Page 37 of Wolfhaven

“That’s what I mean when I say you’re different. You cared about her.” Envy pinched her heart. It was peculiar to feel envious of a girl who hadn’t lived to see her eighteenth birthday. Who had died under such tragic circumstances. But Marina had loved Gareth and he had clearly cared about her in return.

Now, he was closed off and distant. He held the world at arm’s length. Sometimes he let her in for a few moments, but he shut her out again just as quickly. Gran was right that he was handsome, but she was wrong about the duke being attracted to her.

“Everything and everyone I care about comes to a bad end, Miss Ballard. You should keep that in mind as you construct these lofty idealistic notions about me.” He stomped around a pile of bricks that must be one of the fireplace chimneys forming the spine of the house. She had annoyed him. Sighing, she mused that she had a particular talent for doing that. Her teachers at school had called her bright and curious. Outside of school, however, these traits were social liabilities.

She gave him space for a moment before returning to safer conversational territory. “Do you think Marina’s inheritance is still here in the house?”

“Evaine?”

“Yes?”

“Come and look at this.”

She hurried around the brick wall and stopped short. “Oh my,” she gasped, clapping one hand over her mouth. “It’s⁠—”

“A very large bronze statue of two naked people kissing. Who knew my old man collected such filth?” There was no mistaking the mirth in his tone. He had wanted to shock her, and he had succeeded.

“It’s a Rodin, you fool.” She swatted his arm. “The Kiss, a marble sculpture from 1882. This is a bronze cast. A very large one. Originally it was called Paolo and Francesca.”

“From Dante’s Inferno,” Gareth interjected. “I’m not completely uneducated, you know. It is remarkably… sexy.”

“Romantic.” Her cheeks were warm. They often seemed to become so around Gareth. Hopefully the oppressive heat of this attic would conceal any humiliating blush. She was a grown woman, and she could look at sensual art without being embarrassed. Or sensually aroused. She was here to give her professional opinion. Not give in to her base needs.

“It would be romantic if they had clothes on,” he said. “This is just plain filth.”

He did not sound particularly offended by the fact. Quite the opposite.

“In any event, it seems we have discovered a very valuable piece of art,” Evaine said briskly. “Over here. Let’s find out what else is hidden beneath these drop cloths.”

“Honestly, I’m afraid to find out.”

The Rodin sculpture proved to be the most scandalous of the lot. While they uncovered several sculptures depicting nude men from classic Greek literature, they all had appropriately tiny fig leaves properly positioned over their bits. The female figures all wore diaphanous garments, with at most one breast exposed.

“This is quite a find,” Evaine said, examining a small alabaster sculpture, about eighteen inches tall, of a female dancer. A matching male figurine, roughly the same size, could be placed beside it, or away. They were clearly a pair meant to be displayed together, whether facing away or placed intimately close, told a different story. “Stunning work.”

“We’ll both have a good payday when these go to auction,” Gareth said with satisfaction.

“Doesn’t it bother you to sell them?” she asked wistfully. “They’re so beautiful. I can’t understand why your father would’ve kept them in the attic.”

“They weren’t his. My mother liked to collect art. She wasn’t terribly discriminating, which is why we have so much bad art. Much of which I have already sold off at her behest. After he sent her to the asylum⁠—”

“Asylum?” Evaine whirled.

“He had her confined against her will. For years. It was a punishment for her disobedience. I imagine Father thought these were too scandalous to display around his young son. Couldn’t have a boy looking at marble breasts, after all. So he had them moved into the attic and forgot about them. I remember them having rows about her art collection. I didn’t remember the specific pieces. Probably because I was never allowed to see them.”

“I hate him more every time you tell me another fact about your father.”

“The well of hatred for that man is bottomless,” he said grimly. “Here. If you can carry this one down, you can keep these two in your room until it’s time to sell them. Someone should appreciate their beauty.”

Evaine happily tucked the statue of the female dancer into the crook of her arm while they finished their tour of the attic. Gareth took the other. At one end of the massive space was a pile of boards that didn’t look like part of the building. Charred black sections reached like ghoulish fingertips along the rafters. Water stains from an old leak darkened a section of the floor. While the entire space was musty, here it smelled faintly of stale ash.

“This is where they boarded up the north wing after the fire.” Gareth stared at the black marks.

“Did anything survive?”

“Nothing salvageable at this point.”

Silence stretched between them. First companionable. Then turning awkward. She didn’t know what to say. There were no pithy words of comfort she could offer him that didn’t sound cliché and insincere to her own ears.