Page 40 of The Wayward Duke
Go away.
Stop coming back.
I hate you so much, I can’t stand the sight of you.
The thorns of that memory pierced deep. After months and months of those barbs, he’d stopped coming to her door. He’d retreated behind the infamous Hastings reserve, becoming more of a stranger with each passing year. Never seeing her again, just as she’d asked. They’d spun in remote orbits around each other since, neither daring to draw too close.
It was easier to pretend the other didn’t exist.
But his note was an offer of temporary amnesty. Trace the faintest line back to the man and woman they had once been before tragedy carved them hollow. Back when hope wasn’t a blade poised over an exposed heart.
She thought of Julian’s hands bathing her wounds. The solid anchor of his body curled around hers through the night.
And Caroline realised with dizzying clarity that she desperately wanted to meet him halfway.
16
London was wreathed in grey as Julian arrived home. The silhouette of Stafford House blurred at the edges, softened by the mist. Inside, all was still and quiet. Too quiet for his liking after the chaos of last night.
He took the stairs two at a time, boots thudding against the carpet runner. As he neared the upper landing, the muffled rustle of movement met his ears. Julian paused, angling his head to listen. Caroline’s studio. She was safe, occupied. The knot of dread that had coiled in his chest loosened. Julian moved towards the studio, floorboards groaning faintly beneath his steps despite his care.
He nudged the studio door open. Caroline sat perched on her stool, limned in honeyed lamplight. The glow gilded her unbound hair and glinted off the elegant column of her throat. She looked like something he might conjure from a dream, lovely and untouchable—too perfect to be real. Julian drank in the sight.
Because she wasn’t painting one of her other models.
She was paintinghim.
“I hope you don’t mind being an absent subject,” Caroline said, eyes never leaving her work. “Though you’re rather difficult to capture from memory.”
In truth, he had feared her recollections would be tattered and moth-eaten by years of separation. That he would be reduced to a blurry afterimage in her mind’s eye, the pigments faded by grief and regret. This vibrant testament to the contrary stole his breath.
“Not at all,” he managed, once he trusted his voice not to betray him. “You know I’ve no objection to serving as your model, whether or not I’m in the room.”
A smile played about her lips. “Even without the benefit of clothing?”
“Especially without it.” The words tumbled free before he could bite them back.
He drank her in, soft and unguarded, in this space that was hers. Here, the ugliness from the bombed theatre seemed a distant nightmare.
“I’d thought you would still be abed at this hour,” he said.
Caroline’s gaze lifted, eyes sharp as cut glass. “I woke to cold sheets beside me, wondering where my errant husband was. For such a diligent, disciplined man in society, you don’t seem interested in keeping a schedule with me.”
Julian curled his fingers into his palm. “You needed rest. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“How considerate.” Dry amusement laced Caroline’s words. Whether she believed his paper-thin veneer of manners or simply ignored the blatant untruth, she let the matter lie unchallenged. “You look ready to crawl out of your skin. I take it your meeting with Mr Wentworth didn’t go well?”
In answer, Julian withdrew the new cryptogram and held it between his fingers.
Caroline set aside her tools and crossed the studio, skirts whispering over floorboards. She plucked the paper from his grasp. “Another message from that terrorist?” At Julian’s grim nod, she turned the page this way and that as if it were a puzzle box she could unlock by sheer force of will. “This one looks more complex than your last.”
“I’ll need your help if you’ll give it.”
Determination settled on Caroline’s features. “On the divan, if you please. And remove your clothes. I need to paint first if I’m to think clearly.”
Julian shed his garments piece by piece. Coat, waistcoat, shirt – all discarded onto the floorboards until he stood bare before her bold gaze. Her eyes swept over him, missing nothing. That shameless perusal left him restless, pulse stuttering as she handed him pen, ink, and paper.
“For your analyses,” Caroline said.
