It would take her days to truly explore his London townhome. Her brother’s town house was extensive, but this was wealth on a level that even she struggled to comprehend.
It stretched the length of an entire London city square. She could get the best exercise in a rainstorm simply by walking the halls; it was so vast.
And so she had taken off. After all, she did not think that she could sit still. Too much had occurred to her in the last few days.
It had been a complete and total revolution in her life. She had come full circle. She was once again feeling powerful and with purpose in her life.
The gratitude that she felt was immense as she wandered through the beautiful house. It had been done up in the last twenty years in the most popular style, and she was quite surprised.
She would not have thought that the Duke of Blackwood would choose green, watered silk, blue-striped walls, and portraits full of pastel beauty. The pictures that hung from the walls were fanciful—ladies in swings, flowers, sunsets, and ships with sails unfurled.
Heavens, the sea portraits were stunning. Some of them were so massive that she did not think if there were five of her laying down that they could fill up the space.
And as she wandered through the beautiful salons, the gilded tables, the delicate chairs, and different curiosities, she wondered what he was like.
What had possessed him to buy all these things which had been made popular in the last two decades?
But then she wandered into another part of the house.
It was older, the furniture was darker, and it spoke to her of him. It echoedentirelyof him. She took in a long breath and smelled the scent of oranges and cinnamon and leather. The couches and chairs were made of green leather with brass studs. The tables were cherry wood and books covered every surface.
The walls were plastered with maps of every known part of the world, and she found herself peering at each and every one, wondering if he had been to any of those places. Some were of the Continent. Many were vast military maps of armies and positions of Napoleon’s troops and Wellington’s. Nelson’s naval ships were marked too on various battle recreations.
Was this what he thought of with his free time?
Did he consider the war often? Yes, he must. He had made some mention about what he had done on the Continent. Did he still care about the soldiers who died there?
Again, almost certainly. Her brother had never once considered going to war to defend the nation. It was beyond him—the idea that someone like him get his hands dirty, let alone bloody. And yet their ancestors? They had waded through blood for their land and titles. How far, how distant they were from all of that, but not Blackwood.
He was willing to fight for what was his, but more than that, he was willing to fight for England.
He was singular.
She knew that in her bones, and she could not help the growing admiration that she felt when she considered how he had been reticent to take her innocence. She suspected it was because he had been afraid that it might make him into someone that he did not admire, someone that he could not face.
She liked that about him, and she was grateful that, in the end, he had understood that to go against her wishes… that would be what made him shallow.
And when he had, this morning, taken up Lily’s cause too? He had solidified himself in a position of greatness in her mind. Could anyone be like him? She had not ever met anyone like him.
Oh, he claimed to be distant, to be cold, but about his coldness and distance, she did not care. His actions were what mattered. She’d met many people throughout her seasons who professed emotion, who professed feeling, who professed to care…
Men who affected great feelings and love of poetry and love of people, and yet did nothing to help them. They acted against their declarations of great feeling, trifling with people, and not giving importance to the world and those in it. They cared only about their hair and their clothes, cravat pins, snuff, brandy, and wiling away the hours with unimportant things.
Poetrywasimportant. She believed that in her soul. Shakespeare was important, science, math, all of it. But it was not simply the art itself, the philosophy of it, the theory. It was the use and the doing of it, the using of it to improve society that thrilled her to her bones.
And she felt certain that the duke felt so too. It was why she was so grateful that he was her first, and that he was going to be the one to show her how to master the world, to master men, and to master herself in the end.
“Excuse me, Lady Catherine,” a voice called from the tall doorway.
She whipped around astonished. “Yes?”
Everson stood in the shadows. “This is His Grace’s office, and he generally does not like people to be in it.”
She felt a moment’s embarrassment as she rushed, “Oh, forgive me. I had no idea it was private.”
And then she spotted them, the portraits across the room on his desk of a beautiful young lady dressed in the fashions of several years ago, more than a decade, and two small children who could not have been more than two years old, possibly younger.
They were in the welcoming arms of an angel, she realized, and her breath caught in her throat.