Chapter 19
After he and Claire had parted ways following their meeting out on the promontory, Caleb had spent the better part of a restless night converting the crumbling ballroom into an improvised art studio.
It was the first thing he did whenever he made a new residence, no matter how temporary a home it was.
It was a great distraction from the past and the nightmares.
In focusing on the transformation of some previously irrelevant-to-him space into the room that mattered most, he found escape, even if it was just for the briefest of times.
This particular time, however, that escape had eluded him.
Somewhere around three o’clock in the morning, he’d at last managed to find solace in sleep, once he’d found a quiet acceptance of Claire’s parting.
It was when he awakened three hours later to see her and Wade off that he found he’d been thwarted.
Damn it all to hell. He’d finally come to terms with their parting. He’d put his thoughts back into a proper order, reminded himself just where his focus should be.
Now, shoulder to shoulder at one of the floor-to-ceiling ballroom windows, Caleb and Wade assessed the current conditions beyond those frosted panels. The snowstorm that had raged into the early morn hours, leaving a deep blanket across the countryside, had receded to a slow trickling down of those small flakes, as if the thick clouding overhead were shaking loose the last remnants of those flecks.
“You’re not truly thinking of sending her out in this?” Wade asked, skepticism heavy in that query.
“I didn’t say I was,” Caleb said tightly. The roads were likely impassible and would be until the weather shifted back to its usual warmer, rainier form of precipitation. Caleb cursed. “For the love of God, it doesn’t even snow in England.”
His friend leaned forward and peered outside. “Yeah, except it appears that it does.”
“I know. I was just saying…” He caught the amused glint in the other man’s eyes and growled. “Oh, go to hell,” he snapped.
Now, it should snow. Not just snow. But snow snow. A New England kind of blizzard that slowed travel and made it perilous to venture out.
It appeared the universe, fate, whatever the hell it was, intended to thwart him at every corner. He wouldn’t be making his damned trip to Paris, and there was no way in hell he could send Claire out into this.
Which meant he’d be forced into continued close quarters with her.
No, it didn’t necessarily mean that. With a stream of curses, he stalked over to the worktable he’d set up last night. There was no reason he and Claire had to be in each other’s company here. Not any longer. It had been one thing when they’d been at the Rotted Rooster, and she’d had no room, and he’d needed to make sure that she didn’t get herself into any fights with the surly people there. And then there’d been the carriage ride they’d been forced to take together.
Liar. You are a goddamned liar.
Frustration whipped through him. Stop! He’d finally come around to putting the matter of Claire Poplar to rest, and now here they were, locked away together once more.
Caleb assessed the various-sized pigments laid out, and opting for the larger grains, he grabbed his hammer and proceeded to pound all the frustration with this damned day into the creation of oil paint.
“This is how you’re spending your day?” Wade drawled from his place by the window.
“How else do you expect me to spend it?” he shot back, directing his answer to the table.
Thump, thump, thump.
He’d become entirely too weak where Claire Poplar was concerned.
“Yeah, I suppose that’s true. You’re not going to not work on your art just because you’ve got the baroness’s sister here as a guest,” Wade allowed.
Thump, thump, thump.
Except, they didn’t have to be together here. “Exactly.”
“I was being sarcastic,” the other man said dryly.
Caleb ignored him and continued working. Now that he and Claire had arrived, he could keep to his own company and paint. And she could occupy herself with that sketch pad. That way, he wouldn’t have to worry about how badly he wanted to make love to her—fully and completely. Or think about how many regrets he’d have that he’d never know her body in every way there was to know a woman.
Thump, thump—
Or just how much he enjoyed being with her.
Caleb’s hammer slipped and caught the side of his thumb. With a black curse, he dropped the instrument.
“Problem.”
“It’s not a problem,” he clipped out, giving his hand a hard shake in a bid to ease the throbbing. “I’ve hit my damned finger any number of times.”
When he’d been a boy just learning how to make and mix paints.
His attention still directed out the window, Wade shot a peculiar look over his shoulder. “What?”
It hit him that the other man had not been referencing Caleb’s amateurish slip with the hammer. “What the hell are you talking about?” he countered.
“I… It appears the lady is leaving after all.”
The… lady was…?
“Miss Poplar,” his friend clarified, as if there were another young lady in residence.
What the hell?
Racing out from behind the table, Caleb sprinted across the room, skidding to a stop at the window. He scoured the grounds below and immediately found her.
It would be near impossible not to see her.
Attired in an emerald-green silk cloak that fairly shimmered with her every move, the lady was the lone splash of color amidst the otherwise monotone landscape.
His brow dipped.
No, that was not the only color. There was also the floral valise she carried, holding it with two hands as she headed toward the steps that emptied out into the grounds below. Every step she took highlighted just how deep the snowfall, in fact, was.
“Where the hell is she going?” he breathed to himself.
Wade chuckled. “As I said, it appears the lady intends to leave.”
Leave? She intended to take her damned things and head out on foot in this miserable weather? Which would mean she was that desperate to be rid of him. Which really shouldn’t offend him. He was the one rushing to head to Paris. As such, the lady was certainly entitled to wanting to get on with her life, too. And—
He growled.
None of that clear reasoning helped.
Turning on his heel, Caleb set out across the room, Wade’s laughter following after him.
Cloak and bonnet on, Claire marched her way outside, her valise in hand.
Upon her arrival yesterday morn, in a matter of just minutes, Claire had gone from falling head over heels in love with Night’s Keep to the realization she would never be the lady of this estate.
It had been just another disappointment. One future she’d hoped to have, replaced with uncertainty and the misery of what these past years had been.
Soon, she’d be required to return to London.
Were it discovered she was here, alone, her reputation—what was left of it—would be beyond ruin. Was that even really possible, though? There weren’t suitors, and there was certainly not going to be a marriage, for her or for Faye. She and Faye had accepted as much. Granted, their mercenary mother had not given up hope for those great matches she’d always aspired to for them.