Page 18 of The Wayward Duke
He pulled back. “Wouldn’t you like to touch me in all the ways you’ve imagined? Be my wife, and I’m yours. Say yes.”
I’m already yours. I just want you to be mine.
For several pounding heartbeats, he held still, waiting for her answer. Ruin and rapture balanced on the same razor edge.
Then she turned her eyes to his, soft and wondering, and she plummeted down the precipice with him. “Yes.”
7
London, 1874
Nine years later
The afternoon carriage ride to Lady Fairfax’s estate felt endless. Caroline was too aware of Julian beside her – the solidity of his thigh pressed to hers, his clean scent teasing her senses.
When the charged silence grew too much, she asked, “How long has it been? Since…”
Since you traced every inch of me with those elegant fingers until I was mindless with pleasure? Until I forgot everything but the taste of your skin beneath my lips?
“Since we sat together in a carriage?” he supplied.
“Sat together anywhere. Attended an event. Had a conversation.” She paused, then added in a softer voice, “Since I drew you?”
She heard the hitch in Julian’s breath at the mention of her art, the intimate charcoal portraits she’d made of him so long ago. Theirs had always been a relationship defined by the spaces left unspoken.
“Eight years. Or seven years, ten months, four days, to be precise.” Julian’s voice was low, almost rough. “And you didn’t draw me after our wedding.”
The specific accounting was a blade slipped between her ribs, sharp and unexpected. He’d been counting the days apart as diligently as she had.
“I drew you from memory,” Caroline confessed before she could think better of it. She gave a careless shrug, feigning nonchalance. “I can show you sometime if you’d care to see.”
“I would enjoy seeing your work whenever you wish to share it,” he said, his voice gentle.
“I’ll look for them,” she said, gathering herself. “They’re probably buried under dust by now.”
Where she’d once boarded up her tender feelings as one might shutter a crumbling ruin.
Sensing the need to redirect their discourse to less treacherous waters, Julian said, “We should prepare ourselves for scrutiny today. Have you heard the latest gossip about us?”
She gave him a wry glance. “You read the scandal sheets, Hastings? How shocking. What’s next, playing whist and gossiping over cake with dowagers?”
“On occasion, one does overhear tidbits over cigars and port.”
“I see.” Caroline tilted her head, considering. “Go on, then. What did you learn about the estranged Duke and Duchess over cigars and port? Have we grown horns and tails in each other’s absence?”
“They wonder if the duke keeps a mistress on the Continent to explain his long absences,” Julian said bluntly.
There it was. Their fragile accord cracked beneath the sharp spike of jealousy that lanced through her at the thought of Julian in another woman’s bed. She forced her tone to nonchalance. “And does he?”
“I thought I made it clear when we were young that I’ve no tolerance for infidelity or affairs outside of marriage. That hasn’t changed.”
The confession settled in her like a stone. Eight years apart, and he’d been faithful to her. The thought sunk deep, cracking open possibilities she’d long since boarded up.
“What about whispers regarding your duchess?” she asked, almost gently. “Has she taken someone to warm her bed while her husband was off on his adventures with the nonexistent Continental mistress?”
“No.” Something dangerously close to possession simmered beneath that one clipped word. “As far as thetonknows, we’re the picture of propriety and marital devotion. So very dull that we’ve lived apart nearly a decade with nary an unkind word between us.”
“I’m rather disappointed we haven’t been embroiled in any outrageous scandals during our separation. Maybe we ought to manufacture some for novelty’s sake.” Caroline gave him a playful smile. “Hurl insults in public. Overturn a tea table. Ravage each other on top of the petit fours.”
