Page 24 of My Deal with the Wrong Duke

“It is not a request.”

“Very good, Your Grace.” Another pause. “Thank you, sir.”

The carriage rounded the corner into Grosvenor Square. Ashford House occupied the western terrace, its facade wider than its neighbors, its windows dark except for the entrance hall, where the staff kept lamps burning until Oliver returned. A footman stood at the door, young, new this Season. Oliver searched for the name.

“Jennings.”

“Good evening, Your Grace.” Jennings took his hat, his gloves, the walking stick he had carried but never leaned upon. “Mr. Phelps left cold supper in the study, sir. Shall I have it warmed?”

“Leave it. I will manage.” Oliver shrugged out of his damp coat. The chill of the evening clung to his shirt beneath, pressing against his shoulders. “Has anything come in this afternoon?”

“Two cards of invitation, Your Grace. On the tray.” Jennings draped the wet coat across his arm with exacting tenderness. “Mrs. Blackwood’s footman brought one of them himself.”

“Naturally.”

“He waited an hour, sir.”

“An hour.” Oliver almost laughed. “The woman’s persistence deserves recognition, if not reward. Was there anything else?”

“Lord Tyndale’s secretary called regarding Thursday’s agricultural committee. He wished to confirm your attendance.”

“Confirmed. Is Colton still awake?”

“I believe so, Your Grace. Shall I send him up?”

“No. Let him rest. I can undress myself without a committee of advisors.” Oliver turned toward the hall. “Good night, Jennings.”

“Good night, sir.”

Jennings retreated toward the servants’ passage. His footsteps faded. The house settled into the deep quiet of a building holding its breath, timber creaking, pipes ticking, the small private sounds that only emerged when the performance of the day was finished.

Oliver made his way down the hall.

The portrait hung at the far end, positioned to greet anyone who entered the house. The fourth Duke of Ashford, painted by Lawrence at forty-two, wearing the blue coat he favored for formal occasions. Lawrence had been generous with the jawline, precise with the brow, careful to capture the hazel in the eyes. A distinguished portrait. Society had praised it. Visitors remarked upon it. Oliver’s mother had hated it, though she’d never say it.

He always walked past it. Tonight he stopped.

The gas lamp on the side table threw steady, low light across the canvas. The glass that covered the painting caught the glow, held it, turned it back into the hall, and in that reflection Oliver saw two faces at once.

His father’s. Painted, permanent, arranged by an artist’s brush into composure that had never once existed in life.

His own. Translucent, laid across the image beneath, a ghost pressed over a portrait.

The same jaw. The same heavy brow, set low above the eyes. The same line running from cheekbone to chin, a geometry of inheritance carried forward through blood, through bone, through all the years Oliver had spent trying to build a different architecture on the same foundation.

He turned away.

CHAPTER 8

“You are hovering.”

Louisa looked up from the exhibition catalogue she had been pretending to read. Oliver stood beside her in the Great Room of Somerset House, hands clasped behind his back, surveying the crowd with the calm interest of someone who had arrived at the Royal Academy for the paintings rather than the people. He had not looked at a single painting.

“I am not hovering. I am studying the catalogue.”

“You have been studying the same page for six minutes. Unless you have developed a profound fascination with the landscape watercolors of Mr. Elias Grout, I suspect you are stalling.”

She closed the catalogue with a sigh. “Mr. Grout’s watercolors are perfectly respectable.”