He appeared relieved, which she thought odd.
“It was not an encouraging day for you,” he said, settling beside her. He did not sound smug, at least. Perhaps his tone even carried a shade of sympathy.
“I was not able to place any proof in front of you, but I am no worse off than before.”
“We found his grave, Davina. He did not grow to manhood in Northumberland, and father a son who then fathered you.”
She tucked her wrap closer around her and fixed her gaze on the lane. “As I said, there is no proof a body is in that grave, Brentworth.”
Chapter Eighteen
That evening, after dinner with the ladies, Brentworth took his port to the terrace outside the ballroom. He gazed down on the garden. It appeared even more neglected and wild in the twilight.
Its condition was inexcusable. He must have ignored requests from the steward to be allowed to deal with it. He would tell Roberts to hire a gardener. And a few more servants. He might not visit this house again, but it should not go to total ruin.
He pictured the blackened husk of a wing. It was perhaps time to see what could be done about that too. He sipped his port, marveling that his mind even permitted these considerations. A year ago, he would have found something else to think about if such notions entered his head.
It was Davina’s doing, he supposed. Not only her scolds, which were well deserved. Even now, with her above in her chamber, her presence changed his outlook. Last night, he had woken from a dream in which the whole house burned down around him. No sooner had he opened his eyes than he saw her in his mind, and the remnants of the dream and its horrors disappeared.
She had a rare influence on him, one he resisted acknowledging, but that was becoming harder to do. His decision to leave her with that minister in case there might be more to learn—that had been inexplicable as anything other than one friend doing what was right for another, even if it cost them something. It was the sort of thing he might do for his closest friends, and no woman had ever been one of those.
He liked her. He admired her. He wanted her. That last impulse complicated everything. He had never wanted a woman he could not have. He never retreated from a woman hecouldhave. Had Davina been a different kind of woman, if she were sophisticated and experienced and worldly in the ways the ladies he pursued always were, he would have proposed an affair by now, and not accepted the torture he experienced.
He had watched her like a green boy’s first infatuation at dinner tonight, trying not to be obvious, imagining scandalous things while Miss Ingram chatted on about some lieutenant she had known decades ago. The port he held now and the crisp air would hopefully enable him to stop gritting his teeth in frustration.
“Is there a family Bible to be found here?”
He heard her voice behind him. His reaction was not that of a gentleman. The devil rose in him. His better side whispered,Tell her to leave at once.
To hell with that.
He turned to see her just outside the French doors. The low light made an ethereal cloud of her hair and put stars in her eyes. “My family Bible is not.”
“I meant mine, and you know it.”
He set his glass on the terrace bannister. “It should be in the library. Let us go see.”
* * *
Brentworth had not argued with her about whose family the Bible belonged to. He had not tried to disagree it was her own. Perhaps he was growing accustomed to the idea that she should have this estate.
Down the gallery they walked, down the stairs to the entry hall. The long curtain that hid the scarred wing’s access forbade their turning that way, of course. Someday she would tear that down and watch those chambers rebuilt if she had the means to pay for it. Not that she would need more space for her plans. The part of the house that remained habitable would serve her purposes well enough. She had spent hours laying it all out. Here the pharmacy, there the physician’s consultation office, upstairs the beds for those too ill to send home right away. A surgery too, with a good surgeon who had studied in a hospital. She had not yet decided where that should be.
Brentworth must have said something or made a sign, because the footman who scurried toward them to be on service suddenly pivoted and retraced his steps. Together, she and the duke entered the library.
“It will be good to use this chamber,” she said. “The furnishings are in want of some humanity.”
“An odd thing to say.”
“It all feels so new in here, is what I meant. As if no one has ever sat in the chairs.” She ran her fingertips over the carving at the top of one. “It is new, isn’t it? This gothic style is in favor again.”
“Roberts chose it. The old furnishings carried the smell of smoke and soot. Most of the house was refurnished by him.”
“You had no say?”
“I left it to him.” He used that tone that said he had nothing else to say on the matter.
He went to the bookcases. “We should look for religious books. I can’t think where else a Bible would be put. These are all grouped by subject, as is typical.”
