black. Her hair was black. Her face, neck, and décolletage were stark white, causing her lips to appear even more brightly hued than usual. Slowly, she removed the pins from her hair, watching her reflection the whole time. There was no sign of the woman she’d been a month ago. Yes, the physical form was the same, but the look in her eyes had changed. There was sorrow there, and something else, knowledge that hadn’t been there before Scotland.
Time would heal all wounds. That was what everyone said, wasn’t it? That, and she should simply remember the good times and not dwell on death. She didn’t want to go through her life with this hole in her heart, but she was all too afraid that it would be with her forever.
But so would Douglas.
She fluffed up her hair, then went to her vanity, where she sat and began to brush the tresses free. Finally, she pushed her hair back so that it fell off her shoulders.Did she look too young to be having thoughts of seducing her husband?
