Would she?
She ought to.
But she couldn’t leave. Not yet. Not without answers. Not without understanding this man and the intricate knot of secrets surrounding him. Because she suspected that his secrets were tangled with her own, that she would find answers here that had eluded her all her life.
The truth settled, sharp and heavy. Her lips parted, but no words came.
He seemed to see it, her answer, written plainly on her face. His head tilted ever so slightly, and his lips parted as though he might say something vital.
A second ticked past. Then two. The moment closed like a book. He offered no revelation. Instead, he stepped back. The absence of his nearness felt cold, hollow.
Finally, she said, “I have no home. Not anymore. Papa was my home.”
“Then we are alike,” he said quietly.
“In what way?” She gestured to indicate their surroundings. “Is this not your home?”
“Harrowgate is my duty. What made it home is lost to me.”
His words struck like a bell. Home was the people that made it so, not the walls and floors and roof.
She thought of the life she had left behind, and an ache of bittersweet regret and loss tinged by guilt swelled in her heart. Because she had loved Papa, loved being part of his world, the days filled with books and learning and fascinating conversation. But sometimes, in quiet moments, she had imagined something else. A different life. Her life.
Something in his expression acknowledged that ache, as if he recognized it, knew it, lived it.
His gaze pierced her, unblinking, unyielding. “Do you ever wonder what your life might have been like if things had been different?”
“Different how?” she asked cautiously.
“If you could have chosen it yourself. If there were no debts to pay, no secrets to protect, no shadows to chase. What would you have wanted?”
She gasped, startled by how closely his question mirrored her secret thoughts.
Seconds ticked past. Almost did she deflect, deny, refuse to answer. Then for reasons she could not name, she found herself telling him the truth.
“Sometimes I dream of a cottage somewhere warm and quiet, with flowers spilling over the edges of painted window boxes and sunlight pouring in through lace curtains. Sometimes I dream of Paris, a city I have only read about, the wide boulevards lined with trees, the air thick with the scent of fresh bread and roasted chestnuts. I imagine walking along the Seine in a dress the color of cornflowers, a book tucked under my arm, free to go wherever my feet might take me.”
Free from the wraiths that were her forever companions. He waited in silence for her to continue.
She offered a sad smile. “But those were the dreams of a girl who had not yet buried her father, who had not yet felt the crushing weight of unpaid bills and unanswered letters.”
A girl who had not yet been drawn into a house like Harrowgate Manor, a house that seemed to breathe and shift in the darkness, a house where the shadows pressed too close and whispered things she had no wish to understand.
A muscle moved in his jaw. “Perhaps you will find new dreams. Perhaps you will find something here worth staying for.”
His words hung between them for an instant and then she whispered, “And you? What do you dream of?”
“I cannot afford to dream,” he said, something like longing in his eyes. “Dreams are for men unfamiliar with the cost. I want no dream. I want an end.”
His gaze touched her lips again. Her pulse stumbled and she gathered it back.
“An end to what?”
The softness flickered and was gone, a shutter dropping over his expression. Deliberately, he shifted his attention toward the open drawer.
“Tell me, Miss Barrett, what were you hoping to find in my desk?”
She hesitated, baffled by the rapid shift in both mood and topic. “Answers.”
