Page 47 of Her Lion of a Duke
She looked around for a while, nothing standing out in particular, but then her eyes landed on a painting that took her breath away.
“Ah,” Leonard said behind her, entering the attic. “You were not supposed to see that.”
CHAPTER 17
Leonard did not mind that Cecilia was in the attic.
It was her home, too, and she had every right to be there. He simply had never expected her to enter it, and he had certainly not expected her to find the one painting he did not have the wherewithal to destroy.
He remembered the day it was made. It was a formal portrait of his mother, father, himself, and Henry—one for posterity. It had hung proudly in the drawing room until the day after Henry’s death. From that day, Leonard could no longer bear the sight of it, and yet he did not have the heart to have it burned.
“It is beautiful,” Cecilia noted softly. “You were so small.”
“It was a long day. My father had to hold me in place, for I had been sitting still for hours. I was restless.”
“I can imagine. But I must say that it has made something make sense.”
“And what might that be?”
“Well, when I saw your brother, I wondered why you did not resemble him. You were larger than him, and though you had similar coloring, you could not have been more different. At last, I understand why. You look like your father, while Henry looks like your mother.”
She could not have known, but it gave Leonard an immense sense of pride to be seen as his father’s son. He had always wanted to be a great man like him, and he had never once felt like he even held a candle to him.
“We were very different from one another. Henry was always the stronger one, the one destined to be a great man. I lived in his shadow, as you saw.”
She looked at him curiously. “Is that what you think people saw?”
“I know it. Henry was always surrounded by people, and they were desperate to get to know him. I was never part of that.”
They sat on the floor, Cecilia carefully tucking her skirts so as not to ruin them, and she rested her head against his shoulder.
“That does not mean that you were lacking in anything,” she murmured. “It meant that the ton cared for the man with the title. That is not to say that your brother was fundamentally better than you, only older.”
“And now, I am older than he was,” he said quietly.
“It is strange to think about, isn’t it? My mother said the same thing when she turned the same age as my grandmother was when she died. I suppose it reminds us that time passes, whether we like it or not.”
“I agree. I used to like the time passing quickly, for I so wanted to be a man, but now I wish that I could slow it down. I wish that I could be a boy again, but knowing what I do now. Perhaps my brother and I might have found our way back to each other.”
Cecilia looked up at him curiously. She never had any siblings and had therefore never experienced sibling rivalry. The closest she had was Clara, but she protected her cousin rather than seeing her as competition.
“As boys,” Leonard continued, “we knew that Henry was more important, but we did not know why, and we did not care. All that we cared about was who could run the fastest and climb the tallest tree. I spent my life chasing after him, but when we were children, it was at least fair. I was faster than him, and he climbed higher. I fenced better, and he was a better shot. We were equals in all ways but one, and the trouble started when that one thing became the only thing that mattered.”
“To whom?”
“To everyone.”
“Not to me. I dare say that it did not matter to Henry either. I would say that he missed you every bit as much as you missed him.”
Leonard had never thought of it that way. When he thought of Henry, he could only remember the tension, the disputes, the bitterness that he could not help but show. He had always envied his brother, and he had never once considered how Henry felt about him, instead assuming that he thought he was better than him.
“It is not as though anything can be done now,” he sighed. “He has been gone for years. I do not have any other surviving family.”
“You are wrong,” she said firmly. “You have a family. I am here.”
She took his hand in hers, and he squeezed it instinctively.
She was right; he had formed a family with a woman he was falling in love with. He had always admired her strength and the way she spoke up for herself, but there was the other side to her, too—the gentleness and kindness she possessed, the softness she showed when she thought nobody was looking.
