His gaze followed hers—
His father’s portrait. His heart skipped with a pained ache. Good God. For the first time, he’d walked into this room and forgotten that portrait was here, and he wasn’t prepared for the rush of guilt that swept over him because of it. Or the grief.
“Richard Carlisle, Duke of Trent, Baron Althorpe,” he offered in explanation, hoping his voice sounded normal. Then added quietly, “My father.”
She threw him a surprised glance over her shoulder before returning her attention to the painting. “It’s a lovely portrait.”
A copy of the one his father sat for when he was granted the dukedom, the painting had been commissioned by Josephine when he died. She’d wanted it simply because she wanted a portrait of her father in her home to remember him by, never suspecting how the sight of it cut raw slices into Robert’s heart. Nor would he ever tell her. Richard Carlisle had been the man who saved her from the hell of the orphanage, loving and raising her as one of his own, while Robert was the man who took all that away.
“Your father was a very handsome man,” she commented softly.
He forced a grin as he splashed the whiskey into his glass, not feeling at all jocular. “People say I resemble him.”
She sniffed and turned away from the portrait. “I don’t see it.”
His lips twisted at that. Mariah, true to form.
“Sit down so I can clean you up,” she ordered gently, gesturing at two leather chairs pulled up to the reading table. When he hesitated, she heaved out an exasperated breath. “Oh, don’t worry! You’re safe with me.” As he began to sit, she added, “After all, I haven’t murdered anyone in a library all week.”
He froze for a heartbeat, then pinned her with a look as he finished lowering himself into the chair. “Just the garden, then?”
Her eyes danced mischievously as she took the chair next to his. “Death by kitten.”
Damnable woman. When he clenched his jaw and began to rise from his chair, she placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him and softened her gaze as she looked up at him. Faint remorse shone in her eyes for teasing him.
He let out a patient breath and settled into the chair.
“Show me your arm,” she ordered gently.
He stretched his forearm across the reading table toward her, then raised the glass and gratefully took a long swallow. Both to ease the pain of the scratches on his arm and the hollow ache in his heart.
“You did get quite a wounding, didn’t you?” She pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her pelisse and gently dabbed at his arm to clean off the droplets of blood clinging to the jagged scratches. “Who knew a tiny kitten could be so lethal to such a big, strong man?”
Enough. With an aggravated sigh, he began to rise from the chair.
“Carlisle.” She brushed her hand down his forearm before he could pull away completely, a soft caress that tickled up his arm and made his breath hitch. Her hand slid into his, palm to palm, and he felt her pulse beating gently against his own where their wrists touched. She gave an apologetic squeeze to his fingers, one that sped through him with a heated electricity that tingled at the backs of his knees.
He slowly eased back down.
She once more rested his arm across the table between them, but this time, she kept her left hand holding his, their fingers entwined, even as she continued to dab gently at the scratches farther up his forearm. Only to keep him still. Certainly not out of any thoughts of affection.
“The duchess speaks of your father quite often,” she said quietly, her voice growing serious as she let the teasing fall away. She didn’t look at him, her eyes focused on his arm, but he suspected that she was keenly aware of the reaction that talk of his father drew from him. There was little that sharp mind of hers missed.
“They were very much in love.” He watched her face as she focused her attention on his arm. He had to admit that she was quite beautiful…when she wasn’t set on torturing him. “His death was hard on her.”
“And on you,” she commented, not raising her gaze from the scratches.
He tensed, dread freezing his blood. How much did she know? Surely, his mother hadn’t shared the details of his father’s death with her. “On all of us,” he corrected, deflecting attention from himself.
When she lifted her gaze to meet his, a faint plea to share more revealed itself in her eyes. But that sure as hell wasn’t going to happen. The very last thing he wanted to discuss with her was his feelings about his father’s death.
“Your mother said it was an accident,” she told him quietly.
“Yes.” A damned lie. His father’s death wasn’t an accident.
Her green eyes stared at him for several long moments, as if she knew he had just lied to her. But instead of challenging him, she gave a faint nod of understanding and lowered her gaze back to his arm.
“When my mother died,” she shared softly, “her death was also unexpected.”
With her head bowed so he couldn’t see the expression on her face, she slowly pulled her hands away from him. Suddenly, the inexplicable urge gripped him to grab her hands and hold on tight, so that she couldn’t take the comfort of her touch away. But it vanished a heartbeat later and left him feeling like a fool.
Christ! To take comfort in this hellcat—what on earth was wrong with him?
Completely unaware of the turmoil her nearness stirred inside him, she reached for the bottle of whiskey. “She’d taken Evie and me to the park just that morning, in fact. It was a dreary day, cold and damp, but we didn’t want to stay inside and hounded her until she relented.” She fell silent as she placed the handkerchief over the end of the bottle and turned it upside down to wet the cloth. When she continued, her voice was much softer. “That afternoon she said she was tired and went upstairs to rest. She never got out of bed again.”
His chest tightened in grief for her. He’d lost his father, but for a little girl to lose her mother…“I’m so sorry.”
Her only acknowledgment of his sympathy was a tight nod. “The doctors said it was a fever, that there was nothing anyone could do.” She didn’t raise her eyes, sitting perfectly still as she whispered, “By dawn, she was gone.”
Her shoulders shook as she inhaled a deep breath to collect herself. Then, without meeting his gaze, she returned to her task and dabbed the whiskey-soaked linen against the scratches.
He sucked in a mouthful of air through clenched teeth at the bite of the liquor. Knowing the Hellion, he would have said she was torturing him on purpose, except for the grief that hung heavy on her brow. Not even Mariah could fake that.
“You must have been inconsolable,” he commented gently, remembering the cries of grief from his mother and Josie when his father died. Hearing them had made him feel like a piece of glass, shattered from the inside out.
“I was, because I blamed myself,” she whispered. “If I hadn’t insisted that she take us to the park, she would have still been alive.”
“You don’t know that,” he reassured her quietly. “Fevers come from all places.”
She nodded slowly. “And in time I came to accept that.”
She paused, mid-dab, her eyes not lifting from his arm. In that moment’s hesitation, he had the feeling that she wanted to say something that she wasn’t certain he wanted to hear.
Instead, she commented, “It’s been even worse for Evelyn. She was only eight and couldn’t really comprehend what death meant, except that Mama fell asleep and never woke up. For weeks afterward, she was terrified of going to sleep. After all these years, she still has trouble sleeping, and even now, she’ll sometimes stay in my room with me, especially when she has nightmares.”