Chapter 17 Hollow
HOLLOW
JULIAN
After Rosamund and her dratted brother left, Julian had fully intended to rage.
The impulse rose hot and immediate—an urge to shatter something, to prove to himself that his decision to let her go had been the right one. For his sake, but moreso for hers.
But once the carriage wheels faded down the drive, the fury bled out of him as swiftly as it had come.
What remained was worse.
Silence.
An emptiness settled deep in his chest, heavy and unrecognizable. The house that had so recently crackled with temper—and before that, with her… brightness—now yawned wide and hollow.
He stood in the center of the dining room and waited for the fury to rise again, to fill this unsettling void. It did not.
He could overturn the table. Shatter the glass. Tear the damned portraits from their hooks and grind the frames beneath his heel.
The thought flickered through him—brief, violent.
And then it passed.
Not suppressed or contained, simply gone. He could not drag it back out of himself, and he did try. Shameful as it was, he wanted it.
The rage was simple. The lack of control was simple.
Whatever this was… was not.
If he was not the brute society whispered about—if he was not the volatile, dangerous creature Rosa—Lady Harrington’s brother had prepared to confront—then what, precisely, was he?
A man abandoned in his own house.
He exhaled, the fight draining out of him until even his hands felt unfamiliar at his sides.
There was nothing in the room worth breaking, nothing he could smash that would restore what had just walked out the door. But that did not stop his hands from itching for something to do, some way to occupy his mind, to escape his own thoughts.
So he did the only thing he had ever trusted himself to do when the world threatened to unravel.
He retreated to his workshop.
For hours and hours the hammer fell, the plane whispered, the scent of shavings gathered thick in the air. The servants wisely kept their distance. Angus and Sable did not.
The great dog lay stretched near the door, chin upon his paws, amber eyes tracking Julian’s movements without comment. Close enough to follow, far enough not to crowd.
Sable occupied the windowsill, tail curled neatly about herself, observing with that inscrutable feline patience that felt suspiciously like judgment.
And Julian…
He constructed a chair. A new design.
It began as lines on parchment. It became something else entirely.
Sturdy. Balanced. Beautiful without being overly ornamental—save for the carved rosebuds winding along the crest rail.
He swore when he realized what he was doing.
Damn it.
It was the sort of piece one built for permanence. For comfort. For someone who might sit beside one’s hearth for a lifetime.
It was, most inconveniently, for her. And as he worked, his anger thinned.
She might have withheld the truth. She might have maneuvered him.
But she could not have fabricated all of it.
Her determination—incomprehensible as it was—to… save him, had not been rehearsed. The tremor in her voice when she spoke of the estate’s future had been real.
Why the lie, then?
The answer came to him slowly, unwillingly. One that she had already provided him, though he had been in no place to hear it at the time.
If she had arrived announcing herself as the daughter of a duke… as the sister of Kenbrooks… Would he have permitted her to remain?
No.
He would have had Finch and Mrs. Wetherby escort her home immediately.
Not because he could not be hospitable, but because he wasn’t an idiot.
He had withdrawn from society, yes. But he was not ignorant of its machinery. A noblewoman discovered alone in his house? The implications would have been immediate. Irreversible.
Which meant…
Lying about who she was had been the only way she could stay.
Her deception may still have been designed to trap him, but if that had been her intention, it was a very poorly planned trap indeed.
Her brother had never demanded that Julian marry her, no—quite the opposite.
Four days. He’d allowed her to stay for four days!
The memory of Kenbrooks’ “visit” returned to him with unwelcome clarity.
Of course the Duke of Kenbrooks had been furious. Any brother would be. The blow had been swift, decisive.
Julian had not lifted a hand in return.
He had accepted it because, in some quiet and inconvenient way, he believed he deserved it.
Why?
Because some part of him had already known.
If he had looked more closely—if he had allowed himself to see beyond the warmth of her presence and the distraction of her… attributes—he might have noticed.
The carriage of her shoulders. The precision of her speech. The confidence with which she questioned him, challenged him, contradicted him.
She had not been merely genteel.
She had been educated. Assured.
No common miss possessed that sort of self-possession.
But he had ignored all of that.
Why?
After three days in his workshop, Julian still did not have his answer, no matter how many times he turned it over in his head. He was almost grateful when Finch interrupted him.
“We thought you’d like to see this, Your Grace.”
Julian did not look up at first.
Then he saw the pamphlet. On it, the headline read:
A Visit to Ironwood Manor: Observations on Stewardship and Rural Industry
Written by Robert Belle.
Julian stilled as his eyes skimmed the first lines…
The Duke of Kenbrooks, accompanied by his duchess and sister, recently accepted an invitation to visit with an old school friend at Ironwood Manor. What they found was not the savage mismanagement so often whispered about in drawing rooms, but rather a property in active restoration.
Julian blinked.
An invitation?
Savage mismanagement?
He read on.
Under the present duke’s direction, the tenant cottages stand in sound repair, rents are assessed with evident fairness, and charitable funds are discreetly directed toward the widows of the late war.
Not discreetly enough, apparently.
Of course she had charmed it out of his servants. Given time and that disarming sincerity, Rosamund could coax confessions from a saint.
…Though His Grace is not a man given to unnecessary sociability, he demonstrates a practical dedication to improvement—spending much of his time overseeing the estate personally, or in his workshop, where he is said to produce furnishings of uncommon durability.
Julian stared at that line.
Uncommon durability?
After all her pawing and admiration, that was it?
He continued.
One cannot accuse the duke of flamboyance. His manner is reserved. His habits industrious. His attentions directed less toward society than toward the quiet maintenance of those dependent upon him.
Reserved.
Industrious.
Quiet.
Bloody dry as dust.
He read further, and as he did, irritation gave way to something stranger.
He could hear her. In the phrasing. The words. Her voice.
It is perhaps easier to malign a man who declines invitations than to examine the work accomplished in his absence.
That was her.
Sharp. Slightly amused. Cutting without appearing to cut.
And then—
Whatever the cause of past speculation, it would be difficult for any fair-minded observer to depart Ironwood Manor without concluding that its duke is neither beastly nor unstable—but merely a man who prefers substance to spectacle.
He read the piece once. Then again. And a third time.
Although partial fabrication, her words read like a witness.
Deliberate. Strategic.
Incorrigibly brilliant, using Kenbrooks as silent corroboration.
The very man who had stormed his dining room and very nearly throttled him now seemingly provided testimony to Juiian’s civility. How the devil had she convinced him?
Clever minx.
But as Julian lowered the paper, a frown creased his brow.
Efficient. Practical. Boring! Was that truly how she saw him?
Julian rose abruptly.
Finch straightened.
“Your Grace?”
“I am going to Hallow’s Bridge.”
“At once?”
“At once.”
He would make the offer he ought to have made days ago.
He would do what honor required.
But before that—
Before anything—
Lady Rosamund Harrington would look him in the eye and admit that he might be many things.
But to her—
By God—
He was not dull.
And with that, he was already striding for the door.