“Thank you, Mrs. Whitlock.” He turned to leave.
“Oh, Mr. Cavendish. What was it you wished to tell me?”
“I… quite forgot.” He’d come to make sure the housekeeper was no threat to Gwendolyn, and he could confidently say she was not. At least not in any way he could see.
He slipped from the drawing room and ambled aimlessly back toward the study. More staff to interview, a deuced missing book to find.
“Jackson?” Sarah’s voice floated to him from the stairway. She stood, holding onto the railing, and studied him with a tilt of her head, just the way he’d seen her look at a book she was trying to figure out. “How does it go? With the research?”
“Horrid.” He laughed.
“Shall I tell Henry to work harder?”
“Not at all. Gwendolyn and I can handle the mystery, no matter how opaque it becomes.”
“Of course you can.” She crept closer to him. “I was just in the portrait gallery. To see your parents’ portraits. I am glad I ran into you so I can judge whom you most resemble.”
“My father, assuredly.”
“Hm.” She studied his face. “Yes, in the most obvious ways. But I see your mother in your cheekbones and the slant of your eyes. Am I prying? Peering at you and your family so sternly? I would have liked to meet your parents very much.”
He leaned against the wall with a sigh. “You may certainly pry. It’s what aunts do.”
“Is it? Excellent. Then allow me to say how well you look here at Seastorm. You fit quite perfectly.”
He raised a brow. “Do I?”
“Oh yes. Have you ever considered planting some roots and letting them grow?”
He laughed. “I’m not a gardener, Aunt Sarah. I’m a traveler.” He scrubbed his palms over his face. “Though I’ve been a bit weary of late. And Seastorm is rather rejuvenating. That must account for the bloom you see in my cheeks.” He patted his cheeks with a grin.
She chuckled. “Weary though so young. Yes. Experience can do that to a person.” She patted his cheek too. “I am glad you are not working too hard here, that you are allowing yourself to rest.”
“Uncle Henry lucked out when he scooped you up, Aunt Sarah.”
Her chuckle turned full laugh. “It was less luck and more calculated premeditation. I was the lucky one. Do you know… you remind me so very much of him.”
Jackson scoffed, rolled his gaze to the ceiling.
“It’s true. Not just your looks. Or your intelligence. You’re both lions of a sort, you know. Don’t scoff, young man. I say again, it’s true. But more than hair and eyes, you’re alike in soul and heart. You’ve both suffered so you do not like others to suffer. You both crave home but avoid it.”
“Avoid?” He spread his arms wide. “I’m here, am I not? I visit now and again.”
She cupped her hand to his cheek. “You are here, and as I said, I see it is doing you good, as returning home did for Henry. But if you stay, it might do you even better.” She flashed an impish smile.
“I can’t very well do that, or we shall all lose our reputations as explorers. Uncle, Gwendolyn, and I.”
“Explorers of the world, perhaps. But you’ll become even more astute explorers of the heart. An infinitely more complicated topography.” She patted his cheek again, a move that reminded him so much of his mother, his heart crumpled in on itself. “Good night, Jackson.”
“Good night, Aunt Sarah.” Mumbled into the still air as she slipped into the room she shared with his uncle.
He strode back to the study and rested his shoulder against it the door that connected with the library, listening for Gwendolyn inside. Nothing but shuffles of feet and rustling of paper. He sighed and sat at his father’s desk and settled into the chair with a half-sigh, half-groan sound. His gaze fell on the painting Gwendolyn had made for him of Seastorm, saturated in fairy lights, purples and pinks and deep blues, a dawn with stars still bright in the sky, a sun rising but a moon high above.
Perfection.
He lost track of time looking at it and thinking of the wild continent of the heart—dark and unknown, open and bleeding, the home at journey’s end.
Ten
