The door opened again, and Uncle Henry strode through in a blaze of sun, his gold-white hair a mane around his head, and his dark eyes dancing with curiosity. He stopped in the middle of the room, his brows pulling together like two caterpillars. “Why are all the chairs over there?”
Gwendolyn tried on a frown to match Uncle’s.
Jackson grinned, lips stretched wide as if stitched there. Had always seemed the best way to face the ills of life—grin and never give up.
His uncle strode around his desk and dropped into his chair as Gwendolyn slid off the desk to stand before him, hands clasped behind her back.
“Never mind the chairs,” Uncle Henry said. “Why are you two here? Cranston said you were both waiting for me.”
Jackson nodded at Gwendolyn. “You first.”
Her chin twitched up, an imperious ice queen. “I merely wished to know when we are to leave again.”
Uncle Henry steepled his hands before him on the desk. “Restless, Miss Smith?”
“Anxious to be of use, as always.”
“Hm. And you, Jackson? Do you wish to be off soon as well? Is that why you’ve come here?”
“Yes and no. I will be off soon, but for my own reasons. I have not been to Seastorm Manor in over a year. And I wish to look into my father’s unfinished research.”
Uncle Henry rested his chin atop his clasped hands and studied Jackson with an unreadable gaze before shifting the same expression to Gwendolyn. Then back to Jackson. Then he leaned back and slapped a hand to the desk. “Excellent idea, Jackson. You and Miss Smith deserve a break, and she will enjoy Seastorm. I’m positive of it.”
“Oh, no.” Jackson jumped to his feet. “I wish to do this alone.”
Uncle Henry frowned. “Mrs. Limesby will attend as Gwendolyn’s chaperone, of course. But you cannot dive into my brother’s research alone. You are fully capable, but you lack Miss Smith’s eye for textual detail. You are perfection in the field, my boy, but without Miss Smith, your work is incomplete. You complement one another.”
Blast it. Hard to argue with the truth, and he’d never begged off Gwendolyn’s company and partnership before. To do so now would look odd. But the entire point of his plan was to gain some distance. For both of them. To find a space free of constant lust and longing, to figure out how to move forward. If they could move forward.
He sighed, a strangled sound. Uncle Henry, Incomparable Plan Ruiner.
Jackson stared out the window, tapping a foot on the floor. If his uncle was set on ruining his plans, he could bloody well help fix them. “Uncle, we all deserve a holiday. Why don’t you come along too? And Sarah and the children. That way Mrs. Limesby can have a holiday as well.”
“All of us?” He scratched his chin. “Not a terrible idea. And Mrs. Limesby told me just yesterday her sister has had a baby. She wouldn’t mind staying in London for a bit to be with her, I’m sure, and she can if Sarah and I are with you and Miss Smith. No need for a formal chaperone in that case. You would not mind?”
“Not at all.” Easier to avoid a person if you had others to speak with. “Besides, if I’m going to complete my father’s last book, your insight would be invaluable.”
“Mm.” Uncle Henry’s eyes brightened. “Yes. A history of Seastorm Manor and the surrounding area. You’ve seen the manuscript, then?”
Jackson crossed his arms over his chest. He’d left his parents’ belongings exactly as they had been. Hadn’t touched a thing in six years, not in any of his returns home. “I, um, no. I’ve not.”
“Your father was a suspicious fellow with his research. I never saw it, either. I admit I’m curious.”
Jackson had him. And his distraction.
Gwendolyn studied him with narrowed eyes and a tilted head for a mere moment then popped her attention back to Uncle Henry. “Must we all go? Jackson could bring the manuscript back.”
“Yes, we must all go.” The Uncle Henry of old had returned, the intrepid explorer who organized expeditions and journeys with precise detail and unwavering purpose. “If we’re going to finish the book for my brother, we need to be in the place he wrote it, see the sites he wrote about.”
“But, Lord Eaden”—Gwendolyn stuttered forward—“you have not traveled to any of theotherplaces we’ve researched recently. Since your marriage, you’ve left it all up to us. Jackson and I go alone, bring back the research, and you write of it. That is how we have learned to function in the last few years, and it is a process that works well. Look here.” She held up a letter. “The duchesse has asked us to return. I shall go to her, and Jackson shall go to Seastorm, and you can stay here and have all the lovely notes you wish.”
Uncle Henry tapped a finger on the desk. “No. You’ve gleaned all you can from the duchesss trunks and attics. We need something new. And this project has meaning for me. More than the others. Jackson is correct. We must do it as Carlisle would have wanted us to, by immersing ourselves in that which we’re writing of.” He strode across the room and clapped Jackson on the back. “Excellent idea, my boy.”
Jackson smiled, but his mind had caught like cloth on a thorn onCarlisle. Jackson had not heard his father’s name in years. He slipped his hand in his pocket to touch the warm metal of the pocket watch, ticking time down as always.
Gwendolyn’s chin dropped to her shoulder, the only acknowledgement of surrender she’d give Uncle Henry. “Of course, Lord Eaden.”
Jackson turned his back to the window. A return to Seastorm. With Gwendolyn in tow. Not the distance he’d hoped to put between them, nor the solitude he’d wanted. He raked a hand through his hair. What would it be like to see her there?
