Aristocrat | ✓

CHAPTER TWENTY

     The last week of my stay with my family was strained, but I had gone through it with a new lightness of my feet. I had the load I had been carried lifted off my shoulders by sharing the secret with my mother, and I felt comfortable enough around her not to be filled with worry and stress.

     I ignored my father, and since my mother got an understanding of what he was doing she protected me in the small ways she could—changing the conversation with him or simply pulling me aside to calm down.

     I also occupied myself by thinking of Lord Evenus. I overcame my fear of reaching out to Christ for help. Though, talking to God about Lord Evenus seemed the be the only prayers that I didn't feel dirty for making.

     Soon, my last day came and I was standing at the entrance to my family cottage, waiting for the carriage that was supposed to pick me up to get there. My eyes glittered as an honest smile made its way to my face for the first time in a while when I spotted the horses in the distance. By the time the carriage came to a halt at my family home, I was already at its door, pulling it open before climbing in with my bag.

     "Visit when you can!" I heard Isabelle say when I closed the door behind me. A part of me scoffed at that. I poked my head and arm out of the window before waving at my siblings and mother that has come out to the porch to see me off. The carriage started moving, and soon my family home, and then the whole settlement was but a dot in the distance.

     The smile on my face widened as the carriage was trotted out of the main town by the horses. We were soon on the long dirt path that led to Barcombe's castle. The animals were out and about, creaking, tweeting and bellowing from their bellies. I fixed my eyes on the scenery, watching the patches of green, brown and blue phase in at out with the fast movement of the horses.

     Lord Evenus wouldn't be back at Barcombe for another two months, but simply being near the castle lifted my spirits because it was in many ways part of him—where I experienced him.

     When we reached the gates and they spread open for the carriage to pass, I poked my head out, smiling when I saw Marie waiting for me by the courtyard. The carriage came out a stop near the stables, and I climbed out with my bag soon after. I wasn't given enough time to say anything before I was pulled into a hug by Marie. The older woman hummed, swaying with me from side to side like I was her son that had just come back from war.

     "The castle is a bit of a mess, but I can make you a cup of tea when you got in," she whispered into my ear, patting my back before pulling away from me.

     "Thank you," I muttered. Since Marie had left for her break a day earlier than me, she had come back a day earlier too.

     She helped me with my bag, and we both head into the castle. I listened to her tell me about her husband and sister's grown children as I buttered bread and drank from the cup of tea, she had made for me. The ride to the castle had been long, and it was already approaching night by the time Marie said her goodbyes for the day and retreated to her chamber.

     I tried to do the same, but I couldn't sleep. My heart kept pounding as my eyes darted from one end of my room to the other as memories of the Lord smiling and engaging to me flooded my thoughts. A part of me was longing for him—desperate for him to embrace me like he had the night before he left to march north. Sometimes I would be filled with the sudden fear that this would be his last journey up north and that he would die given my luck, but I managed to push those thoughts away, instead, favoring the ones of happiness about being back in the castle.

     I got up from my bed and picked my lamp from the tabletop before heading out like I did when I would go and check up on the Lord. The difference now was that neither he nor Troy was around. The hallway upstairs was dark since no one bothered to light the candles. I used the light of my lamp to make my way to the lord's room before pressing my cheek to the door. The sound of my own heart pumping rang in my ears. I closed my eyes for a bit before opening them. I opened the door before walking into the room. It was dark—pitch black at every corner my lamp could not illuminate. The widows had been covered up with heavy curtains so there was no moonlight either.

     I walked over to the lord's dresser before putting my lap down. I walked over to his bed, touching the bedding on it before taking a seat on its edge. The whole room made my skin feel sensitive—the bed was the closest thing to Lord Evenus in the castle. I rested back on the bed, looking up at the canopy above as my heartbeat quickened. His smell filled my nostrils, and so did the vivid thoughts from the night he embraced me.

     I nibbled on my lower lip, reaching behind me for a pillow before bringing it to my face. The smell comforted me, but it reminded me that the Lord wasn't here with me.

     "Don't die, that would be very unfortunate," I said in a small voice, smiling at myself as if Lord Evenus had chuckled at my joke. I know he would have. At first, I had been very cautious about how I spoke with him, but the more I interacted with him, the less formal I became with my speech.

     My mind drifted to another memory of an encounter with the Lord two or so years ago. I had been taking a walk on the path of the to the farms, and he was riding on his horse. I remembered him stopping, asking how I was as I gazed into his dark eyes—the only part of him visible in his thick clothing. I had told him no but hadn't been able to stop my heart from beating from the sight of him hours after I had interacted with him.

     He had been wearing a heavy coat over a high collared yellow top with frills. The hood covering his face had been fancy too, being made of mink fur. It was the most elaborate I had ever seen him on one of his many quick rides about Barcombe.

     With the push of a certain urge, I got up from the bed and went to the closet at the far end. I opened it, looking through the lord's clothes as my mind imagined him wearing the pairings I was making in my mind. It was odd but leaving a loved one an item of clothing made sense to me now. When I had first come across the idea in a book, I had scuffed, wondering what kind of sentiment a shirt would hold for instance, but here I was, sniffing shirts and smiling down at breeches.

     I squat down, deciding that the folded away items at the far back were just as interesting. I hadn't seen the lord wear most of them. A lot of them looked like old high court French attire—at least from what I had seen in picture books. I couldn't picture them on Lord Evenus. They even looked a bit small. A bit too high fashion for him too. Maybe they were old clothes. They were at the bottom after all.

     As I sorted through the clothes I tried to think of when the Lord would have worn them. I was so engrossed in building a timeline out of them that I didn't notice the frame that was being uncovered as the stack grew smaller with each item of folded clothing that I removed from it. It was only when I had reached into the wardrobe in the dark to look for more clothes that my fingers touched the roughness of oil paints. I let the tips of my fingers define them in strokes, before taking my hand away and going to grab my lamp to have a better look.

     I returned to the closet, placing my lamp on the floor before looking into the storage again. My eyes went wide, and my mouth hung open as the green eyes of the strong-jawed clean-shaven man stared straight at me. Even if the painting was static there was a softness to his eyes. His blonde hair was cut short and sat in heavy curled on his head. I noticed the dark black-blue clothing associated with Barcombe Lords. My mind refused to believe it was who so thought it was until my eyes found the Barcombe crest that Lord Evenus wore on the belt around the man's waist.

     It had to be Sawyer, the former Lord of Barcombe.

     For the first time ever, I was looking into the eyes of the man Lord Evenus has fallen in love with all those years ago.

     I suddenly felt faint, a bit overwhelmed by the knowledge. I looked down at the clothes, putting two and two together that they bandit have belonged to the deceased man. They were stylish and small and the man in the picture was the same—slender and flamboyant with a cocky smile, a slim figure, and big innocent eyes.

     I started to fold the clothes and put them back in place, building a wall of laundry that covered up the canvas again. There was a feeling of sickness in me when I got up with my lamp when I was done. The shaking didn't stop even when I got to my bedchamber and climbed into bed. I felt like I had seen something I wasn't supposed to.

     Something only reserved for the Lord's eyes.