Page 43 of His Scandalous Lessons
Her new ladies maid, who had been in the middle of putting her hair up, quit the room without another word. Anne’s heart pounded hard against her chest. Did he suspect? Surely he didn’t know about Richard? They’d been so careful during the duchess’s house party never to be seen alone in each other’s company.
Perhaps he’d heard about Granby. Oh, god, had there been gossip about them that had reached his ears? Had—
“Addresses.” He held up scraps of paper. “Times.” He held up more. “Map.” He set down a map of London. “Get to work.”
Anne held her breath as her father placed the papers and times in front of her. He was onto something. Was it about Richard? “What is this—”
“I didn’t come here to answer questions. I came here to use that freak mind of yours.”
Anne pressed her lips together and looked at the pages. Addresses. Times. Each location mentally laid down on a map. He needn’t have provided the geography of the city for her. She’d already committed it to memory. She corrected and honed her mental map through walks, the architecture of the buildings, and memorizing the lengths of streets. There were patterns in people’s movements, and she knew this was what he wished her to find: a location. Something his spies had uncovered.
Each address of this person’s movements served as a distraction. They were clever — the information was seemingly confused — but Anne’s skills involved recognizing patterns. Oh, her gift. What a beautiful gift it was. How destructive it could be, if used by the wrong person.
With a sigh, she pointed at an address. “There.” And another. “There. All these movements are between the two. Who—”
He began to pull up the papers so eagerly that his hands shook. “Good work. Good work. Excuse me.”
Anne froze as her father left the room, alarm curdling in her belly.
Her father never complimented her. Not ever.
Chapter 24
Richard was more determined than ever to help Anne. After seeing those bruises on her...it took everything in him — every ounce of patience he had — not to seek out Kendal and murder the duke with his bare hands.
He settled, instead, for destroying him. Stanton Sheffield wasn’t the only man in the City who could bring a man to ruin. Richard had brought many men to heel in the years he had been secretly involved in politics. This one was no different.
He was going to make the duke regret ever putting his hands on Anne.
“Tell me about the Duke of Kendal.” Richard said after he was announced at Caroline’s. “What do you know about him?”
Caroline was once again in her studio, sitting in front of her easel. She spent a lot of time there of late; Richard knew from their years as friends that Caroline painted when she needed comfort the most. But it wasn’t his comfort she required; it was the stillness and silence of painting, the ritual of moving her brush across the canvas. He regretted his part in interrupting this, but he needed her help.
Caroline frowned. “I’ve only met him a few times,” she said. “Hastings might be able to better answer your questions were he here.” She leaned forward to scrutinize her painting, wrinkling her nose in distaste at it. “Why don’t you ask your brother? Kent ought to know Kendal well from their debates in the Lords.”
Richard shook his head. “James is useless, at the moment. I went by this morning to find him unwashed and drinking gin and moaning about life’s most eternal question.”
“The answer to life, the universe, and everything?”
“God, no. Nothing so dramatic. About whether he’s in love.”
Caroline stilled, looking away from her painting with a flinch. “Ah,” she said. “That eternal question.”
“What is it?”
Richard came around the easel to see a portrait of her husband there. The Duke of Hastings had such austere features. High cheekbones. A small, mysterious smile. Catherine had caught him in a moment of surprise, as if the viewer and the duke spotted each other across a ballroom and communicated in a silent language. The portrait was lovingly done, meticulous in its coloring.
“This is nice,” he said. “I had no idea the duke was such a skilled model.”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “My first, in fact. He used to sit for hours for me. I wish I had never asked.”
Richard stared down at the duchess, wishing she didn’t look so sad. “Why?”
Caroline shook her head. “I fell in love with him each time.”
Her love for the duke explained the level of detail in his portrait. There was a longing to it, Richard knew now. In the brush strokes, in the moment she had chosen to capture. What had caused such tension between them, that it felt so insurmountable to a woman as beautiful and kind as Caroline?
“You miss him,” Richard said. “I see it in your painting.”
