Page 39 of His Auctioned Duchess
The first notes unfurled like smoke.
This melody was different—slower, gentler, but threaded with the same aching tension. Caroline moved closer, drawn as though by invisible tether. She could see the strength in hishands, the precision of each movement, the quiet reverence with which he coaxed sound from the instrument. When his hand faltered over a note, she saw the muscles tense, the long scar that ran from temple to jaw pulling tight in the movement.
When he reached the end, his fingers lingered over the final chord. The air between them seemed to thrum with what neither dared say.
Caroline spoke first, her voice barely above a whisper. “You play as if you have secrets.”
He gave a short laugh, low and humorless. “Everyone has secrets, Caroline. Some are better left in the dark.”
Without thinking, she took a hesitant step forward. “Does it pain you still?” she asked softly.
He went still, the music dying in the air. “What?”
“The scar,” she said. “It pulls when you play.”
For a moment, she thought he might send her away. Instead, he sighed — a sound rough with memory — and gestured toward the stool beside him. “Sit, if you insist on asking questions you shouldn’t.”
She obeyed, her nightgown brushing the floor as she lowered herself. Her fingers twisted in her lap. “You never speak of it.”
“There’s nothing to say.” He struck a single, low note, letting it hum. “I went to war a man with a name. I came back a ghost with a mark to prove it.”
Her eyes searched his face. “A ghost?”
He exhaled slowly. “A cannon took the men beside me. The blast threw me from my horse. When I woke, I was half-buried and half-dead, taken for a corpse and tossed with the rest. A soldier came to strip the dead of valuables. He took a blade to me to see if I would bleed.”
Caroline’s breath caught. “And did you?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Enough to convince him I lived. He left me there for the crows, thinking it punishment enough.”
Silence fell like dust between them.
Caroline reached out before she could stop herself. Her fingers brushed the edge of the scar, tracing the line as if it might tell her something words could not. “I am sorry,” she whispered.
He caught her wrist, not gently but not cruelly either. “Don’t be,” he said. “It’s what I deserved.”
Her brow furrowed. “For surviving?”
“For believing survival was enough.”
The words sank into her like stones. He looked away first, breaking the spell. “You should not be here, my lady,” he said, voice quieter now. “The night has too many memories.”
But she couldn’t move. The truth had made him real—no longer the Devil whispered about in drawing rooms, but a man who had walked through fire and come out changed.
He moved closer to her, and the movement brought their faces perilously near. The lamplight caught the silver thread of his scar and the shadow beneath his jaw.
“Careful,” he murmured. “You think yourself brave until the dark looks back.”
“Then show me,” she challenged, her breath trembling.
The silence that followed felt like the pause before lightning.
Richard’s hand lifted, hesitated, then brushed a loose curl from her face. His touch was light, reverent almost, but it sent a shiver racing down her spine.
“Caroline,” he said, voice roughened by something unspoken.
She met his eyes. “Yes?”
His gaze flicked to her mouth. For one suspended heartbeat, it seemed inevitable—his breath mingling with hers, the distance between them dissolving.
