10

The duke had thrown his shirt on, but lost interest in dressing further before he even got to the buttons. Seated so casually in the chair, mostly nude, port glass dangling from his fingertips, he brought to mind a debauched conqueror in repose. The fire threw light and shadow over the lean musculature of his legs and abdomen, the knotted ribbons of his scars. His eye was closed, head slightly tilted, a serene expression on his face. He was listening to the rain.

Arabella had wrapped a blanket around herself, and sat on the floor. She drew with her sketchbook on her knee. She'd decided to begin with a quick full-length sketch of him, to loosen her hand.

"That cannot be comfortable," he said, without opening his eye. "Sitting on the ground. Without even a pillow or a duke under you."

"I work best like this," she said. "I told you I make a poor excuse for a lady."

He smiled a private smile. "Mmm."

"You're thinking of me in some compromising position, aren't you?"

"Quite the opposite." He sounded supremely self-satisfied. "I am recalling how regal you were. Atop me. An empress demanding her pleasure."

"Odd. In my recollection, you were the insistent one. Was there not, at a juncture, something to do with begging you to make me come apart?"

He arched a brow. "Don't do that."

"Do?"

"Flirt, pet. I need a bit of grace before I could possibly oblige you again."

"Perfect. Because I like indulging in this as well." And her body was pleasantly tired, a warm soreness between her thighs. Sitting with her legs stretched under a blanket and a pencil in her hand, bantering with Nick as he submitted to her gaze, suited her perfectly, for the moment.

Arabella worked on blocking in the angles of his shoulders. She gave him a long look, taking in his posture. "How old were you when you became the duke?" she asked.

"Twenty-six," he said. "Do you ask because when your sketch hits the scandal sheets, it'll destroy my family name?"

"Oh, rest assured, no persuasion could compel me to surrender it. All renderings of ducal cock go straight into a vault guarded by dragons."

"I hope the dragons are well paid."

"Of course. But in truth, I ask because ... even relaxed as you seem now—"

"Oh, I am," he murmured.

"You never truly slouch. There is ... an alertness about you. Your posture. It's not the same as tension. But a sense of ... readiness."

He considered her assessment. "My father put me through my paces from a young age. Preparing me for the title. Even as a child—if he was awoken in the night, he woke me and took me along."

"Did that happen frequently?"

"More than one might think. Business associates would not hesitate to bang down the door at any hour. More than that, though, everyone looked to him—farmers, villagers, staff and their families. He felt it important to always know what was happening on his lands, and to be of service. If there was a fire, or an accident, or if a child went missing—that happened a few times. I think people imagine a duke to be all extravagance and perversity, perhaps the occasional murder without consequence. But it is, in truth, a vocation." He shrugged. "And I suppose I am suited to it."

"By your shoulders, yes."

She drew for a long moment, thinking better of saying the next words that had come to her mind. The fire cracked in the fireplace. The silence in the room felt cozy, right.

Then she said them anyway. "And by the amount you are willing to give up."

He seemed to still. "I want for nothing."

It would be silly to argue, so she kept drawing.

"Bella, Bella," he scolded softly. "You deceived me, with all that wantonness."

"Beg pardon?"

"You act the sybarite. But underneath, you're dreadfully compassionate. How will you survive among your coterie of painters sacrificing all to the muse, if you spend your time secretly fretting that they might be lonely?"

"Artists are different. They can drink and rut it all away. You live your life ready to be pulled from bed at any wretched hour because someone's barn is on fire."

"Ah. So it's my disturbed sleep that worries you."

"I am not worried ," she said, turning the page. She had decided she was ready to begin the portrait.

"Don't be too kindhearted. You will need all your resources to care for yourself out there ."

"I was not offering to care for anyone else. I was only observing."

All business now, she scooted closer. She spent a long moment taking in the shapes and shadows.

He watched her watching him, curious.

She lightly sketched in the basic lines, pausing frequently to observe his face. Then, she began the real work of bringing the portrait to life.

"All those times I sketched you, as a girl," she said as she worked. "I was wrong about so many things."

"Such as?"

"Your mouth is sensual, not sinister. Your eyes are green, not black as the Devil's."

"Well. The one."

"And the scar on your cheek is not so fearsome, up close. It's ..." She searched for the right words.

"A pity," he said dryly.

"Not at all. Now that I've been disabused of the notion that you got it rampaging in a duel, I imagine—what happened, it was awful, and you survived it." She saw his expression darken and said quickly, "I am not asking. I do not even wish to know."

"I see," he said. "Curious about every inch of my body, save the one with the mysterious scar." He tried to peer at her work. "Are you trying to hide it from me?" She'd tipped the sketchbook up.

"As one does with a work in progress. Have you never sat for a portrait?"

"Several. Always hated it."

"Do you hate it now?"

"I thought I might. But I find I rather desperately crave your close attention." The way he said it, with no hint of irony, caught her off guard. She found he was regarding her with an extraordinary look on his face. Open, serious.

"You have it," she said. "Completely."

He came out of the chair then, and leaned down to kiss her. Slowly, fully, her face in his hands. Less to take pleasure or to rouse her, and more as though he was saying something to her in the most direct way he could.

He broke the kiss gradually, smoothing his hands over her cheeks, her hair. And he sat back in the chair.

She sat there for a moment, unable to resume her work. Unable to lift her eyes from the paper.

She was feeling something she had never felt before and had no name for, expanding in the center of her chest. An emotion that was discovery and joy and grief all at once.

I could love him.

In a way, she already did—she had for years, childishly, without knowing him. But now she did know him, just a little. Just enough to know. That she could. She could open her heart to him like opening a window and letting all the light and fresh air and birdsong in the world rush into her little room.

When she finally lifted her gaze, he was watching her with a conflicted, sympathetic expression.

Neither of them said anything. What was there to say? The morning would come. The rain would stop. She would go.

Or you could stay with him.

But he had already said it. He was glad she'd run, that she'd revealed her true nature to him. She had spared him. He knew what he required in a wife. Even the way they met in their passion—he had made it clear that this was not how he'd conduct himself. He did not want a love match. My marriage will not be that . Something for you to consider .

It had been a gorgeous, slippery dream, joining with him. Drinking port in his lap. Sitting here at his feet, capturing the faint cleft in his chin with her pencil.

She wouldn't destroy it by pushing for anything else. She would let this night be this beautiful, singular, night.

And then she would let him go.

She picked up her pencil and resumed her work.

Arabella worked steadily for nearly an hour, and Nick sat, outwardly placid, in his own thoughts. The rain slowed for a few minutes, then picked up again with new ferocity.

She took her time with his expression. It had changed since she'd started the portrait. It had been inquisitive, droll. Now, there was a melancholy in it.

She remembered Monsieur Allard's admonition. Less timid. She worked the shadows deeper.

"She died in childbirth," he said.

Arabella nodded. She did not dare look at him. He sounded calm, had said it simply, yet she sensed that if she met his gaze, he would not be able to continue. But if she continued to work, acted as though they were having a normal conversation, he might say more.

"The baby too. A son. As the doctor said, these things happen."

"I am so very sorry," she whispered. She was working on shading the scar, now. The pattern told the story of someone sewing flayed tissue together hastily, unevenly.

It reminded her of an old atlas in her father's library. A border had shifted since its printing, and someone had heavily slashed out the old one with black ink, and scrawled in the new one in a way that obscured some of the land's topography. The scar was like that—it crossed out the enthusiastic young man he'd been, replacing him with a cold duke dressed all in black. Crossed out the besotted young husband in favor of a man who sought a second wife he'd send away as quickly as possible.

"I loved her. We were young and there were cracks in it, but in enough ways, we suited. And everything—decisions, duty—was so much easier . Something I didn't realize, of course, until after. Fair to say I fell apart. My father had taken ill while she was pregnant, and—it never even occurred to me that I might not have her with me when I inherited."

She worked more shadow into his hair. Making the silver stand out brighter. He was enough her senior, and always such a model of pensive, inscrutable restraint, that it hadn't occurred to her that those streaks of gray had actually come early.

"We'd planned for her to give birth in the country. Where my mother had given birth to me. But the babe chose otherwise while we were still in London. It was obvious fairly quickly that all was not well. It was not progressing, and Beatrice had gone very pale and weak. A doctor came quickly, of course—benefits of the city—and he was the finest. Much of the royal family was seen by this man."

Nick's voice was hollow, as if he were recounting a story he'd read about someone else.

"I didn't grasp at first what was happening—they kept me out of the room—but I saw a look pass between two of the maids. And so after it all turned a nightmare, I cornered one, frightened the girl into the grave, but she eventually spit out words to the effect that the doctor was very clearly in his cups when he arrived, and could not hold a scalpel steady. Not quite the ideal condition to cut a baby from his mother's womb, if keeping either alive is the intent."

Arabella realized she was staring at his bare foot, tapping rhythmically as he told the story. The rest of his body was so still.

She lifted her eyes to his face. His expression was stone, but when she met his gaze, his breath faltered and he swallowed hard. She could see the pulse beating in his throat.

"I know," he said, with a sardonic edge. "I haven't actually answered your question yet. It's the eye you wanted to know about, isn't it?"

"I want to know all of it," she said. "I asked because I want to know you."

He shook his head. "You sweet girl. Thank God we won't marry."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I went mad, Arabella. I had given my heart and a foxed bloody surgeon killed her, and it's a miracle I didn't kill him, and the maids, and the bloody King of England. I wanted to. I planned to kill that man. I don't know if he left because he knew or he tumbled drunk onto a ship to America, but by the time I could pull myself together, he was gone." He smiled a grim, dark smile unlike any she'd seen from him before. "So I decided to do the next best thing."

Her stomach dipped at the expression on his face. "Nick—you needn't—"

"No, I ought to tell you," he said. "So you understand it's nothing to do with you. If I were made soundly, I'd marry you. I'd love you. I would be a fool not to." Whatever look was on her face, his filled with something regretful and knowing. "I cannot."

"Why not?"

"The doctor was nowhere. My father was dying. My wife and son were in the ground. And ... I could not abide that when my father did die, I would instantly become responsible for a staggering number of people, their livelihoods, their futures. I was alone, pile of ash in my chest, terrified I'd destroy anything I touched. I was blindered by the agony. And of a mind to end it. I went to the docks. My reasoning was that it would be deserted, and I would not be disturbed, gathering rocks, throwing myself in. Done with it."

"Nick," she whispered. She went to him, knelt in front of the chair, took his hands.

"You see?" He squeezed her hands. "Too kindhearted. Deeply impractical for you."

"Stop it." She ran her thumbs over his. "To think of you in a state like that. Alone."

His smile was harsh. "I haven't told you the best part. Do you know what stopped me? Common, shit-stinking ruffians, with cheap knives. Looking to pick an easy pocket. They didn't even care to hurt me. I could have handed them my money and been on my way. Instead, I told them their mothers were syphilitic whores, and I took a swing at the biggest of the lot. I vividly recollect the sound of his nose breaking—my only joy, that night. But in a matter of moments I was on the ground, sans money, signet, buttons, and left eye."

He tapped the scar near the top of his chest. "This was one was just a slash, but this one," he absently touched the one at his waistline, "properly qualified as a stabbing. I was losing blood quickly, to my profound relief." He gave a mirthless laugh. "But as God does have a sense of humor, two policemen came at that moment, stopped the thieves putting me out of my misery, arrested the ones who didn't run fast enough, and got me to a doctor who had only drunk a moderate amount that night."

Arabella wished she knew the words to soothe the self-loathing from his face. "Grief is horrible," she said softly.

"My broken heart made me suicidal," he corrected her. "And I do not have the hubris to test if I would survive it twice." He touched her cheek. "I won't love again. I'm responsible for too much."

It hurt, to hear him say it. But she could not pretend she didn't understand his reasoning.

"A shame," she said. "Because I think it would be strangely easy to love you, considering."

Her words seemed to touch something in him underneath the harshness. Something uncomfortable, something he'd rather push away. His tone was ironic when he replied. "You flatter me. Strangely, you say? Considering ?"

She shrugged. "Considering that I am not blind. I can see there is—darkness in you. I have always seen it. I saw it when I was fifteen—"

"The storied cruelty of the cold-blooded Beast of Blackflint."

"Yes, I was very sapheaded, but I think I also ... sensed something more fundamental, though I could not have named it then."

She thought of him at their betrothal dinner, quietly watching Philip, seeing the man's secret pain. She thought of his expression when she spoke about her father, of the infinitely gentle way he'd kissed every part of her face that might once have borne a bruise.

She drew a deep breath. Knowing he might not like to hear it. "What you do, secretly, quietly, pretending to be stone, is the opposite of moving callously through the world. It is ... seeing it. Being affected by it, carrying it. The truth of things. At best, the beauty. But more often, the excruciating unfairness. The infuriating, incurable, moonless dark of the world." He gave her a sharply surprised look—because, she knew, she'd managed to capture it, in a way a stranger to the feeling couldn't possibly. "I can feel it when you touch me. Even look at me. And in the way you made love to me. The thing that drove you mad is the thing that enables you to truly meet another. You have a very deep soul indeed, and life can be a cruel master for people with those."

He seemed taken aback. "I am not convinced I'm all of that."

She picked up her sketchbook, the now-finished portrait, and placed it on his lap.

She had caught him well, she knew, face half firelit, half in shadow. The thoughtful mien, the elegant wryness of his mouth, the direct, provocative gaze. The carefully-guarded sadness that suspended itself behind all of it.

He regarded the image for a long moment.

Finally, he blew out a slow exhale. "Well. The galleries of Paris will be lucky to have you."