Despite herself, she sighed. In repose, he appeared a younger, more boyish version of himself. Yet he’d not shaven in two days and the evidence of his maturity shadowed his jaw.

Fearing that any moment he would awaken and catch her admiring him, she quit him for the kitchen, where she warmed some of Mrs. Kettle’s rolls. After preparing a pot of tea, she made up a tray, the final touches being small dishes of the marmalade and honey she’d discovered in the pantry. Conveying all this to the great room, she set the tray on a table beside Claxton.

He exhaled and shifted, but did not open his eyes. No matter, he could sleep as long as he liked. She would return to her room with a cup of tea and read for the remainder of the morning once she removed the portrait, which seemed the conscientious thing to do as Claxton’s frustration with her had been to blame, at least in part, for its destruction.

She grasped its frame and lifted.

“Burn it.”

She turned and found him watching her, sleepy eyed and flushed. Inside she melted. How seductive he looked, with his hair tousled and his eyes heavy lidded. She blinked and glanced away, mentally shaking off her attraction.

“I was going to put it in the attic,” she said. “Perhaps the canvas can be repaired.”

“Repaired?” he muttered, righting himself on the cushions. He scowled. “Whatever for?”

“You’ll regret this one day, the destruction of your familial history. Have you any other portraits of him?”

“I do believe that was the last.” He smiled wickedly, an indication he may have disposed of prior paintings in the same manner.

“But, Claxton, whatever your feelings about your father, your mother clearly believed he deserved some measure of respect or else she would not have hung his portrait in her home.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You believe she hung that portrait? She didn’t. There’s a reason I didn’t know what he looked like until I was ten. Likely he hung it after her death, when he had the house shuttered. The bastard would have done that.” He spoke quietly, but bitterness roughened his voice. He rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m sure he came here after and cleaned out everything that had made Camellia House hers, like so much refuse, and hung a picture of his own damn self on her wall. Try to find her likeness anywhere, Sophia. You won’t find it. He had every portrait and miniature of her destroyed, and I’ve done everything I could to repay him in kind.” Sitting up, he reached for his Hessian. “He might as well have pissed on her grave.”

Sophia flushed at his crudity. “You seem as if you are only supposing what he did. Weren’t you present when all this occurred?”

He stood and with the assistance of the fireplace poker extricated the second boot from the bough. “No, I was gone by then.”

“What do you mean gone?”

“When I learned he’d dismissed the Kettles, I left.” He balanced on one long leg, tugging on the boot. “I enlisted in the army.”

“How old were you then?”

“Hmm? Oh, I was sixteen.”

She set the portrait down. “Claxton, when was the last time you spoke to your father before his death?”

“You mean directly? Not through representatives?”

“Yes, talked to him face-to-face.”

He circled the settee to stare out the window. “Sixteen.”

Sophia’s mouth fell open in shock. “I’d always assumed you entered the service in the same manner as other titled gentlemen, with a purchased commission. No one recognized your name?”

“Well, I lied about that, of course, and they shipped me straight off to India. It took the duke’s investigators three years to find me too. By then, my general had purchased my first commission for me, something he did from time to time based on merit. Merit, Sophia. Not that damn bastard’s name.” He laughed. “The duke was so furious when he found out he told them to leave me there.” He fell silent for a long moment. “He summoned Haden home from school then, just in case I ended up dead. I hated myself when I found out.”

Looking at Claxton now, turned from her, his stance was invincible and strong. Yet her imagination showed her another picture, that of a proud young boy. She wanted nothing more than to ease the pain that the man in the portrait brought him. Since she could not do so with an embrace or a kiss, she offered the only other reasonable response.

“Well, then, let us burn this awful thing.”

He continued to peer out the window, as if he refused to commit another word to the discussion of the cursed portrait. Or perhaps it was Haden of whom he thought.

She again lifted the destroyed canvas by its frame, prepared to condemn the despised countenance to the flames.

Only then did she see the pale rectangular object affixed to the back. A piece of parchment. No, an envelope, fragile and yellowed with age. Setting the lower edge of the frame on the floor, she tilted the destroyed surface back for a better view. Across the front of the envelope written in a beautiful script was the name—

“Claxton, look.” She propped the frame against the wall. “There is an envelope with your name on it.”

He turned from the window with a dubious look.

She tugged the envelope free from where it had been wedged into the frame. He met her in the middle, eyeing the object in her hand.

His expression softened. “That’s my mother’s handwriting.”

“Open it,” she urged.

He made no move to accept the object. “You may do so.”

“What if she wrote something private?”

“You are my wife,” he answered quietly, the look of sleepiness he still wore an unintended seduction. “What could she possibly have written that I would not want you to read?”

You are my wife. The words branded her. Took her breath away. She calmed the racing beat of her heart and slid her thumb beneath the seal. From inside the envelope, she removed the folded sheet of paper.

“Well, it’s not a letter.” She turned the open page for his view so that he could see the hand-drawn pictures of smiling pixies and curlicued words. “I don’t know what it is.”

Claxton threw a cautious glance at the paper. After a moment, relief eased his features and a faint smile turned his lips. “It’s a quest for a game of lookabout.”

“Lookabout?”

He exhaled, and his skin flushed a shade deeper. He nodded. “My mother used to write quests for my brother and me. Boons, if you will. There were usually four or five tasks or trials that we would complete here inside the house or outdoors or even at times in the village, and once we’d located all the quests and completed whatever requirements, we would receive a reward.”

“So this quest will include instructions to find the next, and so on?”

“Yes.” Again, he glanced at the paper. Quickly. Then looked away. “She’s written a number one up in the corner. This is the first boon in a series.”

“Claxton.” Excitement bubbled up inside her to spread a smile across her lips. “How special that we found your mother’s note. To think I was only moments away from burning it.”

“It’s just a child’s game,” he said quietly from where he situated himself beside the woodbox at the far side of the hearth.

Her mind buzzed with curiosity. “But if we so wished, we could find the second quest, and so on?”

“I don’t know.” He crouched, his muscular thighs flexed, to lower a large log on the steel frame atop the dying fire. Sparks spiraled up as the heavier wood invaded the embers and ash. His response lacked Sophia’s enthusiasm. “So many years have passed. No doubt she wrote it up to keep Haden and me occupied, but forgot about it.”

“But how would the quest have come to be on the back of your father’s portrait, which you yourself said did not hang here while she was alive?”

“I—I don’t know.” His eyebrows drew together.

“Strange also that Haden’s name does not appear.”

He raised his shoulders. “We did not always play together.”

“Twenty years,” mused Sophia softly. “It’s almost magical to find her quest now and so close to Christmas. Oh, Claxton, let’s read her instruction and see where to go next.”

His lips drew into a wan smile, and he shook his head. “I told you, Sophia. I’m not that boy anymore. It’s like finding a note she wrote for someone else.”

Sophia’s heart softened. “You think she would have been disappointed in the way you lived your life, but you’re wrong. Mothers love their children unconditionally. They forgive.”

“But wives don’t?”

Flustered by the sudden intensity of his gaze, Sophia waved the paper about. “This isn’t about you and me; it’s about your mother’s quest. Come now, how else shall we occupy our time?” she implored, desperate for any activity that would provide distraction.

“I can think of plenty of ways to occupy our time,” he murmured, coming to stand behind her back. “You just refuse to oblige.”

Sophia’s cheeks filled with heat at his bawdy suggestion. The list of names she carried between her chemise and heart provided a convenient reminder that she wasn’t ready for such ease of familiarity. When she could think of the names on that list and feel nothing—no anger or hurt—then she’d be ready.

“And I don’t intend to cooperate. Please, Claxton, the last two days have been emotionally taxing.” She shook her hair back from her face. “I hope you can appreciate that I need a bit more time. Which makes the idea of playing a game perfect.”

“Do you intend to proceed with a separation or not?” he demanded with sudden vehemence.

“I don’t know,” she exclaimed. “And I don’t appreciate being pressed on the subject.”

At that moment, a solid rapping came from the front vestibule. Claxton pivoted toward the sound.