Forsaking the Prize (The Wild Randalls 2)

He squinted at the squiggles and lines. “Dear God. I’d have tossed this nonsense into the fire long before this.”

She held out her hand. “Yes, it does not surprise me that you are a man of limited patience.”

He snuck a look at her again. Beautiful, but a harsh judge of character. Tobias could, in fact, be very patient when he wanted something badly enough. He’d waited for a chance to escape so he could return home, hadn’t he? It might have taken him ten years, but Lady Venables assertion that he lacked conviction tempted him to prove her wrong. He kept the book, skimming over pages containing gibberish and the odd number.

Lady Venables hand

lowered as she sighed. “Please do not lose my place.”

He spied his birth year and his heartbeat increased. “I won’t. How long have you been working on this journal?”

“A week or two. I juggle between them all. Trying to find a pattern to unlock the duke’s codes.”

He flipped forward a handful of pages. “All?”

Tobias opened the page containing the countess’ place marker and tried to make sense of the scrawl. Nothing else made sense to him. He closed the book as disappointment curled through him.

“Yes, there is a vast collection. Hasn’t your brother shown you the duke’s sanctuary yet?”

Tobias glanced over his shoulder, only to find his brother whispering in the duchess’ ear. They kissed and he turned back to Lady Venables. “Ah, no. He’s had more than a few things on his mind of late.”

Lady Venables glanced over his shoulder and a blush swept her skin. “Perhaps I should show you now.”

She stood suddenly, crossing to the far side of the room with haste, leaving him to follow at his own pace. The sway and rustle of her dark gown mesmerized him momentarily and he wrenched his gaze up to the back of her head. How damned inconvenient to admire the haughty wench’s body. She was trim and lean. Two things he admired greatly in women.

She stopped at a wall, pressed her fingers to a carved rose set in the panel and the wall clicked.

He cursed as a doorway opened up in the wall. “Damn me, I never would have suspected.”

“Mercy spotted the old duke slipping in here a few years before he died. The room needs to be kept secret from the servants, but for the moment, leave the door open please.” She moved ahead and stopped close to the wall so he might pass her.

Books and curios littered the bookshelves. “Did you find the journal here?”

“Yes, along with others. It seems the duke liked to keep an accounting of quite a few people in society, but never by any name I’m familiar with. I read an unknown ladies journal last week. She talks quiet scathingly of her husband’s many scandals.”

He snorted. Thoughts should not be committed to paper. It served no good in the end. “So, not a love match for them?”

Lady Venables hands clenched at her waist. “Perhaps it was for her, in the beginning, but not by the end. I feel rather sorry for her actually. She was utterly ignored, and despised by his family, if her ramblings are to be believed.”

Sounded like a typical society marriage from all he’d heard of them, yet Lady Venables sounded disapproving. Marriage was for money, and for position. His parents were an exception. They had loved each other very openly until the very last moments.

He glanced at his companion. “I take it you married for love and not for your husband’s title?” Tobias immediately cursed his tongue. That subject, speaking of the late Lord Venables, was one Leopold had warned him to particularly avoid. His brother had not wanted her emotions stirred up again and this topic of conversation was sure to do so.

“I did,” she said quietly. Her gaze dropped to her clenched fingers. She didn’t look up again.

Tobias scrounged for something appropriate to say in response. He’d made her sad and he simply had to lift her spirits again before Leopold noticed his mistake. “Then he was the luckiest of men.”

She tilted her head as she met his gaze. “I would have thought you held little store in the value of marrying for love.”

He lifted his hand and slid his finger along her jaw gently. “I had parents, B. They were in each other’s pockets from sun up till sundown, and what happened after sundown between them is not something I need to think about.”

She stepped away from his touch. “Don’t shorten my name.”

“As you wish, countess, but your title is quite a mouthful to say.” He leaned close to her again. “No one will hear me do it. It’ll be our secret. I promise.”

“You? A promise?”

Tobias smiled tightly. She didn’t know a thing about him. After the fright he’d given her, why shouldn’t she be wary? But still, it irked him not to be believed. “I never break my promises, B. You should reconcile yourself to that. Life is too uncertain without burdening others with avoidable disappointments.”