Page 59 of The Texan Duke
“I didn’t sketch the war,” he said, his memories of Chickamauga coming back with a vengeance. As a member of the cavalry corps under General Wheeler, he’d seen too much combat. War wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t noble. Let people put up bunting. Let them wave their flags. The soldiers knew what the truth was, and they kept it to themselves in an effort to spare the civilians.
She came closer, standing so near he could have embraced her easily.
He wanted to. Because of that sudden wish, he should have moved away. He didn’t.
“Would you show me your drawing?”
With anyone else he probably would have declined, but this was Elsbeth. A thought that startled him. He hadn’t known her last week.
He pulled out his notebook and showed her the page.
She leaned closer. “You really are an artist,” she said. “You’ve captured it perfectly.”
He smiled at her. “I’m a rancher.”
“Would you rather be an artist?”
The question surprised him. No one had ever asked him something like that.
“You didn’t exactly have a choice in what you would do, did you?” she said, before he could answer.
“Does anyone? I didn’t have a choice about becoming the Duke of Lothian, either.”
She smiled, and he was struck again by how beautiful she was. Her red cloak was the perfect color to flatter her coloring, her gray eyes as warm as smoke as she looked at him.
“I love my life,” he said. “I love everything about it, even the things that are annoying. I like riding out in the morning and knowing that everything I see for that entire day belongs to my family. I like knowing that the ranch provides a living for hundreds of men and their families. I like seeing the herds and the horses, trying new things, new ways of doing things. I like my freedom.”
“And you don’t think you have freedom here, is that it?”
She had placed her hand on his arm and he could swear that he felt her touch through her glove and his sleeve. There was something magical about Elsbeth, something that caught at him whenever he looked at her.
The whole of the fortress was shadowed as if nature was beginning to pull a blanket over the day.
He pocketed his notebook again and walked into the ruins. Once inside the structure, he looked up to where the roof would have been a century or two earlier. The wind created an eerie moaning sound almost as if Castle McCraight was grieving about its fate.
When he said as much to Elsbeth, she didn’t disappoint.
“It’s the spirit of winter,” she said. “The sea has a winter spirit and a summer one. The winter one is angrier.”
He decided he wasn’t going to comment on that, either.
“Did my uncle tutor you?” he asked, genuinely curious. She seemed to know a lot about many subjects.
She smiled. “No, but he did quiz me on the lessons my governess taught me. I learned to pay attention so I wouldn’t disappoint him.”
Their gazes locked and her smile faded. He reached out and placed his cold hand against her face. She didn’t flinch. Nor did she move away.
He should have issued a caution to her, explained that he was feeling somewhat odd at the moment. Perhaps it was Castle McCraight pulling emotions from his past. He hadn’t had a sweetheart before he went off to war, but if he had he would have wanted her to be like Elsbeth. She had a core of deep loyalty and a sense of duty that equaled his.
Regardless of how people treated her, she fulfilled her obligations. It didn’t matter what the weather or the obstacles, Elsbeth forged on. He suspected that she didn’t care if she ever received praise for her actions. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder if anyone ever thought to thank her.
Not only did he like her, but he admired her. Plus, there was another feeling, one thrumming beneath the surface. True, he thought she was beautiful, but this was something more.
He looked away, toward the open side of the ruins.
“What is it?”
“I thought I heard something,” he said. “Twigs breaking.”
