The Lost Duke of Wyndham (Two Dukes of Wyndham, #1)(32)

She had entered Belgrave Castle as a servant. He was quite possibly its master.

It had to be strange. It had to be overwhelming. She didn't have the heart to tell him that this wasn't the fanciest or most ostentatious guest bedchamber. Not even close.

"Excellent art," he commented, tilting his head as he regarded a painting on the wall.

She nodded, her lips parting, then closing again.

"You were about to tell me it's a Rembrandt."

Her lips parted again, but this time in surprise. He hadn't even been looking at her. "Yes," she admitted.

"And this?" he asked, turning his attention to the one underneath. "Caravaggio?"

She blinked. "I don't know."

"I do," he said, in a tone that was somehow both impressed and grim. "It's a Caravaggio."

"You are a connoisseur?" she asked, and she noticed that her toes had somehow crossed the threshold of the room. Her heels were still safe and proper, resting on the corridor floor, but her toes...

They itched in her slippers.

They longed for adventure.

She longed for adventure.

Mr. Audley moved to another painting - the east wall was full of them - and murmured, "I would not say that I am a connoisseur, but yes, I do like art. It's easy to read."

"To read?" Grace stepped forward. What an odd statement.

He nodded. "Yes. Look here." He pointed to a woman in what looked like a post-Renaissance work. She was seated upon a lavish chair, cushioned in dark velvet, edged with thick, twisting gold. Perhaps a throne? "Look at the way the eyes look down," he said. "She is watching this other woman. But she is not looking at her face. She's jealous."

"No, she's not." Grace moved to his side. "She's angry."

"Yes, of course. But she's angry because she's jealous."

"Of her?" Grace responded, pointing to the "other" woman in the corner. Her hair was the color of wheat, and she was clad in a filmy Grecian robe. It ought to have been scandalous; one of her breasts seemed poised to pop out at any moment. "I don't think so. Look at her." She motioned to the first woman, the one on the throne. "She has everything."

"Everything material, yes. But this woman" - he motioned to the one in the Grecian robe - "has her husband."

"How can you even know she is married?" Grace squinted and leaned in, inspecting her fingers for a ring, but the brushwork was not fine enough to make out such a small detail.

"Of course she is married. Look at her expression."

"I see nothing to indicate wifeliness."

He lifted a brow. "Wifeliness?"

"I'm quite certain it's a word. More so than truthiness, in any case." She frowned. "And if she is married, then where is the husband?"

"Right there," he said, touching the intricate gilt frame, just beyond the woman in the Grecian robe.

"How can you possibly know that? It's beyond the edge of the canvas."

"You need only to look at her face. Her eyes. She is gazing at the man who loves her."

Grace found that intriguing. "Not at the man she loves?"

"I can't tell," he said, his head tilting slightly.

They stood in silence for a moment, then he said, "There is an entire novel in this painting. One need only take the time to read it."

He was right, Grace realized, and it was unsettling, because he wasn't supposed to be so perceptive. Not him. Not the glib, jaunty highwayman who couldn't be bothered to find a proper profession.

"You're in my room," he said.

She stepped back. Abruptly.

"Steady now." His arm shot out and his hand found her elbow.

She couldn't scold him, not really, because she would have fallen. "Thank you," she said softly.

He didn't let go.

She'd regained her balance. She was standing straight.

But he didn't let go.

And she did not pull away.


  
And so he kissed her. He couldn't help it.

No, he couldn't stop it. His hand was on her arm, and he could feel her skin, feel the soft warmth of it, and then when he looked down, her face was tilted toward his, and her eyes, deep and blue but so completely unmysterious, were gazing up at him, and in truth there was no way - simply no way - he could do anything in that moment but kiss her.

Anything else would have been a tragedy.

There was an art to kissing - he'd long known that, and he'd been told he was an expert. But this kiss, with this woman - the one time it should have been art, it was all breathless nerves, because never in his life had he wanted someone in quite the manner he wanted Miss Grace Eversleigh.

And never had he wanted quite so much to get it all right.

He couldn't scare her. He had to please her. He wanted her to want him, and he wanted her to want to know him. He wanted her to cling to him, to need him, to whisper in his ear that he was her hero and she'd never want to so much as breathe the air near another man.

He wanted to taste her. He wanted to devour her. He wanted to drink in whatever it was that made her her, and see if it would transform him into the man he sometimes thought he ought to be. In that moment she was his salvation.