I would see me as a burden, the poor, unwed, spinster aunt, and I don’t want that, Caleb.
A life she didn’t want.
It’s not your problem. She’s not your problem. You’re not in a position to sort out her happiness or unhappiness.
“I’ve got to get to Paris.” Before he became any more confused by Claire or what was unfolding or what he was feeling, emotions he didn’t want to consider or think about for the ways in which they’d weaken him. “You’ll escort her. Take one of the maids as a companion.”
“And the matter of a wife?”
“When I return from Paris, we’ll… give that another attempt.” The thought somehow left him feeling even more sour. It felt… wrong.
“You sure you want to go?”
He scowled. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I… I’m just asking. You haven’t seemed to worry about—”
“Well, I am worried about getting there.” So he could hopefully again find his damned muse and remember what he’d loved about all of this. “I just need to see the lady settled,” he snapped.
“Of course, of course,” Wade said on a rush.
A knock sounded at the door, and they looked up.
A white-haired older woman with one of the widest smiles he’d ever seen let herself in. “Good afternoon, Mr. Gray, sir, I’m Mrs. Talbot. I’ve shown the young miss to her rooms, and I’ll have the evening supper ready for six o’clock.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. Thanks,” he said gruffly, reminded all over again of the reasons he wanted no part of this property, one being all the servants and people answering to him.
“That’ll be all. Thank you,” Wade said after an awkward stretch of silence in which the old housekeeper lingered in the doorway.
With a curtsy and another smile, she bustled off.
“Is there anything else you need me to do?” Wade asked after she’d gone.
“No,” he said curtly. “Nothing. I don’t need anything.”
Wade hesitated, looking as if he wished to say something more, and Caleb dared him with his gaze, dared him to continue on with the earlier nonsense, because he was spoiling for a fight.
He didn’t want to be served. He wanted to paint, damn it. And how dare Wade suggest that there might be something that would keep him here and distract him from the only thing that mattered to him?
Wade left, and Caleb was alone, not sure why it felt as if he were trying to convince himself that he needed to go to Paris… and doing a rather poor job of it.
Chapter 18
Later that evening, when the household slept and rest proved elusive, Claire made her way around Night’s Keep.
The walls were constructed of stone, and only a crimson red runner along the stone floor left the corridors cold.
A handful of rusty sconces had been left lit, those tapers throwing shadows upon the faded tapestries that adorned the halls.
She took in each and every frosty detail. No one would dare confuse this place with one that was warm and inviting. It could not be called a conventional home in any sense of the word.
Claire reached the base of a winding set of narrow stairs that climbed high up to what would have been a parapet that, given the unfinished state of the rest of the residence, had also remained untouched by modern doings.
Gripping the crude rail that had been affixed unevenly to the wall, Claire made the slow, long climb. The stairway went on forever and left her slightly breathless as she went. The stones, marked by age and time, shifted as her feet touched each one, little bits of pebble and dust falling loose with her every step.
At last, she reached the summit. Claire adjusted her sketch pad, shifting it over to the crook of her opposite arm, and then pressed the handle to open the door.
A blare of cold immediately spilled out into the already chilled stairwell, sucking the air from her lungs and turning the little puffs of breath leaving her lips into clouds of white.
Teeth chattering, she briefly debated the path she’d traveled, and then, looking ahead, she started forward once more. As she’d predicted, the promontory was as much a moment froze in time as every other part of this former keep.
The night air immediately brought gooseflesh rising on her limbs, and she hugged her book close to her chest even as she rubbed her arms in a bid to bring some warmth into them.
And yet, as cold as it was, Claire wandered out, deeper onto these parapets where warrior men, and no doubt women, had waged battles to hold on to this very place that remained standing all these years later.
Reaching the edge, Claire stared off, far into the distance, at the star-studded night sky.
This could have been home.
It had almost been home.
Would it have been enough?
Caleb had insisted she’d eventually want more.
But how was it possible to ask for more when one was content with living a life alone? Forgotten.
Anonymous.
Something that she’d ceased to be.
Claire rested her sketch pad on the top of the limestone wall, and pressing her hands along the jagged surface, she stretched her neck out and inhaled deep of the healing, cleansing winter air, welcoming the way it left her breathless.
When Claire had discovered her family’s involvement in the disappearance of a young boy, she’d felt… lost.
Everything about her life, everything she’d believed about her parents, the luxuries they’d enjoyed, the households they’d called home, it had all been a lie.
Her happiness had been built upon the suffering of another. And in her failure to know that and acknowledge that the peerage made their wealth at the expense of countries and people all over the globe, she’d been complicit.
She’d spent the days and months and eventual years attempting to find her way to the other side. Not peace. There couldn’t be that, not with all the injustice and evil she would be forever linked to. But there could be… a life outside the peerage. One where she lived on the fringe of the world, with some control and some ability to turn profits from these properties and hopefully do good with them.
This place had represented—hope.
“You’re going to freeze out here.”
He was here.
Of course he was here.
He’d found a way to be wherever she was.
“I’m fine, Caleb,” she said tiredly. “I’m a grown woman.” Not the young girl he’d sought to look after since the Rotted Rooster. Her mouth soured.
“I know you are.” His baritone enveloped those four words in a husky quality that recalled all the passionate moments she’d stolen in his arms, and her body quickened, because it didn’t care that he’d both betrayed her and stolen the future she’d dreamed of. Rather, her body knew only the pleasure he’d shown her, and she despised herself for that weakness.
That managed to steady her resolve.
“You didn’t come to dinner,” he murmured.
Claire had skipped the invitation to dinner and instead taken the evening meal alone in her rooms. Not the chambers belonging to the mistress of the household, but rather, chambers for a guest. “I took my meal in the guest chambers.” Claire didn’t turn to face him. Or was it that she was unable to? It was all confused at the moment.