Chapter 20
“Well, what is it you wish to do?”
Sebastian grumbled before rising to his feet, unable to sit still for another minute. Already he’d taken a brisk walk around the grounds while waiting for a servant to drag his local solicitor from town into his study, and now they were looking over newspapers and documents to… to do what?
“I don’t know,” he groused. “Something.”
Lowering his monocle, the older gentleman huffed. Mr. Tiller was an excellent solicitor even with his constant state of ire. “You dragged me from my warm and comfortable home on Christmas Eve to tell me you don’t know what you want?”
“It’s warm in here too,” he mumbled. He even went to stir the fire in his study before turning back toward the man. “Can’t we put him in jail?”
Back went the monocle. “Do you have a case against him?”
“The Crown does.”
“You can’t force the Crown to continue their case against the man,” Mr. Tiller reminded him. His curly white hair danced about his head while he shook it. “I think you’re wasting your time and mine.”
Sebastian groaned in frustration. “There must be something that can be done. I want to protect us.”
“Unless he steals from you as well…”
“He wouldn’t dare.”
Mr. Tiller pretended not to listen. “If you don’t have a case, you cannot take him before a magistrate and you cannot have him sent to jail. Talk to the Crown, Your Grace, or hire a Bow Street Runner to see if someone else knows of his crimes.”
“He stole from the Duke of York,” he pointed out.
“Then it has to be the Duke of York taking him to the courts. You do know how our judicial system works, yes?”
It was a conversation Sebastian had been playing around in his head for the last week or two while waiting on and reading his available documentation on his brother-in-law. Mr. Tiller was not particularly helpful. Perhaps there would be no miracles this Christmas.
Groaning, he collapsed back in his chair. “I don’t like him. And I don’t trust him.”
“You have very good reason not to,” his solicitor finally agreed with him. “None of us should. You could always toss him out.”
“My wife welcomed him in.”
“Ah. They do tend to have the final say.”
Sebastian scowled. He didn’t think that was the case. And yet, perhaps it was in some cases. They both had their limits. They both… didn’t know what to do about each other, he was beginning to realize. Just another discovery he didn’t like.
There has to be something I can do… I have found my way through every situation I have been put into. I have survived. And if I can help Isabel, I must.
“Your Grace?” Mr. Tiller called quietly. “I don’t think there is anything we can do here. At least not in this sort of situation. For whatever it is you wish to do most of all, well, I’m afraid you will need to find another way.”
“I just wish to protect her.”
Carefully gathering up the files they had spread out across the desk, the solicitor nodded. When he was done, he looked up and asked, “Does she wish for your protection?”
Of course she does. After what she has been through, why wouldn’t she? It is what every woman desires.
Except Sebastian could only shrug as he slowly realized Isabel had never actually asked him for it. Yes, she had thanked him whenever he was there for her. But she wasn’t asking him in advance of doing anything.
Even now, she hadn’t asked him to help or stop or respond to Thomas’s arrival.
“Thank you for your time. Please tell Mrs. Tiller I said hello.” Sebastian came back to his feet. “And stop by the kitchens on your way out, we’ll send you home with a fat basket of fresh bread and biscuits I know she’ll appreciate so long as you don’t eat them all on the ride home.”
Mr. Tiller chuckled. “You know us well. Thank you, Your Grace, and Happy Christmas. Do mind yourself.”
“I will.”
Once the solicitor was on his way, Sebastian grumbled under his breath and cleaned up his study. He thought about going to his weighted bag to work on his punching, knowing it would be nice to put his energy somewhere.
It wasn’t like he could let it out on the house or the people here.
He could hardly sit still. The moment he’d seen Thomas Ravenshaw talking the polite butler into getting a foot in the door, Sebastian was ready to give the man a good punch.
He’d read enough of the court cases and documents to know that the man was nothing more than a scoundrel.
But this wasn’t a situation where he could fix it with stealing a coin purse, punching in a ring, or instructing his servants.
Sebastian paced a little longer until his patience ran thin. Sweeping through the house, he returned to the front hall to find it empty; Wesley appeared a moment later to confirm that Thomas Ravenshaw had taken his leave.
“And the duchess?” He asked, for a second fearing she was also gone.
Gesturing toward the stairs, Wesley said, “I believe she went to her painting room.”
He was on the stairs in his next breath. Making his way to the painting room, Sebastian slowed before entry. The door was cracked open. He couldn’t hear much, but tilting his head he could see movement as his wife sketched something on her easel.
Sometimes Isabel painted when she was happy, or sad, or even angry. The household didn’t always know, and he certainly didn’t. After this morning, let alone the way they had left matters last night, Sebastian didn’t know what to expect with her. So he lingered in the doorway.
Isabel was humming to herself. A Christmas hymn.
The charcoal she was sketching with had darkened her fingertips.
She had beautiful hands. He wished gloves weren’t so popular.
Carefully and silently nudging the door open a little further, Sebastian tried to get a better look at what she might be drawing.
“You can come in, Sebastian.”
That made him freeze. He breathed out. “I didn’t make a sound.”
“No.” Pausing to straighten up, Isabel turned and met his gaze. “But I knew you were there all the same. Have you come to spy on me? To tell me what I should do?”
Furrowing his brow over her strange questions, he shook his head. “I only wanted to see that you were well.”
The shawl she had been wearing all this time slipped down her shoulder to rest over her arm.
As he crossed the room to a nearby chair, standing as he tried to decide if it was worth taking a seat if she might toss him out, he studied her.
Seeing Thomas had shaken her in a way he didn’t like.
He had hoped she would let him toss the man out, but understood she was better than that.
A true lady. Not a sham of the beau monde like he was.
“If you came to talk about my brother, you’ll be sorely disappointed. I don’t… I don’t wish to speak of it,” she said. The way she lifted her chin and met his gaze told him she was daring him to even try.
“I didn’t ask about him. I asked about you,” Sebastian said. He gauged her reaction as he took his seat, and found no concern there. “Is it good you are working on something new?”
Frowning, she glanced between him and the blank canvas. “What? Oh. I suppose so. I don’t know. I think I need to start over.”
He tried again. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”
“No, no, I’ll be all right. I only wish…” She didn’t continue, instead shaking her head. “I’ll start over. This isn’t right.”
It looked like a head and shoulders on the canvas, but he couldn’t be certain. No one had ever said he had an eye for art. Sebastian still nodded in agreement for her all the same. “That sounds like a fine idea.”
“Actually, would you sit for me?”
His gaze dropped to the chair with hard arms covered in green velvet. “I thought I was already sitting.”
A ghost of a smile crossed her lips. “I mean I want to draw you. There isn’t any artwork of you in the house, I believe. Why haven’t you sat for a portrait before?”
“I don’t like sitting.”
“You’re sitting now. Don’t move,” she said and then darted back to her canvas. It only gave him half a second to note a sudden light in her eyes. Then her hands began to move across the canvas as she smudged her work in one direction and another. “I think I can make this work.”
Then she looked over at him with a puzzled expression that left Sebastian feeling like she was undressing him down to his soul. He shifted uncomfortably in the chair. This was not why he had come. Thinking of a polite way to get out of this, he cleared his throat.
“Yes, there we are. Stay still, please.”
Well, if she said please…
He nodded before reluctantly sinking lower into the chair. As Isabel was seated on a stool, her feet drawn up under her skirts, she nearly towered over him. It was an interesting angle but he found he rather liked it. Maybe he could distract himself by watching her while she watched him.
“Are you… are you sure you wouldn’t rather paint something else? Someone else?” He asked uncomfortably. “If your brother…”
“He left.” The charcoal was put down and then she was playing with her paints. They smelled, he noted, and wrinkled his nose while trying to see what she was doing. Mixing them? “I don’t understand why he came, you know.”
Surprised she was bringing him up after saying she didn’t want to discuss it, Sebastian hesitated to say a word. “Is that so?”
Isabel muttered something under her breath.
Then she straightened up and studied her paintbrush.
A horsehair seemed to be stuck or something of that case.
“The moment we were alone in the drawing room, he was apologizing to me for all that had befallen our family. He had never apologized before, you see.”
“He didn’t?” Sebastian asked flatly. He knew he had enough reason not to like the man.
Seemingly not noticing, his wife carried on. She spoke as she painted, sounding distracted. Maybe she was talking more to herself than him. All the same, Sebastian listened as best he could.
“All through the trials, he proclaimed his innocence. Then he had excuses. He was tricked, he didn’t understand, he didn’t think anyone would be hurt.
One excuse after another. Everyone ate it up, of course.
They wanted to believe the best of him, but I had to wonder…
If he was truly sorry, if he was truly mistaken, surely he could still apologize.
“Maybe that’s why it feels so strange. Is it strange?
To hear your brother apologize. He really did sound contrite to me.
Thomas sat me on the seat beside him and took my hands in his.
Then he talked about the hardship of wearing the mantle as the next viscount, of having to care for our family and our name and the title.
I suppose it is a heavy weight. But that’s why he spent all his life preparing for it, I would think.
There was much more schooling for him than I would ever receive.
All the tutors he went through… and then he’s been trapped in the wilds of Scotland lately, trying to figure out what he wishes to do next. Or what he…”
Sebastian blinked as Isabel climbed off the stool to come and stare at him. “What?”
“You have more of a red complexion than I do. But I think I’ll use some apple undertones. You don’t mind? It’s what you smell like,” she added before returning to her seat.
His mouth opened and closed. He hadn’t realized she ever noted his cologne. For a second he wanted to ask if she minded it. If she liked it.
Isabel sighed. “Apple it is. Do you have a brother? Any siblings?”
“I had an elder brother once,” Sebastian found himself saying before he could catch himself. “But we weren’t close.”
“Thomas said… he said regretted abandoning me.” Isabel worked quicker, splashing orange onto the canvas.
Her movements were swift and clear. He didn’t care about the art, but watched her.
“How honest he sounded. How sincere. I could see the tears in his eyes and the way he clung to me… I don’t…
Do you think he could have meant it?” She abruptly paused but it took her a long time to finish the question and look his way.
This was his chance, Sebastian realized. To help her, to protect her. He opened his mouth to say that Thomas should never enter their house again.
Except one look at Isabel showed that she was hoping. She wanted her brother to be honest, to be kind. The tentative way she bit her lower lip said everything.
“I don’t…” Sebastian’s voice sounded strained even to himself. “I don’t know. I don’t know your brother and couldn’t say.”
Whatever openness he had seen within Isabel a moment ago shuttered away. It felt as though he had just thrown away his one chance to connect with her. He found himself leaning forward as though to snatch her back, to cling to her.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m saying. There’s so much in my head… I only need you for a few more minutes, and then I can continue this painting alone,” Isabel said at last.
She offered a flat smile before focusing on her painting. When she looked again at him, Sebastian noted the serious expression and how she wasn’t saying anything any longer. Whatever had inspired her to speak a moment ago was gone.
Sebastian searched for a way to bring Isabel back into conversation, but too soon, she was putting down her paint brush.
“That is good enough for now. Thank you for sitting for me. I’ll finish it soon, I’m sure.” Isabel nodded toward the door. “I’m sure you have plenty else to do so I won’t keep you.”
Making his way out of the room, Sebastian wondered where he might have gone wrong. He could have sworn something had gone right. Isabel had talked to him. But there was a new sort of knot in his stomach, and he found himself fearing he couldn’t protect her from everything.