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CHAPTER
17
TRENTON LEANED AGAINST THE closed door, surveying the barren sitting room. It was the same room he’d designed with his father all those years ago, the same haven in which they’d worked, sketched, talked. Here, more than anywhere else at Broddington, Trenton could submerge himself in memories, meet the past head-on.
He’d procrastinated long enough: It was a full week since they’d left Spraystone. And not once had Ariana pressed him for answers; in fact, she’d left him virtually alone with his thoughts, spending her days in the garden furiously scribbling, presumably making notes on her newest discoveries of nature.
But Trenton himself was ready. Despite his internal anguish, he recognized that, for the first time in years, he was actually feeling a glimmer of hope, a possibility that life might hold more for him than mere existence.
Not, however, until he’d resolved the past.
He strolled over to the desk, running his hands over its polished surface.
For six years, he’d avoided this room like the fires of hell. There had been no reason to confront the pain evoked by his father’s passing; the Trenton he’d been then was dead and gone, in his place, a shell of a stranger. But if marriage to Ariana had taught him one thing it was that some fragments of the old Trenton still did exist, no matter how few or flimsy. He owed it to himself—and to her—to try to delve out those fragments and meld them into one.
For the first time since Richard’s death, he’d allowed himself to remember this room as it had looked before: lined with paintings, piled high with sketches, a tribute to the man who had created it. He could visualize his father sitting amid the chaos, oblivious to the world as he contemplated a particularly intricate drawing, his brows knit in concentration.
Surprisingly, the vivid recollection elicited no pain, only a warm glow of tender nostalgia. Evidently, without realizing it, Trenton had, at some point over the years
, come to grips with his father’s death.
But never with its cause.
And never with the fact that Trenton could have—should have—prevented it.
Richard Kingsley had provided his sons with love, a strong set of principles, and every advantage money could buy. In return, he’d asked for only one thing: respect for that which he prided above all else: the Kingsley name. Vanessa had robbed him of that—and Trenton had been unable to stop her.
The familiar rage coiled in Trenton’s chest. Automatically, his gaze traveled to the desk, and without giving himself time to reconsider, he stalked over and yanked open the bottom drawer.
The journal was just where he’d placed it, just where Ariana had found it weeks ago.
He’d never forget the look in his wife’s eyes that day; the agony, the confusion.
How could he blame her?
Sinking into a chair, Trenton opened the journal.
The precise handwriting, the faint scent of roses: It all accosted him at once.
Six years evaporated as if they had never been.
Trenton clenched the journal savagely, images hurtling back in hard, stunning blows to his head.
Vanessa.
His first glimpse of her had been in March of 1867, at the onset of the London Season. She’d been waltzing at Devonshire House, moving breathlessly from one partner to the next, her green velvet dress swirling about her satin shoes, her cheeks provocatively flushed. He’d been unable to tear his eyes off her all evening, though it had taken some doing for him to intercede for a dance. But once the introductions had been made, her emerald gaze had claimed him, melted over him, offered him anything … anything.
Far from a novice at romantic liaisons, Trenton had read her invitation with perfect clarity. Anticipation had coursed through his blood, igniting his primitive male need to physically possess an eager, beautiful woman. It had been some time since he’d wanted one as much as he did Vanessa. Even if she were Baxter Caldwell’s sister.
Indolent and self-centered, rumor had it that Baxter truly cared for only one person other than himself—and that was his resplendent sister Vanessa.
On that March night, as Trenton twirled about the floor, drinking in her provocative beauty and openly carnal gaze, he had understood why.
Lord, what a mesmerized fool he’d been. He’d actually believed that her coy smiles and suggestive glances were rooted purely in passion, and granted only to him. That her professions of longing were sincere.
That she was everything she appeared to be.
Richard Kingsley had seen through Vanessa immediately and warned his son of her questionable ethics. Arrogant and stubborn, Trenton had refused to listen.
