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‘Remove it from my thoughts? And how might I do that?’ He moved to stand in front of the painting and pointed to the smallest girl. ‘If I wave my hand over the canvas, will it make the scene disappear? Will it make the memories I have go away?’
‘Memories are the past. Thoughts are what are in a person’s head at the moment. I do not care what you do with your memories. You may polish them until they outshine the sun. But do not keep me in your thoughts.’
He whirled from the painting to look at her. ‘You think I am so uncaring a person that I can bed you in my home and just toss that aside.’
‘Did you not do that to a woman once before—a servant?’
‘Even that was not as simple as the way you speak of it. It was not.’
‘My mother loved my father so much. And she thought she could not live without him. But he was not to stay and she died. Perhaps she spoke the truth of her love. Which showed me so much. The warmth faded from her body while my father painted. I was not with him, but I know—at the very moment my mother died, my father had a brush in his hand, a canvas in front of him and more concern about the light than my mother. She never meant more than being a subject for a painting to him.’
‘He will pay for that.’
‘He cannot. It cannot be done.’
‘You do not have to worry about your father, Bellona. I can ensure he has a set-down. It will be his word against mine. You and I can face this together and it will never be more than a rumour. A tale we laugh away.’
‘No.’
‘He cannot spread such tales if we are wed. It will be ridiculous for him to do so. I will take care of him for you, Bellona. He cannot cross a duke and get away with it,’ Rhys said.
‘No. Do not add more coal to the fire.’ Bellona shut her eyes. She should have left England earlier. Now her father would feel he had successfully chased her away if she left, but she did not know how she could stay and watch Rhys wed someone else.
‘It is not about increasing the gossip. I will see that he ceases it altogether. We all have our weaknesses, Bellona. All of us. And I can find his.’
‘Searching them out will not be hard. They flutter about him like birds over grain. I do not want you to be pulled into his mire. He relishes such things.’
‘I will relish this.’
‘Do not meddle. I am his daughter.’ If she confronted her father, he could tell more truths. More truths she did not want known. She could not lie away the truth. ‘His actions do not truly surprise me. I do not wish to be near him and he feels the same about me.’ She ignored the way the air seemed to have the scent of her home again and she could hear the waves. ‘I am so much his daughter that we cannot bear each other.’ Rhys could not get involved in her past.
‘You are not like Hawkins.’
‘Oh, I am.’ She put her hand over her heart and patted. ‘I do not use mine to guide my actions. It is to beat and keep me alive, nothing else.’ She shut her eyes. ‘The letters my father sent my mana... My sister read them aloud to her so many times we could recite them. Such words of love. Tears in Mana’s eyes. Hope in Melina’s voice. Thessa and I would later go to the sea, fall on to the sand in front of the waters, and repeat the words, each of us speaking with all the sincerity we could bring to the speech. None of the fish ever changed the direction of their swimming. The waters continued on as before. Gold did not fall from the heavens. The words were worth nothing. They were not love to Mana. They were words for himself. A painting he created on paper instead of canvas.’
‘Words may disappear into the air, but a special licence is binding.’
‘My father married twice. Two too many times, but he married for a reason each time. His first wife’s funds and my mother’s beauty. I will not marry you for your title. Or for your protection of my name.’
‘You cannot tell me you do not care for me.’
‘No. I cannot. I would say I care for you more than anyone in London does. But no matter what feelings I have, one person’s love in a marriage is not enough.’
Chapter Nineteen
She held out a hand to brace herself against the thoughts buffeting her, but nothing fell into her grasp. Rhys stood there, not speaking.
But his past gripped him as strongly as hers held her tight. She’d been marked on the outside and the inside.
Her mother might have called the spot on her body a longing mark, but it wasn’t. The mark was her strength. A reminder not to repeat her mother’s broken heart. All her father’s children had the blemishes—her father’s London wife had told her how each of her children had been born with similar marks. They were a legacy, just as a title was. But where her sisters had brown marks, hers had red in it—like a scrape, as if the blood had risen to the surface on her hip and never healed. A heart that was broken.
