Page 19 of A Virgin for the Rakish Duke (Romancing a Rake #3)
By the time she found herself in a carpeted hallway with wood panels on the walls, she was thoroughly lost. A window showed that she was high above the gardens. Jane could be glimpsed far below, sitting on a bench and sniffing a flower she had picked.
Her own name was suddenly called from somewhere below—Jeremy's voice. She slowed to a walk, wondering how she could return to Jane without crossing the duke’s path.
She picked a door at random. Stepping through, she found herself in a room lighter than the rest. It was painted white with a band of sky blue around the top of the walls.
The windows were tall, flooding the room with golden sunlight.
The furniture was shrouded, but she could see that the nearest shape was a rocking horse. Uncovering it proved her right. Removing another shroud revealed a chest filled with wooden toys, then a shelf packed with stuffed animals.
A child's room. A nursery. Have there been any other children here besides Jeremy? Was this his playroom?
The insight into his past sluiced her anger and grief away.
On the shelf among the stuffed animals was a leather-bound book on the spine of which was Jeremy's name.
It was written in a neat but clearly childlike hand.
Taking it from the shelf, she opened it.
On the first page was a bright, vibrant picture, painted in watercolors, she deduced, and depicting a house with a family standing before it.
The work of a child, certainly, but also one with some potential. Jeremy's work?
Turning the page revealed another picture, then another.
Suddenly, there was only writing. Large, rounded letters, a crude attempt at calligraphy as though the author were imitating the writing of an adult before they'd been formally taught how to do it.
She tried to make it out. It was a story, and before she knew it, she was sitting on a chair covered in its dustsheet, engrossed in the simple tale.
“More spying, Lady Harriet ? Were the tears a disguise to give you full rein in exploring my house?”
Harriet peeked up to see Jeremy standing in the doorway. His voice was cold, his face closed off and tight.
“My father was a painter,” she murmured instead. “I learned much from him. There is potential here. Latent talent, I should say. And the stories are quite magical.”
She tried for a smile, wanting to convey her honest enthusiasm. Jeremy came into the room and put out his hand silently. Harriet sighed as she handed over the book. Abruptly, he gripped the first page and ripped it out, crumpling it in his fist.
“No!” Harriet squealed and leaped to her feet.
Jeremy was already destroying the next picture, and she fought to take it from him, succeeding only in tearing it beyond all repair.
She grabbed for the book to prevent any more wanton destruction.
Jeremy refused to let go, and they wrestled for it for a moment.
Finally, she shoved him in the chest as hard as she could.
His heel caught on the runner of the rocking horse, and he fell back, landing with a thud, with Harriet atop him.
Straddling him, she tore the book from his hands and held it beyond his reach.
“It is mine!” he snarled.
“It is too precious to be destroyed! This is the work of an innocent child with the whole world ahead of him. Why would you want to destroy that?”
“For the same reason I stowed it away up here!
To forget about it. It serves only to remind me of the ways I tried to live up to my ancestors and failed!
My great-grandfather, whose oils hang in St James' Palace. My grandfather, whose poetry takes its place in anthologies alongside Shakespeare and Milton. My father laughed when he saw the pictures. He scorned my attempts at literature. They are failures!”
Harriet gaped at him with naked incredulity.
“You… you were a child. How can they expect you to exceed your ancestors so young?”
“Achievement in my family always comes young,” Jeremy muttered back.
He let his body flop down to the floor, staring at the ceiling.
“Now you know. You have the weapons to destroy me if you choose. Do with them as you will.”
There was weariness in his voice, defeat.
Harriet forgot her anger at him. She leaned over him, still straddling him.
Their proximity in this position was enough to remind her of their last intimacy.
That memory ignited a fire within her, but she tried not to think such thoughts.
She studied his face. So noble and dignified. So handsome.
“What can I do?” she asked.
His eyes met hers. He reached up to tuck a lock of hair away from her face behind her ear. His thumb traced the lines of her lips.
“Nothing. Whether I am mistaken about you or not, I do not know how to repair the damage. How to prove myself worthy.”
She took his hand, pressing it to her cheek.
“Perhaps it is for the best,” he sighed. “It was another foolish attempt to match my ancestors. Doomed to fail. There is something at which I excel. Gambling, drinking, and seduction.”
Then Harriet thought of Jane. Thought of her gentleman friend. A devout man who had intended to dedicate himself to God before he inherited his title.
“I… I think I have an idea,” she murmured with a slowly dawning smile. “Do you think the Winchesters would be won over if they saw you in company with a man so devoted to God that he was prepared to take holy orders. A man whose brother did take the cloth?”
Jeremy frowned at her. “I know no such people.”
“I do,” Harriet grinned.