Chapter 5 The Craftsman
THE CRAFTSMAN
Once her bags were returned and Tilly arrived with a tray of tea, Rosamund allowed herself a moment’s pause.
The tea was bracing, the scone warm and crumbly beneath her fingers, the preserves sharp with fruit. When she had finished, it was time to get to work.
Which meant asking the duke more questions.
The only trouble was, she would have to find him first.
She began by exploring the manor—quiet corridors, unused sitting rooms, staircases that led nowhere in particular—taking note of what was lived in and what had been abandoned. When that proved fruitless, she sought out one of the more helpful of her newly-made acquaintances.
Finch was in the stables, mucking out one of the stalls.
He hesitated when she asked, then tipped his head toward the gardens. “The workshop, miss. Beyond the hedges.” After a pause, he added, “Though he don’t care to be disturbed when he’s working.”
Which, of course, only sharpened her curiosity.
Rosamund thanked him and followed the gravel path as it wound through bright blooms, neatly clipped shrubs, and the broad shadows cast by old maples—already arranging her first question in her mind.
Today, she’d ask questions to lay the foundation. Come to know him a little. She’d begin by asking about his childhood. His parents. His schooling. Do what she could to soften him up.
If that was even possible.
When the scent of sawdust reached her—and the steady tap of steel against wood—she approached a hidden outbuilding quietly, and then peered inside.
The duke stood at a workbench, sleeves rolled high, broad shoulders bent as he drove a chisel into a slender length of wood. The leg or arm of a chair, perhaps? The rhythmic scraping filled the room, mingling with the quiet swish of loose shavings falling at his boots.
And he looked… entirely different here—focused, intent, but relaxed in a way he hadn’t the night before.
His head lifted sharply, his one good eye finding her in the doorway as the chisel stilled in his hand.
“Can I help you?” he asked, his gaze unwelcoming.
Rosamund blinked, stepping over the threshold. “No. I mean, please, just continue on with what you’re doing.”
That scent of freshly cut wood engulfed her now, stirring the unsettling awareness that she had noticed it on the duke before.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then he exhaled—slowly, through his nose—as though conceding something to himself rather than to her.
“Perhaps it isn’t that your father allows you such freedom,” he said at last, his gaze again on the chisel in his hand. “But that you simply take it.”
The words were not quite approval. Not permission.
But neither were they dismissal.
When he turned back to his work, Rosamund took the opportunity to study his domain.
Intricately carved tables and chairs lined the walls, their surfaces gleaming, their edges worked with scrolls and roses. Not a hobby, she realized. A passion.
She drifted closer to the nearest chair and let her fingertips trace one of the carved flowers. The grain was satin-smooth where he’d polished it, the grooves deep and decisive where the chisel had bitten.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, and her voice came out rougher than she intended.
The detail was almost delicate—but not at all fragile. Nothing about it felt tentative or ornamental for its own sake. It was strength made precise.
“Stop pawing at it,” he snapped. “You’ll leave oils behind.”
She jerked back, flushing. “Oh—of course. Forgive me, I didn’t realize.”
His chisel stilled for the briefest beat. “It’s pine,” he said, irritation rasping through the words. “Soft wood. It drinks everything into the grain. Touch it too much, and the stain won’t take evenly. You’ll see every mark left behind.”
Crossing her arms in front of her, she added more softly, “You’ve an incredible talent.”
Her gaze lingered on the piece before her.
“A chair is a very personal thing, don’t you think?
It holds you up when you write, when you read, or eat—or both at the same time.
” Rosamund smiled ruefully. “I actually have a favorite chair at home. It’s nothing like this. But it is… sturdy. And comfortable.”
His gaze flicked to the chair he had ordered her not to touch. “That’s what matters, isn’t it?” he said, still working.
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the soft rasp of sawdust stirred by the breeze slipping in through the open door.
“I think I’d treasure it,” Rosamund said at last. “People would pay a small fortune for work like this.”
“My work isn’t for sale,” he said, jaw set so firmly the words came out clipped.
“Oh.” She blinked. “Of course. I only meant—”
He turned then, fixing her with his one dark, assessing eye. “I have no need of funds, Miss Belle. If that’s what you’re implying.”
She was genuinely startled. “Of course not,” she said at once—then paused. He sounded so certain, as though the slight were a familiar one.
He set the chisel down and lifted a brow. “Surely you haven’t gone to all this trouble merely to discuss the market value of furniture.”
“We can discuss whatever interests you,” she said lightly. “It is your story, after all.”
His nostrils flared. “Right,” he muttered, as though already regretting the decision.
“And you may work while we talk,” she added, her tone calm—deliberately so.
For his sake, she told herself.
His steady regard unsettled her in a way she was unaccustomed to—not because of the patch or the scar, but because she saw an unfamiliar warmth there. Or was that just her imagination?
For a moment longer, he held her gaze. Then, with a sharp shake of his head, he picked up the chisel and turned back to the bench.
Rosamund let out a slow, quiet breath and then waited until the rhythm of his work filled the room again.
“What was it like,” she said at last, “Growing up as the heir to…” She gestured around, and toward the manor. “All of this?”
He did not look up. “Normal,” he said shortly. “Seeing as that’s all I know.”
Fair enough. “Do you think fondly of your childhood?”
A pause. A grimace. “I suppose.”
“You don’t know?”
The chisel slowed, then resumed. ““I rode. I read. I stayed out of the way when it was prudent.” He shrugged. “I was not unhappy.”
She nodded, filing the answer away. “You signed on with the army.”
That earned her a glance—brief, assessing.
“My father served,” he said. “It was assumed I would as well.”
“Even as heir?”
“My father saw it as a rite of passage.” His jaw tightened. “When he purchased the commission for me, I went.”
“You didn’t have a choice?”
“No,” he said at once. Too quickly. “I did.”
“Your mother approved?”
“My mother had no say in the matter.”
Rosamund turned his answers over in her mind then circled back, gently, to his childhood.
And gradually, while he worked, he answered more and more easily.
He spoke of lessons—endless ones. The sort expected of any ducal heir: languages, history, accounts. Riding, of course. Shooting and archery. Fencing drilled until precision became instinct rather than thought.
And then there were the lessons that had nothing to do with polish.
His father had insisted on them. Boxing, for one.
Sparring not only with masters but, when it suited, with the sons of tenants—boys brought in from the estate to test him in earnest, where strength and reflex mattered more than birth.
There had been no allowance made for rank in those moments. Only balance. Endurance. Control.
It explained things she had already noticed—the way he carried himself, economical and ready.
He had been trained not merely to lead, but to withstand.
As Rosamund listened, she quietly began to understand the man behind the title a little better.
“You can imagine my father’s disappointment,” he said, setting the piece he’d been working on to the side and replacing it with a new one. “All that training…”
“Your injury,” she said after a moment.
His shoulders went rigid. “Yes.”
“How… how did it happen?”
“Shrapnel,” he said flatly. “An explosion.”
Without looking at her, he resumed his work. “Ask your next question, Miss Belle.”
She hesitated, then ventured carefully, “Was it worse,” she asked simply, “to return than to leave?”
His breath left him in a sharp exhale. “Not interested in the names of my tutors?” he sent her a sideways glance, one that told her he knew exactly what she’d been doing.
“I thought,” she said quietly, “I thought it would be easier this way…”
“Easier for whom?” But he didn’t wait for her answer.
“And yes, Miss Belle, it was… worse.”
With that, he rose, turning his back, adding the piece of wood he’d finished working on to a pile of similar ones.
When he took his place again, she wet her lips.
If she meant to write his story, to know why he’d hidden away at his estate for so long, she could not shy away. “Did you do work like this before?”
His chisel bit into the wood, and there was a crunch as a larger piece broke off. No answer.
Rosamund pressed on. “Before your injury?”
The tool slipped from his hand, clattering against the bench, and he straightened slowly, rising to his full height, the air between them suddenly sharp. His gaze locked on hers, his visible eye dark and merciless, and for a heartbeat she was certain he regretted letting her into his home at all.
“I said you could write your damned story,” he ground out. His voice was rough. Low. Dangerous. “I did not give you permission to invade every corner of my life.”
“But I—”
“Out.” He jabbed a finger toward the door, leaving no room for her to argue.
Rosamund’s spine prickled with a combination of nerves and irritation, his harsh tone something she was not used to, but she inclined her head. “As you wish.” She scooted around him, back toward the threshold. She’d have expected he might be angry when she asked about his return.
Although. That’s not what her story would be about. She needed to let them know who he was now, and obviously, part of that was his work.
His talent. His ethics…
So…
She was going to have to be persistent. Because to tell his story, she would, indeed, have to invade every corner, whether he liked it or not. And one day—she lifted her chin at the thought—he’d thank her for it.