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Bellona shook her head. ‘I’m proud of it. To get to England, I had to flee in the night. Thessa’s suitor chased us.’ She had slept though the final confrontation, unaware of all about her. Earlier, she’d fallen asleep with the rhythm of the ship and woken when her sister had shaken her awake. Thessa’s rapid voice had fallen back into the Greek language while she’d told Bellona how the pirates from their homeland had followed the ship, planning to force the women into marriage.
She thought of what Melina had told her of Almack’s—a marriage mart, her sister had said.
‘Have you ever been pursued, Your Grace?’ She turned to Rhys. He did have her direct in his vision, watching her without censure, but as if she were a very interesting...bee, and he wasn’t afraid of getting stung.
‘Not by a pirate,’ he said. ‘Only by a very unhappy bull.’
‘I’m sure you could escape.’
‘I have managed thus far.’ He glanced at the book again, but even with his eyes averted, she could still feel his attention on her.
‘My poor Geoff,’ the duchess said, ‘he was once chased by an angry dog and I thought—’ Her lip quivered and she reached for a handkerchief.
Bellona did not want the discussion to return to sadness. A slap with words worked as well as one across the face. ‘Reading does appear a good way to waste time. A way for people with no chores to be idle.’
The duchess’s sniff turned into a choke.
She had the older woman’s full attention and Rhys’s book looked to have turned humorous. For little more than a blink, their eyes met. Sunshine suffused her and didn’t go away when he examined the book again.
* * *
After his morning ride, Rhys heard the clock as he strode into his home—the same peals he’d heard his whole life. The sounds didn’t change, but if they clanked about in his ears, he knew the world felt dark. For the first time in a long time, the peals were musical.
His mother had spoken to him repeatedly about the heathen, informing him that the miss was beyond help. Each time she’d recounted the discussion between the two, her voice rose in anger. Not the bare mewl it had been before.
Finally, she’d left her room of her own volition to come and find him to complain with exasperation of having to deal with this motherless child who’d been left too long to her own devices. She’d wondered how he could possibly expect his own mother to correct such a tremendous neglect of education in the woman. ‘It would take years, years,’ she’d explained as she walked away, shaking her head.
He’d quashed his immediate urge to go to Bellona and pull her into his arms, celebrating with her the rebirth of his mother’s life.
Thoughts of Bellona always caused his mind to catch, wait and peruse every action or word concerning her a little longer. The miss did something inside him. Like a flint sparking against steel. Made him realise that his heart still beat, his life still continued and that some day he’d be able to walk into a room and not be aware of all that was missing, but see what was actually there.
He turned, moving towards the archery target that now stood in the garden beneath the library window.
Disappointment edged into him when he did not find her near the targets she’d had placed about. He went inside the house, thinking of her hair and the way she reminded him of pleasures he did not need to be focusing on right now. As he passed the library door, he heard pages rustling.
He stepped into the library. Stopped. Stared.
She was lying on his sofa. Around her face, her hair haloed her like a frazzled mess, more having escaped from her bun than remained. This was the moment he would have walked to her, splayed his fingers, held her cheeks in both hands and kissed her if...
Ifs were not for dukes, he reminded himself.
She rested stockinged feet on the sofa. Her knees were bent and her skirt raised to her calves while she frowned into a book. His mind tumbled in a hundred directions at once, all of them landing on various places of her body. The woman should not be displaying herself in such a way.
Courtesans did not act so...relaxed and improper. Even the women he’d visited in London—ones without modesty—would have remained much more sedate in daylight hours.
But he remembered his manners. Perhaps he’d erred, not she. She had not heard him enter the room. He took a quiet step back because he did not want to mortify her by letting her know he’d seen her sprawled so indelicately.
But then he saw the books. A good dozen of his most precious books scattered about her. One was even on the carpet. How could she? It was one thing to trespass, another to shoot an arrow at a man, but...the books...
