“I suspect in reality their marriage was much like anyone else’s.” Gideon stifled his own boyish fascination with his swashbuckling ancestor. Misguided romanticism had already cost him everything that made life worthwhile.
Her smile faded. “No. It was a grand passion, so their life together was a grand adventure.” She must have guessed he meant to argue for a more prosaic interpretation because she rushed into speech. “Is there a picture of Donna Ana?”
Gideon gestured to the opposite wall. The small panel on wood depicted a dumpy woman wearing an unflattering black gown from the reign of James Stuart. “There.”
Sarah spent some time staring into the woman’s plump, lined face. He moved to stand behind her, not close enough to touch. “Are you disappointed?”
Of course she must be. The most beautiful girl in the Spanish Empire had turned into a middle-aged frump. If Donna Ana ever was beautiful. Perhaps family mythology embroidered that part of the tale. Perhaps Jack just married this little hen to secure her Spanish gold. The wealth he seized from the galleon was real enough. The proof was all around them in Penrhyn’s faded glory.
“No, I’m not disappointed,” Sarah said softly, turning to face him. “She looks like she led a happy life even though she was far from home and family. She must have loved her wild husband and her brood of children.”
In this dusty room with its beautiful parquetry floor, dark paneling, and elaborate plaster ceiling, Sarah was the only thing truly alive. She burned like a flame. His eyes feverishly drank her in. Satiny hair pulled back in a plait. Great, glowing eyes. Her cheap gown hinted at the untold riches of her body beneath.
Her cheap, torn, dirty gown.
He scowled. “Good God, woman, what are you wearing?”
A flush rose in her cheeks, and she self-consciously tweaked her faded skirts. “It was all I had.”
“I asked the housekeeper to find you something.”
She made a face. “Mrs. Pollett is three times my size. She lent me a couple of dresses, but they were hopeless. The nightdress was so big, it wouldn’t stay up.”
He stiffened. All over. Darkness edged his vision. His mind burned with scorching images of Sarah’s shift sliding to the ground with a sensual whisper. Leaving her bare and beautiful and ready for him.
He cleared his throat, clenched his fists, and battled for control.
Her color became more hectic, and her hands rose to her cheeks. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Gideon swallowed and strove to concentrate on the least arousing objects he could think of. Radishes. Turnips. Cabbages. Carrots.
No, not carrots.
“No…” He cleared his throat again. “No, you shouldn’t.”
“You won’t believe this, but I wasn’t dragged up under a bush,” she mumbled.
He knew what he’d like to do with her under a bush. Or what he’d like to do if he was a whole man and able to turn his desire into action.
He struggled for a normal tone as wanton images of Sarah naked and eager rocketed through his mind. “My mother’s clothing is packed in the attics. Would you like to see if any is suitable? You can’t run around in that rag for the next three weeks.”
Sarah pointed to a gold-framed picture along the same wall as Black Jack’s. “Is that your mother?”
“Yes.”
As he’d known she
would, she wandered down to stand in front of the exquisite Lawrence. The woman in the portrait wore one of the diaphanous gowns popular at the end of the last century. Blond hair curled softly around her delicate face.
“She’s very pretty.”
“In her first season, she was considered a diamond of the first water. She was only eighteen when she married my father.”
“Is he the rather florid man in the next picture?”
“Yes. And my brother Harry is the fellow next to him, who looks like a younger version of his sire.”
His gut tightened with the usual contradictory emotions as he studied Sir Barker and Harry. Regret, certainly. A complex brew of grief and anger. The futile wish that at least a trace of warmth had marked his interactions with his family.