“Will you stop running from me? That would be a good start.”
“You’re my fiancé now, not my guardian. I have no reason to fear restrictions. We’re equals in this relationship,aren’t we?” She sounds insecure, and I know it’s because she’s confused. She was raised to be sweet and obedient.
“Yes. Equals, my princess. Don’t change your essence. I can handle a little madness.”
We stop by her apartment so she can shower and change. I wait in the living room, trying to ignore the fact that she’s naked in the shower and within reach of my hands.
I'm taking her out to dinner for two reasons.
To give the public what it wants—going out together on the day the engagement is announced makes it obvious the article was true. A kind of confirmation.
The other reason is that I don’t trust myself alone with my future wife for too long.
Once we’re seated in the restaurant, she looks at the ring on her finger and says, “Tell me about her. Your mother must have been very special. This stone is uniquely beautiful.Cushion cutsdon’t appeal to extravagant women, only refined ones.”
The diamond is two carats, modest for a duchess, but the cut enchanted my mother, according to a servant who lived at our castle. The woman had been her nanny, and almost everything I know about the woman who gave birth to me came from her stories. My father never spoke about the past. It’s as if, when he remarried, he erased his history with his first wife.
I’ve taken that ring out of the safe many times and stared at it, wondering whether my life would’ve taken a different path if my mother hadn’t died so young.
“There isn’t much to tell, because I didn’t know her. When she passed, I was barely two years old.”
“I’m sorry, Rodrick. But your father married again, right?”
“Can we talk about that another time?”
“I didn’t mean to pry. I was just curious about the woman who owned such a beautiful jewel.”
“When we go to Kindubh to get married, I’ll give you a tour of the castle and tell you everything I know about her. It’s not much, but maybe it’ll satisfy your curiosity.”
“Is there a portrait of your mother at the castle that I can see? I like putting faces to names.”
Knowing she won’t let it go, I take my phone from my blazer pocket. “Her name was Eilidh, which meansradiantin Scottish Gaelic. I had her photos digitized some time ago.” I hand her the phone and watch as she scrolls through the images.
“She was beautiful. So you inherited the red hair from your mother.”
“Yes. My father was blond.”
“And him—do you have photos?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“There’s nothing good about him worth remembering.”
Chapter 34
The waiter comes back with our plates, and we eat in silence for a while.
I’m not upset that he cut me off when I asked about his father. Maybe talking about the former duke’s death is painful.
I feel a little uncomfortable. At the same time that I feel intimate with him, especially after what happened at his apartment, I don’t really know anything about Rodrick.
“I don’t like remembering the past,” he says, I think trying to ease the tension between us.
“Everyone has the right to keep secrets.”
“Do you have any?”