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‘I had not heard of that.’
‘My sister has tried to schedule as many soirées, nights at the theatre and morning calls into her world as she can the past few days to keep me abreast of all the on dits because she considers it her duty to know what is being said about her family. Particularly when it concerns my husband. The duke, whether he means to or not, is not letting the talk wither away. His anger over you causes people to note you even more.’
‘Rolleston can do as he wishes. I don’t know that he cares enough for me even though he says he loves me. I don’t know that I can love him enough for both of us if he does not.’
Lord Hawkins’s wife looked again at the bed. ‘Whomever you marry is a risk. If you don’t marry, it is a risk, too. You might look back later and have missed so much.’ She took her eyes from her husband and looked at Bellona. ‘At least the duke doesn’t like to paint.’ She smiled.
Bellona didn’t nod, or acknowledge the words with anything more than her eyes, but the next morning, as she walked to the carriage, she longed for Rhys more than she’d ever longed for anything in her life.
* * *
After directing the servants away, Bellona stepped into the duke’s library and saw him at the desk with his man of affairs. He looked up and twisted a pen between his fingers, his eyes fixing on the movement. ‘Leave us, Simpson.’
The man stood and hurried by Bellona, but his eyes flashed concern as he passed her.
‘I don’t think you need worry yourself about my father saying anything bad again,’ she said.
‘Are you well?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘I left before the end came. His children did not want me there. I knew his wife understood. I do not need to be present. As I sat with him, I realised that when he sailed from Melos the last time, he died in my heart. It is as if he is someone I hardly know.’
The duke placed his pen atop his papers. He shifted in his chair and his knee hit the desk leg, but he caught the ink bottle before it tumbled over. ‘Blast it,’ he muttered. ‘I can’t keep these things upright any more.’
Still he held the liquid in his hand. He looked at her. ‘That never used to happen before.’
She walked to him and took the bottle, their fingers brushing, shaking her in a way she would not let him see.
He put his elbow on the desk, his jaw on his fist, and his eyes flicked her direction. ‘What day of the week is it?’
‘I’m not certain,’ she answered.
‘Simpson would know,’ he said.
‘You can always ring for one of the servants.’
‘And let them know I am unaware of even the date? If they have not surmised it already, I will not enlighten them that I am completely distracted.’
‘Rhys, why did you ask me to marry you?’
‘If you had said yes, we could have discussed it in detail. For years perhaps. But as you said no, I decline to even think about the moment, much less speak of it.’ He stared at her, then he took the ink bottle back off her and set it aside.
She put fingertips under his chin and guided it in her direction. ‘I have tried to sketch you, but I don’t have the skill. I’ll learn, then I will always have a likeness of you.’
Eyes, weary with sleeplessness, watched her until his face turned into her hand and he pressed a kiss to her skin. ‘You will always have me in person, Bellona, if you wish it, wedding or no. I have committed my heart to you and you will always hold it. You are truly my first love. My only love. If you do not plan to marry me, I understand. That does not change my heart.’
‘You think you can continue in your life without a wife?’
‘I have not been married in the first decades of my life and have managed very well, and when I look at you and know that it leaves me free for you, I’m very thankful.’
He pushed the chair back as he stood, his body brushing against hers. His hands rested on her hips. ‘I will only ask you once more, today, but the question will remain open every day for the rest of your life, if you do not say yes now. Will you marry me?’
She nodded.
Epilogue
Bellona could hardly believe the change in her sister. Thessa had returned from her sea voyage with a young son and enough tales to keep them all laughing for hours, but somehow the talk had changed from the voyage to the husbands, and had become something of a verbal competition to see who had married the most delightful man.
‘He talks in his sleep,’ Thessa said of her husband, Captain Ben. ‘And I find it most entertaining.’
‘Rolleston... Well, I do not know if he talks in his sleep or not,’ Bellona admitted, covering a yawn, and then aimed a smug smile at Thessa. ‘He does not sleep.’
