She was going to say no and he couldn’t let her. He had to explain.
‘My mother will not know you are arriving and I will summon her once you are there. Otherwise she may not leave her room.’ His chuckle was dry. ‘She likely will not leave her chamber, unless I insist. But as you understand what it is like to miss a person you care for, I would appreciate your spending a few moments speaking with the duchess. Perhaps she will feel less alone.’
She didn’t speak.
‘My brother has passed recently. My father died almost two years ago, soon after my older sister and her new husband perished in a fire while visiting friends. My mother is becoming less herself with each passing day. She misses her family more with each hour.’ He controlled his voice, removing all emotion. ‘She is trapped—by memories—and only feels anger and self-pity.’
‘I will visit your mana.’ She spoke matter-of-factly. ‘And if she does not wish to leave her chamber, I do not mind at all. I will visit her there.’
He turned, nodding, and with a jerk of his chin indicated the arrow in her hand.
‘Would you really hurt me?’ he asked.
Something flickered behind her eyes. Some memory he could never see.
‘I hope I could,’ she said. ‘I tell myself every day that I will be strong enough.’
‘You wish to kill someone?’
She shook her head, tousled hair falling softly, and for a moment she didn’t look like the woman she was, but reminded him of a lost waif. ‘No. I wish to be strong enough.’
‘Have you ever...hurt anyone?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I know of no woman who has ever killed a man, except my grandmother, Gigia.’
He waited.
‘A man, from a ploio. A ship. He was not good. He killed one of the women from our island and hurt another one almost to her death. Gigia gave him drink. Much drink, and he fell asleep. He should not have fallen asleep. Gigia said it was no different than killing a goat, except the man was heavier. My mana and uncle were there and they buried him. I do not think the men from the ship cared about losing him. They did not hunt for him long. Gigia gave them wine and we helped them search.’
Rhys took a breath. He’d invited this woman into his home, where his mother would meet her. This woman who seemed no more civilised than the rabbits she wished to protect and yet, he wanted to bury his face against her skin and forget.
‘I see.’ He frowned, repressing his notice of her as a woman. He certainly did not need to be noting the insignificant things about her.
‘From your face, I think you do.’ Instantly, her eyes pinched into a tilted scowl, her nose wrinkled. She mocked him. His mouth opened the barest bit. Yes, she’d jested.
‘Miss Cherroll,’ he spoke, beginning his reprimand, holding himself to the starched demeanour his father had used, one strong enough that even a royal would take notice of it. ‘Perhaps my mother could also be of some guidance to you.’
Lashes fluttered. A dash of sadness tinged her words, but the chin did not soften. ‘I am beyond repair.’
Bits of words fluttered through his mind, but none found their way to his lips. He took a moment appraising her, then caught himself, tamping down the sparking embers.
This would not be acceptable. He had survived his sister’s death. He had survived his father’s death. Geoff was gone. The duchess was failing. Rhys’s vision tunnelled around him, leaving only images from memory. He would take his own heart from his chest and wring it out with his two hands before he let it close to another person.
He turned his body from her with more command than he would ever unleash on the ribbons from a horse’s bridle.
‘I did not mean to anger you so...’ Her voice barely rose above the drumming in his ears.
‘I am merely thinking,’ he said.
‘You must stop, then. It’s not agreeing with you.’
‘I think you are the one not agreeing with me.’
‘So it has never happened before?’
‘Not recently.’
‘An oversight?’ Wide eyes.
‘I can hardly believe you and the countess are sisters.’
‘If you think we are brothers, then I do not know what to say.’
‘You are—’ He gave up. If she could use that same spirit to release his mother’s mind from the memories snaring her, it would be worth the risk. He had no other options.
Bellona took the carriage to the duke’s house, frowning each time the vehicle jostled her. Darting through the woods would have been so much easier, but when the gamekeeper’s eyes had rested on her the last time, a drop of spittle had escaped his lips when he’d smiled at her. The past had flooded back. She’d thought to put the memories behind her, but they’d returned like a wave, currents underneath tugging at her, trying to pull her to death.
Even now, looking out of the window, she could imagine a face peering at her from behind each tree. The eyes reflecting dark, evil thoughts, or no thoughts at all. Knowledge returned of looking into the pupils and seeing nothing human in a face she’d once seen innocently. Nothing behind those eyes which reasoned or thought, but only the same blankness from the face of an animal intent on devouring its prey.
She’d heard the tales of people being fed to lions. Telling the lion to think about the rightness of not clamping its teeth around her neck would do no good. Reminding the beast that she was merely wishing to live out her life wouldn’t change anything. The lion might appear calm, but it would be thinking of only how to get a straighter lunge.
Bellona had known Stephanos before he killed—watched him dance and laugh and work as he’d grown older. Nothing had indicated how one day he would look at her with the harshness of death seeping from him like muck bubbling over the side of a pot left on the fire too long and too hot to pull away with bare hands.
The truth roiled inside her. She’d not escaped to a land where she could let her guard down. Men kept their power within themselves, behind their smiles and their laughter. Like a volcano, the fury could burst forth and take every being in its path.
The day her father had raged at her over a painting she’d accidentally knocked over, she’d known he would have preferred her to be the one broken in the dirt. If he could have traded her to have the painting back on the easel, he would have. He would have rejoiced if she could have been bruised and broken and his painting fresh and new.
Nothing had changed. She’d only lied to herself, hoping she’d be able to forget the past and sleep peacefully again, safe, in this new land.
Even the maid sitting across from her didn’t give her the feeling of security she’d hoped. Moving her foot inside her boot, she felt the dagger sheath, reassuring herself.
She braced her feet as the carriage rolled to a stop. A lock of hair tickled Bellona’s cheek as she opened the door and stepped out. Pushing the strand aside, she looked at the darkened eyes of the Harling House windows. Sunlight reflected off the glass and a bird flitted by, but the house looked no more alive than a crypt.
The entrance door opened before her foot cleared the top step.
The expanse of space between her and the stairway could have swallowed her former home. She could not blame the duchess for not wanting to leave her chamber. This part of the house, with all its shine and perfection,