Dreamspinner by Olivia Drake

a row of unframed watercolors. The brilliant hues of exotic flowers lured her as forsythia beckons a honeybee.
    “Oh, Kent, look!”
    Indulgent pleasure lit his eyes. “Do you like them?”
    “They’re lovely,” she said, picking up a picture of a phalaenopsis orchid, the golden flowers marked with chestnut brown. “Where did you get them?”
    “The other day I came across my father’s drawing case, tucked in a cupboard. He sketched as a hobby.”
    “So that’s where you inherited your artistic talent.”
    A corner of his mouth quirked. “Alas, mine extends solely to dull technical drawing.”
    She surveyed the other designs. “Plumbago, bougainvillea, hibiscus... These plants are all native to India, aren’t they?”
    Kent nodded. “I’m afraid they’re the only flora I could find among the sketches. For the most part, my father drew people and places, odd things he saw on his travels.”
    “May I see the other pictures?”
    Surprise gleamed in his eyes. “Are you really interested?”
    “Yes.”
    He motioned her to the sofa, where a flat leather satchel lay against a rosewood table. Sitting beside her, so close their knees nearly touched, he began to flip through the stack of vellum sheets. The majority of the scenes were of India, where, Kent explained, the Deverell family had long had an interest. Captivated, Juliet studied the contrast of images: a trio of filthy children in a poverty stricken village, a proud native perched atop an ornately saddled elephant, a beautiful blond Englishwoman reclining on a bullock-hide boat as it drifted down the Ganges.
    “Is she your mother?” Juliet asked.
    Kent slanted a look at her. “No. Her name is Chantal Hutton. She is, or rather was, a friend of my father’s.”
    She wondered at his strange expression; then he pulled out the next sketch and her heart went liquid. The smooth pen strokes depicted a boy, his chin tucked shyly, sitting astride a pony. The youthful angles of his face held a promise of strength.
    “Ah, now, that’s you.”
    “You’re right. I was eight years old there.”
    “And the servant beside you,” she said, noting the turbaned Indian standing at stiff attention, “he looks like the man who answered the door today.”
    “Yes. Back then, Ravi acted as my father’s chaprassi, or messenger. He was my father’s most trusted servant.”
    “He didn’t seem to care much for a Carleton visiting you.”
    “Don’t pay him any mind.” Kent kept his gaze fixed on the sketch he held. “Odd, how that day brings back memories. The sun was beating down, and I can still smell the suffocating heat that weighted the air. I felt ready to faint, but when my father said sit still, I sat.”
    “He was strict?”
    “Yes, but it was more than that. My mother had died the previous year, and I wanted to please him, to make him smile, to lift him out of his melancholy.”
    The sympathetic portrayal of William Deverell intrigued Juliet. Was Papa biased? “Tell me about him, please.”
    A shadow passed over Kent’s face. “What do you want to know?”
    His sudden cool manner irritated her, but she kept on, determined to learn more about the man her father hated. “What sort of person was he? I had the impression he was a relentless businessman, yet these sketches are the work of a sensitive man.”
    “In part, he was a dreamer.” He tucked the drawing back into the case, then propped his elbows on his knees and looked down at his clasped hands. “Yet he also held an unshakable conviction about class differences. He believed that a man born to the dukedom, a man with the noble blood of the Deverells, was superior to other men and destined to rule.”
    “You must not feel superior if you’re a farmer.”
    He smiled. “Father never understood why I’d want to work in a field, like a common laborer.”
    “What did he want you to do with your life?”
    “He thought I ought to follow in the footsteps of generations of Deverells.” He shot her an