Well, he did not appear embarrassed to speak openly. “Your demons sound rather wild and temperamental, too.” She scanned the cut of his expensive dark blue coat and the crisp folds of his cravat. “Though you present yourself as quite the opposite.”
“Does that make you uneasy, Miss Atwood?”
“On the contrary, I fear seeing you relaxed and unrestrained would make me a little nervous.”
Again, his penetrating gaze studied every facial feature. “My demons are well behaved during daylight hours. They get a little restless after dark, but I keep them on a tight leash.”
“Unless brutes attack you in the street,” she said, recalling the expert way he had fought the beasts. “Then you let them loose.”
“Then I let them cause untold havoc,” he agreed. He rose from the chair and moved to the platters on the sideboard. He lifted the china covers and began filling a plate.
Sybil took a moment to survey the dining room. Dark oak wainscoting and dull blue wallpaper made the space feel rather bleak. The cold flagstones added to the austere atmosphere. There were no paintings of sour-faced relatives hanging from the dusty picture rail. Nothing to indicate the owner’s history. If anything in the room embodied the master’s complex character, it was the Elizabethan-inspired fire surround—tall and dark with intricate carvings and fascinating detail.
Mr Daventry appeared at her left. “Tomas makes a perfect poached egg,” he said, placing the plate in front of her. He was so close she felt the same tingling awareness she had last night. “Coffee?”
“Please.”
Mr Daventry leaned closer as he poured her beverage, and she was captured again by his alluring scent. “Can I get you anything else, Miss Atwood?”
Something in his tone made her pulse race. Sybil glanced at the table and looked for the rack and butter dish. “Toast?”
He moved to the sideboard and returned with toasted bread cut too thickly and butter in a chipped china keeper. “No one here has time to polish silver.”
“Butter is butter regardless of how it is served.”
“Most ladies would frown upon our unrefined ways,” he said, returning to his seat.
“I am not most ladies.”
“No,” he mused. “I’ve been aware of that for some time.”
Sybil cleared her throat to mask her rumbling stomach. “Should I take that as a compliment or a criticism?” she said as she buttered her toast.
“You’re an intelligent woman, Miss Atwood. Do you think I’m a man who cares for custom and convention?”
“I think you are a complete mystery, Mr Daventry. Today, I’m an intelligent woman. A mere week ago, I was a foolish chit with a brain fit for nothing but painting and playing the doting wife.”
Mr Daventry studied her over the rim of his coffee cup, his intelligent eyes brightening with mild amusement. “The important thing is not what I said bu
t what you believe.”
“I am aware of my worth.” Yet few men admired ladies with such strong opinions. “What you said speaks more of your failings than mine.”
“Indeed, it does.” He raised his coffee cup in salute. “But public opinion creates dreams and nightmares. The truth matters not, which is a point your father was eager to address.”
He seemed keen to steer the conversation towards her father’s work, but the mention of nightmares focused her thoughts in another direction.
Sybil swallowed her coffee to bolster her courage before asking, “Last night, when thrashing about in your sleep, you cried, ‘don’t leave me’. I cannot help but wonder if your quest for the truth stems from a personal need to lay your demons to rest.”
Silence ensued.
A heavy silence.
A suffocating silence.
She had heard the gossip about his mother. The Duke of Melverley was known as a cruel man with a wicked temper. No one blamed his mistress for packing a valise and fleeing into the night. There had been other whisperings, too, nasty suspicions that the woman had never left Bideford Park, that her remains might be found in an unmarked grave in the garden.
Mr Daventry dabbed his mouth with his napkin. His eyes were like granite. Cold and hard. Impenetrable. “We are not here to analyse my mind, Miss Atwood, or to determine my motives for acting as I do.”