Page 101 of His Duchess of Scandal
“You can tell me anything,” he assured her. “This room holds plenty of secrets already. Do not fear adding your own to it. And once you are done, allow me to show you that you are not darkness, Hermia. You are light—you are every light at once, flooding my life in a way I have been stubbornly resisting.”
And she found that she wanted to. After so many years, she was ready to speak about it.
“I was once promised to a naval officer,” she began. “He was the heir to an earldom—an only son—and had served in the navy until it was time to inherit his title. We were not in love, nowhere near. He was handsome, charming, and perhaps I would have fallen in love with him over time, but…”
She wrung her fingers and took a deep breath.
“He was killed in action. I received a very short letter from his father, ending our courtship. I was not his wife, so I did not get my full mourning period. Selfishly, I mourned the friendship we had, the security, the hope that I would no longer have to endure my mother’s matchmaking schemes.
“Barely a month after his death, I was thrust back into a ballroom, expected to resume wooing suitors, but I could not. My heart was not in it, and spitefully, I tried to push away my suitors so my mother would realize her mistake. Of course, it backfired, for I became a spinster, but I knew I had not been ready. I was nine-and-ten, on the cusp of marriage and future security, only to suddenly become three-and-twenty, preparing for the countryside, unwed, and…”
Her eyes had wandered to the paintings once more, finding comfort in not having to look at her husband head-on. But now she shifted her gaze back to him.
“And then I met my Ares at a party I should not have been to. Yet I was. And—and there you were.”
“Thereyouwere,” he answered quietly. “Boisterous, outspoken, and opinionated.”
Where there had been an accusation in his voice the last time they spoke about their meeting at the party, he was now affectionate. Softer-spoken, adoring almost.
Hermia felt her heart flutter, and she stepped closer. Charles pulled her against him, slowly turning her so her back was pressed to his chest.
He pointed to a corner of the studio—no, a wholewall, and she gasped.
“You truly did keep painting me,” she whispered. “You mentioned it over breakfast, but I did not—I did not believe it.”
“Why not?”
Because I have not been a woman worthy of being painted. I have not been anybody’s muse.
As if he could hear her thoughts, Charles murmured into her ear, “You are my muse. I cannot get you out of my head, Hermia. You are a craving I cannot sate. A yearning I cannot satisfy, no matter how much time we spend together. Do not ever think otherwise. Believe me when I tell you how much you have made a home in my mind, one that has roots and a foundation I would never tear apart.”
She took in the many canvases hanging on the wall. Some were framed, others weren’t, and she wondered how many were painted here, in this studio, and how many were painted in Branmere Hall and transported.
“I have painted you since the moment I met you, Hermia,” Charles told her softly. “And I think I will paint you forever.”
Hermia turned in his arms, unable to shake the thought of seeing his depiction of her. Every curve she had thought made her less desirable than other ladies. The hair she had always thought was too dull and lacked luster. The eyes she had wished were darker, prettier, more alluring.
Yet she saw how she was all of those things to Charles. If not to herself, then to him. Somehow.
Someway.
He took her chin between his fingertips, tipping her head up in that way that never failed to make her stomach clench.
“You are my beautiful muse,” he murmured. “And you are my equal. My Duchess.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and then the bridge of her nose, until he finally met her mouth. “And I promised you one last secret, did I not?”
“You did.”
After so many alluring words, her breathing was so heavy that she could hardly speak.
Charles walked her over to a canvas near the back, half hidden by a sheet, half concealed by other frames. But she recognized enough of herself to know that this wasthepainting, the one that had brought about their marriage.
The Hermia on the canvas was artfully wrapped in silk, lying back on dark sheets, as she had been that night. Pressed beneath his body, she had languished and drowned in pleasure, and, without being crude, the painting showed that. It was soaked in pleasure without being explicit, and that somehow made it more erotic.
And there, at the bottom right corner, was a golden swirl that caught her attention for the simple fact that it was different from the others around the room. For that signature was of Charles Thorne, her husband, but the other artwork held a cursive that, once again, tugged at her memory.
“I am Christian Dawson,” Charles confessed. “He is the persona I created in order to keep painting. I used my own paintings to begin curating pieces. It was not about the money, but the factthat my art was getting out there, even if under the protection of a different name.”
Christian Dawson.
