Page 33 of His Auctioned Duchess
She leaned closer, whispering, “You love it.”
He didn’t look away from the stage. “I understand it.”
Louisa, seated at his other side, smiled over her fan. “Do not be fooled, Lady Caroline. Our dear Richard once played the pianoforte so well that I considered commissioning him for my soirées.”
Richard gave her a cool look that might have wilted lesser women. “That was a long time ago.”
“Still,” Louisa said, with teasing fondness, “you always did have skillful hands.”
Caroline went rigid. Her pulse lurched in outrage—and something else. The easy familiarity in Louisa’s tone, the warmth in her eyes, twisted inside her like a knot tightening.
Richard, infuriatingly calm, inclined his head in polite acknowledgment, then turned back to the stage.
Caroline could not breathe. The opera blurred before her eyes; she caught nothing of the music, only the laughter and the whispering around them. Her throat burned with words she could not speak—not here, not before them all.
When the final aria began, she rose abruptly. “I feel faint,” she announced, her voice too sharp.
Ophelia turned, concerned. “My dear, shall I–”
“No, thank you,” Caroline interrupted. “I simply need air.”
Without waiting for permission, she swept from the box, skirts brushing the velvet curtain. The corridor outside was dim and blessedly cool.
She had taken no more than a few steps when she heard the door open behind her.
“Caroline.”
His voice—low, graveled, inescapable.
She spun, heat flashing in her chest. “You might at least allow me the courtesy of being alone when I am humiliated!”
Richard closed the distance between them with measured strides. “You were not humiliated.”
“Oh, no?” she snapped. “Perhaps you think it charming when other women recall your talents–”
“Louisa meant nothing by it,” he said, though the edge in his voice betrayed that he disliked the remark as much as she had.
“Nothing by it? She was practically purring at you!”
He raised a brow. “And you object?”
“I—of course not!” she said too quickly. “Why should I? I am not–”
“Not what?”
“Not your wife.”
The words hung between them, burning.
For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, very quietly, “No. You are not.”
She should have felt relieved by the reminder. Instead, the ache in her chest only deepened.
“Forget what I said, Your Grace. I think I might be falling ill, that is all,” she said.
“We both know why you are angry,” he said softly.
Her breath caught. “Do not flatter yourself. I am just sick.”
