Chapter 16

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 painting him .

“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.

He took the items and sprawled on the divan, angling his body towards the light. The universe narrowed to this room, its familiar smells and gentle susurrus of Caroline’s movements. Julian felt some of the coiled tension leach from his frame.

“Just relax and work out your code while I get the texture correct,” Caroline said. She retrieved her palette and selected a fresh brush. “You know I prefer you unstudied. Natural.”

“What man could possibly relax with you looking at him like that?”

She saw too much, stripped him down to sinew and bone. Julian had forgotten how vulnerable she could make him feel with only a look.

How she could flay him wide open and expose the most hidden parts of himself, as dangerous as any blade.

“Like what?”

As if I’m the only solace in a world determined to grind us into dust. As if I’m the only source of air in a room starved of oxygen.

Julian bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. “As if you’re deciding precisely how you’d like to debauch me.”

Safer to jest than speak truths that could cut to the quick. He had learned that lesson long ago where she was concerned. Levity was armour. The right words from her lips could slice him wide open, expose all the naked wanting beneath.

“Stop trying to distract me, duke.”

“Far be it from me to interfere in the creation of great art,” Julian replied.

The gentle sound of brushes sweeping over canvas filled the space again – an oddly soothing rhythm, one familiar from their youth. A familiarity he had thought lost forever amid the ruins of their marriage. Yet now here they were, tentative travellers picking their way across the rubble towards each other once more.

Julian hardly dared breathe for fear of destroying this fragile truce. But Caroline, bold and skirmishing as ever, seemed determined to provoke him.

“You’re thinking very loudly,” she chided.

With effort, Julian schooled his features to impassivity. “Apologies.”

“You’ve always been so skilled at cryptography. What has you so distracted?”

“You.” The admittance fell softly into the quiet between them. “I should think it obvious that I find it arousing when you make art.”

Caroline paused, attention flickering over his blatant arousal. “Would you prefer I avert my eyes?”

Julian smiled slightly. “When have I ever given you the impression I want you to stop looking?”

The weighted silence returned as Julian forced his focus to the cryptogram’s strange lettering. The temptation to provoke her further pulled at him, restless and insistent. Let her feel his nearness as acutely as he felt hers.

With care, Julian shifted on the cushions again, stretching his arms high overhead before settling back against the velvet. The move coaxed his muscles into longer lines, an enticement designed to draw her eye. As intended, Caroline’s gaze dipped along the nude length of his body before skittering away. That subtle surrender unfurled vicious satisfaction through his veins.

He couldn’t help but want to remind her. Eight years, and he’d been with no other woman. Julian only wanted this one.

“You know I would pose more intimately if you asked.” He wrapped a hand around his cock. “For the sake of artistic accuracy.”

Caroline’s hand stilled, breath audibly snagging in her throat. “Mr Henry Morgan will already have to keep this particular painting for himself even without you doing that,” she said. “I can’t bring myself to share your beautiful physique with anyone but myself.”

Only iron control kept Julian’s lips from curving. “Do enlighten me on the precise attributes that make my physique ideal.”

“You’re quite tall. Long of limb. Your musculature is well defined but not overly bulky.” She bit her lip. “The candlelight loves you.”

“Go on,” he encouraged. “I’m finding this assessment most educational.”

“The angles of your facial structure are exquisite.” She paused. “Also, you have a finely shaped backside.”

“And my cock, duchess?” Julian gave himself a slow stroke. He wanted her hungry for him. “You’ve examined every inch of my anatomy. I’m certain you have notes.”

“Many.” Caroline’s voice was a ragged whisper. “But as much as I enjoy your devotion to sensual art, that cryptogram requires your focus.” She returned her attention to the painting.

Resigned, Julian released himself and studied the cryptogram with renewed focus. But the nonsensical symbols blurred before him, their meaning sliding out of reach. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted how Caroline worried her lush lower lip between her teeth when lost in thought, or how the tip of her tongue darted out to wet her lips when she changed brushstrokes.

He noticed.

He noticed it all.

Control. It was all Julian had left. He clung to the fraying edges of restraint even as he wanted to pin Caroline down and kiss her. This woman had a way of fracturing the barriers he’d constructed between want and take and mine.

After a while, she glanced over. “How goes decoding the message?” Her voice was like a fingertip brushing his shoulder blades, smooth and lovely.

“Not well,” he admitted.

“Perhaps your coded Cyrillic needs practice,” she said.

Or perhaps I find myself too distracted by fantasies of my wife spread out before me, begging to be fucked.

Julian wanted to ruin her composure, leave her breathless. Wanted to watch those sharp eyes glaze with lust as he drove into her again and again.

He made another note on his page. Control. “If you’d like to come over here and show me how it’s done, I’d be more than happy to oblige you.”

Colour bloomed in her cheeks, but she cleared her throat. “Very well. I suppose I’ve had enough painting for today.”

He shifted to make room, and she sank on the divan. Lush curves pressed to his side, searing him even through the layers of her clothing.

“Rub my lower back,” Caroline said, presenting the rigid line of her spine to him.

“So demanding,” Julian murmured, even as his hands moved to obey. Kneading the tense muscles elicited a soft noise. “You carry too much tension here. It’s no wonder your back pains you.”

“Mm. That’s why I keep you around. To rub all my sore spots,” she said, bending over the cryptogram. All business. He wanted to shatter her.

Control. Get yourself under control.

“A modified Vigenère tableau to start, I think.” Caroline traced the intricate rows of symbols. “But there seem to be varying patterns layered throughout. Have you done a frequency analysis?”

In answer, Julian retrieved the tidy columns of numbers from beneath the rumpled sheets of foolscap scattered on the divan. Caroline studied them, frowning in concentration as she tallied letter frequencies in her agile mind.

“The frequency for this symbol” – she indicated the triangle – “changes here, do you see? It disappears. This is a distinct code after line twenty, with another shift after line thirty. This pattern strikes me as different from a Russian distribution.”

“Some others were in German and Italian,” he said, continuing to massage her back.

Caroline’s gaze cut sideways to meet his. “So a scholarly terrorist. But how many of those with vendettas against the ton would have fluency across multiple languages?” She shook her head, not waiting for his answer. “I’ll determine the length of the keyword used to encode this and then break the message into a single alphabet.”

Julian watched his wife work, her movements deft and precise as she devised a mathematical formula to calculate letter repetitions in the coded text. That brilliant intellect spinning out statistics and permutations, seeking a pattern in randomness. She was mercury, quicksilver. Never still, never idle. Always in motion.

Quick slashes of ink filled page after page with translations and frequency analysis. He soaked up her small noises of excitement, the way she gnawed her lower lip in concentration. Desire kindled, gathering intensity.

He marvelled that of everyone in London, only he got to see this side of her. The cool aristocrat. The barefoot woman with ink-smudged fingers. Both were seated here now, balancing on his bare thighs.

And both were his. Still.

Always.

When she had finished dividing and re-dividing the encrypted text, Caroline blew out a frustrated breath. “No wonder you were struggling. This isn’t Russian, German, or Italian. The frequencies don’t match.” A delicate furrow formed between her brows. “Perhaps French?”

He wanted his teeth on that graceful neck. Wanted to mark the flawless canvas of her skin until she wore proof of his claim for all the world to see. Until no other man dared look too long, much less touch what was his.

Mine.

He fought against a low groan.

After double-checking her calculations, Caroline gave a decisive nod. “Definitely French for the latter portion. Eight single alphabets total, by my estimation.” She straightened, rolling her shoulders again beneath Julian’s idle palms. “Would you like to help me determine the Vigenère alphabet for… each…”

Her words trailed off as she glanced up, finally noting the naked want burning in Julian’s stare. He surged forward to capture her mouth with his. Nipped at her lower lip, coaxing until she opened with a shuddered gasp. He swept his tongue alongside hers, and she arched into him, nails biting into his bare skin. He swallowed her moans, tracing fingertips down her throat.

A memory, that kiss. Their bodies were a language they shared, unchanged even after all this time.

Julian drew back to press his forehead to hers. “You solving cryptograms is the most erotic thing I’ve witnessed in my lifetime.”

A flush darkened her cheeks. “It’s just statistical analysis,” she demurred.

“Mm.” He leaned in to brush his lips along the shell of her ear, eliciting a visible shiver. “Employing Kasiski examination and identifying isomorphic alphabets. Talking maths and logic and order while perched on my thighs.”

Before she could respond, he twisted his fingers through her elegant chignon. Julian’s teeth grazed the skin over her frantic pulse, mapping the graceful arch of her throat with lips and teeth. “I love watching you work,” he said. “What would you do next?”

Caroline’s response came on a panting exhale as his hands rucked up her skirts. “Write out possible permutations for each column until the letters are revealed.”

Julian’s lips curved against her fevered skin. Even now, poised on the crux between logic and desire, that formidable intellect would not yield.

She was a challenge, his wife.

Sliding his palm down to her breast, he murmured into her ear, “Quantify the letter values, and I’ll slip my hand beneath your skirts and make you come.”

“I want more than that,” she said. “You left me unsatisfied last time.”

Unsatisfied? He’d have to remedy that. “Me inside you? Is that what you want, my duchess? Very well, then. Quantify the letter values, and I’ll fuck you on this divan.”

An answering wickedness sparked behind her eyes. “ You quantify them.” Caroline extricated herself from his embrace and stood up. “For every five letters you can decipher based on my frequency analysis, I’ll undo a button. Solve the entire cryptogram, and these undergarments come off.”

There stood his wife, debauched and daring, using her prodigious intellect in service to desire. She wore a deep blue dress, her luscious curves visible beneath the fabric. She hadn’t bothered with a corset or petticoats this morning – fewer garments to remove.

This game was in his favour.

“And then?” he asked.

She gave him a wicked smile. “I’ll let you do whatever you want to me.”

Caroline Hastings completely at his mercy. He almost groaned.

Control. Just a bit longer.

Julian snatched up the cryptogram and set pen to foolscap, attacking it with single-minded focus. Logarithms and letter frequencies soon filled the page in bold slashes of ink. The orderly rows and columns made sense, each one bringing him nearer to the prize of Caroline stripped bare before him.

Letters correlated to numerical values, frequencies converted to probable words. Julian’s pen scratched over the paper as his mind formed connections – code and pattern and mathematics coalescing into meaning. His reward came button by button. Pale skin unveiled inch by devastating inch. The slope of her collarbone. The swells of her breasts. The indentation of her waist.

The dress hit the floor.

Julian’s breath fractured at the sight of her flawless skin, clad now in only a thin chemise and drawers. Christ, she was exquisite.

Caroline raised one challenging eyebrow as if to say: Is that the best you can do?

Common letters formed common words. Je. De. Un. Est. Index of coincidence correlated probable phrases as the remaining letters took shape. Julian scribbled faster.

At this point, he would write out the entirety of Dante’s Inferno if that’s what it took to get her naked.

As the last word fell into place, Julian tossed the papers and pen aside. He grabbed her, tearing the gossamer fabric of her chemise in a violent motion that bared her naked body to his starving gaze. All patience shattered. Hauling her down onto the divan, Julian claimed her lips in a fierce kiss, a conqueror revelling in his spoils.

He rocked against her, his cock nudging between her thighs. They had drifted far too long, twin planets sprung from alignment. But gravity was reasserting its claim. He needed her too much for tenderness.

Fortunately, Caroline did nothing by halves – she responded to his claim with equal fervour. “Tell me precisely how you want me to reward you for solving that code.”

He kissed her again, rough and deep. Pinned her wrists overhead, stretching her body taut beneath his.

“What I want…” His heated stare raked over her. “I described it explicitly in yesterday’s letter. How I want to spread your thighs so I can pleasure you with my mouth. Until you’re dripping wet and begging for my cock. How many times do you think I can make you climax tonight?”

A breathless laugh escaped her. “Why don’t you find out?”

The wicked challenge sank into his bones, molten and merciless. Ruthless satisfaction ignited within him – here was his Caroline, bold and defiant.

Just as it should be between them.

“Don’t hold back your cries for me.” His voice was rough. “Let the entire house hear how thoroughly I satisfy my wife.”

Then he blazed a path down her body, branding her skin with nips of his teeth. Her throat, the swells of her breasts, the taut plane of her stomach – all bore the marks of his claiming. When his fingers drifted between her thighs, he found her so ready. Wet and wanting. Perfect.

And absolutely his.

The first lick of his tongue stole Caroline’s breath. Julian added two fingers, thrusting into her as he pleasured her. Vicious satisfaction clawed through him at her bitten-off sounds of pleasure.

“Inside me.” Caroline’s nails raked his nape. “Now.”

But he’d made a demand, and he intended to see it through.

“My name, duchess,” he said. He thrust his fingers hard. “I want to hear you scream it first.”

He pressed his mouth to her, used his tongue until she was squirming beneath him. Her nails scored through his hair. Then his name – thank God – his name tore from her in a gasping shout that seemed to echo through the room as she climaxed.

Julian smiled as he rose over her. “That’s it. Good girl.”

His teeth scraped her jaw as he lined himself up and pushed into her. He had to pause, jaw clenched against the searing pressure threatening to end him right then. Christ, she was exquisite. Sublime. The vision of her wanton and pleading shaped his every fantasy these past endless years. Having her again was raw and visceral. Primal as a heartbeat.

“Make me feel it tomorrow,” Caroline said.

A savage thrill went through Julian at her breathless demand. Holding her stare, he withdrew halfway before slamming into her again. Hard. Deep. Taking her with powerful strokes designed to brand her. Julian shifted his angle until Caroline bucked and twisted, hitting that spot guaranteed to ruin her.

He wanted her senseless before chasing his climax. Wanted to drag out every dark, depraved desire.

Their eyes locked, and he saw the instant ecstasy crash through her. He gentled his grip but kept thrusting through the aftershocks, determined to make her come again. She was magnificent when pushed past sane limits – and he would push her as far as she could take tonight.

“There’s my gorgeous girl,” he murmured. He didn’t slow his punishing tempo. “Let go for me again.”

“Kiss me,” she managed.

Julian obeyed, sealing his mouth over hers even as he pounded into her slick heat. When she tensed again, he wedged a hand between them to circle her with his fingers. Ruthless precision guided each stroke over the sensitive bud until she gripped his back. Only when she climaxed again did Julian let his control shred. Animal need obliterated conscious thought, narrowing his world down to friction and the harsh bite of her nails into his skin.

His release slammed through him. Their ragged breaths filled the art studio as he collapsed on top of her, their bodies still joined. Skin slid against skin, damp and fevered. Julian curled around her, one hand tangling in her mussed curls.

“Three,” she said faintly.

Julian gently bit her neck. “Who says I’m finished?”

She shifted against him. “I’ll need a moment to recover the feeling in all my limbs before you try again.”

Julian brushed his knuckles along her cheekbone. “Very well. Pass me the code? In my haste to get you naked, I didn’t see what it said.”

Caroline’s answering laugh came out husky and sated. She leaned down to retrieve the discarded cryptogram, scanning the rows of translated text. “Here – a place, date, and time. ‘Two o’clock, fifth of July. Charing Cross.’” She shot him a meaningful look. “Do you think he’ll target a train?”

Julian accepted the letter, ice creeping into his veins as he took in the chilling words now laid bare. Casual, smug – the tone set his teeth on edge. He rifled through the pile of foolscap until he located the other cryptogram Wentworth had given him. “Read this one. Tell me if the voice strikes you as familiar.”

There was no other sight more beautiful in the world than Caroline Hastings, thoroughly debauched, using her clever mind. “‘No one attacks me with impunity,’” she said. “ Nemo me impune lacessit. From an obscure poem – very obscure, I’d almost forgotten it existed.”

Julian froze, and a memory clicked into place. “I recall it once said by Edgar Kellerman,” he murmured. “He quoted it in an argument. And the smug note reminds me of him.”

Caroline’s brow squeezed. “The financier? Isn’t he quite beloved by the aristocracy?”

Julian brushed his lips below her ear, unable to keep from tasting her. “Not by me. I’ve had words with the man regarding his shady business practices and some venture involving Brazilian exports.” He pressed a kiss on the smooth slope of her shoulder. “I’ll tell Wentworth about the threat. Kellerman stays between us. I want to watch him first. Can’t accuse a man based on a poem and a hunch.”

“Very well.” She took his jaw in her hand. “But only if you let me join in your clandestine stalking.”

“Linnie…”

“Shh.” And then she kissed him, and he forgot all of his protests.