Page 30 of The Texan Duke
He glanced down at her.
“Begging your pardon, Elsbeth. My thoughts ran away with me.”
“Have I done something?”
“Do you always take someone’s moods on yourself?” he asked.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“If I’m happy or I’m sad, it’s not necessarily because of anything you did, Elsbeth. It might be me, just me. I own my emotions. You own yours.”
“You don’t think people can influence other people’s moods?” she asked.
“You can’t make me happy or sad,” he said.
She stopped in the middle of the corridor and regarded him solemnly.
“Very well, perhaps I can’t influence your moods. But surely someone can. Don’t you feel grief for your father? Does no one in Texas make your heart beat faster?”
He didn’t want to discuss his father. Not now.
She might look delicate, but he had a feeling she had a temper on her. That was okay with him. He was used to fiery women. There were six McCraight women back at home who weren’t wallflowers. They came out and said what they felt, and if you didn’t understand, they kept talking until you did. Being the only male in a house full of women these past two years had taught him a great deal. Granted, four of his sisters were married, but they still came home a lot.
None of them, however, had given him any insight into a Scottish lass with distinctive gray eyes and a mulish set to her lips. She didn’t look like she was going anywhere until he said something placating.
“My father was the finest man I’ve ever known,” he said, giving her the truth and a little more emotion than he felt comfortable revealing. “I didn’t know he was dead until I came home. When I found out, it was like the world stopped for a little while. I couldn’t imagine anything being the same without him. And it wasn’t.”
There, would that be enough to get her started again?
“Where were you?”
“What?”
“You said you came home. Where were you?”
“I was at war, Elsbeth.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. Finally, she spoke. “Would you like to see a portrait of your father?” she asked softly.
The question startled him.
Until now, it had been difficult to imagine that Graham had grown up in this house, that he hadn’t left until he was twenty. Graham had barely been mentioned.
Granted, Connor had only arrived last night, but surely someone—Glassey, his aunt, an older servant—should have said something that called Graham to mind. Something like:Your father liked this view best of all,when standing before a window. Or:There is the tree your father used to climb.
Yet here was Elsbeth asking a simple question that flummoxed him.Would you like to see a portrait of your father?
He could only nod in response.
He walked with her down the corridor to the main stairs, that same sweeping staircase that reminded him of the South. She took hold of the banister with her right hand, the left holding her voluminous skirt and ascended the steps with him following.
“The portraits of the family are on the third floor,” she said. “The ducal portraits are next to them.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “You’ll have to sit for your portrait, of course.”
He had no intention of doing any such thing, but decided not to tell her that right now. He only nodded again. Silence was the best recourse when you didn’t want to explain yourself or argue. It had taken him years—and a few brawls—to learn that lesson.
Connor hesitated just before the landing, taking in the view from the stairs. Looking down he could see the four corridors that branched off the foyer, all leading to different wings of the house. Above him the snow was still obscuring the glass of the ceiling, but the windows on the back wall revealed a frozen, white world.
Elsbeth had hesitated on the landing, waiting for him. She, too, had learned the value of silence because she didn’t say anything as she watched him.
