A Duke in the Night(54)
“Your Grace, I must warn you that—”
“The flowers look lovely, my lady,” he called back over his shoulder, taking the stairs two at a time.
He’d said things yesterday to Clara that he hadn’t said to anyone before, and that had left strange feelings doing even stranger things to his insides. The revelation that his sister was meddling in his tavern hadn’t been enough to make him forget how Clara had lied to an army captain with the imperiousness of a bloody queen not only because it was the right thing to do, but also because she understood why it mattered to him.
He needed to see her again. Needed to make sure she truly understood how much she mattered to him. Needed to make sure she understood how he really felt about her, especially after the way he had handled things so far. And he wasn’t willing to wait any longer.
August reached the top of the stairs and headed left along a paneled hallway hung with portraits of people long dead, judging by their clothing and coiffures. Sconces were lit along the length, supplementing the light streaming in from the tall window directly ahead at the end of the hall. He stopped, listening hard.
There. Somewhere up ahead he could hear the muffled sound of voices punctuated occasionally by a muted laugh. He moved forward silently, his fingers trailing along the smooth wood. The voices got louder, a musical composition of young girls chatting. He smiled slightly, imagining Anne in that room, finally being able to share her artistic talents with other young ladies. Whatever ridiculous ideas Anne had taken into her head about the Silver Swan, at least here she seemed to be making connections, building and strengthening friendships.
Perhaps Haverhall was exactly what she needed.
He stopped again in front of the heavy door that led to whatever room occupied the very northeast corner of Avondale. A small paper sign had been stuck to the door, Please Do Not Disturb written in a feminine hand. Clearly, based on the voices coming from beyond, he had found the studio. He heard the unmistakable voice of Clara, followed by another. Her sister, perhaps. Rose. The artist. There was another, deeper voice in the mix, and he thought it was that of Lady Theodosia. He frowned, wondering what she was doing in an art class. Not that it mattered. He knocked loudly and turned the handle, pushing the door open, then took four commanding steps into the room.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Miss Hayward, but I need a moment of your…” The words died on his lips as he was presented with a tableau that he couldn’t quite comprehend.
At the front of the room, on a raised dais of some sort, was Lady Theodosia, reclining provocatively on a long settee. Wearing nothing other than what looked like a silk scarf, draped discreetly over one hip. A braided circlet of wildflowers was set about her head, her long, silver hair draped artfully over her shoulder, and a posy of crimson roses held loosely in her hand.
Holy Mary Mother. He averted his eyes from the elderly Venus on the dais to find nine students, including his sister, standing in a loose circle behind their easels and canvases, looking at him with gaping surprise. Clara’s sister, Rose, was standing in the center of the room, a color-stained apron over her dress and a paintbrush in one hand that had frozen in midair. Her other hand was braced on her hip as she met his gaze with a look of utter disdain. From the far side of the room, Clara was stalking toward him.
August closed his eyes for a long second, wanting the last minute of his life back.
“Have you lost something again, dearie?” Lady Theodosia asked from the dais, and she sounded completely unconcerned that a duke had just walked in on her in a most horrifying dishabille. In fact, she sounded much the same as when she had caught him crouching behind a stone fence. Simply amused.
“His ability to read, perhaps,” Rose suggested, and her disdain had not diminished. “The sign on the door read Please Do Not Disturb. Perhaps I should have drawn it in pictures.”
August hastily backed up a step. “My apologies, my lady, I did not mean to interrupt,” he managed with as much authority as he could muster.
“And yet here you are.” It was said cheerfully by Lady Theodosia. “Are you interested in modeling?”
“Modeling?” August repeated dumbly.
“I suspect you’d be quite a glorious eyeful.”
August felt his jaw slacken. Holy hell. Was she suggesting—
Clara had reached him, and she snaked her arm through his, not breaking stride even as she stepped around the spattered paint. “Excuse us,” she said in the perfectly composed voice that he would have expected her to use when confronted with a duke who had just walked in on a mostly naked elderly woman and a collection of young ladies painting her. “This will take but a moment. Please, carry on.” She steered August back and pulled the door firmly shut behind her.
August went on the offensive, not even sure where to start but needing to reestablish control. “What the hell was…”—he waved his hand in the direction of the firmly closed door—“that?”
“That’s funny, Your Grace, because I was going to ask you the very same thing.” She pulled her arm from his and stepped back, putting her hands on her hips, her cheeks flushed. “For once I think my sister may have the right of it. I must assume that you can no longer read.”
August ignored that. “There is a naked woman sprawled out in some sort of Botticellian recreation of The Birth of Venus—”
“Venus of Urbino.”