When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.”
Ian glanced around and realized that everyone else was hanging off Townsend’s every word, too.
He wasn’t the only one. He was just like the rest of them. And still, when Townsend spoke, Ian listened. As the poem unfolded, he felt himself frowning. He wasn’t an expert on poetry, but the poem was clearly bittersweet, words bringing to mind the passage of time and decay. If someone had asked him to guess what sort of poetry Townsend liked, this wasn’t what Ian would have picked.
He wouldn’t have thought he had that kind of depth in him.
“In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.”
The guests leaned forward, as one, almost imperceptibly. Ian did not. But every part of him was tensed, waiting. Townsend paused, held it for a beat—not above a bit of theatricality, which didn’t surprise Ian at all—and then finished.
“This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.”
Everyone burst into applause. Except Ian, who thought it was pointless to applaud him, even if Townsend’s voice was still echoing in his mind, and his fingernails were still digging into his palm.
Townsend glanced around. “Would anyone else like to read? Or should I continue?”
Miss Hale practically bounced from her seat. “Mr. Cameron?”
Ian felt himself stiffen. His skin grew cold at the thought of reading in front of an audience. “No.”
“Oh? But I would love to hear you read.”
His throat tightened. “No. I—”
“It’s all right,” Townsend said. Ian’s gaze cut toward him, to find the other man studying him with dark, observant eyes. Ian looked away. “I’m quite happy with monopolizing the selection—I would rather not hear Macbeth in an isolated castle, anyway. I’m a coward, I’m afraid.”
Miss Hale laughed, and the moment passed.
Ian barely heard what was said next. Had Townsend just tried to protect him again? It was just like at breakfast. He’d diverted the guests’ attention away from Ian when it became more than he was comfortable with.
While Ian grew increasingly irritated, thinking about situations where Townsend tried to use these prior kindnesses to hold some kind of sway over him, Townsend seemed unconcerned. He shuffled through the book, casting one more winning smile across his captivated audience before he returned to the page.
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark…”
“Cameron.”
Nearly an hour later, the guests were retiring and Ian moved toward the door, only to be stopped by Townsend.
“I wanted to have a word with you.” His voice was hoarse from reading for so long. He sounded tired. It was a vulnerability Ian didn’t want to notice.
Ian waited for everyone else to filter out, pretending to study a tapestry hanging on the wall. It depicted a hunt—a group of noblemen cornering a boar—and was clearly old. The edges were frayed, the lighter colors muted until the bolder aspects stood out in flashes—the red of a hat, a blue piece of sky, the dark green of leaves.
“Annabel—Lady Arden found those stored away,” Townsend said over his shoulder. “She could afford to replace them with better ones, but I think she’s attached to these.”
Ian knew all of this. He’d been there when Annabel had found the tapestries in a crate in one of the storerooms. Had been there when she’d pulled them out, eyes bright with excitement. She’d always tried to make a friend of him.
They were friends, he supposed. But they weren’t close. Ian wasn’t truly close to anyone. His deepest thoughts, his secrets, his fears—these were things he kept to himself.
“I wouldn’t say anything, but truthfully, I think they’re a bit of an eyesore.”
Ian glanced at him.
“I was never much of a hunter,” Townsend continued. “These depictions are cruel. Look at the boar—it looks terrified.”
Ian looked. “Aye,” he agreed. He snared rabbits sometimes, for meat, but he didn’t hunt for sport.
“My father didn’t much care. He was more interested in studying animals than killing them.”
He wasn’t sure why Townsend was confiding in him. And he wasn’t sure why he was interested in hearing more, but he tilted his head slightly, and the other man took it as a sign to keep talking.
“He was a physician, but he liked all science. That’s how my sister Eleanor found her love of entomology—he used to point out beetles to her, and he knew all sorts of unusual facts. My mother grounded him, I think, kept him from spending too much time in his head, or buried in a journal. They complemented each other.”
Townsend fell silent. Another person might have shared something about their own life, their own family, in return, but Ian’s family was one of those many things he kept to himself, and Townsend didn’t ask.
“Have you looked closely at the hearth?” he said instead. He strode toward the fireplace and pointed toward a faint etching in the stone. “This might be my favorite part of the castle.”
Ian, reluctantly interested, followed.
“It’s a coat of arms. Annabel and Theo are thinking about having it redone.”
Ian leaned closer to look at the stone in the flickering light. “What is it?”
“A murderous unicorn.”
Ian thought he was joking, but when he squinted, he could make it out—a unicorn head, its mane flung out in angry waves; it appeared to be snarling, though Ian wasn’t sure how a horse could snarl.
And were those fangs?
It must have been quite a feat to etch the image in stone.
“According to Annabel, unicorns are supposed to be dangerous when they’re free. The coat of arms of Scotland shows a chained one. This must be an unchained one.”
“It’s…” Ian wasn’t sure if he could think of a word to describe the image.
“Delightful?” Townsend supplied.
Ian felt his mouth twitch and hoped the other man hadn’t seen it.
“Of course, to be captured they have to be lured by a virgin, first. Which I suppose is what one would expect from an animal with a giant cock symbol on its head.”
Ian, taken by surprise, snorted, the amused sound loud and abrupt in the empty room. He would have taken it back if he could, stifled it, if he could, but it was too late. Their eyes met, and Townsend grinned. His teeth flashed white in the dim light, the corners of his eyes crinkling. And it felt, for a moment, like they could be friends, if they wanted to be.
No, Ian thought, on a surge of uneasiness.
Townsend had tried to play nice with him before. He’d made jokes before. Ian had been able to ignore him, before. Were Ian’s feelings toward him changing? Maybe Townsend was just getting more amusing.
That must be it…his jests were getting better…that was all.
With the moment broken, Ian realized how close they were to each other, heads bent as they studied the coat of arms. He straightened and stepped back. “What did ye want to tell me?”
“I wanted to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For looking at your things. I shouldn’t have.”
That…wasn’t what he’d expected. For a moment, Ian’s mind was blank. He didn’t know many people who would admit a wrongdoing so readily, so calmly.