Page 19 of The Duke Undone

“I thought I might paint.” He had to clear his throat before going on. “But you see, I don’t know how to start.”

Each one of Mr. Barrett’s blinks seemed to tick away a minute. Was he incredulous? Or simply scornful? At last, he spoke.

“If you wish to paint a landscape, put on the canvas some semblance of the landscape. If you wish to paint a dog, put on the canvas some semblance of a dog. If you wish to paint a bowl of fruit upon a table . . . Do you grasp the general principle or should I continue?”

Were his eyes twinkling? No, it was light glinting on his lenses.

“I grasp the principle perfectly.”

“Good,” said Mr. Barrett dryly. “Now it’s only the practice you’re wanting.”

“I’m off to practice, then.” Anthony nodded at Mr. Barrett as the man turned smartly and marched into the classroom.

He exhaled then, and jogged for the stairs.

• • •

He found her in the library. She was sitting alone at a long table, scowling over an enormous book. Propped up, it would not have looked out of place at a siege, the kind of thing archers would crouch behind to nock their arrows. Open on the library table, it didn’t do a thing to hide her. Maybe she hoped the sheer force of her attention would render her invisible. She was imaginative, after all. But not so lucky.

As he came alongside her, he watched her posture change. Her shoulders stiffened. Her head lifted slightly, but she did not turn to look at him. Instead, she scowled with increased ferocity down at a color plate, reaching out to turn a heavy page with a gentleness that belied her fierce expression. The book wasn’t just a prop. She handled it like a sacred object.

“What luck,” he said. “I feared I’d lost you in the crowd.” At that, she glanced up eagerly, not at him, but at a man he’d scarcely noticed, a thin, white-haired man halfway up a ladder with a small volume in his hands, poised to return it to a high shelf. The librarian. Of course, this room of all rooms would have its sentinel.

“Mr. Naylor.” She spoke softly, but her voice carried surprisingly well in the lower register. It was a deep voice for a woman, warm and velvety. “The Duke of Weston has come to see the library.”

A valiant final effort.

“Eh?” Mr. Naylor was struggling to fit the book back in its place. “What’s that?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but Anthony reached out and touched her wrist. It was cool, the pulse leaping beneath the skin. She went still as stone. After a moment, she jerked her wrist back. He brought his head down to hers and lowered his voice.

“Miss Coover,” he said in her ear, so close a stray curl brushed his cheek. “A word.”

He had already seen her blush. Now the color leached from her face, so the freckles stood out more starkly. As did her lips. Their color was richly red. Those lips parted.

“My apologies,” she said. “I must be getting back to class.” She stood. The smile she gave him was unconvincing. “I’d love to talk, of course, but I’m terribly late.”

She started forward. With one stride, he insinuated his body between her and the door.

“Mr. Barrett won’t mind. When I left him, he was occupied with two of your classmates. Charming women.”

She folded her arms tightly beneath her breasts, the scowl returning. When she spoke, though, her tone was simply curious.

“I don’t know who you might mean.”

“Miss Newcombe and Miss Pickering.”

“Of course,” she said, looking away.

Remarkable: how much her face communicated. Much more than she intended. So. The pretty debs did not meet with her approval. Perhaps she got on better with the wild-haired young men. Yet her brand of bohemianism struck him as distinctly at odds with their studied shabbiness. Her dress, strange as it was, fit her well, emphasizing her graceful proportions, her slim torso and straight shoulders. She wasn’t fashionable by any standard he knew, but she had some other quality. Call it style.

Her slippers, he noted, were cheap, worn down at the heel.

He lifted his eyes and saw she was watching him closely.

“They assure me that there is no Mr. Coover, Visitor in Painting. Living or dead. And so, Miss Coover, we have a matter to discuss. Shall we begin?”

He hadn’t raised his voice, but she winced and glanced back at the librarian, still up his ladder, now occupied in tugging a book with both hands.