His feet bare, but with trousers and a lawn shirt on, Talen stepped into the library of Washburn Manor, holding the lamp from his chamber into the shadows at this side of the library. Just another one of the expansive rooms he’d wandered through that day with Ness, trying to spark memories of the past. Memories that remained elusive.
Stubbornly so.
The dowager had been gone the whole of the day and well into nightfall. He’d been convinced she’d fled and stayed at the dower house to avoid him, but the echoes of the front door opening and closing had reached into the bowels of the house and had pulled him from bed and Ness’s warm naked body.
Not that he’d been sleeping. Not that he’d had any real sleep since arriving at this blasted place. Ness’s body—burying himself in her—had been the only thing keeping him from tearing apart this place brick by bloody brick.
A heavy wool wrap still draped over her robust form, the dowager stood bent over a table by the fireplace, her back to him, her head cocked as she tilted a book toward the light of the flames.
“You returned.”
She jumped upright with a squeak, her hand on her chest as she spun around. “Sweet lad, you frightened me. Do not sneak up upon a lady of my age or you’ll find me duly expired at your feet.”
“I believe you hardier than that, from what I have seen.”
She smiled, taking his words as a compliment. Whether or not he meant them as one he wasn’t sure himself.
He stopped a distance from her. “The travel to and from the dower house today wasn’t as quick as you had hoped?”
“No, no, it was not.” Her hand waved in the air. “My driver thought the road would be fine, but it was a slow slog, with far too many stops where the carriage had to be pushed through. Your driver was right to recommend against forging north at the moment.”
She motioned for him to come closer. “Come, see. I have it—here it is, your proper name. Come see by the firelight.”
Talen moved forward, setting his lamp on the table by the fireplace. She lifted up the book to him, holding it open to one of the first few pages. Long lines of names listed down the left and right sides of the pages. Names of people he should have known, should have heard of. People of his blood and bones.
She tilted the bible toward the fireplace and pointed to one line on the right side. “See, here you are. Right here.Conner Josiah Bartholomew Francis Burton. It was a handful, I remember that. Francis was your great-great-great-grandfather. I believe Josiah came from your mother’s lineage, though I fear I don’t recall the direct relation. And I was just studying the names of the past, as I’m not positive where Bartholomew came from. I don’t recall one in the line, but I haven’t looked at the bible in a long time.”
Talen stared at his name, written in such a fine script. Beautiful, even, where the letters looped together with the flourish of an inspired quill. His mark on history when he’d never had one.
Yet he felt no ownership on it. Couldn’t feel ownership on it. Not when this family that had created him had been the very same one that had destroyed him long ago, taking everything from him.
Taking his place in the world.
With a relieved sigh, a smile spread wide across the dowager’s face, her thick skin crinkling with age. “I look at you in this light and you look so young again, Conner. You look just like my own boy, Clayborne. It makes my heart happy to see you again. Alive. Healthy. I have worried on you for so long.”
His eyes flickered to her then back to the names scattered down the page. “My name is Talen and you see a past I don’t remember.”
She set the book onto the table and turned fully to him. “Being here hasn’t sparked any other memories? Did you visit your room in the nursery wing? I know much of that has been covered and isn’t in use now, but maybe there is something there that you would remember. A wooden horse or something akin to it?”
A caustic chuckle left his throat. “To my knowledge, I’ve never played with a wooden horse in my life.”
“But you used to, I remember that. You didn’t go anywhere without a horse in your hand.”
“I didn’t even learn to ride until I arrived in England six years ago. I have sea legs, nothing else.”
Her hands nervously smoothed down the front folds of her wool wrapper as her lips drew inward, his tone cutting off her babblings of the past. Good. He didn’t want to hear it. Hear what a happy life he had. Hear what was taken away from him.
He tapped his fingers on the corner of the bible. “This is helpful. Thank you for retrieving it.”
“Of course. Of course, anything to make this easier on you. I am so sorry for the past. For all my husband wrought upon you.”
His lips pulled back in a tight line. “You should know, aunt, that I don’t want the earldom. I imagine that is why you have been insistent on us staying until your son arrives. Honestly, I want very little to do with this place and my connection to it. The name, I’ll take that to the marriage vows only to protect Ness. Beyond that, I have my own wealth, my own life. I do not need a new one.”
Her lips parted in a silent gasp. “But, you—you are certain? The earldom is yours by birthright.”
He shook his head. “If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that rights are earned, not given. And I don’t want this right. Don’t want anything to do with this place. With the past. Ness and I will leave on the morrow, whether or not your son arrives.”
“But…but you are family. You must—”