Carefully, she asked, “What do you think that one job is?”
“To keep the peace, to make sure everything moves smoothly. No ripples, no waves. No capsized boats.”
“None at all? For anyone? That seems an impossible task.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Very well, then.” She wanted to make him laugh again, to make his rugged face once more glow with the joy of living. “Can you tell me what you’re making in your woodshop? I spied on you one day, and I saw you working on something. It looks like a picture frame.”
“Naughty girl,” he mumbled.
“You know me well.” She kissed his temple.
He winced. “Itisa picture frame. I made it for John and Evie and the children. John is going to have a portrait made after the wedding. All five of them together. And I think he wants to have individuals made as well. And one of him and Evie. I’m making frames for all of them.”
“What about you? Will you not be in any of the portraits?”
“Of course not.”
“But you’re part of the family.”
He shrugged. And that small lift and fall of his shoulder sliced through her like a blade.
She moved on to his other hand, ministered to the knuckles there. With his other hand—now clean though still bruised and battered—he traced the pads of his fingers down her cheek.
“Beatrice.” Her name a soft, warm whisper edged with some emotion she did not like a bit. “I’m sorry for fighting you. We will do as you wish. The house in London. I’ll travel there as often as I can manage. Perhaps once a month. I cannot lie… I want to fall asleep with you teasing me and wake wrapped around you every damn day. I want to watch you weave connections between men and countries with a flick of your quill across parchment and wait patiently until you stretch and yawn, to pick you up and carry you to our bed. I want to see you in that little garden beyond the study at dawn, noon, and midnight, winter, spring, and autumn. I want you for more than a moment… With snow in your hair and sun on your face. But if a moment is all you can give, I will take it with both hands and protect it. Be happy for it. I just want to make you happy.”
Finished cleaning his wounds, she kissed him lightly on the lips. “I must return. I’ll see you tomorrow. For the wedding.”
He nodded. She kissed his cheek, and then she left, her mind too full of so many things she wanted to say that she couldn’t say a single one. She’d have to sort through them tonight and, just as she did with her contracts, find the perfect words. This time for translating the feelings of her heart.
He just wanted somewhere to belong, someone to belong to, who would be proud of him instead of hide him, who would trust him. And she had denied him that. Why?
It was not that she scorned marriage. No.
She was afraid that if she loved someone enough to marry them, they would leave her. Afraid she would give everything, and find he no longer wanted it. Not even her father had loved her enough to stay. How could any other man?
But Richard wasn’t any other man. Certainly nothing like her father.
And as she clenched her hands to better keep the feel of his imprint on her palms and fingertips, she decided not to be scared anymore.
Fourteen
Richard never knocked on John’s study door. Usually he walked right in, as secure in his place there as he was in… not much else. But today he knocked. John had gone in earlier, but he was due at the church in less than an hour. He’d leave soon, and he was alone now, and that was just how Richard needed him. Richard knocked again.
This time, John said, “Come in.”
Richard did, shutting the door softly behind him. He locked eyes with his brother.
“I was wrong,” they said at the same time.
Something coiled too tight in Richard relaxed, and he fell into the low settee by the fireplace. John joined him, slumping into a seat and stretching his legs out long. “Need a drink?”
“No. You?”
John shook his head. “Do you know where he is?”
“No. Apologies. Again. I should have made sure he returned to Bell House with me.”
