Page 56 of The Scottish Duke
She glanced away, focusing on the view from the parlor window.
“Peter isn’t the only one with talent.”
She glanced back at him.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Your sketches are only in pencil,” he said. “Why is that?”
She blinked at him, surprised. Even the duchess hadn’t noticed that and she’d studied her father’s book for some time.
“I don’t have the money to purchase any watercolors,” she said. There, the truth, given to him without fanfare.
He stood there silent and unspeaking, making her wonder what he was thinking.
She had this odd and unsettling wish to reach out and touch his face, to stroke the edge of his jaw and brush her knuckles against his skin. She wanted to bury her face in the crook of his neck and breathe in his scent.
The afternoon was advancing, the shadows lengthening. Soon it would be dark and Nan would return.
It was safer to stare out the window again than at him. From here she could see a wing of Blackhall, the sloping lawn leading to the forest and beyond. As a servant, she’d often explored that area, since she had no family to visit on her half days off.
“I’ve brought you some books,” he said. “And a table and two stools. The former was my idea, the latter my mother’s.”
The duchess hadn’t forgotten. Lorna hadn’t wanted to remind her, thinking that to do so would be rude.
“Will you show me where you want the table?” he asked.
He held out his hand, and she had no choice but to place hers in it. With a little effort, she was standing, but too close to him. She wanted to take a step back but the chair was there. She could always sidestep but was very much afraid that her belly would come into contact with some part of his body.
He shocked her by placing his hand on her stomach, resting it gently against the fabric of her dress.
Not a word passed between them. He didn’t comment on how large the child was or how ungainly she appeared. Nor did she remove his hand.
A minute passed, then another. Finally, he dropped his hand, his head came up, and he regarded her silently.
“You don’t have to be solicitous of me,” she said. “I don’t demand it of you. Nor do I expect it.”
“I think, perhaps, you should.”
With that surprising comment he stepped back.
She led the way to her bedroom, since Nan was using the smaller chamber, and indicated the back wall. To her surprise, he didn’t call for his driver to assist him. Instead, he and Peter moved the furniture themselves. In a few minutes everything was in place.
He smiled as he passed her. She walked to the front door, to find that he hadn’t brought the carriage. Instead, he’d come to the cottage in a pony cart.
“She’s Old Gretchen,” he said, glancing at the pony as he reached for the books in the cart. “She’s a sweet little thing, but she’s stubborn.”
Old Gretchen turned her head and stared at her, the expression in the pony’s big brown eyes one of irritated acceptance. Almost as if the animal were saying,Youand I, we are in this together. We have to do as we are told, but we don’t have to like it.
“A pony cart?” she said, stepping back into the warmth of the doorway. “I didn’t know that Blackhall had such a thing.”
“It dates from when we were small. A present from my father.”
She could instantly see them, the children of Blackhall laughing as they rode over the paths winding around the castle.
“Old Gretchen, does she date from that time, too?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her and smiled with an effortless charm. She was going to do her best to remain unaffected by him.
