Page 11 of His Auctioned Duchess
She did not stop until she reached the corridor beyond, where shadows cooled her flushed face. Her chest rose and fell rapidly; her fingers trembled against the wall.What was that?she thought, furious at her own reaction.Why do I blush like some silly girl?
She kept walking until she burst into her chambers, cheeks still flushed from the dance, her breath uneven. The echo of music from the ballroom below seemed to taunt her with every beat. She pressed a hand to her racing heart, furious at herself for feeling… anything toward that man. That Devil. That scarred, unsettling Duke who somehow made her laugh and blush in the same breath.
A soft knock interrupted her thoughts.
“Come in,” she called, too weary to pretend composure.
Her brother John entered, his usual grin tempered by concern. “You looked rather flushed downstairs, sister. Did you enjoy yourself?”
Caroline gave a short, incredulous laugh as she sank onto her dressing chair. “Enjoy myself? Oh, I had a lovely time being stared at like a prized mare and measured by the worth of my dowry.”
John chuckled, crossing the room to perch on the arm of her chair. “You wound too sharply, Caroline. But I noticed you smiling—at least once. Don’t deny it.”
“Even if I did have a good time with these dukes,” she said with a sigh, “the truth remains, brother—they only want me for the money and the children I’ll give them. I am the last girl of this family, after all. It’s so tiring… not to be seen.”
John studied her for a long moment, the teasing fading from his face. Then, with the ease of an older brother who could not resist mischief for long, he smirked. “I think the Devil sees you all right, sister. Perhaps you might save yourself the embarrassment of Father’s auction and simply marry him. He’s one of the most powerful dukes in England; surely Father would approve.”
Caroline blinked, startled. “The Devil?” she whispered, more to herself than to him. “He doesn’t look as bloodthirsty as he must have been on the battlefield… Hungry, perhaps—but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
John laughed outright, winking as he rose. “There’s the Caroline I know. Careful, or the Devil might take you at your word.”
He left her with a grin and a whistle, his footsteps fading down the hall.
When the door clicked shut behind her brother, the laughter she’d worn for his sake crumbled.
She sat at her dressing table, staring at her reflection in the wavering candlelight. “Tiring,” she whispered to the empty room. “He calls it tiring, as though it were nothing.”
Her hand drifted unconsciously to her abdomen. Children. Heirs. The words made her chest tighten.
Her mother’s portrait hung above the fireplace—soft eyes, delicate smile, the image of serenity. Caroline could barely remember her voice, but she knew the story everyone whispered: that the lady of Fernsby had smiled through her pain and died bringing Caroline into the world.
Sometimes, on nights like this, the guilt returned sharp as glass. “You killed her,” the gossip used to murmur. “You took her last breath.”
She pressed her palms to her eyes, forcing the thought away. “I will not die as she did,” she murmured. “And I will not be chained for the same reason.”
Caroline remained seated for a long while, staring into the fire. At last she rose, unable to rest, and fetched her sketchbook. The pencil moved of its own accord, driven by the restless energy in her chest. Lines formed—dark, swift, urgent. She did not think; she simply drew.
When she finally looked down, her hand stilled. A chill crept over her.
She stared at the page in horror, then snapped the book shut and shoved it beneath her pillow. “No,” she whispered to the empty room, heart pounding. “Not that. Not him.”
But the image—whatever it was—lingered behind her eyes long after she lay down.
Richard remained where she had left him. He did not move to follow, though his eyes lingered on the doorway she had vanished through. He felt the weight of every gaze upon him, yet none of it mattered. His hand flexed at his side, remembering the feel of her waist beneath his grip, the heat of her body, the sound of her laughter.
For the first time in years, Richard Belford felt something other than endurance, other than the cold armor he had carried since exile. He felt intrigue.
The musicians resumed hesitantly, the company whispering, buzzing with scandal. Yet Richard stood silent, his scar catching the firelight, his eyes dark with thought.
The Devil of the Ton had faced battles and buried comrades. But tonight, he realized, he had met something far more perilous: a woman who could unsettle him with a laugh, a shove, a blush.
And he was not sure whether he meant to resist it.
CHAPTER 5
Richard strode across the Fernsby estate, his boots crunching upon gravel paths, his long coat trailing with his measured gait. The morning after the scandalous dinner dawned crisp and bright, the air tinged with the scent of dew-damp grass. The silence of the countryside suited him more than the false chatter of ballrooms; here, only the caw of crows and the rustle of leaves disturbed his thoughts.
Yet his thoughts were not still. The memory of the night before gnawed at him—Caroline’s laughter, the daring gleam in her eyes, the heat of her body in his arms when he had lifted her. He clenched his hands, forcing the images away. He had not come for amusement, nor to be undone by a slip of a girl with too-sharp wit. He had come for marriage, heirs, duty. Nothing more.
