Page 54 of The Duke's Impossible Deal
He was surprised by the conviction in his words.
“You have transformed this room. The curtains are beautiful and functional. They are thick enough that they will keep things nice and warm in the winter. The artwork is beautiful, and though I did not think I would care for the wallpaper, you were right; it catches the light in a cosy way.”
“Do my ears deceive me, Tobias, or did you just say I was right?” Rowen teased, her lips curling into a small smile.
Tobias chuckled, watching as she shifted beneath his gaze. “Always surprised. Surely you should be used to me complimenting you by now.”
“Compliments are one thing, having one’s husband admit that they were wrong is quite another.” Rowen straightened, her smiling widening.
“You should enjoy it, Duchess. It is a well-earned victory.” He smiled at her and gestured around them. “You have made this place feel like home.”
“Did you fear it would feel too like my home and not yours?”
Tobias could hear the pride in her voice mingling with something else he could not quite place.
“It was not a fear.” He ran a hand through his hair as he cast a look around the room. “In truth, I am not sure what I expected, but it was not this. It feels… alchemical, almost. I can see your touch in most things.”
“Yours is there as well.” Rowen moved closer to him, pointing to the armchairs and the desk he had picked out.
“I know. That is why I said alchemical. It is not quite one or the other, but a combination. It is something new.” Tobias swallowed as his mind flashed back to the state the room had been in. “Truly, you have outdone yourself. You have brought life back into every corner of this house.”
“That is easy to do when you are handed a blank canvas.” Rowen’s laugh was soft. “One often finds that a house feels more like a home when it is properly furnished and decorated.”
“That may be true, Rowen, but I suspect few women could do what you have done.” He met her grey eyes, wanting her to hear the sincerity in his words. “You have filled this place with life and comfort and joy. The halls do not echo with footsteps, and the walls are not empty. Everything feels like it was chosen with care, and yet is somehow understated. It does not feel like his home anymore.”
His voice broke on the last words. A lump formed in his throat as he saw Rowen’s eyes widen, and he swiftly turned away from her.
“I am sorry.” Rowen’s voice was small.
“Do not be. It is not a bad thing.” Tobias swallowed. “I meant what I said, Rowen. What you have done with this house is truly wonderful. It is just…”
“Hard to let him go?”
He sensed her move closer to him.
He shook his head. “It isn’t that. When I sold Erindale House, it was because I could not stand to set foot in it. Not after what my father had done. He was everywhere in that place, and I had a few memories that brought me joy there. I thought that moving here would bring me peace, but it was the opposite.”
He gestured to the corner of the room, where an old armchair had been until he had gotten rid of it.
“Everywhere I looked, I could see his ghost. I would look at a chair and wonder if he imagined reading stories to his children by the fire. I could see him with little Erica on his knee.”
He stared into the window, his reflection fading into a ghostly image of Eric. His heart shuddered, and a coldness settled over him that matched the falling snow.
“I tried to push it all away. I did not want to think about it, and it worked somehow. I could not escape his ghost, not entirely, but I could make sure it was harder for him to find me.”
I could build a wall around the pain.
The numbness that he had wrapped around himself for so long crept into the edges of his awareness.
It seemed so at odds with the life in the room. The warmth that the wallpaper brought, even in the cold winter light. The scent of violets around him.
“Sometimes, I would be playing with little Erica, and she would laugh, and in my mind, the sound would mingle with his laughter.” Tobias closed his eyes as his brother’s laughter echoed in his mind. “He had the most marvellous laugh. It had a way of pulling you in.”
“I would say that is a quality you both share.”
He could hear the lightness in Rowen’s tone, but also a gentle sincerity.
“And yet it seems my laughter does not pull you in.” He ran a hand over the back of an armchair.
