He was nervous, too, she thought, and that realization made her feel more at ease. She lifted her gaze to meet his eyes. They were glimmering with unshed tears.
“Luciana,” he said softly. “I want you to know that I have always kept you in my heart. I’ve prayed for you every day, and I am so … happy to see you again.”
Her heart swelled with a longing that threatened to push aside her resentment. But not quite all of it. For why would a loving father abandon a child?
“Mother Ginessa has been telling me how well you’ve done with your studies,” he continued, glancing toward the nun who was busily filling two goblets. “She says you’re proficient in all four of the mainland languages. And I know how well you can write and draw.”
“Aye, that he does,” Mother Ginessa agreed as she handed him and Luciana each a goblet of warmed wine. “Remember how surprised ye were when someone purchased the first book ye transcribed and illustrated?”
Luciana curled her hands around the warm goblet as she gave the duke a questioning look. She’d completed her first book two years ago. As a practice exercise, it had clearly been inferior to the works produced by the more experienced nuns at the convent.
He nodded, beaming proudly. “I have everything you’ve done. Even the drawings you did as a child. Mother Ginessa sent them, along with reports on how you were faring.” His smile faded. “Of course, I had to keep them secret.”
Why? What was wrong with her? Luciana took a gulp of wine and nearly choked. It was much stronger than the watered-down wine she and her sisters usually drank.
“Are you all right?” the duke asked.
“Aye.” She set the goblet on the stone floor with a clunk. “Nay, I am not,” she corrected herself and lifted her chin to face him. “I don’t understand why I am a secret. Why did ye send me self here as a wee babe? If ye truly care, why did ye ne’er come back for me?”
“Luciana,” Mother Ginessa fussed. “Ye shouldn’t—”
The duke lifted a hand to silence the nun as he shot her an irritated look. “Why does she have an accent? She’s of noble blood, yet she speaks like an islander.”
Luciana winced. Her first time to open her mouth and she was a disappointment. Why should ye care? a rebellious streak in her mind hissed. Ye don’t plan to leave with himself.
Mother Ginessa huffed with exasperation. “She was raised here. Of course she speaks like an islander. Would ye prefer that she’d grown up standing out as different, without e’er knowing a reason why?”
With a sigh, the duke set his goblet on a nearby table. “You make a valid point, but I didn’t anticipate this problem. I assumed she would speak like an Eberoni, since the islands and Eberon share the same language. She’ll have to lose the accent within a fortnight. Can she do that?”
Mother Ginessa nodded slowly. “Aye, I believe so. She’s very bright—”
“And I’m right here,” Luciana added, growing increasingly annoyed that she was being discussed like a codfish at the local market. “Yer Grace—”
“You should call me Father.”
She opened her mouth but couldn’t bring herself to say it. “I appreciate ye remembering me self after nineteen years, but I see no reason to be changing. I speak like an islander because this is my home. I have no wish to leave.”
“Luci—” Mother Ginessa began but hushed when the duke lifted a hand.
“I can understand why you’re somewhat … distrustful, since it must look like I abandoned you. But I never forgot you, Luciana. Not for a moment.” His eyes flared with emotion as he pressed a fist to his damp coat. “Giving you up was like having part of my heart ripped from my chest.”
He seemed so sincere, Luciana blinked back tears. “Then why? Why did ye want rid of me?”
“My dear child.” He clasped her hands in his own. “I never wanted rid of you. Even when your mother begged me to send you here, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“My mother? Is she alive?”
A pained look swept across his face. He released her hands and with haunted eyes turned to gaze at the fire.
You killed her.
The soft voice carried across the room like the wisp of a breeze.
Luciana looked sharply across the room. There, beyond Mother Ginessa’s desk, stood the look-alike ghost.
The woman in red stared back, her mouth twisting into a knowing smirk. “So you can hear me, too.”
Luciana glanced at Mother Ginessa and the duke. Neither of them seemed aware of the new presence in the room.
“Don’t pretend you can’t see or hear me.” The ghost moved closer, her steps gliding silently over the wooden floor. “You obviously have the same gift I had.” She shrugged. “Hardly surprising, given the fact we’re twins.”
Luciana swallowed hard. No wonder they looked identical. But how could she have shared a womb with another soul and not know it? Wouldn’t she have felt a terrible loss as an infant? Perhaps that was why she’d bonded so fiercely with Brigitta, who was only six months younger than herself. And why she felt so close to all her adopted sisters. She’d needed to fill a void.
Her sister chuckled. “You didn’t know, did you? That there were two of us.”
Two. Luciana remembered the third Telling Stone.
“I was the firstborn,” the ghost continued. “I was the one Papa wanted to keep. While you…” Her nose wrinkled with disgust. “You were sent to this wretched rat hole. Just punishment, I would say, for killing our mother.”