Heart of Mine by Fyffe Caroline

Author:Fyffe, Caroline
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Beranger was on his second whiskey with Clint and Rhett in the library as they waited on the women to descend from upstairs. Lifting his glass, he sipped the expensive liquor. He hadn’t tasted any finer in many years.

Once he’d left Charger at the livery, he’d secured a small room in a three-story boardinghouse located centrally in town. There he’d also found Jimbo, glum-faced on the porch, after being turned away. Against his better judgment, Beranger had invited him to throw a blanket on the floor for a few days until he could find something else.

Tonight he felt like a new man. The whiskey he’d consumed had warmed his insides considerably, bringing out his affable side—more so than he’d normally let show in a group of people he’d just met. Nobody, not even the men, had seemed surprised at the different color of his eyes. Belle or Blake must have alerted them to the oddity.

On the way out to the Five Sisters, he’d been taken by the beauty of the land. The ever-present tightness in his chest eased as he crossed the far-ranging pastures with their brown, blowing grasses that covered gently rolling hills crowned by oaks, aspens, and pine trees. Suddenly gone was the need to find what was around the next bend in the road, to prove to the heavens he wasn’t just a byproduct of an urge of his father, the duke. He’d been content just to sit quietly on the back of his loaned horse and take in the view. Even in the waning light, he’d been able to see the loveliness of his surroundings. Eden was properly named.

The spaciousness of the large rooms of the new Five Sisters ranch house was attractive. It had the feel of a profitable operation, but it also possessed a feminine touch as well. He liked the large stone fireplace in the library, the tapestry above of a prairie filled with cattle—so different from the wall hangings in Ashbury Castle. Knights, soldiers, cobblestone streets, and cottages were replaced with cattle and wide-open skies. A quiet simplicity that brought to mind Mozart’s Minuet in F Major. The rugged bookcase, with its array of volumes, also tempted him. The shiny black piano in the corner caught his eye. He wondered if Emma played.

A boy like you has no need of music study. You must learn a trade, make connections. When you reach sixteen, the duke will no longer have any duty to support you. But if you’d like to stay and listen to Gavin’s lesson, I have no objections as long as you remain silent. Gavin will be duke one day. You, on the other hand, if you remain here, will be his servant in one capacity or another. But that shan’t be so bad. Better than the streets where you were born.

But he had played music when his stepmother wasn’t around. When no one was around. He’d watch Gavin’s lessons and attempt to duplicate them later, playing by ear and memory.

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