Page 45 of Some Like It Wild
“Your father, my lord?” The servant stole a furtive glance at the mantel clock. “At this time of the morning, you can usually find him in the portrait gallery.”
Connor was already striding back down the corridor when he realized he had no idea where the portrait gallery was.
He stopped at the foot of the grand staircase in the entrance hall, raking a hand through his hair in frustration. He could pinpoint his exact location in the Highland wilderness using nothing more than the angle of the sun and the thickness of the moss growing on the side of a tree, but he couldn’t seem to navigate this damn maze of a house.
He was about to return to the morning room to demand directions when a rhythmic squeak came floating down the stairs. Connor had heard that sound before, each time some flustered footman rolled the duke’s wheeled chair into a room with his master berating him the entire time for going too fast or not fast enough.
Connor took the stairs two at a time, turning left at the second-story landing. His brisk strides soon carried him to a long, spacious gallery with a balcony overlooking the darkened ballroom on one side and a wall lined with formal portraits of all shapes and sizes on the other. The flickering wall lamps failed to completely dispel the gloom.
The duke’s wheeled chair had been silenced and a footman was just disappearing through a far door, having been dismissed by his master. The duke sat all alone, huddled in his chair with a shawl wrapped around his shoulders and a lap rug draped over his wasted legs.
He was gazing up at the wall, his attention so transfixed, he might have been the only living creature in the house.
Connor had to steel his heart against another one of those disturbing pangs of pity. This man was his enemy, he reminded himself. If the duke was alone, it was because he had driven away everyone who had ever loved him.
Connor’s strides slowed. For the first time since arriving at Warrick Hall, he truly felt like the intruder he was. As he traversed that seemingly endless gallery, his steps as stealthy as a thief’s, the Warrick ancestors in their ornate garments and gilded frames seemed to be sneering down their noses at him, mocking him for daring to pretend to be one of them.
His curiosity sharpened as he approached the duke’s chair. He could not imagine any likeness that could have so captured the man’s jaded attentions. His curiosity shifted to bewilderment as he realized the duke wasn’t gazing up at a portrait, but at a large blank space on the wall between two portraits. Judging by the faded condition of the gold-flecked wallpaper that surrounded the perfect square, the space had not always been empty.
Connor would have sworn the man wasn’t even aware of his presence, which was why he started when the duke said softly, “Everyone believes I had her portraits removed because I despised her for leaving me. But the truth was that I simply could not bear to look upon them. Couldn’t bear to be reminded every miserable day of my life that I’d been fool enough to lose her.” He shook his head. “I said such terrible things to her. Made such dreadful threats. I was trying to frighten her into not leaving me, but all I succeeded in doing was driving her away. What I should have done—what I was too young and proud and foolish to do—was fall on my knees and beg her to forgive me.”
He sighed, his hollow-eyed gaze still devouring that empty wall. “I come here every day and gaze up at the place where her portrait used to hang and I can still see her. Those long, shiny curls she would let me brush before bedtime. Her laughing eyes. That maddening dimple that would only appear when she was teasing me.”
Connor gazed up at the wall with equal fascination, almost able to see the woman the duke was describing.
The duke wheeled his chair around to face him. “I suppose you find me ridiculous. She would laugh in my face if she could see me now. She never did have any patience for my pride. Or my weaknesses.”
“After she deserted you, why didn’t you divorce her or have her declared dead so you could remarry and produce another heir?” Connor asked, genuinely curious.
“Because I knew there would be no point in it. She would always be the wife of my heart. Do you know that I never slept with another woman after she left me? All these years I’ve been faithful to a ghost.” A bleak chuckle escaped him. “That would please her too, you know. She’d tell me I got just what I deserved for breaking our marriage vows—and her heart.” He tipped his head back to meet Connor’s gaze, his expression defiant. “How you must hate me!”
“I don’t hate you,” Connor told him, relieved to be able to pull a thread of truth out of his own web of lies.
The canny glitter had returned to the duke’s eyes. “Ah, but you pity me, which is even more galling to a sick old man who was once as brash and robust as you. I suppose I should be grateful to you and your Miss Darby. Until you returned and told me what had become of your mother, I was still able to pretend she might come walking back through my door someday—as young and beautiful as on the day she left me. But now that I know she’s well and truly gone, I have one more reason to welcome death. Although given the blackened condition of my soul,” he added dryly, “there’s little chance we’ll ever be reunited, even on the other side of that great void.”
“If you had the chance,” Connor asked softly, “whose forgiveness would you seek? God’s? Or hers?”
“Since I’m not likely to receive mercy from either one of them, perhaps I should content myself with asking for yours.”
Connor went down on one knee in front of the chair, putting them at eye level just as he had on the first day he’d arrived at Warrick Park. He placed one hand on the man’s bony knee, willing to beg if he had to. “It’s not your remorse or your regrets I need today, your grace, but something else entirely.”
The duke laid his hand atop Connor’s, giving it a surprisingly hearty squeeze. “Anything, son. Anything at all.”
When a timid rap sounded on her bedchamber door that afternoon, Pamela swung it open to find two young maidservants tittering and bobbing like a pair of fledgling pigeons.
“G’day, miss,” chirped the plump, rosy-cheeked one with the carrot-colored curls peeping out from beneath her mobcap. “We’ve come to fetch you. Lord Eddywhistle requests your presence in the ballroom.”
“Lord Eddywhistle?” Pamela repeated, momentarily baffled. Despite enjoying a hearty breakfast and a long hot bath, her head was still a little foggy from her embarrassing bout of tears. “Oh! You mean the marquess!”
“Aye, miss, the marquess.” The tall, willowy maid tossed her pale yellow braid over her shoulder. “And it weren’t so much a request, really, as a demand.”
“Or a command,” her plump companion offered helpfully. “I believe his exact words was”—she lowered her voice in a passable imitation of Connor’s burr—“‘If the lass balks, remind her I’m goin’ to be the duke someday and my word will be law.’”
Pamela cast a disbelieving glance over her shoulder at her sister. Sophie had been stretched out on her stomach on the bed, devouring the latest issue ofLa Belle Assemblée, which she’d nicked from Lady Astrid’s bedchamber, but she was now watching the proceedings at the door with avid interest.
“He actually said his word would be law, did he? That’s odd,” Pamela muttered. “I didn’t think he was particularly fond of the law.” She surveyed the maids’ eager young faces. “You can tell Lord Eddywhistle I’ll be down as soon as I can find something suitable to wear. Which could be next week,” she added beneath her breath.
The maids exchanged a dismayed glance. “Oh, no, miss,” the slender one said. “That won’t be necessary. He said all you needed to wear was your dressing gown.”
