Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
“Ishould give you a proper tour of Everthorne House then, Isabella,” Lady Kendrick declared with a pleased little hum, tapping her fingers against her hand lightly as she turned toward her young companion.
Isabella offered a polite smile, though she suspected, quite accurately, that this sudden insistence on a tour had little to do with necessity and more with Lady Kendrick’s fondness for prolonged company, which she’d only just discovered.
Isabella had arrived earlier that morning with her maid this time, answering Lady Kendrick’s request to arrive far earlier than the other Laurels, so they might prepare more thoroughly for the club’s second meeting.
However, upon stepping through the grand doors of Everthorne House, Isabella quickly realized that the preparations had already been handled by staff.
Footmen were already arranging chairs, the ballroom was impeccably aired and polished, and even the refreshments had been displayed extravagantly on one side of the room.
Lady Kendrick, naturally, pretended not to notice, and Isabella, unable to deny the older woman anything, accepted her fate with grace and a curtsy.
The halls were quiet and empty, the silence broken only by the soft echo of their footsteps, the farther they went from the ballroom.
As they walked, Isabella found herself appreciating the unusual silence of the house. She had seldom experienced it so still, mainly because she’d only come on days when the mansion promised fun.
But this morning, Everthorne felt gentle and unhurried.
“Do take your time, dear,” Lady Kendrick said, lifting her hand to rest it briefly against one of the ornate banisters. “This house is larger than it seems. Even I require rests between certain passages.”
Isabella slowed her pace willingly to match the older lady.
“It is a magnificent structure, Lady Kendrick. Far grander than I imagined.”
“Oh yes,” the older woman replied proudly, “this duchy has always been known for its exquisite charm. Second to none.”
A faint smile tugged at Isabella’s lips, and she nodded. Truly, the present duke was merely maintaining the standards the dukes before him had set.
The two ladies continued through hallways lined with winter-sunlit windows. Occasionally, they would pause near tapestries or ceramic art pieces, catching their breaths, before Lady Kendrick resumed her slow but determined march.
It was during one of these pauses that they reached a wall adorned entirely with portraits of the family.
Isabella’s gaze drifted naturally to the paintings, portraits of the duke and his father, noticing that they were exact copies of each other. It was fascinating.
There was another right next to it, of the duke, his father, and a woman whom she thought was the late duchess.
“She’s the late duchess,” Isabella said softly, eyes on the woman, whose hand is on the duke’s shoulder.
“Ah yes. My lovely gem. She died when Cassian was just a boy.”
Isabella’s chest tightened. They moved from that painting to the next row, which only included the duke and his father.
There were several portraits of him as a child—a boy with the same storm-grey eyes he carried into adulthood, but softer and untouched by burden—, and Isabella took them all in, looking carefully.
Another portrait showed him around ten years old, stiff-backed and attempting to appear serious. A third depicted him at perhaps twelve, already towering above the other boys in a hunting scene, and then there was nothing beyond that age.
No portrait from his teenage years and none from his twenties. Nothing that showed the man he had become and how he had become it.
“Is there a reason, if it is not rude of me to ask,” Isabella began carefully, “that there are no portraits of His Grace beyond childhood?”
Lady Kendrick paused, her expression dimming with a soft, sorrowful shadow.
“Do you truly not know, my child?” the older woman asked quietly, her voice tinged with a sadness Isabella had never heard from her.
“I… No. What is there to know?”
Lady Kendrick inhaled slowly, her gaze drifting toward one of the portraits, the one where the young Duke stood beside his father.
“My grandson suffered greatly,” she murmured, not bothering to conceal her affection. “You know, people speak when they do not understand. They rarely take the time to learn what shaped a man.”
Isabella nodded, tracing the painted eyes of the younger duke. Eyes that, even then, held a flicker of storm behind them.
A shiver ran down her spine, though she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was the contrast between his imposing presence and the innocence captured in the portrait. Or the unsettling truth that his eyes lingered in her thoughts far more than she cared to admit.
And even though her curiosity nudged her to ask for more, she didn’t wish to pry.
When had he gotten the scars that had marred his back?
Had it been in the years when portraits had not been captured of him?
She wanted to know everything that there was to know about him, but Lady Kendrick shook her head, seemingly reluctant to linger on the matter.
Did those years cause them too much pain?
Lady Kendrick gently tugged her away from the portrait hall, guiding her down a narrower passageway. “This way, my dear. There is one more wing you have yet to see.”
Isabella followed, but as they walked, something tugged at her memory—the angle of the corridor, the faint smell of sawdust, the subtle groan of a certain floorboard beneath her foot.
She knew this narrow path.
And when they reached the closed door at the end, she recognized it instantly. It was the ’duke’s workplace where she’d encountered him for the first time.
“This is my grandson’s workshop. Cassian insists on keeping it locked when he’s not here,” Lady Kendrick said with a shrug. “He dislikes intrusion of any sort.”
Isabella felt heat crawl up the back of her neck, not from guilt but from some strange awareness she could not name. Returning to this part of the house felt almost like returning to thoughts she had tried to ignore, so this time, she was the one who prompted their retreat.
“Let us return to the ballroom. The Laurels will be arriving soon,” she suggested, and with a nod, Lady Kendrick led them back to the front of the mansion.
When the Laurels arrived for the second meeting, Isabella and Lady Kendrick were more than ready for them.
The ballroom was filled with bright gowns, warm laughter, and the sound of footwork practice echoing against polished floors. Yet Isabella found her mind wandering in spite of herself.
Even when demonstrating stance to a new member, even while answering one of Lady Kendrick’s enthusiastic questions, even as the fencing instructor reviewed the basics, Isabella’s thoughts drifted.
To storm-grey eyes in a portrait, a locked door down a narrow corridor, an argument in the ballroom, and to a man she claimed not to fancy yet found far too often in the corners of her mind.
She dismissed the thoughts each time, but they returned persistently, like a sound carried on the wind.
Why?
Her mind offered her no logical answer, so she simply pressed on with the session, maintaining her composure, refusing to let her wandering mind show.
Later that day, as Everthorne House settled into its usual nighttime hush, void of the Laurels—as apparently the club’s members were now called—Cassian stood alone in his workshop, sleeves rolled, the muscles in his forearms tense from the day’s responsibilities.
He had endured a strenuous series of meetings and a handful of legal matters that clawed at his patience, so by the time he reached his sanctuary, the only place in the house where he breathed without restraint, his temper had frayed to its limit. He needed some relief.
Carpentry never failed him. Not once, not ever. It required focus, precision, and a kind of quiet immersion that forced the world away, carving all unnecessary noise into silence.
He was in the mood to carve wood, so he selected a block of wood from the corner shelf, assessing it, then he picked another, weighing each piece in his hand until one felt right—smooth enough, dense enough, and shaped well for the image forming vaguely in his mind.
With practiced movements, he set his tools upon the worktable, took a steadying breath, and began carving.
The first cuts were deep and scattered, releasing the tension that coiled in him.
Every downward motion chipped away the irritations of the day, the frustrations of running an estate, the endless demands, and the expectations.
It satisfied him, but he didn’t stop, especially as the shape began to form slowly beneath his hands.
A curve of a shoulder, a tilt of a head, then a delicate line that felt familiar yet foreign at the same time.
He worked for long minutes before he stopped, bristling slightly as realization dawned on him as he stared down at his work.
He knew that profile and who it belonged to.
He scowled.
“Lady Isabella,” he muttered, and gripped the wooden figure more tightly than necessary, heat creeping unwelcomed into his chest.
He had not intended to create this, to create her features from memory, yet they had appeared unbidden beneath his hands.
Isabella ought to have been grateful, elated even, that it was her third visit to Everthorne House as a Laurel, and she had yet to catch a single glimpse of the duke in his own residence, other than the times where he had suddenly, and unexpectedly, appeared.
One might have thought it a blessing, and yet it troubled her more than she liked to admit.
Had the arrival of multiple ladies at his estate done irrevocable damage to him, as he had initially suggested? Had their presence driven him into some deep reclusive retreat?