This time she did laugh, an honest, humor-filled giggle. He placed one finger beneath her chin and tilted her face to look at him.
“I’m serious. You’re beautiful. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but closed it and smiled. “Thank you.”
“Are you sorry?” he asked.
“About what?”
“Not marrying Jeremy?”
“Heavens no. You are much preferable.” She gave him a devious grin. “As distracting as I find the lovemaking, I suspect I would never have experienced it in the same way with him.” Then she frowned. “No, I’m certain about that. Jeremy was —” She tilted her head, searching for the right description, “pale.”
Graeme laughed, a hearty, belly-filled laugh. “You are most entertaining, Duchess.”
“Well, I’m glad you think so.” But he could tell she’d left something unsaid. He wondered if it was that she’d never before belonged anywhere. Well, she belonged now, right here next to him. And in caves when she followed him against his instructions.
He swallowed hard as the realization slammed into him. Damnation if he hadn’t fallen for his own wife.
Vanessa wondered if she’d said too much. Perhaps Graeme thought her a fool, too. He hadn’t said anything in a long while. Instead, they’d lain there in silence, his hand still drawing lazy circles on her back.
It had felt good to say all of that aloud, to express the pain that she’d harbored for so long. She no longer cared if she hadn’t impressed her father; he’d been dead for nearly five years. Or perhaps the longing still remained, but she knew how futile it was, considering he was gone. Futile for other reasons, too, she acknowledged, but that little girl in her still popped up every now and again. “Look what I did, Papa!” But she managed to keep those thoughts squelched.
To force her mind in other directions, she pulled herself tighter into Graeme’s side. “Tell me about your family,” she said, “about growing up in both England and Scotland. That had to have been amazing.”
He paused for so long before answering that she feared he might have fallen asleep. “Amazing is not how I would describe it,” he said, his tone edged with anger. Again, he was silent for a moment before he continued. “I lived exclusively in Scotland with my mother until I was nearly thirteen.”
“And then you moved to London? Why?” she asked.
“My father moved me there. I suppose he finally recognized that I was his heir, and that no amount of time would change that. So he forced me to live in London with him so that I could learn the ways of a gentleman and ‘lose that awful stench of peat’ that clung to me, as he put it.”
“But your mother and Dougal chose to stay behind?” she asked.
“Dougal had not been born yet. I suppose that was when he was conceived, when my father traveled up to retrieve me.” His laugh was so cold that it spread a chill over her arms. “I don’t know why I never noticed that before.”
“But you came here to visit?” she asked.
“Yes, he would allow me to return for a couple of months during the summer.”
Vanessa leaned upon an elbow to face him. “You don’t sound very fond of your father.”
“My father was a son of a bitch who never cared for anyone in his life but himself.” His jaw clenched, but he said nothing else.
“But your mother loved him, so he couldn’t have been all bad,” she argued.
“My mother was young when they met, foolish. She saw the error of her ways soon enough. Divorce, though, was out of the question, so she fled to Scotland and remained there away from her husband.”
Vanessa frowned. She’d had an extensive conversation with Moira the day she gave her the wedding ring. “That’s not the way she tells the story.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your mother told me all about their courtship and their tumultuous relationship thereafter. She has many regrets, but one thing she does not regret is loving your father,” Vanessa said.
“Then she is still a fool,” Graeme said softly.
“Perhaps you simply misunderstood their relationship,” Vanessa offered.
“What are you trying to tell me, Vanessa?”
