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Bellona shook her head. ‘You’ve lost enough family members for many slaps...’
The duchess nodded. ‘It was not supposed to be like that. My husband, I accepted he might die. He was much older than I. But my babies. My children. You don’t know what it is like.’
‘I know something of what it is like.’
‘No. You don’t.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘You can’t.’
‘Then tell me.’
The duchess tossed the packet aside. ‘My daughter had golden hair. I’d never seen a child so blessed...’ She continued speaking of her past, taking tea when the maid brought it, and hardly pausing in her memories.
Finally, she looked at Bellona. ‘You really must be on your way now. You’ve stayed much longer than a proper first visit lasts. One just doesn’t act as you do.’
‘I know. I do as I wish.’
‘I can tell you have not had a mother about. You need someone to teach you how to act.’
‘No. I do not. This is how I wish to be.’
‘That is your first error.’ She shut her eyes. ‘Now go.’
Bellona rose. ‘Thank you for telling me of your daughter.’
The duchess opened her eyes again and waved towards the door. ‘I may send a note later requesting you to tea.’
Bellona left, hearing two rapid sniffs behind her. She shut the door, listening for the click. A dark hallway loomed, but she remembered her way to the library.
A few moments later, she found Rhys, sitting at his desk, leaning over papers. Her reticule lay at the side of his work.
‘Where’s the maid?’ Bellona asked, walking into the room.
He twirled his pen between his fingertips as he stood. ‘Below stairs speaking with the other servants. I think she is a cousin or sister or some relation to many of the women here.’
Bellona walked to the fabric bag, lifting it and feeling the weapon still inside.
He frowned and shook his head.
She ignored him and moved to the door.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I’ll send for someone to collect your maid.’
‘I will find her. When I step below stairs and look around, servants will appear and the maid will rush to me. If it takes many moments, the housekeeper or butler are at my elbow, asking what I need. It works faster than the bell pull.’
‘Perhaps you should leave them to do their jobs.’
‘Yes. I should,’ she agreed.
He smiled—the one that didn’t reach his lips, but made his eyes change in such a way that they became like dark jewels she couldn’t take her own gaze from.
‘Would you wait here whilst I see how my mother fares?’ he said. The words were a question, but he was halfway from the room before she could answer.
‘No. I’ll be on my way.’
He took two more steps, stopped, and spun around. ‘No?’ He stood in the doorway, almost taking up the whole of the space.
‘You will ask her what I said. How we got on and make sure she is well,’ Bellona said. ‘I know the answers to that. She mentioned having tea with me again, but she will change her mind.’
‘With me, she cannot speak for crying and it has been a year,’ he muttered. ‘A year... I think the honeysuckle was in bloom when they were taking my brother from the house the last time.’
‘It is not quite a year,’ Bellona told him, shaking her head. ‘Your mother knows the dates. All of them.’
His eyes snapped to her and he pushed his hair from his temple. ‘Of my father’s and sister’s deaths, too?’
‘Yes. And her own parents.’
‘You must stay,’ he said. ‘You cannot keep the knife in case someone accidentally gets hurt. But you must stay. I have tried two companions for my mother and she shouted one from the room and refused to speak with the other.’
‘No.’
‘Miss Cherroll, I fear you do not understand how trapped my mother is in her thoughts and memories. You must stay and see if you can lift her spirits. Otherwise, I fear she will not live much longer.’
She moved, putting the desk between them. ‘I cannot.’ She had grown up with the myths of her ancestors and tales of men stronger than storms and compelling forces. But she’d experienced nothing beyond the world of her birth until the duke stood before her. He changed the way her heart beat, the way she breathed and even the way her skin felt.
He tensed his shoulders, drew in a breath and his arms relaxed. She looked into his eyes, but lowered her gaze back to his cravat. She could not stay in this house. Not and be near the duke. He held the danger of the pirates, but in a different way. She’d seen her mother’s weakness. Not the one taking her body near death, but the one that had locked her into a man’s power. The power you could not escape from because it stole a person from the inside.
