hair smelled of soap. The years disappeared. They were chums again. He was Rendell Graham once more. He belonged. His hold tightened as he felt her strength, her comfort, her essential goodness. Strands of her hair tickled his chin. He had forgotten its vibrancy. He had forgotten its luminosity. He had forgotten how she seemed to impart her own light, so that she more closely resembled angels in a church window than flesh and blood.
And he had forgotten also how she made his senses swim, how he wanted both to protect her above all things and yet also to hold her, to press her to him, to take that which he did not deserve, breaking his word—
‘Excuse me, my lord.’ Dobson entered the hall, clearing his throat.
Ren stiffened, stepping back abruptly. ‘Don’t!’ he said. ‘That is my brother’s name.’
‘I am—um—sorry—my—Master Rendell, sir.’
Ren exhaled. It was not this man’s fault that he had called him by a name he did not merit. ‘Yes?’
‘There are a number of matters we must discuss,’ Dobson said.
‘Very well, I will see you in the study shortly.’
Dobson left. Ren glanced at this slight woman...his wife. She was as beautiful as he remembered—more so since her body had rounded slightly so that she looked less waif and more woman. Her skin was flushed, but still resembled fine porcelain and she held herself with a calm grace and composure.
He’d tried to paint her once. It had not worked. He had not been able to get that skin tone, that luminosity. Of course, that was back when he still painted.
‘I am sorry,’ Beth said, angling her head and looking at him with eyes that couldn’t see yet saw too much. ‘Is there anything I can do to help you or your mother?’
‘No,’ Ren said, briskly. ‘No. You should not be wasting your time with us. Jamie will need you. He was as much Edmund’s brother as I.’
Despite the four-year age difference, Edmund and Jamie had shared a common interest in the scientific and a devotion to the land.
Worry and shock flickered across her features. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I must tell him. I don’t want him to find out from someone else. Except I don’t even know yet what happened. Edmund could not have even reached the Continent.’
‘Cholera outbreak on board the ship.’
Ren still couldn’t fathom how he’d managed to survive duels, crazy horse races, boxing matches and drunken gallops while Edmund had succumbed within days of leaving home.
‘He didn’t even see battle?’
‘No. Would it have made it better if he had? If he’d died for King and country?’ Ren asked, with bitter anger.
‘I don’t know. It wouldn’t change that he is gone.’
She was honest at least. Most women of his acquaintance seemed to glamorise such sacrifice.
‘Will there be a—a funeral?’ she asked.
‘We do not have a body.’ He spoke harshly, wanting to inflict pain although on whom he did not know.
‘A service, at least? I want—I need to say goodbye. The tenants, too.’
‘It is not customary for ladies to attend funerals,’ he said. The need for distance became greater. He must not grow used to her company. He must not seek her advice or her comfort. He must not rely on her. Beth had never wanted marriage to anyone. She valued her independence. Moreover, she belonged here in the country. Indeed, familiarity with her environment was an integral part of her independence.
And Graham Hill was the one place he could not live.
‘You know I have never been bound by custom.’
That much was true. If custom were to prevail she should be housebound, dependent on servants. Instead, she rode about her estate on that tiny horse and ran Jamie’s house and even aspects of the estate with admirable efficiency.
He forced his mind to shift. He was not here to analyse the woman who was his wife in name only, but to bury his brother ‘in name only.’ Efficiency was essential. He must take whatever steps were needed to cut his ties with the estate. To stay here was torture. Graham Hill was everything he had loved, everything he had taken for granted as his birth right and everything which had been ripped from him.
For a moment, he let his gaze wander over the familiar hall with the huge stone fireplace and dark beams criss-crossing the high arched ceiling. He had been back maybe five times since he had learned the truth, since he had learned that he was not really Rendell Graham, the legitimate child of Marcus Graham.
Instead, he was the bastard offspring of a mediocre portrait painter.
Abruptly, he turned back to Beth. ‘I will let you and Jamie know the time for the service,’ he said brusquely.
‘Thank you.’
For a moment she did not move. Her mouth opened slightly. She bit her lower lip. Her hand reached up to him. She ran her fingers across his cheek as she used to do. The touch was both familiar, but infinitely different. The moment stilled.
‘You do not always have to be strong and brave,’ she said.
His lips twisted. He thought of his life in London, of the stupid bets and nights obliterated by alcohol.
‘I’m not,’ he said.
Beth sat beside the fire. It crackled, the snap of the flames tangling with the rhythmic tick of the mantel clock. She rubbed her hands with a dry chafing sound. She felt chilled, despite the spring season.
Jamie would be home soon. He would come in and talk crops and science in his single-minded manner.
And she would tell him about Edmund.
In many ways, Edmund had been his only friend; they had shared a fascination with science. Granted, Edmund had been older and more interested in mechanised invention than seeds, but there had been similarities in their minds and intellects.
And now, she must tell him about Edmund’s death. Strange how someone remains alive until one is told otherwise. Edmund was still alive to Jamie and would remain alive until she told him he was not. In many ways it made her the executioner.
Beth stood, too restless to be contained within the easy chair. She paced the seven steps to the window. She thought of Ren. He and Edmund had been inseparable as children—although he had spent little enough time here since. Her heart hurt for him, but she also felt anger. Why had he turned so resolutely against Graham Hill? How had London’s lure become so strong for the boy she used to know?
She remembered the four of them scrambling across the countryside. Well, Jamie and Edmund would scramble. She would often sit while Ren painted. She’d hear the movement of his brush strokes across the canvas, mixed with myriad woodland sounds; water, birds, bees,
