Page 30 of His Auctioned Duchess
He turned away before the sight could soften him further. “She will see too much and become overwhelmed.”
Edmund leaned back, smiling faintly. “You sound like a man trying to convince himself of that.”
Richard ignored him, picking up a paper from the desk, though he didn’t read it.
“Careful, Ashwood,” Edmund said, his voice lighter now, but with meaning behind it. “If you’re not cautious, that lady will tear down the walls you’ve spent years building.”
Richard looked up, his eyes unreadable. “Let her try.”
Caroline lingered in the upper gallery overlooking the entrance hall, her sketchbook open across her lap. From here, she couldhear faint traces of voices below—Richard’s low, measured tone, and Edmund’s deep rumble of laughter echoing after him.
She had not meant to listen. Truly, she hadn’t. Yet something about their friendship fascinated her—the ease with which they fell into banter, the unspoken weight that passed between them when laughter died.
She heard the scrape of chairs, then the closing of the study door. Edmund’s boots thudded across the hall. “I’ll take the guest wing, then!” he called. “Try not to glare holes through the walls while I sleep, Ashwood.”
Richard’s reply was too quiet for her to catch, though it made Edmund laugh once more before he disappeared up the opposite staircase.
Moments later, the Duke himself stepped into view below, one hand pressed briefly to his temple as if the conversation had cost him more than he cared to admit. He paused at the base of the stairs, and in the dim glow of the sconces, Caroline saw something shift in his expression—an exhaustion that was not merely physical.
Without thinking, she spoke. “Long day, Your Grace?”
He looked up, startled. For a heartbeat, she thought he might ignore her, return to his solitude as always. Instead, he exhaled softly and inclined his head. “Too many problems for one man, and not enough patience to solve them.”
Caroline closed her sketchbook and rose, moving to the banister. “That sounds remarkably human of you. Shall I alert the papers?”
He gave her a look that might have been amusement—or warning. “You have a sharp tongue, Lady Caroline.”
“It’s the only weapon I’m permitted to carry.”
His eyes lingered on her face, tracing the shadows and lamplight. “And how deftly you wield it.”
He turned toward the corridor leading to his study. “Good night, my lady.”
Caroline hesitated, the urge to follow him warring with her better judgment. Curiosity won. “Your Grace—before you go… may I ask you something?”
He paused. “You usually do.”
“Why do you work so late?”
“Because sleep is wasted on men who think too much,” he said.
“Or perhaps you fear what comes when the thinking stops.”
That drew a flicker of surprise—then something unreadable passed across his face, gone as swiftly as it came. “Good night,Lady Caroline,” he said again, quieter this time, and disappeared down the hall.
Later, long after the lamps were dimmed and the corridors stilled, Caroline sat by the fire in her chamber with her sketchbook open once more. She had begun drawing the orangery earlier that evening—the lattice of vines, the long shadows cast by the chessboard—but somehow her pencil had drifted elsewhere.
Now, upon the page, Richard took shape.
It was not the Devil of gossip sheets, nor the Duke seated in judgment over his tenants. It was the man she had glimpsed between those two selves—the quiet strength behind his silence, the weariness at the corners of his mouth, the faint tilt of his head when he was listening.
The scar was there, yes, but softened by the gentler lines around it. She had meant only to capture his likeness, yet the pencil betrayed her: what emerged was not merely his face but the loneliness behind it.
She stared at the sketch, startled by what she had done.
“Foolish,” she murmured to herself, closing the book too quickly. The sound echoed in the stillness of the room. She leaned back,pressing her fingers to her temples. “You are being very foolish, Caroline Hughes.”
And yet, when she shut her eyes, she saw again the way he had stood before his tenants that morning—calm, resolute, fair. The way his voice had softened for that trembling girl. The way he had looked up at her on the stairs, eyes shadowed but not unkind.
