I pressed my hands on the top rung of the chair and offered him a small smile. “Who taught you?”
“My grandfather, actually.” He seemed to speak easier now that the secret was out and I had not derided him for it. “My mother and I lived in a cottage not far from her parents’ estate in Devon. I spent a lot of time there as a boy.” He grimaced. “Mostly fighting with my cousins.” He shifted so that his hip pressed against the table, his eyes growing distant. “One day I stumbled upon a wooden shed near the gamekeeper’s cottage, and I couldn’t resist peering through the window. Inside I saw my grandfather sawing wood. Well, when he caught me spying on him, he gave me quite the lecture.”
“Which is where that pronouncement came from?” I guessed.
“Yes. My grandfather was not a man to trifle with.” His brow furrowed as if he still had a hard time believing what came next. “He swore me to secrecy. And then he began to teach me how to build a stool, and then a shelf, and then a chair . . .” He trailed off, but I understood what he was saying. “It was the only place my grandfather and I ever got along.”
I watched the emotions flicker across his face as he recalled his time with his grandfather. It could not have been easy growing up with a mother who was constantly ill and a father who was away at sea, at war with France, and only home for barely a fortnight each year. He was an only child and, from the sounds of it, did not get on well with his cousins. I couldn’t help but wonder if his mother’s family had disapproved of her choice in a husband. After all, until Gage’s father received his title from the king six months prior, he had been a lowly mister. I didn’t know much about Gage’s father’s family except that they were from Cornwall, but I strongly suspected that whoever they were, they might not have been seen as good enough for a viscount’s daughter.
When finally he looked up from his contemplation of the past, he turned to me with a frown pleating his forehead. “So it truly doesn’t bother you that I dirty my hands by building things?”
“No,” I replied with a trill of laughter. “Of course not.”
“Really?”
I crossed the room toward him and he straightened from his slouch. “Really.” I shook my head. “I paint portraits. Does that bother you?”
“No.”
I arched my eyebrows in reproach.
A reluctant smile tugged at his lips. “I see your point. But I have one more thing to show you.” He turned to pull me toward the corner.
“Oh, no. What will this be? You also sew cushions for your chairs?” I teased.
He glared over his shoulder at me and then reached out to pull an old blanket off something propped against the wall. I turned away and sneezed from the cloud of dirt and sawdust it stirred up, but once the grime had settled, I could see that it was a beautiful bookshelf. There were shelves of all heights, some narrow and some tall, but they all had a nice deep, flat surface. There were even several built-in drawers across the bottom with round knobs. The entire piece was crafted from a dark wood, sanded and varnished.
“It’s lovely,” I told him, reaching out to run my hand over the smooth surface.
“I made it for you,” he said quietly.
I pressed a hand to my chest in surprise. “For me?”
He nodded, but the anxiety had returned to his eyes. “For your art studio. I thought you could use it for your pigments and jars and other supplies.”
I turned back to examine the piece in a new light. “It’s perfect.” I gasped. Tears suddenly welled in my eyes, and I pressed my hands together over my nose and mouth, trying to suppress them. I inhaled sharply. “I don’t think anyone has ever given me such a wonderful gift.” Certainly not something so customized to me.
Gage reached out to pull me into his arms and I let him. I buried my face in his neck, trying to control the emotions his present had stirred up in me.
“I’m glad you like it,” he murmured.
I nodded, the fabric of his jacket rasping against my cheek. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
I allowed him to hold me for a moment, savoring the feel of him, the scent of him. But then I lifted my head, brushing tendrils of hair away from my face. “You know when you brought me down here, I thought you had something awful to tell me or show me.” I couldn’t help but recall the last time he’d confided in me, when he’d told me his mother had been murdered. I could see from the sudden sadness in his eyes that he also remembered. “I . . . thought you were going to tell me something about Greece.”