They were all spotless, of course. Dust wasn’t permitted at Steeple Cross.
It was a gloomy place at night, with shadows lingering in every corner. The only source of natural light was a large, triple-paned window tucked between two thick columns at the far end of the room, but it was swallowed by the dark paneling that surrounded it, as well as an enormous stained-glass crest that dominated the entire length of the middle panel.
Even with the sun shining, that window wouldn’t do much to eliminate the gloom surrounding them. Dark. Everything here was so utterly, unrelentinglydark.
“There aren’t many portraits of children.” She returned the glacial stare of some dour countess or other in a tight lace cap, who was scowling down at her with a pair of cold, dark eyes.
They were Miles’s eyes, except his weren’t anywhere near so cold and unfriendly, for all that he occasionally tried to make them so.
“No, the Winthrops haven’t proved particularly fruitful. Pity, isn’t it? I daresay a passel of frolicsome children might have livened them up a bit, but the Countesses of Cross have been rather frail creatures, on the whole. A great many of them died young, you see. Here’s Cross’s father.” Lord Barnaby nodded at a portrait at the end of the corridor, nearest the window.
“Does Lord Cross favor his father?” Juliet made her way past the row of expressionless faces to join Lord Barnaby, but when she reached his side and glanced up at the portrait, a shudder tripped down her spine. “Oh. Oh, dear.”
The previous Earl of Cross had tight lips, a rigid posture, and a frigid, uncompromising stare so arctic even the painted version chilled one to the soul.
“Frightening, isn’t he? His behavior was much like you’d expect from a man of his appearance. My own father was much like him—at least, what I remember of him. He died when I was three. I was raised by an exceedingly tender-hearted mother who spoiled me shamelessly. I was far more fortunate than my cousin was.”
Just looking at the Sixth Earl of Cross was twisting her stomach into knots, yet that frigid face held her captive somehow, a thrall of horror, and she couldn’t manage to tear her gaze free of it. “He doesn’t look like a doting father.”
“Far from it. Cross was left to his sole care from the age of nine, when his mother passed away.”
Nine? So young, but then it wasn’t difficult to believe such a man as his father could drive a woman into an early grave.
“I used to spend the summer months with them at their estate in Kent, and even at a very young age I realized how utterly grim an existence Cross led with his father. I don’t think he spoke to another child from the end of each summer to the start of the next.”
She swallowed, but the lump in her throat clung like cockleburs. For a little boy to be trapped at a remote estate in Kent with such a father, without another child within miles, and not a single soul aside from servants to speak to? “But that’s… dear God, how dreadful it must have been for him.”
“It was, yes. I’m afraid he was terribly lonely.”
He must have been, unbearably so, and inconceivably so to her, who’d always been surrounded by her sisters, had always basked in their warmth and love. Even after her mother fled to the Continent with her lover, Lord Bromley, abandoning them all without a backwards glance—even after her father’s death, when things had become so difficult, she’d never beenalone.
What must it have been like for Miles, to have no one?
And wasn’t he still alone, in all the ways that mattered? Shut up here at Steeple Cross, in this flawless house, everything polished to a ruthless shine, and shelves upon shelves of books so orderly one was afraid to touch them?
“His upbringing followed him to school and beyond.” Lord Barnaby let out a long sigh. “I’d hoped when he escaped his father’s house things would improve for him, but he… well, he didn’t make friends easily, either at Eton or Oxford. Even now he doesn’t have many truly close friends, aside from Melrose. I think he just… well, he doesn’t know how to talk to people, after so many years of being silent.”
Juliet stared up at the Sixth Earl of Cross’s cruel face, her chest throbbing with such a deep pain it felt as if her heart was breaking in two, yet at the same time her mind was racing, snatching at those fragments of memories of the time she’d spent with Miles in London.
He’d talked to her, then. Oh, it had taken a great deal of teasing and chattering at him to peel back his layers, but once she’d broken through that hard, thick shell she’d found a funny, tender, and caring man hidden underneath.
A man she’d thought she could love.
“It doesn’t help that Cross is so frighteningly intelligent. He scares the wits out of most people, and so they give him a wide berth.” Lord Barnaby studied her for a moment. “Not you, though, Miss Templeton. You don’t seem to be afraid of him in the least.”
“No, but I’m a scandalous lady from a scandalous family, my lord. It’s easy enough to be bold when you haven’t anything to lose.” She’d had her own challenges, of course, but she’d also had the comfort of a warm, loving family. She knew what love was, how much it meant, and that was far more than Miles had ever known.
“I think it’s likely Cross will retire from society once this house party ends. I’ve always wanted better for him, and hoped he’d find his way to happiness somehow, but he’s the stubbornest man alive, and won’t listen to reason.”
She whirled toward him, a sudden roaring in her ears, and her heart crashing hard against her ribs. “What do you mean?”
“I doubt he’ll spend much time in London in the future, if any. I know my cousin, Miss Templeton. He’ll bury himself up in this dismal place, and remain here alone for the rest of his days. Steeple Cross is farther from London, and much more isolated than his seat in Kent—”
“Here? You think he intends to stayhere?” This godforsaken place, with its endless gray skies and torrential rains? It’s horrible, claw-footed furniture, and dreary, dark paneling everywhere? “But a man doesn’t just drop out of sight, my lord! Why, I’ve never heard of such a—”
She broke off with a gasp, her heart plummeting. Shehadheard of such a thing, had watched a once confident, vigorous man withdraw from society, had witnessed him fade by degrees, one month after the next until there’d been nothing left of him but a handful of dust.
That man had been her father.
