Page 14

CHAPTER TWELVE

“ A re you certain I can’t fetch you something to drink?” Mr. Brewster asked in earnest, for the fourth time, as if searching for any excuse not to begin his tale.

Slicked in a glaze of sweat from the cloying heat of the greenhouse, Teresa shook her head for the fourth time, smiling politely.

“I am quite all right.” She hesitated. “Mr. Brewster, if you have changed your mind about telling me something of my husband, I will not hold you to it. I understand that I am a stranger here, and my husband is your master.”

It would devastate her if the gardener did not reveal something of Cyrus’ character, but if she was to be happy at Darnley Castle, as she had vowed she would be, then making friends with the staff was of paramount importance. She would not make enemies of anyone, if she could help it.

They are just starting to trust me. She thought of Belinda’s earlier words. I should not push them too much, too quickly.

Mr. Brewster ran a leathery hand through his thinning, silver hair, his knuckles swollen and red with rheumatism that did not seem to bother him. “I don’t do much talking, Your Grace, that’s all.”

“Not unless it is to the flowers?” she teased a little, wanting to put him at ease.

To her relief, he smiled at that. “Oh aye, they like being talked to, as much as they like being looked at.” He appeared to relax slightly, leaning back in the chair.

“Also, it’s a matter of knowing where to start.

See, I’ve been here longer than His Grace has been living.

I’ve been here longer than anyone—since I was old enough to stumble about after my father, who was head gardener before me, God rest him. ”

“How old are you, if it is not an impertinent question?”

The gardener moved his fingers, as if counting the years. “I’ll be four-and-sixty next month.”

She was about to interject with a compliment that he did not look at all his age, when he suddenly continued, holding her silent.

“I must’ve been six-and-thirty when His Grace was born, and his father was no more than a few years younger than me.

I know ‘cause we played as boys here, ‘til his father decided he didn’t like his son and heir playing with the gardener’s boy.

Funny thing is, Cyrus’ father never actually got to be the Duke of Darnley. ”

“No?” Teresa could barely breathe, leaning forward in her chair, hanging on every word.

“I know it ain’t right to use Christian names, but so you’ll better understand, I’ll use ‘em, else it might become confusing,” the gardener said.

“His Grace’s father was Ignatius Deverell, and His Grace’s grandfather was Horatio Deverell.

Neither of ‘em good men—Lord preserve me for saying so, but it’s the truth. Rotten, the both of ‘em.

“Horatio was one of these gentlemen who survives on raw spite, and he wasn’t about to let his son have the title willingly.

We all used to say that Horatio would outlive us all, and he seemed determined to do so—certainly, he was determined to outlive his son,” Mr. Brewster continued, a line appearing between his eyebrows.

“It wasn’t a happy place, this castle… until Ignatius brought an angel home. ”

“Cyrus’ mother?” Teresa whispered, her heart beating erratically in her chest as her imagination took over, absorbing the gardener’s words and turning them into vivid scenes in her mind.

Mr. Brewster nodded. “Lady Josephine. A duke’s daughter, if memory serves.

We were all speechless when she came into the castle after the wedding; she was the most beautiful lady I had ever seen, and the sweetest. She spoke to us all in turn, asked our names, and never forgot a one of ‘em.” He beamed with a long-ago pride, his rheumy eyes sparkling.

“She was like you, in a way, wanting to make the castle cheerier. And she did, too. For five years, the castle was happier than it had ever been. Her presence even seemed to make Horatio nicer, and there were such balls and garden parties and gatherings, the likes of which we haven’t seen since. ”

But she is not here anymore. There does not appear to be any family at all. Teresa held her tongue, not wanting to jump ahead in the story. It was a bad habit she had trained out of herself years ago, and she would not begin it again now.

“She became with-child and, for those months, the castle was… oh, Your Grace, it was like a paradise,” the gardener continued, misty-eyed.

“All giddy to meet the littlun. But then…” His voice cracked, and he coughed to cover it.

“Apologies, Your Grace. It has been a long while since I’ve spoken about this. ”

Teresa reached out, patting him gently on the arm. “Not at all. Take your time.”

“Well… she died, Your Grace. There was some difficulty with the birth, and a decision had to be made between saving her or saving the child.” The gardener shook his head, chewing his lip.

“She never even got to hold him, and I’m convinced that, from that moment on, Ignatius decided to hate his son.

I don’t think it was his decision to save the child; I think it was Horatio who gave that order. ”

Through the glass of the greenhouse, Teresa’s gaze drifted back to the castle, her mind seeking out Cyrus in a room somewhere. Her heart ached for him, unable to fathom a life without a mother, unable to fathom a life growing up in a place like that with no one to hold him.

“His Grace’s grandfather was a strict, severe, unpleasant man,” Mr. Brewster said, bringing Teresa’s attention back.

“He became worse after the death, thinking it some weakness in the boy that had made his birth so difficult. And Ignatius took his father’s lead, seizing any opportunity to punish the boy, so cruel to him it’d turn your stomach.

His Grace was raised with no affection, no warmth to speak of. ”

Not wanting to interrupt, but unable to swallow down the rising burst of dreadful curiosity, Teresa asked, “Is… the scar because of a punishment?”

“What?” Mr. Brewster frowned, shaking his head. “Oh no, Your Grace. He got that scar in the accident that killed his father and grandfather. He’d have been… three-and-ten, or thereabouts.”

Just a boy, finding himself in charge of a dukedom.

Teresa stared blankly at the letters on the table, struggling to take in everything she had just heard; so much loss and tragedy and cruelty, all thrown at Cyrus before he was even a man.

Her heart broke, imagining the scared, isolated boy he must have been, and the mother who might have spared him from that if she had only lived.

It went some way toward explaining why he was so withdrawn, why he had chosen to be a recluse, and why he wanted nothing to do with her, for if someone had never known affection, how would they know how to give or receive it?

He was likely just shocked that I came to knock on his door that night. She doubted anyone had sought him out in his entire life for any reason, and if they had, it would not have been for anything pleasant.

Glancing at the gardener, Teresa hoped the old man might continue, offering more information, but it seemed the tale had come to an end.

“Anyway, that’s why he is how he is,” Mr. Brewster said with a shrug. “Are you sure I can’t get you something to drink?”

Teresa smiled. “You have given me everything I need, thank you.” She rose to her feet. “I have taken up enough of your time.”

The gardener rose with her, bowing his head. “You won’t tell His Grace I said anything, will you?”

“Your secret, and his, are safe with me,” she promised, realizing she would have to be careful the next time she encountered her husband.

After all she had heard, it would be hard to do anything but throw her arms around him and make up for all the affection he had never had. Indeed, if her demeanor changed at all, he might become suspicious that she had an informant.

Or you will not have to worry about that, because you will never cross paths again…

She liked the idea of that even less.

“Mr. Brewster?” she said, turning back.

“Yes, Your Grace?”

She smiled. “I do not suppose you could tell me where the library is, could you?”

Among the familiar scent of books and dust and paper, Teresa set to work to distract her racing mind, needing the rhythm of cleaning and organizing to dim the visions that the gardener had conjured in her head, and quieten the repeating story of Cyrus Deverell.

“That poor man,” she mumbled, fetching a ladder that she had seen in the corner of the seemingly disused library, buried under a dust sheet.

I wonder if he was glad when his father and grandfather died.

She shook off the morbid thought, carrying the ladder back to the tall bookcase she had been working on. The old tomes on the top shelf were in utter disarray, thick with dust, crammed together like crowded teeth. More than anything, she was curious to find out what they were.

Hitching up her skirts with one hand, she climbed the ladder, only to find that the top shelf was still slightly out of reach.

Muttering under her breath, she strained upward, extending her fingertips as far as they would go, nudging the underside of a particularly large book to try and tease it free.

But it was stuck, too tightly jammed between the books on either side.

If I can free this, the rest will be easier.

Steeling her nerve, she reached her other hand up, managing to pinch the book with her fingertips, pulling until her hands ached.

Slowly but surely, it began to wiggle loose…

and then shot out, all at once. There was a momentary joy at fulfilling the task that swiftly transformed into panic as the momentum knocked her off balance, and with her hands above her, holding the precious book, she could not move fast enough to grab the ladder.

It would mean dropping the tome, and some force within her would not allow her to do that.

She became aware of a feeling of falling, terror chilling her veins as she realized there was nothing she could do to stop it.

All of a sudden, the air beneath her became solid, breaking her fall.

How…?

There were arms around her, holding her, bringing her closer to the solidity of a muscular chest that rose and fell with the speed of someone who had been running.

“What were you thinking?” Cyrus rasped, looking down at her with his beautiful, dark blue eyes. As cold as the deepest ocean.

She blinked in shock. “I… How… I…”

“I heard noise,” he explained gruffly, carrying her away from the bookcases, toward the reading chairs she had recently unveiled from their dust sheets. “I assumed it was the staff, instructed by you. You should not have been doing something like that by yourself.”

His voice carried an odd note of something Teresa could not decipher, a slight waver, as if her fall had unnerved him. Either that, or he was trying to suppress the worst of his temper.

“I wanted to improve the library,” she said quietly, wondering how long he meant to carry her for. Not that she minded; she had always daydreamed about what it would feel like to be carried this way.

“Yes, well you should have asked someone to help,” he scolded. “You are a duchess; you should not be doing something like this at all.”

She glared at his profile, the side that had no scars. “I had nothing to do, so I occupied myself. Why should a duchess not do that? Would you rather I was bored, losing my mind at the prospect of empty days?”

She wriggled in his arms, and he seemed to realize that he was still holding her. Rather unceremoniously, not far from the reading chairs, he put her down and stepped back, folding his arms behind him as if they could not be trusted.

“You should have found something more appropriate to do,” he said coolly.

But with a rush of fear still coursing through her, spurred on by the thought of what might have happened if he had not been there, she was not in a particularly gentle temper.

The days of his avoidance, his absence, finally caught up to her, tilting her chin up in defiance, balling her hands into fists.

His past is a reason, but not an excuse, for his treatment of me, she told herself, burning up inside.

“You are right, I should,” she replied. “But what is ‘appropriate’ would be spending time with my husband, considering this is supposed to be our honeymoon. As you have been who knows where, leaving me to my own devices, I have had to fill my days however I can. And you did say I could do whatever I please from now on, so that is what I am doing, even if that means—heaven forbid— cleaning a library so that it is fit for purpose.”

He frowned at her, though his gaze had thawed ever so slightly. “What do you want from me?”

“I believe I asked you that once, and that went remarkably well,” she muttered.

“ I am asking now. What is it you want from me?”

She met his eyes, her thoughts swirling, flitting from the mundane to the extreme in terms of how she might answer.

But what could she reply that he would not reject: a daily stroll in the gardens; at least an hour in the evening with him to talk about their day; one evening when he would agree to share her bedchamber; a weekly ride through the grounds; a further explanation of why he was the way he was, with no details left out?

“Dinner,” she blurted out. “From now on, you will dine with me in the evening. That is what I want.”

His frown deepened, and she felt certain that even that had been too much to ask, that he was preparing a rejection of her request. In truth, she wondered if he would have been better off getting a cat and naming it ‘Duchess,’ for all he seemed to actually want a duchess in his castle.

Leaving him to ready his refusal, Teresa moved toward the nearest bookcase, running her fingertips along the cracked spines.

It reminded her that she had not yet read her letters from home, too occupied with turning the library into a sanctuary for herself where she could read her chapters and her letters in peace and serenity, without suffering the coughing and streaming eyes from all the dust.

She jolted as Cyrus’ hand closed gently over her wrist, turning her around to face him.

“I consent,” he said. “Dinner. From now on. With the proviso that you have someone help you in matters like this.”

Teresa could not believe her ears, a giddy smile curving her lips. “I agree to your terms.”

Her smile spread wider, a little flame of hope igniting in her chest—for what, she was not sure, but it felt like the beginning of a new chapter. A less lonely chapter, certainly.

To her surprise, one corner of Cyrus’ mouth quirked into a small smile of his own, but before she could react to it, before she had a chance to marvel at it, he was gone, striding away from her and out of the library door without so much as a, “I shall see you at six o’clock.”