Chapter 3

3

Ravenhill, 1865

Nine years ago

Caroline added another ruined sketch to the pile by her feet. Failure after failure after failure mocked her from the grass. At the rate she burned through paper, she’d soon be reduced to sketching in the dirt.

“Oh dear, not another for the bonfire,” said a voice, soft with sympathy. Caroline glanced over at her oldest friend, Grace Harcourt, where she lounged on their picnic blanket. “What a pity. I was rather fond of that one.”

Despite herself, Caroline let out a laugh. “You must be joking. I made you look like Medusa. Perseus should be swooping in to lop off your head as a trophy.”

“Medusa was a great beauty before she was cursed.” Grace straightened the brim of her hat, preening. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“Yesterday, I gave you three hands. Like some infernal chimera.”

“Ah, but what exquisitely shaped additional hands they were,” came the ironic drawl as Julian stepped from the forest path.

Caroline’s pulse quickened at the sight of him stripping off his riding gloves. The afternoon sun gilded his black hair, setting it in stark contrast to his pale skin. There was an innate sensuality to his beauty, a leonine grace with which he moved and spoke and observed.

“I see I’ve arrived just in time to save Linnie from her artistic wallowing,” Julian said, settling beside them on the blanket. “Please tell me there’s wine left.”

“Plenty of wine and an abundance of despair,” Caroline said. She wrinkled her nose at the artistic proof of ineptitude scattered around her. “I’m getting worse with each effort.”

Julian picked up one of the discarded pages, studying it critically. “The shading here is nicely done. You ought to revisit this technique.” His gaze softened almost imperceptibly as it shifted to Grace. “And you’ve captured the fire in Gracie’s eyes quite beautifully.”

Caroline snorted. “I know you’re lying. That horror resembles Grace as much as I resemble the Queen.”

Grace nudged Caroline’s shoulder. “The Queen should be so lucky. Why don’t you try your hand at the lovely willows by the pond for a bit? Give yourself a rest from portraiture.”

Caroline sighed, flipping back through her artistic endeavours. “Trees and flowers I can render passably. But people… I’m hopeless. Especially the hands. More claws than human appendages.” She scowled down at her latest effort and fought the urge to ball it up. Such a waste of expensive paper. “At this rate, I’ll be restricted to pets and flower arrangements. And that’s assuming I can keep the pets from resembling some unholy mating of nature and nightmare.”

She had to master her craft. It was the only way to save herself and her mother from destitution now that marriage seemed an unlikely prospect. As the sole daughter of the late Baron Winslow, their family name had once commanded respect, but scandal had forced them from London while Caroline was still a girl. Her father had then drunk and gambled away the remains of their modest fortune.

Now her dowry consisted of little more than her mother’s genteel manners and Caroline’s passable charms. Hardly enough to catch the eye of a peer with deep enough pockets to rescue them from penury. Which left her with only one choice: establish herself as a sought-after portrait artist. Painting was the sole talent she possessed in abundance.

“I’m certain you’ll improve with time and practice,” Julian said. “What do you think, petal? Think our Linnie might progress beyond shrubbery?”

Grace made a face at the dreadful nickname. “Must you call me that? Mother is now convinced we’re all but betrothed after overhearing you last week.”

“A dreadful prospect, I’m sure,” he said dryly.

Grace laughed. “Hastings, I value you far too much to subject you to a lifetime of my company.”

Something unreadable flickered in Julian’s eyes before his polite mask slid into place. He plucked a lone daisy from the grass and held it out to her. “Let’s try an experiment, shall we? Gracie, come here.” He tucked the flower behind her ear, his fingertips skimming down the curve of her jaw. An intimacy that fractured something deep inside Caroline’s chest. “There. Flawless as ever. Now, turn your profile to Linnie, petal. I suspect she’ll fare better from this angle.”

They were a study of contrasts – Julian carved from shadows and Grace spun from gold and porcelain. Little wonder the gossips predicted their betrothal with each passing day. Watching them together was like pressing on a wound, a sharp stab of pain that never quite faded.

Grace sighed. “As delightful as it would be to remain your subject, Mother is waiting for me at home. Another gown fitting.” She pressed swift kisses on Caroline’s and Julian’s cheeks. “I’ll see you at cards on Tuesday. Do try not to get into too much trouble without me.”

Then she was hurrying off, disappearing down the path in a flutter of skirts.

Julian stared after Grace with an unreadable look. “Do you think she’ll accept if I offer for her this Season?”

Caroline forced air into her lungs before trusting herself to answer. As gently as one might pull shards of glass from a wound, she said, “I suspect she’ll refuse you. She’s made her feelings quite clear.”

His jaw tightened, but he nodded once. “That’s rather my expectation as well. But if no one suitable proposes to her by summer’s end, I intend to ask anyway.”

Caroline worried her lower lip between her teeth before saying what was required of a friend. “If Grace asks my opinion, I’ll give you both my blessing.”

Julian’s expression gentled at that. “And what about you? Any potential matches capture your fancy?”

“Respectable offers will be thin on the ground for the daughter of a baron who quit London under a cloud of scandal and treason,” she said with a brittle smile.

Over a decade ago, her father’s close associate had betrayed military secrets to the Russians during the Crimean War. Whispers speculating on her father’s possible involvement had ravaged her family’s reputation long before his gambling debts finished it off.

“That was years ago.” Julian waved a dismissive hand. “No one even remembers.”

“Perhaps.”

“You’re brooding again. Time for a much-needed distraction.” Julian retrieved the abandoned wine and took a bracing drink from the bottle. “God knows I’ll need the courage for what comes next.”

Caroline shot him a puzzled look. “What now?”

“I intend to offer myself up as artistic sacrifice.” His lip lifted in a small smile. “You’ve spent months attempting portraits of Grace. It’s time you switched to another subject. One more accustomed to critique.”

Caroline made a derisive noise. “You’ll probably end up resembling a tree stump with warts.”

“A harsh blow to my vanity, softened by the wine.” He settled back on his elbows, every line of his body speaking of lazy elegance. “Unless you’d rather admit defeat?”

“Of course not.” She flipped to a fresh page with renewed determination. “Fine, let’s see if I can’t make you moderately less hideous than my other efforts. But you may want to brace yourself.”

“Do your worst, Miss Winslow.”

Caroline focused on her sketchpad. She carefully outlined the angle of his jaw, the sharp slant of his cheekbones. As she worked, Julian’s aquiline profile took shape on the page, patrician features emerging from shadow and light.

Few men could boast bone structure as exquisitely wrought as the young Duke of Hastings. Here, at last, was a subject who rewarded her – the clean lines and symmetry of his face, a pleasing interplay of light and dark. Julian’s aristocratic features lent him a commanding air beyond his twenty-one years. She softened the sensual curve of his lower lip with delicate strokes of her charcoal.

After a few more minutes, she angled the sketchpad to let him view her progress. “Well? Do you need to fortify yourself?”

Julian studied the sketch. “Not hideous at all. I’m impressed.”

“I suspect you’re half drunk. At this point, a tree stump would merit praise.”

“I know good art when I see it, whatever my state of inebriation,” he countered. “Comes with my own pitiful inability to create it.”

“You make wonderful music. I can hardly play a note.”

Julian gave a careless shrug. “I play the piano proficiently. You make something meaningful. Compelling, even at your worst.”

Warmth blossomed in her chest. “You’re an exemplary subject. Your bone structure is exquisite.” Realising how intimate that sounded, she hastily clarified, “From an artistic standpoint.”

A wry smile crossed Julian’s face. “My most valued quality, to be sure. Would you like to try another drawing?”

“Yes.” She studied the portrait. “My struggles are largely with light and shading. Capturing the way shadows interact with the human form. They say nude studies are most helpful for learning those techniques. Unfortunately, they aren’t available to aspiring female artists.”

“Then use me.”

Caroline’s gaze snapped to his. “You would be willing?”

He gave an elegant shrug, setting the bottle of wine aside. “We’re friends, aren’t we?” His fingers went to the buttons of his shirt, slipping them free one by one. “Just keep that sketchbook private and never breathe a word of this to Gracie.”

Friends. Just friends.

Never anything more.

Helplessly, Caroline watched as he peeled the fine linen from his shoulders, revealing smooth skin and lean musculature. He removed his boots and stripped away his stockings before rising to stand barefoot on the grass.

“Trousers off or on?”

Heat scalded Caroline’s cheeks. “Off,” she said before she could stop herself.

Those sharp eyes stayed locked on hers as his hands moved to the fastenings of his trousers. Inch by inch, he revealed himself – lean hips, muscular thighs, until he stood before her nude and utterly unabashed.

Swallowing hard, Caroline forced her attention up from the enticing trail of hair below his navel, the jut of his cock.

“See anything of interest?” he murmured in amusement.

The blood roared in Caroline’s ears as she tried to gather the tattered scraps of her composure. “Determining the best angle for my sketch. Taking note of geography. The, er, angularity of your…” She coughed into her hand. “Hipbones. That sort of thing.”

“Well then, please inform me how best to arrange my… angular hipbones. What do you require?”

You. Beneath me, behind me, inside me.

Good Lord, where had that thought come from?

Pasting a smile on her face, Caroline lifted her charcoal. “If you could just lie back and relax.”

He shifted onto his back, thighs falling open in casual disregard for modesty.

Swallowing hard, Caroline ignored the temptation now on display. She flipped to a fresh page and began sketching the lines of his shoulders and arms, the lean muscles of Julian’s abdomen, the enticing hollows of his hipbones. The sketch became a detailed study rather than a chaste outline. She took longer than necessary shaping his powerful legs, smudging the shadows to suggest coarse, dark hair.

As she worked, the lingering awkwardness dissipated. Julian made for a mesmerising subject. His body was all lean, honed muscle, strong yet elegant. She lost herself for a time in the sure strokes of her charcoal, sketching curves into angles into planes. The world narrowed down to breath and motion and vision until Julian’s likeness emerged beneath her fingers in painstaking detail. Dappled light and smooth skin. The shape of temptation scrawled across the paper.

When she finally set down her charcoal, a pleasant glow of accomplishment replaced her earlier frustration. “There, I believe I’ve finished for today.” Pulse skittering, she extended the sketch towards him. “What do you think?”

For long moments, Julian stared at the detailed study rendered on paper. At the intimacy there.

Several heartbeats passed in fraught silence before Caroline asked, “Is it dreadful, then?”

His gaze lifted, blue eyes dark with hunger. Ferocity barely leashed. Caroline’s breath snagged as his focus moved along her flushed skin.

“No.” His voice came rough-edged. “No, it’s magnificent. Now, all that’s left is to sign it.”

Caroline heard nothing except the pounding of her own heart. This felt like more than just a playful artistic study between friends. Some silent threshold had been crossed as soon as she put charcoal to page. Or perhaps it had been crossed long before, in furtive moments of connection neither had dared acknowledge.

A thing between them too new to name.

“We shouldn’t immortalise the scandal in ink,” she said softly.

His burning stare stripped her down. “Then let it be our secret.”