“I thought rogues disdained love,” she teased, but his voice was serious in reply.
“In four of my friends, I have witnessed love grow at its purest. A blinded passion; an enduring pursuit; an unwavering patience; a profound trust. All shaped by, and in the name of…love.”
Tamsyn blinked. How could she ever have thought him a fribble with no concern further than his appearance. He was so much more.
“Have you been in love?” She knew it was a personal question and yet how much easier to ask when she couldn’t glimpse his ceaseless eyes.
Did she wish to know the answer? Had a woman broken his heart, causing the rogue to be born? Her breath caught.
“No, never.”
The breath released at his emphatic denial, and she turned. “And yet you speak so eloquently of it.”
No laughing eyes or smirking lips greeted her but pensiveness and solemn gravity.
A striking sapphire silk adorned his person this night with navy velvet collar, black pantaloons, and the ubiquitous and immaculate white cravat.
Exceptional, the woman within purred.
For herself, she’d worn an oyster grey but added an emerald-green ribbon about her throat, another twined in her hair. She’d smiled at her reflection, something she’d not done for years.
“I do appreciate the emotion I observe in others, even if I will never experience it,” he said, turning away to fiddle with a porcelain shepherdess wandering winsomely amongst the books. “I don’t have a heart, you realise.”
No, she didn’t realise at all. What caused him to think that?
Never had she met a man with such immense heart. He purposely danced with all the wallflowers, complimented servants on their work and made everyone feel special – in fact, was there ever a man with a bigger heart than the Marquess of Winterbourne?
“Were your parents in love?” Tamsyn asked. He’d alluded to maltreatment…
A laugh, yet not a jovial one; this spoke of distaste and sarcasm.
“Lud, no.” He glanced over with relentless jet eyes such as she had never seen. “Well, maybe my mother did at first, but Father married for dowry and bloodlines, and she soon fell out of love when he spent the honeymoon with his mistress.”
Oh. Tamsyn twisted the grey buttons at her neck. “Did she… Did she die some time ago, your mother?” She watched as he turned his attention to a porcelain ballet dancer.
“When I had but thirteen years. She drowned at the estate.”
“I’m so very sorry, Jack,” she whispered. To lose both his mother and brother so young must have been deeply affecting, and his father hadn’t sounded the affectionate type. When news of Mama’s death at sea had arrived, herself, Father and brother Ruan had huddled close, cried in each other’s arms and grieved together, a bond never to be broken. “Was it… Did your mother fall?”
The ballet dancer ungainly wobbled in herretiré devantas he plonked it down and meandered to the half-open window that granted no breeze. “Have you changed your mind, Tamsyn? You need only say, and I will wait until you are ready to speak.”
No, her mind was set, but she also wanted to know more of this man, just as he wanted to know of her. After tonight, she would have no secrets from Jack.
“I am ready but… I like you, Jack. I want to know you.”
His sapphire-clad shoulders stooped, hands braced on the stone window frame, and she caught the side of his face, tired and grave. She wished to understand him because this evening, this friend to everyone appeared so…alone.
She came to stand close. Inches away.
“No fall, no accident,” he stated to his reflection in the dark glass. “My mother simply walked into the lake one morning.”
“Beg pardon?”
He swivelled, causing her to startle but substantial hands steadied her shoulders.
“My mother was unable to face life with a vile Winterbourne any longer and so, one beautiful summer’s day, she walked into the estate lake, a rock tied to either wrist with a rose-pink satin ribbon.”
Face blanching, Tamsyn’s trembling fingers rose to her mouth. Tears blurred her eyes and cold flushed her veins. The ribbons. The colour. Lord have mercy, it could only mean…
