Page 95 of His Auctioned Duchess
“It isn’t flattery,” she said softly, meeting his gaze. “It’s fact.”
For a long moment, there was only the crackle of the fire between them. Then Richard leaned forward, his voice roughened with affection. “Then draw me again.”
And she did.
For the first time in Caroline’s life, happiness felt not like a fleeting dream, but a daring rebellion. And beside her, the Devil of the Ton looked almost human—smiling, teasing, utterly hers.
The fire burned low, its amber glow softening the edges of the room. Caroline sat on the rug, her sketchbook open across her lap, sheets of charcoal and half-finished portraits scattered around her like petals after a storm. The quiet intimacy of the evening—the laughter, the warmth, the lingering scent of sandalwood from Richard’s coat—made her chest ache with a strange, aching contentment.
Richard lounged behind her on the settee, half reclined, watching her with that steady, unreadable gaze that always made her pulse quicken. He had abandoned his cravat hours ago, the top of his shirt loosened just enough to reveal the dark line of his throat. There was a rare peace in him tonight; his eyes were softer, the tension at his shoulders eased.
Caroline smiled faintly as she brushed a stray lock of hair from her brow and began sorting through her sketches. Some she kept—portraits of him brooding near the window, laughing over breakfast, bent over the piano. Others she set aside, little practice pieces, drawings of flowers and hands, the occasional imperfect likeness.
“"Show me," Richard said with a lazy drawl, reclining comfortably in his chair as he observed her with relaxed curiosity.
She glanced up from her work, a hint of surprise in her eyes. "Show you what?" she asked, slightly puzzled by his request.
"Whichever one makes you smile like that," he clarified, nodding toward the papers or perhaps a book she held.
A moment of hesitation washed over her, as she was caught between feelings of shyness and a hint of pride in her accomplishments. She bit her lip slightly, considering whether to share this piece of herself with him.
"You will laugh," she warned, her voice carrying a mixture of anticipation and a dash of vulnerability. She knew him well enough to predict his playful nature.
"Undoubtedly," he replied with a slight grin, reassuring her with his eyes. "But I'll like it," he added.
She turned the sketchbook so he could see—a rough, playful sketch of him sitting in that very chair, arms crossed, scowling in mock irritation. Across the top she had written, ‘The Devil at Leisure.’
He huffed, pretending disapproval. “You are insufferable.”
“And yet you asked to marry me. Twice,” she countered.
“I was bewitched,” he muttered.
Her laughter filled the room, light and sweet. She reached for another sheet to tuck away, still grinning, but as she moved the pile, one sketch slipped free and drifted to the floor.
Richard leaned forward to catch it before it touched the carpet. He glanced down—and then froze.
The charcoal lines were softer, more deliberate, as though her hand had trembled over every detail. It was unmistakably them—him and Caroline, drawn together in tender repose. But in her arms, nestled against the folds of her gown, was an infant.
The firelight caught the faint sheen of graphite on the child’s curls. The image was so intimate, so impossibly gentle, that for a long moment Richard could not breathe.
CHAPTER 30
The sketch lay between them on the small table, pale graphite smudges like whispers against the ivory paper. Richard had not meant to touch it at first; he had only bent to save the single sheet from the hearth or the carpet, an automatic motion his hands had learned to perform with other things — letters, ledgers, lives.
But when his fingers closed about the charcoal, something softer than duty arrested him. He held the paper as one holds a relic: reverent, careful, as though the mere press of his thumb might bruise the fragile possibility drawn there.
He turned it in the low light, studying the tiny lines Caroline had made. The infant’s head nestled against the mother’s shoulder, a blanket wrapped round small limbs; the mother’s face was sketched with that particular tenderness she reserved for the things she loved—the curve of a jaw drawn long and true, the eye shaded to the tiniest gleam, a smile mapped with the lightest touch of pencil.
He had seen her draw like this before—soft hands catching the hush of some private mood—but this was different. This was not merely study or whimsy; it was an offering, caught in charcoal and hope.
Across the room Caroline watched him without the shield of irony or jest that she so often used. Her breath made a little cloud in the quiet; the heat of the fire painted her cheeks with a faint rose.
She had tried, in the hours since he had found the sketch, to fashion excuses—that it was only an experiment, a study of mother and child, a picture not meant to mean anything at all. Each attempt at minimization had felt childish and dishonest; the truth sat in her like an honest bruise.
Richard’s eyes lifted slowly from the paper to hers. His question did not need speech; the look he gave her was the equivalent of the most earnest entreaty. It was a look that asked, in the language of those who had endured battlefields and silence and public shame, whether this was indeed her desire.
He had asked many things of fate and fortune and himself since returning to Ashwood, but he had never learned to ask for what he wanted with such nakedness. In the silence he held the sketch like a lit lamp, making his meaning plain.
