Chapter 10

10

The clock ticked out the minutes as Julian waited at the foot of the grand staircase. He adjusted and readjusted the silver cufflinks at his wrists, focusing on the repetitive motion to calm the sudden restlessness that had taken hold. It had been hours since he’d posed naked for Caroline, but his body still hummed with nervous energy.

He could not forget her fixed focus as she’d sketched him. The way her eyes had lingered on him with such intense concentration, as if he were the only other person in existence. She’d looked at him like that when they were young and still learning each other’s bodies. When the press of skin on skin was art to them.

He shoved the memories away and focused on steadying his breaths. Listened for the telltale swish of silk that would herald Caroline’s approach.

When she appeared, it stole the air from his lungs. The muted light gilded her pale hair and her ice-blue silk gown made her glow. No jewels adorned her save the simple gold band of her wedding ring.

God, but you look breathtaking tonight. I can hardly breathe for wanting you.

Even with her face schooled into politeness, he could read the lingering tension in her slender frame. As she descended, her skirts sighed against the marble steps in a susurrus that scraped over Julian’s senses and left them raw. He thought of fisting those silken skirts in his hands, dragging them up to bare her legs, revealing whether she still wore stockings and garters beneath. Pleasuring her again until she gave him answers.

He wanted to peel back her armour.

Julian dragged his gaze upwards. “The carriage is waiting.”

Too brusque. Caroline’s resulting flinch behind her polished smile cut straight through his ribs.

Outside, he handed her into the carriage and tried again while the footmen secured the door.

“You look beautiful.” The words emerged rough around the edges.

Caroline blinked, her cheeks colouring. “As do you. The evening kit suits you.”

Soft words rotting like carrion on the ground at their feet. He’d thought her softening – after Lady Fairfax’s party, after their code-breaking – and he’d moved too fast.

And now he didn’t know how to reach through the walls she’d erected around her heart.

So he held his silence during the ride as rain-slicked streets blurred past fogged windows. Tried not to notice how she shivered whenever their knees accidentally brushed in the confines of the carriage. How she worried her bottom lip between her teeth. Until he had to curl his hands into fists to resist the urge to kiss away the sting.

The discordant chatter hit his ears as soon as the carriage rolled to a halt outside the theatre. Julian stepped down into the glittering crush and turned to offer her his hand.

“I can practically hear your teeth chattering,” he told Caroline in an undertone. “Relax, or they’ll scent blood.”

She slanted him a sly look, allowing him to help her down the steps. “What if I shatter a few champagne flutes out of spite?”

His mouth tilted up at one corner. “Be sure to let me know so I can position myself out of glass range.” As they crossed the threshold, Julian splayed his fingers at the small of her back, an unrepentantly possessive touch allowed by the performance she’d asked.

Only it wasn’t a performance for him.

“I’d heard they reconciled, but I didn’t believe it…”

“… heard he left her after the wedding and stayed away…”

Even here, he was attuned to her. To the stiffening of her spine as judgemental gazes crawled over them both, picking at old wounds. He longed to shelter her from their scrutiny, hide her away someplace only he could find her.

Instead, Julian nodded politely to acquaintances, ignoring their hushed speculation. He channelled arrogant disinterest as if he hadn’t spent the last eight years longing for this woman now on his arm.

“I’d hoped Lady Fairfax’s party would make this gossip stale.” Caroline kept her voice low, but he heard the bitter edge sharpening each word. “Didn’t their governesses teach them manners?”

His hand flexed against her back. “I think our appearance fuelled speculation on the precise nature of our estrangement.” Julian guided her up the grand staircase towards the private boxes. “We’re the most interesting gossip they’ve had in months, and it’s killing them not to have answers. Does it help if I glower at them?”

“Immensely.” A reluctant smile tugged at her lips. “Please scare Lord Ponsonby. I believe I heard him whisper earlier that you tried to ravish me during archery.”

Julian narrowed his eyes at the young lord until the man blanched and scurried away.

“Much better,” Caroline said in amusement. “Thank you.”

As they walked, snippets of gossip reached his ears, each more outrageous than the last. But he forced himself to appear calm and unaffected.

“… keeps a bevvy of exotic mistresses, I heard.”

“… did you hear? At Lady Fairfax’s party, he had his hands all over her in front of everyone.”

“How are you always so calm?” Caroline asked.

Julian let his gaze trace over her face, drinking her in. “Because the only person whose opinion matters to me is yours. I just ignore the rest.” She froze, eyes widening. Before she could respond, he added, “Now show me that dazzling smile I love so much. Let them see it.”

When she smiled at him through her lashes, playing along, it made his chest ache. He wanted to see her real smile. Wanted to coax laughter from her lips and kiss away the bitterness lingering there.

They were so close, her floral perfume teasing his senses. Unable to stop himself, Julian turned his head and brushed his mouth over her cheek in the barest caress.

She gasped, body jolting. The crowd released a collective breath around them.

“There,” he murmured. “Let them talk about us over breakfast again.”

Safely ensconced in their private box overlooking the stage, he finally trusted himself to meet her gaze.

“Was that necessary?” Caroline asked.

Julian lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Perhaps not. But you asked for gossip fodder, and I aim to please. In a few weeks, their claws will retract, and they’ll move on to newer scandals.”

Behind the defiance burning in those blue eyes, he glimpsed the first faint cracks forming in her armour.

Her answering smile turned brittle and sharp. “Until you leave for Italy, of course.”

That sentence shouldn’t possess the power to flay skin from bone. And still, it shuddered through him, merciless as any lash.

His jaw tightened. “Yes. Until I leave for Italy.”

The silence bloomed between them once more, full of hurts left to fester.

“I suppose I’ll go to Ravenhill, then,” Caroline said, turning back towards the stage.

He stared sightlessly at the performers, aware of her nearness. The floral scent of her skin teased him with memories – the slide of her body against his, gasps muffled against his throat. He shifted in his seat.

Then her hand drifted to rest on her thigh, close enough to graze. Julian struggled against the madness whispering through his mind. Telling him to cover her fingers with his own. To tangle tight and never let go.

Before he could stop himself, Julian let his knuckles brush the back of her hand where it rested on her thigh. She jolted, sucking in a sharp breath. He froze, waiting to see if she’d pull away. When she remained motionless, he risked another tentative graze of fingertips over skin – an unspoken question.

Time slowed. Seconds stretched endlessly.

Then she turned her hand in invitation.

Julian’s breath left him in a rush. He slid his palm against hers, threading their fingers together. Felt every desperate shred of self-control threaten to unravel at that small point of contact.

To sit beside her with her palm sliding against his was sheer madness. He told himself to release her. To rebuild the walls between them before they fractured beyond all hope of repair.

But he couldn’t make himself let go.

Not when she shifted restlessly in her seat, soft thighs pressing together. Not when he felt the wild flutter of her pulse through their joined hands.

He stroked his thumb over her knuckles, unable to look away from their joined hands. She shifted beside him, the slide of silk over skin echoing in his ears. He imagined grasping her skirts, dragging them up to bare her legs, spreading her wide…

“This afternoon, I didn’t want you to stop.”

Her hushed confession froze the breath in his lungs. He turned towards her and saw the heated yearning in her eyes. His cock throbbed, pressure building.

“I would have told you,” she whispered. “What you wanted to know.”

Words that might’ve stopped his heart if he wasn’t already dying by slow degrees. If this was to be his last scrap of time with her, he would cling until his bones shattered.

“Can we go home?” Caroline asked.

“Yes. Let’s go home.” The words scraped his throat raw.

As he guided Caroline outside, his hand still tingled with the memory of her skin against his. With sense memories of her body in the studio.

This time, when she spoke, something fragile in her tone threatened to crack straight down the middle. “Thank you. For doing all this with me. I know you didn’t want to.”

Julian’s breath tangled in his lungs. Tell her everything, the recklessness urged. The sheer futility of trying to carve her out of your soul. Tell her so she understands a month more in her presence is the only thing tethering you to sanity.

He opened his mouth to lay himself bare beneath the knife edge of her regard. To cut out his heart and offer it up.

Ask me to stay, and I will.

But before he found the words, the explosion tore the night in two.