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Rhys acknowledged her words with the merest smile. ‘What would it take to convince you that you need this?’
‘I don’t believe you truly care if I read or not,’ she challenged.
‘Of course I do. You’ve helped my mother. I wish to return the gift.’
‘Then—if it is so easy, teach me yourself.’
He coughed. ‘I do not have time. I have duties. Tenants. Ledgers.’
‘Then it is not important.’
She stood and moved to the door.
‘I will do it.’ His voice rumbled. Strong. Irritated.
She turned. His eyes did not match his face. For a passing second, the boy he’d been peeked out from his expression. Then he became the duke again.
‘I must be daft.’ He stood and Robinson Crusoe slammed back into the bookcase before Rhys stared her way again.
‘You do not have to do it,’ she said quickly. ‘I don’t wish to. You punish both of us for doing no wrong.’
‘An unwilling teacher and an unwilling student should make a tiresome combination, so we will start tomorrow to finish all the sooner.’
She could change her mind. She could insist on a tutor. But the image of the boy behind his eyes flashed in her memory and tumbled about her body. He’d mentioned she was a boon in so many ways and she’d wondered about those words. He could be just as alone, in his own way, as the duchess. He’d even wanted to begin teaching her the very next day.
‘The day after,’ she asked, checking his response.
‘Oh, no. Miss Cherroll. Tomorrow. I accepted your challenge. I dare say you will be reading quite quickly with me as a tutor.’ He took the volume of poetry and walked to her, placing it in her hands. ‘Look over this one, too. Mother can recite a bit of it from memory. She might like speaking it while you follow along with the words. It might help her as well.’
‘You wish for your mother not to be alone because it will be good for her...’
‘Yes.’
‘You wish for me to read because it will be good for me...’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you thought about what you should do because it will be good for yourself?’
‘Most certainly.’ He stepped back. ‘To be a son my father would be proud of. To continue his legacy.’
She shook her head. ‘You have only considered what your father’s needs would be. Not your own.’
‘My needs were formed the moment Geoff died. I cannot let him or my father down. That is what I am doing. And I thank you for reminding me that I should be about my duties. The most important thing I can do is have a son, because if I don’t marry and produce a child, everything my father and grandfather did will pass out of their direct family line.’
She pressed the books together. ‘Does that not feel as if you are being commanded to do something?’
‘No. It is simply another duty. If a tenant’s roof blows away, I must replace it. Now I must put another heir at the table.’
‘I am fortunate that I do not have to consider such a thing. I was almost forced into marriage once. I did not like it.’
‘A lot of women would wish to be a duchess.’
‘I am sure they will also find you tolerable as well.’
Chapter Eight
The poems were mountains and crevasses of words. She could not make sense of them. She’d forgotten almost all of what Melina had taught her. She tried for hours to remember and not enough had returned to her memory.
The only good thing about this situation was that it gave her something to do in the long hours before dawn. She could not have read into the night on Melos, though. They only had the one good lamp.
After studying, she’d fallen asleep and dreamed of being chased. Again she’d awoken breathing fast, her throat hurting and her heart pounding. She’d sat in bed, clasping her knife. When the shadows in the room were replaced by sunlight, she felt herself nodding off.
The next thing she knew, someone knocked.
‘Miss,’ she heard a woman’s voice call through the door.
‘Enter.’
A maid, mob cap snug, walked inside. ‘His Grace wishes that you might meet with him in the library.’
Bellona pushed herself up. The knife handle showed from underneath a fold in the counterpane. She swept the covers back over the blade. She closed her eyes and wiped her eyelashes with her fingertips, and yawned.
She could not learn the words when she was this tired. The duke would think her the same bumble-head his mother did.
‘I believe I will sleep longer.’
‘His Grace,’ the maid said softly, as if the words should stand alone in the room, ‘wishes you to see you in the library.’
‘Please tell him I would be pleased to...’ She looked back at the bed. ‘But I cannot meet him now.’
