Lord of Fates: A Complete Historical Regency Romance Series (3-Book Box Set)

by K. J. Jackson

  Wynne’s voice caught and she had to wipe a tear from her lower lashes. Out the corner of her eye, she saw Rowen watching her intently. She rushed on. “And by the end of that story, the duchess—her eyes—it was the heartbreak of crushed innocence. That the world could be cruel, and move on, and not acknowledge her despair. I believe it was when she first realized that what she wanted—what she loved—was insignificant. And that is something she has obsessed about—battled against her entire life.”

  “Yes, well, we were all innocent once.” Rowen’s words came out clipped and cold.

  Wynne blinked at the harshness in his voice and looked up at him, only to see his face had set hard, his eyes on the canvas.

  She knew she was close enough to him that he couldn’t help but notice she was staring at him, but he refused to meet her gaze.

  Her brow creased. This land, these people were so very different than the mountain folk she had known—even what she remembered of New York. People who said what they wanted to without reservation. She was quickly finding out that polite society was not so polite here in England, if this household was any indication.

  “Some of this is very...dark,” Rowen said, his voice softening. “It would be jarring to the unprepared eye.”

  “Yes, well the duchess is dark. It is all around her. There are a few spots of happiness, but not many.” Wynne looked at the portrait, her eyes scanning the edges around the duchess. The face of her newborn son swirled into the dark black-reds of drapery. The ship she had dreamt of seeing the world in. The corset that stole a child from her womb. The grave of her mother she refused to see buried.

  Wynne shook her head, washing her mind free of the duchess’s memories. “My instructors in New York would always paint over my backdrops before they were delivered. They never believed people would want to look inside themselves that deeply.”

  “Was that difficult—watching your work destroyed?”

  Wynne shrugged. “It should have been, but it was not. I never minded—so many secrets need to remain secrets.”

  She stepped forward, pulling the white cloth forward to drop before the portrait. Rowen did not stop her this time. “But my grandfather would never allow me to paint over what I had created—he was steadfast in his belief that more people needed to acknowledge what makes them what they are—both the good and bad.”

  “Where do you fall in your belief?” Rowen asked.

  “I honestly do not know. I understand both sides. I am just a conduit, trying to represent these souls in the best way I can.” She looked up at him, startled by his eyes boring into her again. “How about you—where does your belief land?”

  “You will never paint me, Wynne. That is where my belief falls.”

  “To live the unexamined life?”

  “As you said yourself, some secrets should remain secrets. And some memories should remain untouched. That does not mean it is unexamined.”

  Her eyebrows arched as she turned from him, going to a simple wooden table with a bowl of water on it. She started to scrub the tips of her fingers, matted with dried paint.

  Rowen followed, stopping by the table, knuckles resting on the wood. “You disagree?”

  “I do not know how one can find peace in the present, without finding peace with the past. That is all.”

  “Are you sure about that, Wynne? You yourself have memories your mind will not even allow you to acknowledge right now,” Rowen said. “Yet you seem at peace. Do you honestly think you cannot remember what happened to you because it was something good? You cannot remember how you got in that forest for a reason, Wynne.”

  “Stop.” She slammed her hand in the bowl, sending water flying. Breath suddenly hard, she glared up at him. “Do not make the mistake of thinking I am at peace, Rowe. I have no idea where my mother is. What happened to her. What happened to me to send me into a barren forest.”

  She stepped closer to him, craning her neck upward to still meet his eyes. “So do not make that mistake. You have no idea…” She took a deep breath, shaking. “No idea how lost I am. How I am pretending.”

  His hand came up, landing on her cheek, his fingers wrapping along her chin. She expected harshness in return from him, but it was the gentlest touch, and she couldn’t pull away from it.

  “You will remember, Wynne.” Rowen’s voice was just above a whisper. “I forgot. I forgot how desperate you are. You will remember. I know it.”

  His words, so soft, so sure, took all her sudden angst, blowing it to the winds. The only thing Wynne could do was nod her head.

  Nod, and pray he was right.

  ~~~

  Rowen stood, staring up at the high stone wall before him. He looked down at the list on the paper he had set by his feet, then back up at the three stories high wall. He was supposed to be calculating how much work it would take to re-mortar the wall and fix the crumbling stone, or if it would be better to tear this room and this part of the castle down as well.

  He would like to keep it intact, for if he took this wall, he would have to remove this entire section of the castle up to the tower. And his plans already included tearing down more than half the castle—not that he had shared that with the dowager duchess yet.

  But his mind wandered to Wynne again, just as it had insisted on doing repeatedly in the last day and a half since he had seen her in what he had begun to think of as the painting room.

  He was impressed with her skill, but more than that, he was impressed with the depth of her thoughts. And unnerved by them.

  She took way too much in, saw too much, heard too much—and that could only be doing her mind harm. Harm when she should be concentrating on getting her memory back.

  More than once in the last week, he had walked by the painting room deep in the night, only to see a flickering light from within. Once, Wynne was scrunched up sideways on a short bench, sleeping. Another, she was slumped over the table, her face on a sketch and her hand still gripping charcoal.

  She had a perfectly comfortable bedroom two doors away, but the woman didn’t understand the concept of walking ten steps to sleep properly on a bed.

  Rowen closed his eyes from the stone, only to have the image that had been haunting him flash in his mind.

  The utter despair on Wynne’s face when he had inadvertently pushed her too far sat heavy on his conscience. Heavy, for he had caused it. She had acclimated so easily to life in the castle and to painting the duchess—and he hadn’t seen her for more than a few minutes here and there—that he hadn’t realized how much she had been covering up.

  He heard her boot steps, echoing light on the stone floor behind him, before he heard her voice.

  “Does this room come down as well?”

  He turned to her. A simple mauve muslin dress swished around her legs, her shoulders and arms draped with a black shawl that she held tightly to her chest. Her dark blond hair was pulled into a singular thick braid that came over her left shoulder.

  “Taking a break from the duchess?”

  Wynne smiled as she came to a stop next to him, looking down at the paper on the floor. “She sat for a few hours with me early this afternoon, but was not feeling well. Even Pepe could not draw a smile from her. So she retreated to her rooms, and I needed to escape the paints for a stretch.”

  “It is good to know you can remove yourself on occasion from your work.”

  “You have noticed I have trouble doing so? I am like that—I especially lose time in the middle of a painting like this.”

  She looked up at the stone wall before them, reaching out and rubbing her paint-stained forefinger on the mortar between the stones. It crumbled at her touch, chunks falling to the ground.

  “Why do you want to tear down the castle, Rowe? Truly?”

  “So the duchess has gotten to you?”

  She looked up at him, her hazel eyes showing strikes of blue in the sunlight coming from the windows opposite them. “This place has a lot of history. History that is important to the title
, or so I have gathered.”

  Rowen swallowed an outward sigh, his spine straightening. “Or so you have been told. I do appreciate the fact that you have kept the duchess very busy, and for the most part, out of my affairs here at the castle. But do not insert yourself into this, Wynne.”

  Her eyes narrowed at him. “That is the true reason you have me doing her portrait? To keep her away from haranguing you?”

  “Partially, yes.”

  “And the other part?”

  “To give you a purpose that does not involve wandering the woods lost and prey to the unscrupulous. I admit your painting of the duchess solved two of my problems.”

  Her fingers gripped her wrap, pulling it taut across her shoulders as she clasped her arms. Her bottom lip was very close to jutting out in a pout. “I did not know you saw me as a problem.”

  “No, Wynne. You are not the problem—but your current situation is—that, you cannot deny.”

  She shrugged. Her eyes left him and went to the window over his shoulder. “You have not answered the question. Why do you truly want to tear down the castle? Is it revenge?”

  Rowen almost sputtered. “Revenge?” He shook his head. “Do not believe everything she tells you, Wynne.”

  “Why not? She is the only one that has told me anything of this place, of the family.”

  “Can you not see when you are being manipulated, Wynne?”

  Her hazel eyes fixated on him. “I know the duchess has told me things to try to convince me to convince you not to tear it down. But you are the one that has put me in the middle of whatever warfare you have going on with the duchess. And you are not above manipulation as well, Rowe. You have used me to keep the duchess away from you. At least she has been honest about what she would like me to do.”

  “Honest in her lies? What has she told you, Wynne?”

  “She believes you have no regard for the title, for all that it has produced over the past three hundred years. That the history of this place—what your lineage has meant to England—is more important than the coins it would cost to repair the structure. That this place deserves respect. That you are doing this to spite her for past deeds done.” Wynne’s head tilted as she looked at him. “This is her home, and she sees herself as safeguarding the castle for future generations—not just to fight you or to cause you grief. Which is what you seem to be intent on doing to her.”

  Rowen held in a growl. “So you believe it should stand as well? That I should put lives at risk?”

  “Lives at risk? Of course not. But there are other ways. And the duchess has spent her life devoted to preserving the history of the title, of this place, for her son.”

  “Exactly—for her son.” His words came out biting. “Not for a near-bastard child she has hated from birth.”

  “What?” Shock vibrated across Wynne’s features. “Near-bastard? What are you talking about Rowe?”

  “No.” He stepped away from her, picking up the paper and ink and quill from the stone floor. “I will not give you fodder to use against me.”

  “What? Fodder to use against you? What? Rowe—I would never—”

  He stood straight, whipping to her. “Never what Wynne? Disagree with me? Side against me? You would not? What are you doing right now, Wynne? Questioning decisions I have made. Decisions I have every right to make, and you have no right to question.”

  Her brow furrowed in complete confusion. “But the duchess—”

  “Dammit, Wynne. I do not want to hear another word about the damn dowager. I do not want to hear another word from you. I have had this argument with the dowager too many times, and I sure as hell am not going to have it with you, Wynne. Not with you.”

  “But—”

  “Do not do this, Wynne.” He shook his head, sighing as he looked upward to the ceiling. “You. You I thought…”

  “You thought what, Rowe?”

  His eyes dropped to her. He saw the confusion—genuine concern—clear on Wynne’s face.

  But he was not about to explain.

  Not about to explain the years of maliciousness he had suffered under the duchess.

  Not about to explain that, in Wynne, he thought he had finally come across a person that he did not have to explain himself to—to validate himself to. That Wynne just liked him for him—trusted him for him.

  No, he was not about to explain that to her.

  He shook his head, his voice defeated. “It is of no concern, Wynne. What I thought does not matter. I was wrong. Excuse me.”

  Ignoring her open mouth about to speak, Rowen walked past her and out the door.

  { Chapter 6 • Worth of a Duke }

  Wynne stared at the shadows under the dark canopy above her. Flat on her back, her hand sat on her belly, holding it, as it had not been right since her encounter with Rowen hours ago. Even if his last words to her were soft, he had left angry—that much she knew.

  What she didn’t know was how she had managed to bungle so completely what was supposed to be just a gentle conversation about the castle. She wanted to hear his side of the story, but instead, it had turned into an argument before she even knew what was happening.

  She had always been so good at walking a line with people, skirting up to anger, but always able to back off and placate someone before they exploded.

  But not with Rowen. With Rowen she didn’t have a sense of when to stop. When to leave him be. She wanted to know him, but he continued to be mystery upon mystery—and she pushed too hard for it. It drove her to madness that she would see tiny snippets of who he really was, but then he would erect a guard and she never saw a full picture of him.

  She turned over in bed, trying once more to fall asleep. Trying to push Rowen out of her mind. To push his eyes, the low sound of his voice, the heat of him when he was near her, out of her mind. She hadn’t slept in the bed for a few nights, and the luxury of not having a cricked neck in the morning was something she knew she shouldn’t pass on.

  The knock on the door startled her, and Wynne sat upright just before her bedroom door swung open.

  “Good, you are awake.”

  “Duchess?” Wynne swung her legs from under the covers and stood up. She could see in the moonlight the duchess was terrified. “What is wrong?”

  “Pepe—Pepe is gone. It is the full moon. He scratched at my bedroom door for too long, so I took him down, thinking he just wanted to run for a moment.” Her voice shook. “But he ran. He ran and he has not come back.”

  Wynne grabbed the duchess’s flailing hands. “Where did he run to? Has he done this before?”

  “Yes, he runs, but he always comes back within a few minutes. Always.” Her hands captured, the duchess still jerked them in agitation. “I am so frightened. He is all I have and I cannot lose him.”

  “How long has he been gone for?”

  “Two hours. I have been waiting downstairs. I do not know what to do. No one here would care. No one would help. No one knows how much he means to me.”

  “I know.” Wynne squeezed her hands. “I know, and I will go look for him.”

  The relief in the duchess was so palpable she almost crumbled to her knees. “Truly? Thank…thank you.”

  Wynne guided the duchess to sit on the edge of the bed. She dropped the duchess’s hands and went to the closest dress, slipping it over her head, and then swung her black cape over her shoulders before getting her boots on. Without thought, she grabbed her grandfather’s hunting knife, sliding it into place in its inside pocket in her cape.

  The duchess sat, agitated and wringing her hands as Wynne got ready.

  Wynne gave her a bright smile. “I am sure Pepe has not gone too far. Let us stop by the kitchens for some meat, and then bring me to where you let him out. He loves the treats, so I am sure his nose will find me long before I find him.”

  ~~~

  The hand on Rowen’s bare shoulder squeezed tightly, shaking him. Shaking him so hard he thought for a split second he was on the continent, years ago
, needing to wake and move from enemy lines once more.

  “LB. Wake up. L.B.”

  Pulling him from the deep of sleep, the last voice in the world he wanted to hear was in his ear. A nightmare.

  “L.B.” A slap on his face. “Wake up.”

  Rowen jerked upright.

  The dowager hovered over him. “I need your help, L.B. For heaven’s sake put a proper shirt on and get out of bed.” She turned on her heel and walked out of his room.

  Rowen rubbed his eyes, looking around the room. Still the middle of the night. He hadn’t drawn his drapes, and the full moon that had been high in the sky hours ago now sat above the treetops.

  Was he awake? Had the duchess just been in here?

  His door opened, and the dowager stuck her head into the room. “No time to waste, L.B. Clothes.” The door snapped shut.

  Rowen shook his head, swinging his legs off the bed and standing. What the hell did the dowager need from him in the middle of the night? She had never in her entire life needed his help, and now she suddenly needed him under the light of the moon? And why in the world would she even think he would help her with anything? Bizarre.

  Against his gut telling him to get back into bed, Rowen rose and put his clothes on. Better to just find out what she needed than to have her pestering him until morning.

  Quickly dressed in a white shirt, buckskin breeches and boots, Rowen opened the door.

  The moonlight from his room illuminated the duchess, standing in her robe, her arms crossed and foot tapping as she glared up at him. “That was not with haste, L.B.”

  “What do you want, Duchess?”

  “Miss Theaton is gone.”

  Rowen’s eyes popped wide awake. “What? What do you mean she is gone?” He and Wynne had argued, sure, but she wouldn’t leave over something so simple, would she?

  “She went after Pepe. He ran off into the woods hours ago, and I was worried. So she went after him. She should have been back by now.”

  “Which woods?”

  The duchess shook her head, not willing to answer him.