Page 61 of Hunted By the Guardian
It was. She didn’t need to wait for him to answer. Everything was the same. She could see the garden off to one side and the detailing on the wooden door. It was unmistakable.
She turned to face him. “You have a painting of this house?”
He was looking at it too. For a moment, he didn’t speak, and she thought he might not answer at all. But then he did. “My mother painted it.”
“I didn’t realize your mother was a painter.”
“She was. And she was fascinated by this house. She saw it one day—just in passing—and she talked about it all the time. She said this was the kind of place she would have loved to live—away from the heart of town, a river running through the back, a beautiful garden. Not too large. Of course, there was no chance of my father ever getting a house like this for her. I remember him scoffing at the very suggestion of it.”
“That’s not very kind,” Violet murmured.
“No,” Jonathan agreed darkly. “Mother couldn’t let go of the idea of this place, though, so she painted it. It’s the best work she’s ever done, in my opinion—she poured herself into it. It was also the last painting she ever finished before she died.”
Violet was quiet for a moment. “I’m so sorry,” she said at last. “That must have been difficult…were the two of you very close?”
“She was the closest person to me in the world. The only person who was ever kind,” Jonathan said. “She was the only one who treated me as if she truly cared about me. For my father, it was just about what I could do for him. He raised me to take over the dukedom, and that was all that mattered. But my mother truly loved me.”
“And that’s why you want the house,” Violet realized.
Something in her shifted.
He didn’t want this place just because he was trying to add to his holdings. And it had never been about being cruel to her—that wasn’t something he wished for.
It was the place that made him feel close to his mother, the only person who had ever really loved him. He must have dreamed of owning this house, coming here with his mother’s painting, hanging it up, and whispering to her that her dream house was finally theirs…only to find, midway through buying it, that it had been given away to someone else.
For the first time, Violet felt as if she was on his side.
How could Aunt Margaret have done such a thing? What could she have been thinking? Had she known about Jonathan’s past? She couldn’t have.
I don’t see how I can possibly relinquish the house to him. Not now that Noah comes along with it. I love Noah too much to give him up, no matter what the reason.
But at the same time…can I possibly bring myself to take this house away from Jonathan, now that I truly understand what it means to him?
He looked down at her. “I’m not telling you this to try to influence you,” he said quietly. “I’m not trying to get you out of the house by saying this.”
“I didn’t think you were.” She found herself drifting closer to him without thinking about it and reached out to rest a hand on his arm. “I’m glad you told me, Jonathan. It must have been so hard to lose your mother. Of course, you want to honor her by living in this house.” She looked down, then back up at him, thinking, I don’t know what we’re going to do.
He raised a hand and gently caressed the side of her face. “We are really in a bind, aren't we?” he murmured.
Violet closed her eyes.
Once more, she felt as if there was a possibility he might just lean in and kiss her. But he wouldn’t, of course. That was the same feeling she’d gotten from him before, and she had been wrong then—and the way she kept getting carried away with her imaginings like this was so much of the problem; she needed to figure out how to set these thoughts aside, she needed to…
His lips were on hers.
She froze for a moment—had this become real, or was it still happening in her imagination, somehow?
But then the moment became too powerful to resist.
Her arms were around him, and his around her, and he was all she could perceive. The scent of him. The warmth. The way his body pressed against hers, so that they were almost inseparable, as if they had become one being—when he breathed, she rose and fell along with him.
The kiss deepened. He raised a hand to cup the back of her head, as if he was trying to pull her into him. For a moment—a wild, blissful moment—Violet succumbed.
And then, like a cold, unfriendly wind, common sense blew through her.
What am I doing? I can’t do this. I can’t allow myself to get carried away like this! It’s exactly this sort of thing that has Noah so confused. For his sake, I must maintain my senses.
She broke the kiss and stepped back.
