by Kelly Bowen
“You’ve put thought into this.”
Eli leaned back against his desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “I should hope that was evident in my plans.”
The duke’s sharp blue eyes bored into his. Eli didn’t waver.
“Your sister has very generously offered her assistance, Your Grace. May I count on yours as well?” Eli asked, still not looking away.
“And if I said no?”
“Then I would do it anyway. Granted, it would likely not go as smoothly, and it would certainly take longer, but I would find a way.”
Holloway watched Eli for a moment more before he abruptly left the bookcase and returned to the desk, as if he had come to a decision. He stopped just shy of Eli.
“You will spend some time in Liverpool,” Holloway said. “I own two factories there that handle and weave raw cotton. Learn the processes, study the technology, and for God’s sake, hire someone trustworthy who knows how to maintain both.” He paused. “I can arrange for my foremen to take you on and show you what you need to know.”
“I’d be much obliged.”
“Don’t thank me yet. When you go, you will go only as Mr. Dawes, and you will do what they tell you. You can leave your fancy clothes and fancy manners in London. You will not be the earl of anything during your tenure there, or you won’t learn a damn thing.”
“I would expect no less.” Eli rather thought he was starting to like this duke.
“Over these next days, you will spend time with my man of business, my distributors, my builders, and at least one of my fleet captains to advise you on other matters related to this enterprise. Your research was thorough but incomplete in places. I’ve already spoken to these people, and they will be expecting you. My sister will best advise you on the building plans,” Holloway continued. “How you wish to set up the kitchens, gardens, sleeping quarters, and laundry. Common spaces and classrooms. All of that.”
“Of course.”
“I will be traveling to Dover on the morrow to join my wife,” the duke told him, and just like that, Eli’s stomach clenched, and his body went rigid. Dover. The wild isolation to which he had lost Rose. Damn it, he had to pull himself together. Holloway and Lady Anne were bending over backward to help him, and all he could think about was—
“Is there a problem, Rivers?” Holloway asked, his sharp eyes seemingly missing nothing.
“No.” Eli uncrossed his arms and forced his hands to relax.
“Is the timing not to your liking?”
“No, the schedule you have proposed is fine.”
“You having second thoughts about working with my sister? Me?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Ah.” The duke brushed an imaginary piece of lint from his sleeve. “Then perhaps you have a message you’d like me to take to Miss Hayward in Dover?”
Eli tried not to react. “I beg your pardon?” What the hell did Holloway know about what existed between Rose and himself? Or, more accurately, what didn’t exist?
“My sister indicated that you and Miss Hayward are close. That it was Rose with whom you’ve spent the bulk of your time since your unexpected return. And that it was she who encouraged you to develop this.” He tapped a long finger on the surface of the leather folder. “I must assume that her return to Avondale has left you…out of sorts?”
Eli pushed himself away from his desk and circled it to put more space between Holloway and himself. As if that pitiful distance could keep this man from peering right through him and could give him space to think. “Miss Hayward has been a good friend since my return to England.”
“Then you’re a lucky man,” the duke commented. “She doesn’t trust easily.”
“Yes. I am lucky.” Eli wasn’t sure if that had come out with the detachment he was aiming for.
“There is nothing that you’d like me to pass along? Nothing you wish to say?” Holloway prompted again.
Perhaps Eli hadn’t succeeded in hiding his sorrow. Or perhaps the duke was just being polite.
Eli thought of the pile of unsent letters addressed to Rose stacked in his desk drawer that attested to just how much he wanted to say. Letters that he would never send because, even when he had told Rose how he felt—that he loved her—face-to-face, it hadn’t been enough. Sending them now would be pointless.
Not that he would ever tell that to a man he barely knew, no matter how benevolent he might be.
“Perhaps you could ask Miss Hayward if she might consider attending the Duke of Stannis’s ball with me,” Eli replied, even knowing as he said it that it would change nothing. But he had to say something.
A dark brow lifted. “Ah. The ball being held in your honor. Yes, I heard about that. All of society will be there. Anyone who is anyone. I understand that some people are even coming back to London from their summer estates for the occasion.”
All except one. All except the only one who really matters.
“I also heard that you saved Stannis’s son.”
“A series of fortunate circumstances in the chaos of war. Nothing more,” Eli said. He had no interest in getting into a discussion about what had happened on that field.
“Now, that is not how I heard it told.”
Eli shrugged. What difference did it make? The end result was all that mattered. “You’ll pass on my message to Miss Hayward?” He tried to steer the conversation away from Waterloo.
“No.”
“I’m sorry?”
“No, I’m not going to ask Rose to do something that she cannot,” Holloway said, his brows drawing together. “It serves no purpose.”
“You mean something that she will not,” he mumbled.
“You have no idea, do you, Rivers?”
“No idea about what?” Confusion was competing with irritation.
Holloway picked up a decorative glass paperweight, turning it over in his hand in careful contemplation. “In my wife’s last letter, she relayed that it appeared that you had come to care deeply for Rose, and she for you. And Anne told me that the Silver Swan, or at least its dining room, was in danger of going up in flames with the way you two were looking at each other.” He held the weight up to the light. “So I am going to tell you this because I have to believe you have Rose’s best interests at heart.”
“Of course I do,” Eli said with a frown, thinking that the duke sounded suspiciously like Strathmore.
“Rose Hayward hasn’t gone to a fashionable London event in five years. Balls, assembly rooms, dinners, any affair really, that is infested with the titled and entitled crowd you were once so popular with.”
Eli stared at him with incomprehension. “I don’t understand.”
Holloway set the paperweight down with a muted thump. “You are aware of the horrific publication that came out not long after—”
“Yes,” Eli interrupted shortly. “I’m aware.”
“And are you aware of the treatment she endured after?”
“She told me.” But Eli was beginning to wonder if she had told him everything.
“It had a profound effect on her.”
“But that was a long time ago. Surely, she—”
“She freezes in those crowds now. Gets nauseous, goes pale and shaky, is often short of breath, and can barely focus. It’s as if a debilitating anxiety overwhelms her. She avoids them at all costs.”
“That’s impossible.” The Rose he knew, who was so full of conviction, was totally at odds with what the duke was describing. That was not his Rose, his unyielding Viking warrior. That was not his Rose, his pillar of unwavering strength and courage.
You’re shaking. He’d held her hand in that carriage until she’d snatched it away.
And he hadn’t reached for her again.
“She’s not proud of it,” Holloway said. “Deeply ashamed, in fact, if I’m going to be blunt.”
Eli was still struggling to understand. “But it was Rose who took me out to dinner at the Silver Swan. To meet your sister.”
“But her involvement with Haverhall—”
“My wife is the face of Haverhall. She handles the school’s clients. Even the initial applications for the summer program. Rose simply plays a very minor role, most of which is limited to Avondale.”
“I…” He trailed off. He had no idea what to say.
“She’s not a recluse, Rivers. She’s a woman who has chosen to surround herself only with people whom she trusts. A woman who has dealt with her own private wounds in the best way she knows how. I can’t condone or condemn what she has done because who am I to judge how anyone keeps themselves whole?”
Eli sat abruptly in his chair, a dull drone filling his ears.
“The private wound is the deepest.”
It had been Linfield who had said that to Eli, and Eli had agreed. But he had been focused on himself at the time, and when Rose had said the same thing, though in not so many words, he hadn’t heard her.
I can’t go where you’re going.
Those were the words that she had said to him, though she had tried. Tried to do what he had asked of her. The truth of it all had been there for him to hear if only he’d been listening. He had accused her of hiding. But what he had really been accusing her of was surviving in the only way she knew how.
I don’t love you.
He ran a hand over his face. There was a horrible, gut-wrenching certainty that what she had actually meant was, I can’t love you.
Rose had helped him regain everything that he had believed lost. Given him everything that was in her power to give to make him the man who was sitting behind this damn desk at this moment. And in return he had left her behind when it mattered most. He thought he might be ill.
The duke cleared his throat. “Perhaps you’d like to reconsider the message you’d like me to bring to Miss Hayward, if any?”
“Yes,” Eli managed.
“Very good. I’ll be leaving at nine on the morrow. You have until then.” The duke’s tone was curt but not unkind, and Eli was grateful for it.
He nodded, not trusting himself to say anything.
“There is one other issue of import that should be addressed before I depart,” Holloway said, the topic of Rose Hayward apparently concluded. The duke reached for the rolled sheaf of paper and drew the leather tie from it, and a map of London spilled across the surface of the desk. “Acquiring the land needed for such an operation. I noted that you did not name a location in your plan.”
Eli forced himself to pay attention to the duke’s words. “I don’t have one yet. I will need to purchase the land.”
Holloway pulled the map toward him. “You’ll be best served by a waterway for bringing in raw materials. A location with reasonable access to both the canal and road systems if you intend to distribute. You’ll need a sizable parcel of land to support both the industrial and domestic buildings, and that land additionally needs to be of a quality that can sustain small agriculture.” He stabbed a finger at a point on the map. “This section of land would be perfect,” he said grimly.
Eli followed the duke’s finger and found it planted on a location just outside the boundaries of London, one side running along the Thames, the thick web of roads immediately to the south and east of London almost touching the outer perimeters of the piece. Holloway, or maybe someone else, had circled it in red ink.
“You don’t sound pleased,” Eli remarked. “Is it occupied?”
“By hedgehogs and crickets and weeds,” Holloway grumbled. “I’ve tried to buy it myself numerous times. But the stubborn sod who owns it refuses to sell. To me or anyone else. He’s not stupid. He knows the potential of it just as well as I.”
“Who owns it?”
The duke gave him a long look. “The Duke of Stannis.”
Eli stared at the red ink that enclosed the land, like a circular rivulet of blood that had spilled across the paper.
“I’ll have a word with Stannis tomorrow,” he said.
Holloway nodded in knowing satisfaction. “I thought you might say that.”
* * *
Eli trudged up the stairs toward his bedroom, the house dark and silent around him.
The Duke of Holloway had left hours ago, but Eli had stayed at his desk. He couldn’t say he had achieved anything, other than staring at the paper in front of him, watching ink blots form as he tried to put his scattered, fevered thoughts to paper. The candles at his elbow had finally burned down to nothing, and Eli had been left sitting in the dark, acrid smoke curling around his head.
He’d gathered the bundle of letters from his desk drawer, the latest attempt on top, and shuffled, exhausted, out of his study. He had no idea what he could say to Rose. What he could say to her to make her believe that he finally understood. Make her believe that his love for her, a love that had survived so much, for so long, would survive this too.
He reached the partially open door of his bedroom, and a chilled breeze lifted the hair on his forehead. Eli froze. The windows in his bedroom were never left open at night. Every window was locked at sundown, something that his father had always insisted upon and that Eli hadn’t bothered to change. He stepped silently to the side, the only illumination coming from the gaslights in the square below.
Someone had been, or was still, in his room.
Silently Eli pushed the door open, every muscle in his body tensed, but the room was seemingly empty, any thieves or intruders long gone. Eli shoved the door wider, then tossed the letters on his bed and retrieved the poker leaning against the empty hearth. He moved forward silently, listening hard, but nothing stirred. With efficient motions he lit the candle on the washstand, both reluctant and anxious to discover what was missing.
A quick perusal of the room showed that nothing seemed disturbed. He held the candle above his head with one hand and the poker with the other and approached the shadows of his dressing room.
And froze as he saw the woman.
She was nude from the waist up, her skin the palest ivory in the soft light, a strand of white pearls draped around her neck. A robe of rich garnet was draped over her legs, and she had turned slightly to gaze at herself in a mirror.
Eli set his candle down with fingers he realized were trembling and approached the painting. It was a long time before he remembered to breathe. It was even longer before he realized that there was a folded card propped on the top of the canvas.
Slowly Eli reached for the card, the tiny emblem of the crown visible on the front. He turned it over, smoothing it flat with his fingers and reading the precise, eloquent words.
I have chosen to offer this piece to you, Lord Rivers, because the narrative of it seems to suit you more than any other. By my doing so, I trust that you have come to understand what you possess.
Underneath those words a number had been scrawled. The price, Eli realized, of this painting. Which he would pay. Because whatever value King had assigned to this canvas was irrelevant.
This painting represented something far more priceless.
Chapter 21
Thinking of swimming?”
Rose closed her eyes and then opened them. “No.”
Clara came to stand beside her, shading her eyes with her hand and peering out at the mouth of the cove. There was a ship anchored just beyond the entrance today, its dark color standing out in stark relief from the brilliant blue of the sea and the sky beyond.
“Perhaps you should. It would be better than what you are doing now.”
Rose glanced at her sister. “And just what, exactly, am I doing now?”
“You tell me.”
Rose focused her gaze back on the ship, another wave of the never-ending sadness swelling and pulling her under again despite her best efforts. She had thought retreating to Dover would make leaving him easier. Instead it had made it harder. Becau
se everywhere she looked in this place were memories of Eli Dawes.
“I’m enjoying the scenery,” she said dully.
Clara bent and picked up a stone, turning it over in her fingers. “You’re not enjoying anything. You’re miserable. You’ve been miserable since you returned from London.”
Rose remained silent, arguing pointless. She might be able to hide her unhappiness from her students, but not from her sister.
“This morning, Harland finally asked me what happened between the two of you,” Clara said. “You and Rivers.”
Rose watched the waves as they raced forward and receded. Apparently she hadn’t fooled her brother either. “What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. Because you haven’t said anything to me.” Clara threw the stone in her hand into the foaming surf and turned to Rose. “But you should know that Harland is probably sharpening his knives and bone saws right now.”
Rose tried to smile and failed.
“What happened?” Clara asked. “Because whatever Rivers did to make you so unhappy—”
“He told me that he loved me,” Rose blurted before she could reconsider.
The only discernable reaction that let Rose know Clara had heard her was a minute arch of her brow. “Indeed?”
“And then he asked me to marry him.”
“I see.” Clara’s perfectly composed face betrayed nothing. “And what did you tell him?”
Rose looked away from Clara, back at the relentless curl of the water against the beach. “I told him I couldn’t marry him.”
“Ah. And the other?”
“The other?”
“Did you also tell him that you didn’t love him?”
“Yes.”
“You lied.”
Rose kept her eyes fixed firmly on the water, unable to meet Clara’s gaze. “Yes.”
Above them the gulls wheeled and shrieked.
Clara bent, and it was a moment before Rose realized her sister had discarded her half boots and that she was in the process of unlacing her day dress.