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Lord Andrews stared. Rhys didn’t think he’d ever looked at Lord Andrews properly either. The man was commanding, of fair face and quick-witted. Yet, Rhys would have compared him to a toad, waiting, watching for insects. They’d shared brandies more times than Rhys could count.
‘I am pleased we spoke,’ Rhys said. ‘But I must be away.’
On his way to the door, he dropped the brandy glass he held on to a footman’s tray.
He had to wait for his carriage outside, the unseasonably cool air brushing his face and waking him up to feel even more.
How many times had he truly looked at himself through his own eyes? Possibly never. He’d always used the eyes of others to gauge himself. His father. His older brother. His mother. The things he did privately were deemed to deserve no judgement. No censure. No introspection. After all, he was the second son. It did not matter. Nothing mattered until after Geoff died and then everything tilted in a different direction.
The town-coach door was opened. Rhys stepped inside and made himself comfortable. Even in darkness, he knew exactly what the crest on the door looked like. He’d had the colours corrected as they faded. But he didn’t know the face of the man who’d held the door. Didn’t know his name.
Rhys touched his cheek with his marred hand.
He had thought, when he’d first discovered that Bellona was not the offspring of someone in the Greek upper classes, that she was scarred by her birth. Perhaps in a way like the statue without arms the sisters had found on Melos. The one that Warrington had told him about and said the sisters thought an ancestor of theirs had posed for. Supposedly, the statue favoured their mother.
But blemishes and perfection did not always appear in the expected forms. The white line at the top of Bellona’s nose made him want to kiss it. Her hair tumbling about called to him in a way perfection never would.
He was marred. Bellona had risen from a world of struggle and became someone of strength. He had been handed the world and only had to continue on the path already cleared for him, yet he’d been unable to choose the right steps. She’d made her own path and tossed her head back and fought with all her strength to survive, becoming stronger.
He’d become weaker. Softened by the world giving him his wishes as he indicated them. He supposed—but he would not wish to repeat it—if he had true strength, it had been gained when he’d watched Bellona follow the rules she created for herself.
The feeling of a funeral surrounded him, and now he felt he knew what it would be like to attend his own last service, and see the crypt surround him on all sides, with the grim knowledge that he had done this to himself.
* * *
Bellona sat in her room, the needle slowly going into the fabric and moving out on the other side. Her eyes not rising once. Holding the embroidery high into the light, she examined the stitches. She would be better letting the maid sew while she attended the washing. Cleaning she could do well, which no one wanted her to do. Embroidery, which everyone expected of her, was a tangle of threads.
If not for the war with the Turks, she would be wishing for a return to Greece. She couldn’t safely sail to Melos now. Or ever. If she did, she’d not be able to see her nieces and nephews grow. She’d not see her sisters again.
Warrington’s voice didn’t carry through the walls any more. She wondered if her sister had finally quieted him or if his throat had simply given out from the exertion. This was the one time he seemed to have forgotten his rule about servants not hearing family matters.
She looked into the grate. Only ashes left. No more of the vile newsprint.
She wished for more words to burn. Burning the papers somehow seemed to ease the ache in her heart. She could not even look at the mark on her body any more. Once, it had made her feel stronger, the memory of her mother—a trace of the past. Now, even the blemish ached.
Just like her heart and all the rest of her that mattered.
Ruined. That word had carried through the walls a few times.
‘She could not be more ruined.’ That had spewed into the air and cloaked her with a feeling of being unwashed.
The needle jabbed her finger and she didn’t spare her grumbles. She could be more ruined. Warrington was wrong to think otherwise. If not for her sister and niece and nephews, she would be finding out where the scandal sheets originated and marching there with the largest hammer she could beg from the stable master. The printer would be having a holiday from his work long enough for repairs. Then he could write about the angry woman who’d smashed his press and stopped him from being able to put his cruel words on paper.
Rhys could not be sailing easily through this either. He could not.
