Chapter 22

22

Caroline awoke to the haunting strains of piano music drifting down the hallway. The melody washed over her, melancholy and aching, speaking of old griefs and memories worn thin by time.

Julian’s music.

Caroline slipped from the bed and donned her silk wrapper. She made her way through the shadowed corridors, following the music towards its source. The notes hung suspended around her, strands of gossamer that clung and pulled.

What memories haunted him tonight? The same ones that haunted her days, she suspected. Whispers and echoes that never entirely faded.

Grace.

Tristan.

The wounds they had carved into each other with their silence.

At last, she came to the music room. Julian sat with his back to the door, shoulders hunched over the piano keys. Moonlight filtering through the tall windows glinted off the black waves of his hair. He seemed cast in shades of silver and grey, softened at the edges. The austere duke stripped away to reveal the man beneath.

Here was the brooding boy who had first caught her attention so many years ago in his father’s gardens. Before he had slipped from her grasp like smoke, a half-remembered dream.

He did not turn or otherwise acknowledge her presence. The song flowed on, and Caroline closed her eyes against the hollow ache of it. She thought perhaps she would be content to stand there and let the notes crash and break over her like waves. Let it scour their sharp edges until they were as smooth as sea glass.

Caroline watched his elegant hands move across the ivory keys. Long fingers coaxing forth strands of melancholy sound, spinning them into something achingly sweet. She thought of where those hands had touched her skin only hours before, mapping her with reverence. The memories echoed through each mournful note.

She could see Julian’s fingers tremble. His knuckles stood out in sharp relief, skin pulled taut over bone. The veins on the backs of his hands flexed with each note, delicate traceries that captivated her. He had musician’s hands. Graceful and strong. Hands that knew every inch of her.

Without turning, Julian asked, “Did I wake you?” His playing never faltered despite the distraction.

“I don’t mind.” She drew closer, bare feet soundless on the carpet. “It’s beautiful.”

And it was. Achingly so.

A noncommittal grunt. “My technique is rusty.”

“It sounds flawless to me.”

As his fingers dropped from the keys, silence swelled to fill the void. Still, Julian did not turn.

“You’re thinking very loudly over there,” Caroline said gently. “What’s troubling you? Is it Richard?”

“It’s nothing.” He did not stir from his perch. “Just an old piece I was trying to remember.”

“It sounded like a lament.” And like a love song for something lost. For apologies left unspoken.

Another broken chord, almost a sigh. “I wrote it for Tristan and Grace.” His voice dropped. “And for you. After.”

After. A single word encompassing all the sprawling years. Since the ground crumbled beneath their feet. Since the slow undoing.

Since the strangers they had become.

Grief pierced Caroline once more, sharp and unexpected. She had thought herself inured, calloused from years of sorrow worn smooth. But the wound gaped as fresh as ever – bloodless yet still so quick to sting.

She thought of eight years wasted, eight years they could never regain. A wall of regret had risen brick by brick until she could scarcely see him on the other side. Until all that remained were two hollowed-out people circled in orbit, neither daring to draw too near.

She fought to keep her voice steady. “Play me the rest. I want to hear it.”

Silence swelled around them, deep as the darkness between stars. For a heartbeat, she thought he meant to refuse.

But then he shifted on the stool in silent acquiescence – an invitation for her to join him.

Caroline crossed the floor, silk slipping softly at her legs. The old wood creaked faintly beneath her as she settled at the piano beside her husband. His fingers returned to the keys.

The melody moved through her, low and soft, then climbing, pleading. Speaking of grief, chances lost, chances still waiting, just out of reach. It crested inside her chest, receded like the tide, and then swelled again. A lament to love smothered too soon.

Unable to stop herself, she reached out and let her hand hover just above his thigh. Shall I touch you? Comfort you?

Before doubt could take hold, Caroline pressed her palm to his leg.

The notes fractured, faltered. Julian’s focus slipped from the keys as her hand stayed in place, trembling with possibilities. With words left unspoken and memories beaten smooth. She held her breath, her heart crashing against her ribs. Waited for him to pull away, to slip back behind cold marble. Behind locked doors and hollow vows.

But Julian remained still beneath her touch. Slowly, by increments, the tension leached from his body. Only once he had mastered himself did the melody resume, low and sweet. His fingers moved across the piano keys, coaxing forth notes like strands of glass, fragile and thin. They cut into her soul, deeper with every repetition.

Flay me open, she thought. Lay my sins bare.

As the final notes faded, they sat in silence. He did not pull away. Did not retreat, as he had for so long. And neither did she. The space between them rang hollow with all their unspoken truths.

His fingers curled into fists on his thighs, knuckles sharp beneath the skin. At last, Julian turned towards her. Someone haunted and far removed from the boy with ink-smudged fingers who had shared secret smiles with her as they passed notes across a crowded ballroom lifetimes ago.

“Come here, duchess,” he said softly.

Reaching out, he drew the silk robe down her shoulders. It slithered to the floor between them, baring more of her shivering skin to the shadows. To him.

“I want to see you. All of you.” His breath gusted hot against the shell of her ear.

Caroline did not pull away. Did not move at all save for the agitated rise and fall of her chest. She held still, pulse thundering, as Julian’s gaze moved over her. His hands followed in slow, burning trails, fingertips skating up her thighs. They traced her hips, her waist, skimmed the undersides of her breasts with reverent restraint. Every hollow and ridge was mapped beneath those elegant hands. Following the paths charted into muscle and memory.

Caroline shifted to straddle him. Even through the thin linen of his trousers, she felt him harden against her as the slick heat of her core settled against his cock. The exquisite pressure made her dizzy, nerves singing as she slid over that thick hardness.

Julian’s fingers constricted on her hips, a broken noise tearing from his throat. For endless moments, they remained suspended, frozen in torturous possibility, breaths crashing loudly between them.

Tilting her face up, she ghosted her parted lips along his frantic pulse. Felt it leap beneath her teeth when she whispered, “I’ve never been with anyone else. Just you.”

A secret spilled to soothe old wounds. Somehow, to stitch their tattered edges back together.

His arms tightened. “Not even Grey?”

“No.” Her lips moved against his skin. “I couldn’t bring myself to let Richard touch me. I felt… nothing for anyone after you. Just empty inside. And that made me hate you more.”

Julian tensed, but his arms stayed locked around her. She inhaled slowly, the air burning in her lungs.

“So I asked Richard if I could paint him instead. If I couldn’t give myself to someone new, I wanted my art back. To replace the memories of you.” Silence rang out, hollow as a rotted tree. “And if you saw my paintings, I wanted you to hurt the way I did. God, Julian, I hurt so much I barely knew myself.”

It was so loud, a howling in her chest.

“Shhh.” He stroked her hair. “It’s all right.” The words breathed warmth across her scalp, her temple. “I know, sweetheart.”

“You asked me to forgive you eight years ago,” she whispered. “But I never asked you to forgive me back.” Her lungs ached. “I’m sorry, Julian. For everything I said to you.”

He stilled. In the silence, she leaned in and brushed her mouth to his in the softest plea. When he did not retreat, she kissed him again, firmer. Harder. Parted his lips beneath her own and tasted smoke and brandy and the velvet slide of his tongue stroking hers.

He kissed her deeply then. With bruising force, as if he could scour away the bitter years, the regret. Kiss her until she knew nothing but this. Until the jagged pieces between them melted and blurred into something smooth. Something that did not draw blood with every caress.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he told her.

She kissed him again. He had always felt like coming home. Her body remembered, even after all this time – like their own language, wordless and wild.

Julian’s mouth slanted over hers again and again until she was dizzy and desperate for him. His hands slid down to grip her hips, then lower still to cup her backside almost roughly.

She rocked against him. Craving more. Needing him inside her, claiming every part that was his. She started to reach down, to free the hard length of him straining beneath the trousers. Take him in hand—

But Julian tore his mouth away with a curse. Grasping her tight, he stilled her movements. They stayed locked together, bodies trembling with need, a thin sheen of sweat blooming across heated skin.

“Not here,” he rasped.

With infinite care, he eased Caroline back, then lifted her into his arms. He carried her from the music room down the darkened corridors to the bedchamber. He lay her down on the bed – this bed she had too often found cold and lonely without him, an elegant tomb.

She watched his silhouette as he removed his clothes, each layer peeling away as if he were stripping barriers between them. Then Julian followed her down into softness, weight braced on rigid arms. His gaze searched her face, gleaming even in the darkness. Then his mouth found her throat, her collarbone. His tongue teased her nipple before sucking firmly, wringing a sharp gasp from her.

When his lips trailed even lower, tongue dipping briefly into her navel, a shattered moan tore from her.

“Please—” Her fingers twisted in his hair, urging him lower still.

Julian’s hands gripped her knees, easing her thighs apart. Their gazes locked, his eyes quicksilver in shadow.

Then his mouth descended to her aching core. Caroline’s back bowed at the first stroke of his tongue. He devoured her as she writhed, one strong arm pinning her hips in place. He slid two fingers deep inside her, stroking tight nerves only he had ever touched. Pressure coiled at the base of her spine, tighter with every thrust. She rocked into his mouth, his fingers, chasing the precipice.

But just before she tumbled over the edge, Julian withdrew. Leaving her empty, throbbing. She barely had time to drag in a protesting gasp before he was above her, pressing her thighs wide. Poised at her entrance, the hard length of his cock nudging her.

Slowly, by increments, Julian sank into her. They froze, gazes locked, as her body stretched and yielded around him. Then Caroline dragged her palms down the sweat-slick plane of his back, feeling the ridges of his muscles, every dip and valley. Tracing the maps carved into his skin.

“I want you to stay,” she breathed, lips shaping the plea against his parted mouth. “Don’t go back to your townhouse after your tenant leaves. Don’t board your ship to Italy. Stay here.”

With me.

He kissed her, long and slow. When he pulled back, his words were warm across her cheek. “Shall I live here now, my duchess?”

“Yes. With me.” She twined her arms around his shoulders, urging him deeper with her hips.

Julian’s restraint shattered. He claimed her with powerful thrusts that stole her breath, spoke of possession and need.

Mine, each thrust seemed to say.

Yours, her body answered back.

Ours.

The force of his claim pushed her up the bed into the pillows. Caroline arched into each devastating plunge, craving more. Needing him deeper. Harder. Needing him to carve himself into her bones, her blood.

“I love you,” he whispered.

He crushed her lips beneath his just as his fingers slipped between her thighs, working her sensitised flesh in tight circles. Euphoria crashed through her, every nerve ending sparking white hot. Seconds later, Julian went rigid above her with a rough curse, finding his own release.

Afterwards, they collapsed together in a tangle of limp, sweat-slick limbs. Julian gathered Caroline against him, her back against his chest.

She lay awake long after his breaths deepened into sleep. Focused on the steady thrum of his heart, willing the minutes to slow.