Page 42 of His Auctioned Duchess
Caroline threw a cushion at her.
They dissolved into laughter, the easy kind that softened sharp truths into something bearable.
But even as she laughed, Caroline could not quite shake the flutter beneath her ribs—the one that began each time sheremembered the music in the tower, or the way his voice had roughened when he said her name.
Richard stood very still at the doorway.
He had come to fetch a ledger from his study but had halted when he heard their voices. The sound of Caroline’s laughter—light, unguarded—had frozen him in place.
He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but the words caught him before he could turn away.
“Then why do you blush every time someone mentions his name?” Sophia was saying, amusement threading through her voice.
Richard’s brows drew together.Whose name?
“He infuriates me. He frightens me sometimes, but….”
Richard’s breath stilled. He closed his eyes, letting the words settle deep. Surely she couldn't have been talking about him?
Then he heard her say, “He looks at me as if I am the only person in the room.”
He stepped back. He couldn't bear to listen anymore.
For years, he had thought himself incapable of inspiring affection—only fear, respect, perhaps desire, but never tenderness. Yet here was Caroline, bright and defiant, confessing the very thing he could not admit to himself: that she had become his weakness.
A flicker of warmth touched him… quickly followed by guilt.
He clenched his fists. He had no right to her admiration. He wanted her, yes—God help him, he wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything—but the truth remained: he needed an heir. That had been the beginning of all this.
To want her for herself alone was impossible. To pretend otherwise was cruel.
He turned away, retreating silently down the corridor, his footsteps soundless on the carpet.
The rest of the day passed beneath a haze of restlessness.
Richard spent the afternoon in his study, seated at the great mahogany desk that had once belonged to his father. Papers lay before him in neat stacks—estate ledgers, letters from tenants, a missive from the solicitor in London—yet he found himself reading none of them.
His mind, traitorous and insistent, replayed Caroline’s voice again and again.He listens to me. He makes me feel seen.
The words clung to him like scent on skin.
He stared at the blank page before him and imagined writing something—an apology, a confession, he wasn’t sure which. But nothing he could put into ink would soften the truth: he had begun this courtship with cold calculation. A wife, an heir, stability. That was all he had told himself he needed.
Now he wasn’t certain if need had anything to do with it.
He rose and paced around the room. The afternoon light had dimmed into gold, washing over the lawns and gilding the edges of the world. Beyond the hedges, he could see the stables and, further still, the old path that wound through the woods—the one Caroline had taken on her morning walks.
He found himself wondering where she was.
It was intolerable, this constant awareness. He had endured battles, imprisonment, months at sea, and yet he could not endure her. The very sound of her laughter undid him.
He pressed a hand against the glass, exhaling sharply. “Fool,” he muttered under his breath.
He was a soldier, a duke, a man who had learned to master fear and pain. But this—this strange ache—was an enemy he did not know how to fight.
By the time dinner was announced, the house had settled into its evening rhythm. Servants glided through the corridors with trays and candles, voices hushed in deference to the hour.
The dining room blazed with light when Caroline entered. The chandeliers sparkled, catching in the crystal decanters and silverware until the table seemed to glow. The family had gathered already: Lady Ophelia at one end, Jasper seated to her right, Sophia beside Caroline’s empty chair. Richard stood by the fireplace, a glass of wine untouched in his hand.
