Du looked up and caught her gaping stare.
The little girl in his lap pulled her thumb from her lips and scowled at Mara before she leaned back to stare up at Duel. “Is she an angel, Uncle Dubu?”
“Nay, Lizzy. She’s another member of our ship. That be your aunt Mara.”
“Oh. She looks just like them bootiful angels Father Jeffrey talks about.”
He didn’t comment on that. Rather, he took a deep breath and closed his book. Then he gave a light hug to the girl in his lap. “Well, children, it appears I should be going.”
They let out a loud sound of communal disappointment.
“Don’t let me disturb you,” Mara hastened to assure them.
“It’s all right. Their dinnertime approaches.”
“Will you come again?” A young boy rose from beside the chair to pull at Du’s arm.
Du brushed tenderly at the boy’s hair and smiled. “Of course, Robby. You know you’re my only reason for coming here.”
The boy threw himself against Du with a giddy yelp and hugged him before he rushed off.
Du stood with the girl in his arms and carried her to an old priest who’d come forward from a side door that had been left ajar. She reluctantly allowed the older man to take her from Du’s arms while Belle and the others finished up their tasks.
The priest, who must be Father Jeffrey, thanked Du for his reading and promised the girl that Du would come again, as was apparently his habit.
Kalder moved to help Cameron while Mara went to retrieve the book from where Du had left it in the whitewashed chair. It was one she recognized from Du’s private collection he kept in his cabin on board the ship.
Now that she thought about it, he’d always been strangely studious … as far back as she could recall. There had never been a night he didn’t read at least an hour before going to sleep or a morning that didn’t begin with an hour of quiet study time.
Even before Vine had joined them, he used to travel to monasteries to barter for books. Ofttimes they’d rebuffed him entirely for his pagan ways, or tried to convert him before allowing him to look through their collections. Several times he’d almost been killed by the Romans as he sought scrolls from them.
Yet it’d never deterred him from seeking their knowledge. He’d even haunted the Cornish docks where foreign merchants would come to trade, asking if they had any manuscripts or scrolls he could purchase.
It was as if knowledge and books were as much nourishment to him as food.
Suddenly, his shadow fell over her. Looking up, she caught the haunted ghosts that resided deep inside his soul, and for the first time, she was curious about them. Curious about him. “What made you love the written word so?”
“My grandfather. He always said that education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge during adversity. And that a learned mind is the only wealth worth hoarding, as it is the sole treasure that can never be stolen.”
“Yet you were a ruthless barbarian?”
“Even a scholar has to eat.”
She glanced back to where the children were smiling and playing. “How is it that in all the years we’ve been together I missed seeing this more tender side of you?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “People make their own realities. They paint the truth as they want it to be, regardless of fact. For those who want to believe, no proof is ever required. For those who refuse to believe, no proof is ever enough. And so you see me as nothing more than the monster you first met. I can never be anything else in your eyes. It’s a fact I’ve long accepted.”
He was a lot wiser than she’d ever given him credit for. And yet she shouldn’t be surprised. Not really. It took more than sheer strength to win the wars he’d fought. He had been cunning in the face of far greater numbers. His shrewdness had been remarked upon and admired by his enemies and allies every bit as much as his stamina and sword skills.
Nay, he’d never really been the mindless animal she’d accused him of being. However, this was a role that she’d never seen him in.
Doting and kind.
And it was one that did the strangest things to her breathing. Made her feel a peculiar kind of weepiness she’d never known before.
“How long have you been coming here?”
“Since Thorn freed us and Rafe told me it existed. His mother taught here. This orphanage and church were her pet charity.” He jerked his chin toward the door. “It’s why it’s named St. Rafael’s. His father built and donated it for his mother, and she named it for her son … with the church’s blessing.”
