Page 18 of This Laird of Mine

“Art mostly, but I have also taught my girls to read, to write, and to do their numbers.”

He gave her a puzzled look. “You were taught those things?”

She nodded. “My father was insistent that I learn everything I could. Then when my parents died, I was fortunate to be taken in by a family who believed in educating their daughters as well as their sons and my education continued.”

“Who do you teach?”

Claire fingered a locket on a chain around her neck. “I teach young women who have the desire to paint and have a need to support themselves.”

Not for the first time, Jules found himself at a loss to understand her. “Why would women, especially young women, need to support themselves? Isn’t that what marriage is for?”

“Marriage is not always the answer, especially when certain husbands don’t believe their bond is true,” she said dryly. “It is men like you who have every advantage, while women have very few, if any at all.”

“Like you.”

“Like me,” she said softly.

“You think you have me all figured out, don’t you?” he replied, watching her closely.

“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “I do not know much about you. And I fear there are very few people in this life with whom you will bare your soul, or even accept as your friend.”

“If that is true, then where does that leave you?”

“That is your ninth question, and I still have yet to ask even one.” She pushed back from the table. “In answer to your last question, I do not see myself ever reaching your inner circle, despite our relationship.”

The anguish in her voice troubled him before he tensed. “We have no relationship,” he countered, suddenly disgusted with himself. He would not fall for her helplessness again. Damnation, the woman was a master at getting under his skin.

Claire stood, staring at him with hurt in her eyes. “You have made it perfectly obvious I am unwanted, but as I have nowhere else to go, consider yourself burdened with me. That is your plight, husband, until you prove me wrong.” She turned and headed back toward the manor.

He stared at his adversary with a crazy mixture of anger and regret as she disappeared from view. He should go after her. He should do the right thing and apologize. Except the “right” thing was what he had always done . . . and that had landed him in this situation in the first place. He had done the right thing by returning home from Jane’s father’s employ when his father had demanded. He had come home to meet his new mother full of hope and eager to do the right thing. But that hope had turned to despair when at the age of twenty-one he’d been charged with her murder. Nay, the right thing was not always the best thing to do.

Jules looked around the terrace in the sudden silence and realized the only thing he could do in these circumstances was the dishes. The remains of the supper they’d enjoyed still sat upon the table, and with no servants except Fin—who was no doubt abed by now—the only option was to take care of the mess himself.

As he gathered the plates, he tried not to think about Claire. God knew there were plenty of other things for him to worry about, but she wouldn’t leave his mind.

He squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the image of her entrance into the salon earlier this evening. He should be thinking of Jane, the only woman he had ever loved. But Claire’s image was fixed firmly in his mind.

He tried to think of something else, someone else, but nothing came to him. The problem was, had always been, that there was very little inside him. Deep inside, where he should have had a soul, he felt a desperate emptiness. Ever since he was a child, he had known something was missing in him, some defect that made him unlovable. He had always blamed his shortcomings on his lack of love as a child. His mother had died when he was only three, and his father had always been too busy warring or whoring to care about his sons.

As an adult, Jules came to understand that his father’s shortcomings were not the reason for his emptiness. There were others among his friends who’d had similar childhoods, such as Nicholas Kincaid, who had overcome those deficiencies to find love and happiness. Nicholas was, by all means, a self-made man whose soul was filled with generosity and goodness. While Jules’s own soul was empty.

Perhaps it was best that Claire was angry with him now. She might not like his refusal to accept her word about their marriage. But on the morrow, when his solicitor arrived, he would give her what little money he had left, then send her away from Kildare Manor and himself for good. And the emptiness that had been his constant friend for the whole of his life would be his fate and no one else’s.

Exactly the way it should be.

Upstairs in the tower room, Claire forced back a swell of emotion as she wearily unfastened her gown, then climbed into bed. This day had not gone at all as she had hoped. In fact, she was certain she had given Jules more cause to send her away than she had given him incentive to fall into her arms and declare his love for her.

It was her duty to manipulate his emotions, and all would be well as long as she did not blithely open her heart to him in return. For one moment tonight, when he had looked appreciatively at her, she had allowed herself a moment’s pride. The warmth in Jules’s gaze, ever so briefly, had told her what his words did not—that he found her attractive. And for a heartbeat she pretended that his gaze was real, that their marriage had not been forced, and that her husband truly loved her.

And then she had caught herself. As long as she kept her own emotions at bay, she could do what she had to do. If, however, she started to fall for the man she called husband, she might never be able to do what the cloaked figure demanded.

She had to do exactly as she’d been told—make him fall in love with her then walk away. Break his heart. It had seemed a simple task before she had actually met the man himself. He was much nicer than she expected him to be.

Claire drew a sharp breath at the direction of her thoughts. Such thoughts could get the girls killed. For the hundredth time in the past two weeks, Claire worried that those who abducted the girls wouldn’t keep their promise not to harm them if she cooperated. That they had sent slices of fabric from their clothes meant they were near, and watching. Believing they possessed even a small measure of honesty kept her hopes alive and her purpose in place.

Despite her inner turmoil, Claire pulled the sheets up to her chin. She closed her eyes and tried to force her body into a stillness she did not feel. Thirteen days remained for her to make Jules fall in love with her. And during those same thirteen days, she would pray that the girls were safe.

Her best hope for at least the chance of winning his heart and remaining beneath Kildare Manor’s roof lay with the man’s solicitor. When he arrived on the morrow, Jules would have his proof that their marriage had taken place just as she had said.