Page 16 of Caught By the Ruthless Duke
“You admire art,” he observed.
“I admire beauty.” She moved to the next painting, a seascape wild with storm waves. “My grandmother—Lady Norwell—used to take me to exhibitions when I was younger. Before…” she trailed off, then seemed to catch herself. “Well, before ‘complicated’ became very complicated.”
There was a story there, Theodore could sense it. Something that had shifted her life from exhibition visits with an indulgent grandmother to whatever ‘complicated’ meant.
He wanted to know it, wanted to understand what had dimmed the light in her eyes. But before he could ask, Cressida had moved to the far end of the gallery, where a portrait hung behind a heavy velvet curtain.
“What’s this one?” She reached toward the fabric.
“Don’t.” The command came out sharper than he’d intended, and he crossed the space between them in three long strides, catching her wrist before she could draw the curtain back.
She looked up at him, startled. “I was only?—”
“It’s none of your concern.” He released her hand as though it burned him, stepping back. “That portrait is private.”
“Private.” She repeated the word slowly, studying his face. “You keep it in a gallery but hide it behind a curtain. That seems rather contradictory, Your Grace.”
“Everyone has something to hide, Lady Cressida.” He met her gaze steadily, refusing to flinch from whatever she saw there. “The difference is that some of us are simply more practiced at it.”
Her expression shifted. “Is that what you think? That I’m hiding something?”
“Aren’t you?” He couldn’t hold back the question.
She stopped abruptly, her eyes lowering.
A mistake. Without her vivid gaze to distract him, his attention shifted inexorably to her smooth skin, to the curves pressing against the restraints of her gown.
The air between them grew charged, electric. Theodore felt it in his bones, that same pull that always manifested around her. They were standing too close again.
Then, her face tilted up toward his, her lips slightly parted.
He could kiss her.Shouldkiss her, perhaps. She wanted him to; he could see it in the dilation of her pupils, the rapid flutter of her pulse at her throat.
But this woman had traveled across the country to stop her friend’s wedding. Had been willing to cause a public scandal, to ruin herself, all because she believed she knew better than everyone else what was right.
She was reckless and impulsive and everything he’d spent seventeen years learningnotto be.
“I need to attend to estate matters.” The words came out wooden. “I’m sure you can find your way back to your chambers from here.”
Hurt flashed across her face before she could mask it. “Of course, Your Grace. Forgive me for taking up so much of your valuable time.”
“Lady Cressida?—”
But she’d already turned away, spine straight and shoulders set with the kind of dignity that came from long practice at hiding wounds.
Theodore watched her go, his hands clenched at his sides, and hated himself for the relief that coursed through him, even as something that felt dangerously like regret twisted in his chest.
He’d done the right thing. Thesafething.
So why did it feel like he’d just made a terrible mistake?
Thunder rumbled overhead, and he turned back to face the curtained portrait, Charles’s hidden face seeming to mock him from behind the velvet.
You’re becoming just like him, a voice whispered in his mind.
But Theodore decided that he could not waste his time dwelling on useless things, so he forced himself to walk away before he could do something foolish.
Chapter Six
