Saving Persephone (The Haberdashers Book 4) (22 page)

* * *

Imogen was happy to be home. She teased her father about the few silver hairs that now peppered his hair and beard. She reminisced with him about his eccentric Irish mother and they held something of a small wake together, just the two of them and some of her father's finest Scotch. He apologized for not sending word to her in London, not wanting to cut her visit with Violetta short, and she didn't mention that she already knew. She enjoyed the sense of belonging that came of being the descendent of a clan, people who believed that familial connection was more important than anything else. She explored all of her favorite parts of the keep and walked along the highlands where cold winds were already blowing spits of snow showers.

It was, to her satisfaction, everything she had hoped for. Her heart was full and it was healing. When she thought of Robert Bittlesworth, it was with a fond regret. He had much to recommend him as a lover, but she never again wanted to be subject to the danger inherent in associating with him. If at times she awoke reaching out for someone who wasn't in her bed, if she still slept with a pillow over her side in the absence of an arm, that wasn't too surprising, was it? Someone else would come along who would distract her from the man she still fancied but couldn't have.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

That first day, Robert had nursed his wounds. Or rather, he let Charlie do so. The man was second only to a physician when it came to cuts and bruises, although he usually plied his skills on horses. Bobbins hovered worriedly. Sabre had, of course, descended on the house and fussed over him. She seemed to feel freer in expressing herself since returning from Normandy, something that was both amusing and infuriating. Perhaps facing her own potential death had left her thinking that she never wanted to go a minute without expressing her opinion. It was difficult not to turn on her like a wounded dog, but he was still pleased with the fact she had lived through the recent ordeal.

The next day, he made his way to the Telford household. This time he followed the formalities, with all the requisite waiting and announcement to his grace in the library.

The duke looked at him curiously. “Your sister isn't here. Should I be worried?”

Robert more than understood the duke's inherent distrust. “She and George are shopping, with three footmen and four outriders. I assume they are fine.”

The duke nodded. “Drink?”

Had he more natural levity, Robert would have chuckled. Having never before suffered the ignominy of such drunkenness or a hangover as he had the previous day, he found it hard to believe his friend Gideon had the tendency to imbibe as he did. He wasn't sure he would ever
want
a drink again. “Whatever you're having,” he said to be polite.

The duke turned to the sideboard and waved a hand to the nearby chairs. “Take a seat, Bittlesworth.”

Robert sat as the duke set to his task of pouring their drinks. Neither of them were the type to fill the air with empty words, so Robert looked around the room. He was quite familiar with it, but often looked at things with new eyes on purpose. There was a soaring ceiling and lovely scrollwork moldings set onto the plaster. Of particular entertainment to him, as this was one of the duke's favorite rooms, were the scenes of cherubim painted on the ceiling within scroll frames. Gideon's Angel, indeed.

The duke handed him the claret that Robert knew the duke preferred, and sat across from him, swirling his own wine in the glass. After a long enough silence that most people would begin to squirm, the duke finally asked, “What can I do for you?”

“I find myself in need of some advice.”

The duke's brows rose and he took a sip of his wine. “I would think that you would turn to Gideon for that.”

Now Robert did smile. “Gideon has a practical soul, and what I have to ask is remarkably impractical.”

“Well,” the duke said drily, “I'm glad you think to turn to me for impractical things.”

“I know you well enough to know that you value art over money, people over objects.”

“And that makes me impractical?” The duke sounded dubious.

“In this world it does.”

“Well, then ask me for this remarkably impractical advice.”

“How did you know you were in love?”

The duke laughed and looked towards the windows. “I doubt that my experience will be any more insightful than Gideon's.”

“But you have the language for it that he doesn't have.”

The duke looked at him again. “I didn't know that I was in love, not for the longest time. Nothing in my poetry, my art, had prepared me for it. It's not, for me at least, something that can be defined with even the most carefully chosen of words. It's far more elemental than that. More
necessary
. I know when she isn't in the house. I feel everything about her, like you might experience a breeze or the shining of the sun. I can't tell you how to know if you're in love. It was, for me, something I deduced.”

Robert tried to absorb the duke's words. On one level, they made a certain sense to him. But he struggled with the emotional timbre of the words. Perhaps he would have been better off asking Gideon.

The duke sighed. “It's simple in some ways. A terrible day with her is better than a good day apart from her. She means everything to me. I offered to give up my ducal seat so that we might marry.”

Robert was surprised. “She wouldn't want that.”

“So she said. But she knew I was determined not to give your father the satisfaction of his daughter becoming a duchess, so she offered to be my mistress instead.”

“She wouldn't like that role so well as being the duchess.”

The duke smiled again. “No, she wouldn't, would she? But ashamedly, I considered it for a moment. That was when I realized that nothing was more important to me than her. Not my pride, not my anger, certainly not my title.”

Robert rubbed his temple. “Thank you for being so forthright, but I think perhaps your relationship is different than mine.”

* * *

Quince had known Robert Bittlesworth for years, but he had never seen the man seem so young and out of his depth as he did right now. The confident and jaded young man that had first begun trolling the back alleys with Gideon years ago now seemed an innocent pup trying to solve a difficult math problem far beyond his ken. Quince had never thought that he would find himself in sympathy with the man, but apparently wonders would never cease.

Quince changed tacks. “What makes you suspect you're in love?”

That served to rouse Robert from his introspection. “I'm not acting myself.”

How interesting. Not
'I feel'
or
'I think'
, but an observation of his own behavior. “Well, then could there be any other explanation?” It felt suspiciously like tutoring one of the younger boys in school.

Robert leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “I thought of that. Perhaps Sabre's kidnapping was more upsetting than I'd realized, or perhaps even that business with Sims.”

Quince recalled the name of the former British agent who had tried to capture George Rokiczana for the Prussians. Upon mentioning Sims' name, Robert had begun rubbing his hands together absently, as one might do while washing them. “Whatever did happen to Sims?” Quince asked quietly.

That drew the younger man's attention back to him and the hands stilled. The look on Robert's face was suspiciously blank, his icy eyes not giving any hint of emotion. “I dealt with him.”

Quince almost shivered at the implications. Robert had once asked him if Quince thought that God judged more on intention or actions. It was clear that Robert had reason to wonder about it. “Did you speak to Miss Grant about Sims?”

That sent Robert's dark eyebrows down into a furrow. “No, why would I?”

Quince shrugged. “I am only trying to understand.”

“Of course I wouldn't talk to her about that. Not that she didn't sense something. She asked me if I was a soldier.” Robert gave a hollow laugh. “As though regimentals make it permissible to kill others.”

Quince needed very little reminder that Robert was a dangerous man. He wondered, in fact, if this was his role in life. To sit passively while violent, potentially mad men told him of their crimes. It was possible he was going to need another glass of wine. “Your sister said that Miss Grant has an uncommon insight into others.”

“She has some other sense that I can't even fathom.”

Quince suspected it was just called humanity, but held his tongue. Instead, he tried to see if the man was ready to see the truth of his heart. “But how do you
feel
about her?”

Those icy eyes again. “I don't know.”

Quince nodded and rose to his feet. “Give it time. It will become clear.”

Robert rose as well. “Thank you, your grace.”

Quince had only meant to fetch himself more wine, but it was clear that Bittlesworth was now avid to leave. As he wasn't entirely comfortable entertaining his sister's odd and dangerous brother, even if he was being more human that Quince had ever seen him, he nodded. “You're welcome.” Before his brother-in-law had quit the room he called, “Robert?”

“Yes, your grace?”

“You should call me Quince.”

“Thank you, Quince.”

* * *

His sister's favorite for a day, and now an invitation to address her husband by his given name. It wasn't that Robert was completely unused to positive reactions; it was that he usually elicited them by means of his charm. He could be exceptionally charming when he chose, but it was an effort he rarely wasted. If not through charm, then, how had he won such affections? When Robert saw an effect, he searched for a cause. He would typically run through all the options until one made the most sense. No matter how logical he meant to be, however, his mind returned to Imogen. Somehow she had changed things, at some elemental level that he hadn't yet fathomed. He wondered how she was, at her father's windswept castle. Descriptions of the keep and lands made it sound a bit desolate.

Unable to resolve his heart, he set to organizing what was left of his life instead.

In the space of a fortnight, Robert learned a lot about himself. Firstly, he learned that he detested being limited to a focus on his household accounts. Thinking to entertain himself with finance as Gideon did, he had spent more time on it. He had always had a knack for exploiting monetary opportunities. Few realized that he had bought the townhouse with his own money at the age of eighteen. He'd never taken so much as a farthing from his father beyond his education. Everything set up for his allowance was adding up in a large account overseen by his father's man of business.

But it was yet another lesson in how different he and Gideon could be. The damned man loved expanding his own wealth for no other reason than to expand it. To Robert it was all boring and irritating. When he wanted something he liked to take it. He was capable of negotiation, but thought it only worthy for work like brokering peace with another nation, not the decision of whether one party received five or six percent stake in something. At least when it wasn't his primary concern he would just make a decision and move on. Trying to focus on it made it annoying. He needed something
bigger
.

Second, he realized that he loved his siblings. That might not be shocking, he knew, but if someone had asked him prior to now, he would have used every other word
except
love. Loyalty, affection, commitment, caring, those were all fine. Now he realized they were all aspects of that one thing. Love. He found himself better able to enjoy them, with that knowledge. Charlie's playful wit. Sabre's outrageous arrogance. Somehow they had both managed to flourish in many ways that he hadn't. Invitations to family dinners no longer seemed an obligation to consider for strategic implications, but an opportunity to see them.

Lastly, the idea of Imogen Grant had taken up residence in his head. The duke, Quince, had told him to give it time, and in that time thoughts of her had taken root like a vine, wrapping through his mind in a way he thought it would be impossible to eradicate. Was this what Quince had meant by elemental? Rather than plan menus, he would think of her. Rather than sleep, he would think of her. As he had long ago cultivated the ability to think about more than one thing at once, he was always thinking of her.

The duke had been solicitous, inviting him twice to spar with swords. Robert had only been marginally suspicious that it was for the purposes of accidentally nicking him. Gideon, he suspected at the duke's prompting, had taken him and Charlie drinking for old time's sake, before taking Jack and the baby to Kellington. Robert was content to limit himself to two drinks and even Gideon was surprisingly restrained, stopping at four.

But underneath it all were the tendrils of Imogen Grant. He restrained himself from sending someone to spy on her. He might not have his position, but he still had contacts. He knew he could have it done.

Finally, he decided that Quince was right. Given time he
did
know. If he wasn’t in love, it was the closest thing he would ever feel to it. Something beyond attraction, beyond affection. He
missed
her. He wasn’t sure he had ever missed anyone before. Perhaps if he was with her, he could regain his ability to focus on something else.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

After a month, Imogen thought of Robert less and less. Then the dream had come. Even now, shaking off the gossamer of sleep, she would almost swear that her lover had been with her in this very bed. He had touched her, kissed her, brought her to the edge of completion. But in the way such dreams often had, he hadn't given her the satisfaction she craved. Still sleepy, she imagined her hands were his instead. She imagined him kissing and caressing her, spreading her thighs and bringing her to her peak while she begged to feel him inside her. She climaxed with the dream still lingering, imagining she could smell him, could feel him holding himself over her, close but not touching. Then she opened her eyes and confirmed that he wasn't there. Grabbing her pillow, she screamed into it.