“Do you think the abbey’s monks took these stairs?” She nodded to the remnants of a stairway that could be clearly seen in the moon’s beauty of light and shadow. “Perhaps the abbot slept in that room on the right, the one that would be overlooking the gardensthat do not exist. He must have enjoyed the calling of rooks every morning since they seemed determined to line the trees.”
“I have nothing to do with the rooks,” Roman murmured. “And perhaps I exaggerated the state of the house.”
“Exaggerated?”Leonie tilted her head up to him. “You lied.”
“I thought you were over being out of sorts,” Roman complained. He had a suspicion that if he wasn’t cautious, there would be no love play for him tonight.
“No, I’m just starting,” Leonie remarked, moving toward the house. She took several steps and then whirled on him. “I was heading to the front door, but really, why? We can go in right here.” She picked her way through the rubble, twisting her ankle on a rock and almost falling.
“Careful.” He took her by the waist, lifting her up and swinging her around, carrying her to the front door where it was safe to walk.
Her response was to shake off his help the moment her feet touched the ground. She even batted at his hand as if he was an annoyance and began moving toward the door—but then she, again, abruptly stopped to confront him.
“You made me feel small. You presented yourself as this holier than thou person who had been saddled with my weakness and lack of character. I despised myself when I saw who I was through your eyes. And now—” She waved her arms to encompass Bonhomie and all its grounds. “Now I learn you were misrepresenting yourself.”
“I was not,” Roman answered, stung more by her picture of him as some sort of judgmental overlord than her criticism of his beloved home. “Bonhomie will be everything I said it was... someday.”
“There isn’t enough money in my dowry to repair everything that is wrong with this house. Or pave the front drive.” She scuffed her shoes on the ground to kick up the dust. “And if that’s your idea of a manicured lawn,” she continued, “then you are done before you started. But the worst part is that you carry on about honesty and yet you weren’t honest about the most basic things to me. You didn’t even tell me about your family andthey are lovely people.”
On those words, she flounced into the house, leaving the door open.
Of course, the joke was on her, because the house was dark inside. Roman waited a moment, certain she would not like stumbling around in a strange house. He was right.
She appeared in the doorway. “Please give me the lantern.” She spoke with dignity, as if she was Queen of the World.
He wasn’t giving her anything. Instead, he walked past her into the house. “You don’t know where the bedroom is, do you?”
There was a hesitation and then she said, “No.”
Roman snorted his opinion. The problem was, the truth hurt and he did not thank her for pointing it out to him. He started up the stairs expecting her to follow.
She shut the front door and did.
“You never asked about my family before we married,” he said as he reached the landing and the second set of steps leading to the first floor. “You never asked about me. But if you must know, I didn’t see a need to haul them to London. As you can tell, my stepfather is not well.”
“Because he limps?”
“His legs are failing. One day, he may not walk at all.”
There was a beat of silence and then she said, “I’m sorry. Roman.”
She sounded sincere.
“And,”he continued, “your dowry and the money I take in from tenants will be enough for us to live very nicely at Bonhomie.”
“Do you mean Rook Haven?”
He stopped on the top step, raising the lantern to frown down at her. “Rook Haven?”
She took the opportunity to march right past him saying, “If my money is building it, then I believe I should name it. And this is a rook haven if ever I saw one. I’d wager they come down the chimneys.”
“No, they don’t,” he answered, moving swiftly to overtake her.
Bonhomie’s hallways were wide. His boots echoed on the stones as he led her to the room on the northern wall that served as his bedroom.
“What is wrong with the other rooms?” She nodded to the doors down the hall.
“Some of the walls have huge cracks. Others are without windows. And then there are the leaks in the roof over them.”
