Page 85 of Unraveled By the Duke
“This is a prince. An angel. I am not so… fair.”
“You are.”
She could see there were words on the reverse side of the page. She had drawn on the back of a letter.
Alexander’s eyes seemed to be drinking in the image before him, unable to comprehend it. Celia felt immensely flattered by the sheer wonder on his face.
“I do not know what to say. You have paid me a great compliment, I think.”
“I simply drew what I saw.”
“You did not see this when you walked into the study. You saw me sleeping behind this desk and conjured this from your imagination,” Alexander insisted.
Celia shook her head and bit her lip, wanting him to see the truth behind the art. “I did not conjure something that was not there before me, waiting to be seen. My eyes saw, and my hands drew.”
“Through the filter of a romantic view. A rose-tinted world,” Alexander said, sitting back in his chair, still holding up the paper.
“Through the filter of… my heart,” Celia admitted, her voice breaking at the end. “There, you have it. My finest work because it was my greatest inspiration. You hold it and my heart in your hands. Once, you suspected me. Now, you seem to want to be rid of me. If that is how you feel, know that you are disposing of someone who loves you.”
Alexander’s eyes rose from the drawing, and Celia’s heart surged as she saw the wonder in them. She had been dreading the crashing down of the portcullis behind his eyes. Watching for the hard, coldness of steel to freeze his countenance. She did not see it.
He opened his mouth to reply. It was then, by a cruel twist of fate, that Celia’s eye was drawn to the paper just before he let it fall to the desk. Drawn to a familiar shape.Frid. Her name. Aurelia’s name.
Those patterns suddenly jumped out at her. As did another, less familiar in writing, but recognizable. A large, bold signature at the bottom of the page.Grimaire.
“Celia…” Alexander began, standing up.
“What is that paper?” Celia asked. “Why does it have mine and Aurelia’s names on it? From Grimaire.”
While her heart had been bursting before, a cold was settling over it now. She felt the betrayal looming like a shadow over her.
What had he done?
“A letter from Sir Nathaniel Grimaire, my chief creditor,” Alexander replied. “He wants to marry you to his son, Phillip, in exchange for the forgiveness of all my debts.”
Celia could not see for a moment. It had nothing to do with the tears in her eyes.
The words Alexander had spoken so softly to her were violent. They stabbed at her, blinded her with their obscenity, and the fact that they were spoken in such a reasonable tone.
“That would be a neat solution to all your woes, would it not? Dear Hyacinth would have her debut.”
“She would, and it would,” Alexander said.
“Be honest—are you considering it?” Celia managed to ask, her voice wavering.
“I am never anything but honest. Yes, I cannot deny that the instant solution to the problems that have weighed me down since I became Duke is attractive?—”
“Well, it seems my sense of timing is quite appalling. Just as I discover that I have inconveniently fallen in love with my husband, he decides to trade me like a prize cow.”
“Celia, let me finish. I did not?—”
“You need say no more, Your Grace. I would have thrown such an obscene letter into the fire or torn it into a thousand pieces. You did not.”
“I crumpled it in my fist. That shows you?—”
“That you did not like the message but were unwilling to destroy it. You wanted to leave yourself the option of taking up Grimaire’s offer. Perhaps your American friend has had a different job than I was led to believe. Perhaps the scandals are engineered by him in order to give you the pretext. Perhaps this was intended all along!”
Alexander abruptly tore the paper in two, then in four. Then in eight. He kept tearing it until nothing remained but snowflakes that softly fell to the floor.
