Chapter 9

9

London, 1874

Nine years later

Caroline stared at the canvas on her easel, at the malformed creature taking shape there. She added another hopeless smudge of grey, as if she could capture life by slowly suffocating it.

“You’re utterly hopeless,” she muttered to the abomination.

A painting so abysmal it would bring the critics to her door like rabid dogs, ready to tear her apart with their teeth. No skill, they would sneer. No heart. A child could produce something better using their toes. Blindfolded.

“Talking to yourself?”

Caroline turned to find Julian leaning in the doorway, broad shoulders eclipsing the light from the hall. He looked as if he’d just rolled out of bed, hair mussed, shirtsleeves to the elbows.

“Scolding my painting.” Caroline forced her lips into a brittle smile. “You look tired. That cryptogram still plaguing you?”

“Unfortunately. Though I confess it wounds my pride to be bested by random symbols on paper.”

“I’d offer to help, but I’d likely only hinder you today.” She waved a hand at the abomination on her easel. “As you can see, I’m busy attempting to insult this painting into submission.”

He crossed the room on silent feet to stand beside her, and it took every ounce of her self-control not to reach out and trace the ink stains marring his elegant hands.

“And have your criticisms yielded any improvement?” His voice was cool, stripped of anything telling.

Caroline tossed her ruined gloves onto the nearby table. “God, no. It’s an offence to painters everywhere.” She pinched the bridge of her nose against the building pressure headache. “I ought to just quit now.”

“You’ve always been unnecessarily harsh on yourself,” he said.

“I’m serious. The proportions are atrocious. I’ve somehow made an attractive model look like some lumbering behemoth. With a face like a potato.”

“But your technique is flawless. It’s not without merit.”

“You’re being kind,” she said. “Go on, give me your honesty. Tell me what you really think of this monstrosity.” She crossed her arms, half hoping he’d tear the awful piece apart and give her an excuse to be rid of it. “You had no words for how I painted the subject.”

But Julian only stepped nearer, so close she could feel the heat of him. “My preferences on subject matter may be somewhat biased where your art is concerned.”

Are you jealous? she wanted to ask. Or do you wish I’d paint you again? Questions unspoken but pulsing against her skin like endless heartbeats – each one a plea, a prayer, a stinging accusation.

“Biased?” Her voice emerged thready.

“You mistake the root of the problem,” Julian murmured. “It’s not your technique. It’s the emotion. What do you feel when you look at him?” His eyes raked over the painting of Laurent.

She swallowed, a strange tightness settling in her chest. “Nothing.”

“And what do you feel when you look at me?”

Everything. Alive.

Ruined. Like you’re going to leave me shattered again once you board that damned ship to Italy.

Another shuddering breath left Caroline, pain crackling through her sternum. “I don’t know.” The lie scorched her throat.

“You don’t know.” His words were soft, but they fell between them like stones sinking to the bottom of a dark lake. Silent accusations.

Because they had softened towards one another in recent days but those were the words of two people irreparably altered. Two people forced to lie and evade, to shield themselves behind armour that had become second skin.

Before she could react, Julian grasped the hem of his shirt and peeled it off in one smooth motion. Revealed the expanse of smooth skin and lean muscle, the play of light across the hard planes of his abdomen. A body she knew intimately.

Her mouth went dry. “What are you doing?”

Julian lifted his shoulder in a careless shrug. Like this was nothing. “Taking off my clothes. What does it look like I’m doing? Or has it been so long that you’ve forgotten how this goes?”

Forgotten? She wanted to laugh. Or maybe scream. There wasn’t enough wine or laudanum in the world to erase him from her memory.

“Why, is what I meant.”

“That painting is a disaster, and I know from experience that we work well together. You’ve helped me with my cryptograms, so I’ll help with your art.” His stare turned mocking. “And since you can’t even put your feelings for me into words, it shouldn’t be a problem, should it?”

Julian’s eyes locked with hers, burning into her, as he flicked the buttons of his trousers open and let them fall to the floor.

His body was a work of art, and Caroline ached to reach out and touch him. The scar high on one shoulder from a childhood tumble. The thin silvery line across a hip where her nails had dug crescents into tender flesh. But she didn’t dare move.

Julian stepped closer. “Flushed skin. Racing pulse. Shallow breathing,” he murmured, bending to nip the tender spot where her neck met her shoulder. Caroline couldn’t stifle a gasp. “You don’t know how you feel about me, my duchess? I think you’re a liar.” Julian reached for a piece of charcoal and pressed it into her trembling hand. “Now draw.”

He sauntered to the chaise longue and sprawled across it. Head thrown back, every muscle on display.

“Well?” His voice was rough silk. “What are you waiting for?”

Somehow, she managed to face her canvas. With shaking hands, Caroline began to sketch. She started slowly, almost clinically, capturing lines and contours.

If he insisted on flaunting his body, then she’d feast. Gorge her starved senses on every angle until she’d had her fill. Until the pounding ache in her core no longer made her dizzy with lust.

Until she scrubbed her fevered dreams free of ink-stained hands and burning blue eyes.

Caroline drew across the page in bold slashes. Angled light played over the defined muscles of his torso and legs – muscle, sinew, poetry wrought in the flesh. A familiar heat bloomed inside her while she rendered each powerful contour. She smudged the shadows between his thighs before darting a shy glance upwards.

His stare held a knowing glint that made her skin flush hotter. Steeling herself, she continued her path downwards, letting her gaze linger on the thick length of his aroused cock.

“Stop drawing.” Julian’s voice came out rough. More command than request. “Take off your dress.”

As if compelled by gravity, Caroline set aside her charcoal before crossing the room. She reached for the buttons lining the front of her day gown. One after another they slipped free, until she stood before him in only her thin chemise and stockings. When she shivered, it had nothing to do with the cold.

Julian’s stare moved over her. “All of it.”

The rest of her garments joined the pile. She tried not to fidget under that intense perusal. She saw herself reflected in his gaze – the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, the fine tremor in her hands.

Utterly exposed before him, flaws and all.

“Come here.”

This time, it was less command, more the gentle beckoning of a lover. Caroline went willingly. Let him guide her down onto the divan so they lay pressed together, skin to skin. His fingers traced idle patterns over her hip.

Their lips met, and Julian kissed her until stars exploded behind her eyes. He relearned each sensitive spot that made her gasp and tremble. She drank him in – the taste of his skin beneath her lips, the devastating pleasure of his hands and mouth on her body. And when she finally pulled back, gasping for breath, he simply moved his attention lower, kissing down the column of her throat.

Caroline clutched at his shoulders, lost to sensation. She wanted this – wanted him with a desperation that went soul-deep.

Wanted to drown in him.

Julian stroked his fingers between her thighs. He kept her balanced on the precipice, denying her the penetration she craved.

“Now, I’ll ask again, my duchess,” he said. “What do you feel when you look at me?”

It took Caroline a moment to process his words. To understand the importance behind them.

But her heart was too bruised, too tender beneath its fortress of scars. Jagged at the edges, barely held together. He would leave her again, board his ship and pretend he didn’t know her. She couldn’t survive him carving her open a second time.

His gaze locked with hers, so intense it seared. “Answer me.”

“I can’t,” she whispered.

Something dangerous sparked in Julian’s eyes. He drove two fingers deep inside her, as if he could wring the truth from her trembling body. Caroline came apart on a sharp cry, shattering beneath his touch. Again and again, he brought her to the brink, stoking her pleasure until she was wrung out and gasping.

She expected him to find his own release then. Instead, he gathered his discarded garments, donning each item with clinical precision. The distance between them gaped wider with each button refastened, each layer of clothing restored.

Until it was as if their interlude had never happened.

“Aren’t you going to—” Caroline pressed her lips together, refusing to beg for it.

You don’t have to play the dutiful husband behind closed doors.

Fully dressed once more, Julian leaned down to brush his mouth over hers in a kiss that somehow felt more intimate than all they’d just done. “When I fuck you,” he whispered, “it won’t be while you’re lying to me.” He walked to the door. “We’re attending the theatre tonight. Don’t keep our audience waiting.”

Long after he had gone, she remained sprawled amid the wreckage of her studio. Still burning from the memory of his hands. Still devastated by the ruthless skill with which he shattered her defences, forced her to confront old agonies she’d never been able to cauterize closed.