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Bellona tried to think of questions she would ask her father if he roused, but none mattered. The answers would not change anything.
If he hadn’t acted so badly, she wouldn’t have been given life.
But it had seemed uncaring of her to leave him. Much like he had left them on the island. She stayed at his bedside, if only to prove to herself that she would not do as he had done.
She’d met her half-sisters and brother, and knew they’d only spoken to her begrudgingly after their mother had insisted. She’d felt no kinship for them at all, and yet, for his wife, she did.
‘There are no secrets between him and me any more,’ his wife said to Bellona, looking at the wan face of her husband. ‘They were his secrets, yet he was the one who could not accept them being displayed.’ She shook her head. ‘The truth of his skill, though, that is what concerned him the most. When he discovered he had no true gift for painting.’
‘I am sorry for my part in that.’
‘Nonsense.’ She waved the words away. ‘It’s not as if he’d not had it pointed out to him a thousand times before. He just finally accepted it now.’ She leaned forward and let her hand rest on the bed. ‘His paintings have rarely sold for more than the price of the canvas and frame. The best ones, oddly enough, were the ones of his children and your mother. If he has any talent, it is for capturing people, and of course, he thoroughly detests creating anything but landscapes. Endless landscapes. He doesn’t like people. To paint them would mean he might have to look at them. Spend time with them.’
She put her hand on the counterpane covering his arm. ‘He lied as much to himself as he did to everyone else. He sneered at the knowledge of others—only believing himself capable of thinking correctly. If he had gleaned from others and used his dedication in the right way, then perhaps he could have had what he wanted most. No one worked as hard to destroy his talent as he did.’ She shut her eyes. ‘I am only sorry for the pain of my children. For all his children.’
‘I cannot begrudge him the past,’ Bellona said. ‘If I did, then I would be saying he changed me and he does not have that honour. I am who I am because of my mana and my sisters and myself. I thank you for what you have done for me.’
‘I hated the thought of you children living with nothing. I am sorry he told such lies of you and destroyed your chance of marriage to Rolleston.’
‘He did not. Rolleston asked me to wed him. I told him I could not. I was not sure.’
‘Bellona.’ Her eyes opened wide and she leaned forward to look in Bellona’s face. ‘After... When you were discovered together, the duke proposed?’
Bellona nodded. ‘Yes, but I did not wish...’
‘Oh, you may be a bit more your father’s daughter than I realised,’ she said. ‘He turned down his chance to create art because he did not wish to follow his talent of painting portraits. And you turned down a chance to become a duchess—because?’
‘I thought he felt he was doing me a boon just asking for my hand.’
The woman took her hand from her chest and clucked her tongue. ‘Well, you have the attitude of a duchess already.’
‘I will not be married because of pity, or duty or any reason I do not like.’
‘Something—perhaps my knowledge of this world—tells me that Rolleston could have tumbled his choice of women into bed and yet he chose you, and then he had the brazenness to ask you to wed him. The cad.’
‘He told me we should be married.’
‘Perhaps he’s a bit fonder of you than you think?’
‘He could be. He thinks he is.’
‘I’ve known his family my whole life. Rolleston is, or was, rather a stick. Much more the saint than most. Pleasant to look at, I thought, but as interesting to talk to as a land steward—’
‘He is actually very interesting to talk to,’ Bellona snapped.
Her father’s wife paused before continuing. ‘...And quite the duke, until the last fortnight when your father began to denounce you as an extortionist. Then tales about Rolleston’s fury began to blossom like weeds in a garden left untended. He became terribly unsettled for a man who’d never caused any kind of stir before.’ She raised her brows and looked at Bellona. ‘Terribly unsettled.’
‘But he was included in the tales. It was said I was using him for gain as well.’ Bellona could not keep the pique from her voice.
‘He could have easily shrugged it off. Perhaps you should go to him and ask him what madness has grown in him that he had to be restrained in White’s because a man dared speak slightingly of you.’
