Page 2 of The Wayward Duke
She wouldn’t –couldn’t– allow him to barge back into her carefully orchestrated existence. Not when she’d finally learned to breathe around the hole in her chest he’d carved open with his abandonment.
Her husband didn’t so much as turn. “It’s only a few weeks, Linnie.”
“But I—”
He turned to face her, pinning her in place with those wintry eyes. “But what?”
Caroline flinched. “The ducal chamber is my studio.”
For several heartbeats, Julian just looked at her – time and tragedy stretched taut between them. Then he climbed the last few steps up and tore open the door to what had once been his room.
Julian’s gaze traced over it all with clinical precision, no doubt taking in every telling detail. Everything was exactly as she’d left it earlier. The space was filled with half-finished canvases propped at odd angles to catch the light, jars of linseed oil and bottles of pigment scattered on every flat surface, the crimson divan placed strategically beneath the wide studio windows.
Nothing of his old room. No evidence of their intimacy. Their marriage had been put on a pyre and set alight, and the only thing that remained of it was the ashes of their former life.
His focus snagged on the easel, where the nude painting of Laurent sat half finished, in all its garish and horrific glory. Caroline’s cheeks reddened. Somehow, that portrait seemed like a mockery, a reminder of her ineptitude. No matter how many years she spent trying to forget Julian, no one else would compare.
Her husband, after all, had been her first model. Her first secret painting.
Her first everything.
“I saw work like this at Marlborough House.” His voice was soft, and yet it shared nothing. “Your brushstrokes, your method, your lighting.” He moved his fingertips over the canvas, not quite touching. “But it wasn’t your signature in the corner.”
It had not occurred to her that he would recognise all the intimate details of her work, but Julian had such a keen eye. An artist’s heart, if not the talent at putting paint to canvas. And so he had once given her the artist’s heart of him, and she – selfish creature in her youth that she was – had desired more.
Too much.
“Grace suggested Henry Morgan as mynom de guerrewhen I first started painting,” she said quietly. “Remember?”
She shouldn’t ask. Shouldn’t care. But his memories of their oldest childhood friend – the third of their trio – were woven through hers, a thread binding their frayed edges.
Grief ghosted across his features. Then it was gone. “I do.”
She cleared her throat. “I decided it was best to use it for my more… scandalous pieces. I wasn’t aware you’d seen my work since…”
Since you were the one who posed for me.
Julian’s hand dropped. “I admire exceptional art where I find it.” He spoke softly, each word clipped. “And yours have always been my favourite.”
Her traitorous heart gave a twist.
She studied the lines of his face, trying to remember the last time she’d kissed him. The last time she’d felt his touch. Every moment was documented and stored in her mind behind shards of jagged glass as reminders that their marriage began as a mistake.
When he’d left her, she’d done nothing to stop him. Just stood there, mute and stupid, while he walked away.
“I’ll stay in one of the guest chambers until my departure,” Julian said. “I leave for Italy at the end of the month.”
She shook her head. “I’ll have the servants remove my things from in here—”
“No.” Julian’s expression remained unreadable, as closed to her as a locked tower. “The afternoon light slants in here the way you like it, and a guest room would be more than suitable for me.”
Of course it would. That would put him on the other side of the house, putting as much distance between them as their residence allowed.
When her thoughts turned poisonous, Caroline sometimes wondered if Julian had simply decided he loved Grace. If their friend’s sudden loss had cracked him open in some fashion, made him realise the depth of his affection only after it was too late. Made him regret the impulsive circumstances binding him to Caroline now like shackles.
After all, he’d left Caroline behind the moment Grace drew her last agonised breath. And she went from being one-third ofJulian, Grace, and Carolineto being utterly, wretchedly alone.
And now their peers whispered behind fluttering fans, speculating endlessly on why the Duke and Duchess of Hastings avoided each other’s presence.
