Page 65 of Married to a Wicked Duke
Veronica grinned. “I hope Sarah does not mind me waking her up so she can fill me a bath.”
Frederick chuckled. “You know these are oil paints. The color is likely to linger around for a while, even after a bath.”
Veronica groaned through her laughter. “I have children to teach tomorrow. What am I going to tell them?”
Frederick reached onto the shelf and handed her a bottle of solvent. He grinned and kissed her lips again. “I’d strongly suggest anything other than the truth.”
* * *
Frederick lay up on his elbow, watching his wife curiously. She was reclined on her back, staring up at the canopy of her bed, a faint smile on her lips. Her cheeks were still flushed from the thorough ravaging he had just given her, and her dark hair lay tangled on the pillow. But she was not thinking of the passion they had just shared—not any more. Frederick could tell from the faraway expression in her eyes that her thoughts had moved elsewhere.
Absentmindedly, he traced a finger along her bare collarbone, smiling to himself at the hint of blue paint on her skin that she had not yet been able to scrub away. The morning after their little adventure in his studio, they had both turned up at the breakfast table with their faces still half-covered in paint. Frederick had been mightily impressed at his valet’s ability to pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary. His grandmother had not been quite so discreet.
“What on earth has happened here?”she had said, her tone—and self-satisfied smile—leaving no doubt in Frederick’s mind that she knewexactlywhat had happened. He had garbled out some rubbish about an accident with the easel, and quickly changed the subject.
“What are you thinking?” he asked Veronica now, his finger moving up to trace the curve of her jaw. How easy this had become; these nights of bringing each other pleasure, and of curling up beneath the sheets together afterwards. Too easy, in fact. Though every grain in his body urged him to do so, Frederick had not yet found the will to spend the entire night with his wife. It felt too intimate, somehow. And yes, he could see the ridiculousness of that, given everything they had done. But it was a line he could not find the courage to cross. Veronica had never pushed him to stay, and for that, he was more than a little grateful.
She turned her head on the pillow to meet his eyes. “I’m thinking there is something I wish to show you,” she said.
“Oh?”
She sat up, letting the covers slide from her naked body. “I have finished my collection for the gallery. Would you like to see it?”
Frederick smiled. Beyond the initial sketches he had seen her working on the night they had first been together, he had not had a single glimpse of the paintings she was working on for the gallery collection. A part of him wondered if she was being deliberately cagey, on account of him refusing to show her his portrait. “I would love to see it,” he told her.
Veronica slipped out of bed. She reached for her robe, sliding it over her shoulders and knotting it at her narrow waist. Frederick stepped into his breeches and slid his shirt over his head, then followed her down the passage to her studio.
“Close your eyes,” said Veronica as she pushed on the door. Frederick obeyed, and she took his hand in hers, leading him inside. “All right,” she said. “You can look now.”
Frederick opened his eyes and let out his breath. Five completed paintings were leaning up against the wall of her studio, each portraying a wild element of the garden at the country house in Cambridge. There was the house, almost dwarfed by the greenery surrounding it; there was the rose garden, depicted in an explosion of color; and there was the dark and shadowed back corner of the garden, where the trees and undergrowth grew the wildest. The collection had an otherworldly essence to it, almost as though the images came from a fairy tale. The garden at Cambridge had always felt like that to him as a child: as though it might be imbued with magic. After just a single visit to the place, Veronica had managed to capture the feeling of the place perfectly.
“Do you recognize this tree?” she asked him, pointing to the fourth painting with a cheeky smile on her lips.
Frederick frowned, then chuckled as the realization came to him. His eyes shone. “I believe that is the offending tree where our grandmothers conspired to have us married.”
Veronica raised her eyebrows. “Offending tree?”
“Indeed. If the two of us had not been so hidden by the damn thing, I would never have had to ravish you so thoroughly that only marriage could save you.”
Veronica laughed. “I see.” She took a step closer to him, then wrapped her arms around his waist. She looked up to meet his eyes. “The official title of the piece is ‘Wilderness’. But I like to call it ‘Avoiding a Scandal.’”
Frederick could not hold back a hearty laugh. He tossed his head back, feeling laughter well up from deep inside him. How he had missed laughing like this. And how grateful he was to his wife for reminding him he had the ability to do so. Affection for her flooded him, and suddenly he could not tear his eyes away from her. “Oh goodness, Veronica, I—” He stopped abruptly. Stepped away from her, his heart suddenly pounding.
I love you. How easily those words had risen to his lips. And how hard he had had to fight to keep them silent.
No. I cannot love her. Because if I love her, there is a chance I could lose her, like I lost my mother, and my heart would never survive such a thing.
Veronica was looking up at him expectantly, her blue eyes wide and her lips parted slightly. At once, Frederick wanted to both throw himself into her arms, and tear from the room and never look back.
She raised her eyebrows. “You, what, Frederick? Is everything all right?”
He swallowed, taking a moment to gather himself. “I think the pieces are wonderful,” he finished lamely. “I will have them taken to the gallery tomorrow.”
ChapterTwenty-Seven
“Goodness, this is so exciting,” the Dowager Duchess said as they rode in the carriage towards Covent Garden. Either she was oblivious to the tension between Frederick and Veronica, or—far more likely—determined to ignore it. “I cannot wait to see the place.”
After three months of planning, painting—and stumbling through a sometimes painfully awkward marriage, the opening of the gallery was upon them. Veronica was more than a little grateful that her husband’s grandmother was making the journey to the gallery with them. Frederick had been deliberate in taking the seat in the carriage opposite Veronica, rather than sitting beside her, and he was staring out the window with the intensity of a country-dweller who had never before seen London. But Veronica was determined not to let his coldness ruin the day.
