Page 87 of Unraveled By the Duke
“Alexander can. Apparently, he has fooled everyone into thinking him a worthless rake over the years.”
“Why would he want to do that?”
“I do not know. That family is full of secrets. Or rather, the Duke is.”
“Surely not to you, his wife.”
Celia sat forward and took Aurelia’s hands in her own. “Aurelia, I am the last to know what he is thinking or planning. Today, I learned that he might be considering… Well, I do not wantto speak it aloud, but it concerns both of us. Did you find the picture?”
Aurelia flung a handful of paper into the air with a cry. “Many lovely works of art, but not the one I wish to see. Are you sure it exists, Celia?” she asked.
Celia gaped and released her sister’s hands. It was tantamount to accusing her of lying.
If anyone else had asked that question, Celia would have understood it. But Aurelia was surely too innocent to think that her sister lied.
“I know you did not mean that question the way it sounded. Yes, it exists. Remember, I was packed off to Essex after Lady Alvey repeated Lavinia’s false tale to Mama and Papa. I must have left it there. There were other pictures there, another chest.”
An idea came to her then. She sank to the floor beside Aurelia, her skirts fanning out around her. She looked deeply into her sister’s eyes.
“Aurelia. We could go there. It is a day’s ride only. Two days there and back. If it means so much to you, then we will find it. What do you say?”
“Yes,” Aurelia said immediately.
Celia had been prepared to try to persuade her sister, but the instantaneous agreement took her by surprise. She was at a loss for words.
Aurelia smiled at her. “Of course I will go with you. Then, I will know whom I can truly trust. When can we go?”
“I will speak to Mama about loaning us the trap. I will drive us. She will be overjoyed to hear that we are visiting with such holy people after all the trouble that has surrounded us.”
“Not by choice for me,” Aurelia said.
“Nor I.”
Aurelia looked skeptical at that.
“Nor I,” Celia repeated firmly. “I wanted to experience the real world, that is all.”
And what an experience I had. I fell in love with a remarkable man and was betrayed by that same man. Oh, why did he have to be holding that letter? Why did he have to destroy that picture?
“Will Celia be joining us for dinner?” Violet asked, entering the room still wearing her painter’s smock, barefoot with paint-smeared toes. Her hair was tied up with a head scarf like the ones washerwomen wear.
Alexander had taken himself to the library to try and find calm, but he had read the same page a dozen times already. He slapped the book closed.
“No, she has left,” he said abruptly, “as I have told Hyacinth.”
Violet paused in the act of wiping her hands on a stained cloth. She held it out to the side, and moments later, a well-trained maid moved forward and took it from her.
“Indeed? She told me that she had invited Celia here and that Celia had subsequently left in a hurry. Your sister is most upset. Do you have anything to do with that?”
“I don’t. She took it upon herself to leave and refused to listen to anything I had to say,” Alexander replied with no little resentment.
Violet pursed her lips, one hand resting on her hip. “Your sister has become very fond of Celia. I, too, have to hold her in high esteem. Why do you now reject her? I advised you against this silly marriage of convenience from the beginning.”
Alexander shot to his feet, and Violet put both hands on her hips and faced him down, her face unreadable but her eyebrows arched.
“I remember, and I tried to prevent both of you from forming a bond with her by keeping her at Finsbury. But you insisted on getting to know her, and Hyacinth went behind my back and invited her here. Any pain both of you now feel is entirely your fault!”
He strode past her, thinking to go out riding. Time alone, on horseback, in the wild countryside, would help to clear his mind.
