Chapter 16
“The brushwork is extraordinary, do you not think?” Hugo gestured toward a massive canvas depicting a storm-tossed ship, its sails shredded, its hull listing against waves the color of pewter.
The Royal Academy exhibition buzzed with London’s finest, all of them pretending to understand art while jockeying for social position.
Edward stared at the painting without seeing it. His attention had fixed on a figure across the gallery. Green gown. Light brown hair pinned up to expose the curve of her neck. A polite smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
Lady Sophia stood with her friend, Lady Guildthorpe, examining a portrait of someone’s ancestor. She had not looked in his direction once since he arrived. Not a single glance. Not even the courtesy of pretending she had not noticed him.
She was avoiding him.
The realization burned in his chest like swallowed coals.
“Edward.” Hugo’s voice cut through his brooding. “You are glaring at that shipwreck as if it personally offended you.”
“I am appreciating the brushwork.”
“You are doing nothing of the sort.” Hugo followed his gaze and sighed. “Ah. I see. The lady in green. She does look rather determined not to acknowledge your existence.”
“I had not noticed.”
“Liar.” Hugo clapped him on the shoulder. “Go speak to Miss Stanton. She arrived ten minutes ago and has been glancing in your direction with flattering regularity. At least someone wishes to acknowledge your existence.”
Edward tore his gaze from Lady Sophia and scanned the room. Miss Amelia Stanton stood near a landscape depicting the Lake District, her yellow gown bright against the muted colors of the painting. She caught his eye and smiled.
He crossed the gallery toward her, forcing himself not to look back at the green gown in his peripheral vision.
“Miss Stanton.” He bowed. “We meet again.”
“Your Grace.” She curtsied, her cheeks flushing with pleasure. “I was hoping I might see you here. Did you receive my note thanking you for our walk in the park? I worried it might have gone astray.”
“I did. It was most gracious of you to write.”
“The pleasure was entirely mine.” Miss Stanton turned to the painting before them. “Is this not beautiful? I have always loved the Lake District. My family visited when I was a child. The mountains seemed so vast, so eternal. I felt very small standing among them.”
Edward looked at the painting. Rolling hills. A glassy lake. Sheep dotting the green slopes like scattered cotton.
Lady Sophia would have had an opinion about the composition. Would have debated whether the artist had captured the true spirit of the landscape or merely its surface beauty. Would have challenged him to see beyond the obvious.
He pushed the thought aside.
“It is well executed,” he managed.
“Do you travel much, Your Grace?” Miss Stanton tilted her head. “I imagine a man of your position has seen much of the world.”
“Some. Mostly for business.”
“Business.” She nodded. “My father is the same. Always working. But he says that a man who does not work is a man who does not live. I admire dedication.”
She was saying all the right things. Agreeable. Pleasant. Interested in his opinions without challenging them. The perfect candidate for a duchess. The perfect mother for Oliver.
“Do you have a favorite painter, Your Grace?” Miss Stanton turned to him with genuine curiosity. “I confess I am partial to the landscapes. There is something soothing about them, don’t you think? A reminder that beauty exists beyond the confines of ballrooms and drawing rooms.”
“I haven’t given it much thought.”
“Then we must remedy that.” She smiled and gestured toward a nearby seascape. “Come. Let me show you one of my favorites. The way the artist has captured the light on the water is extraordinary.”
Edward allowed himself to be led. Miss Stanton spoke with animation about color and composition, her enthusiasm genuine, and her knowledge impressive. She would make an excellent conversationalist at dinner parties. Would charm his business partners and navigate social obligations with ease.
Across the room, Lady Sophia laughed at something Lady Guildthorpe said. The sound carried over the murmur of the crowd, light and unguarded, and Edward’s chest constricted.
She never laughed like that with him. She argued. She challenged. She looked at him with those sharp green eyes and saw straight through every defense he had built.
Miss Stanton was still talking. Something about her father’s shipping interests, the expansion into trade with the East Indies, and prospects for the coming year. Edward nodded and kept his gaze fixed on the Lake District painting.
He did not look at Lady Sophia again.
He did not need to. Her presence burned at the edge of his awareness like a flame he could not extinguish.
Water ran red in the basin.
Edward held his right hand under the stream from the kitchen pump, watching the blood swirl and fade. His knuckles throbbed. The skin had split across two of them, raw and angry in the lamplight.
He had fought three men tonight. Had thrown himself into the ring with a ferocity that made even Grimsby raise an eyebrow. Had pounded flesh and bone until his arms ached and his lungs burned, and his mind, for one blessed moment, went blank.
It had not lasted.
The moment he stepped out of the ring, she was there again. Green eyes. Sharp tongue. The taste of her lips, the softness of her hair, the way she had gasped when he deepened the kiss.
He could not escape her. He could not fight his way free, and could not exhaust himself into forgetting.
He had tried. God knew he had tried. He had courted Miss Stanton with diligence, had attended exhibitions and soirees, and dinner parties. Had done everything a man seeking a wife was supposed to do.
Even so, every night, he found himself here. Bleeding. Bruised. Thinking of her.
Edward dried his hand on a cloth and climbed the servants’ stairs to his study. The house lay dark and silent around him; the staff long since retired. He found bandages in his desk drawer and wound the linen around his knuckles with practiced efficiency.
Lady Sophia would have scolded him for this. Would have demanded to know why a duke felt the need to brawl in basement taverns like a common dockworker. Would have looked at him with that mixture of exasperation and something softer that made his chest ache.
He tied off the bandage and flexed his fingers. The pain grounded him. It reminded him that he was flesh and blood, not the marble statue the ton believed him to be.
He extinguished the lamp and made his way toward his chambers. The corridor stretched dark and quiet, moonlight filtering through the windows at intervals. He passed the nursery wing, his footsteps soft on the carpet.
A door creaked behind him.
Edward turned. Oliver stood in the doorway of his room, small and pale in his nightshirt, rubbing his eyes with one fist.
“Go to bed, Oliver.”
“I’m thirsty.” The boy’s voice came thin and wavering.
“Is there no water jug in your room?”
Oliver shook his head.
Edward sighed. He should wake Mrs. Palmer. That was what nursemaids were for. But the woman had looked exhausted at dinner, and Oliver was already here, and the kitchens were only two floors down.
“Wait here.” He stepped past the boy into the small bedchamber.
The water jug on the nightstand sat empty. Edward took it and descended to the kitchens, filled it from the pump, and climbed back up.
Oliver had not moved. He stood in the doorway like a small ghost, watching Edward approach with wary eyes.
“Here.” Edward set the jug on the nightstand and poured a glass. “Drink.”
Oliver took the glass in both hands and sipped. His gaze drifted to Edward’s hand, to the white bandage wrapped around his knuckles.
“Why are you hurt?”
Edward tucked his hands into his pockets. “It is nothing. Go to bed.”
Oliver set down the glass. He did not climb into bed. He stood there, small and uncertain, his father’s eyes fixed on Edward’s face.
“What is it?” Edward’s voice came out rougher than he intended.
“Can you read me a story?” Oliver’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I woke up, and I can’t fall back asleep. Papa used to read to me when I couldn’t sleep.”
The mention of Leonard sent a familiar jolt through Edward’s chest. He glanced at the door leading to Mrs. Palmer’s adjoining room. It would be easy to wake her, easy to hand this off to someone better equipped for tenderness.
Oliver watched him with those blue eyes—Leonard’s eyes—waiting for rejection.
“Very well.” The words emerged before Edward could reconsider. “One story.”
Oliver’s face transformed. He scrambled to the shelf near the window and returned with a thin volume, its spine already creased from frequent reading. The book Lady Sophia had given him.
Of course it was.
Even here, in the nursery’s quiet, she found ways to remind him of her presence, to slip beneath his defenses, to make him feel things he had no business feeling.
Edward took the book and settled into the chair beside the bed. The chair was small, meant for Mrs. Palmer’s more modest frame, and he felt awkward in it, too large, too clumsy for this delicate task.
Oliver climbed under the covers and pulled them up to his chin, his eyes bright with expectation.
Edward opened to the first page. The illustrations were simple but charming, animals dressed in waistcoats and bonnets engaged in various misadventures. He cleared his throat.
“Once upon a time, in a meadow where the clover grew thick, and the butterflies danced, there lived a rabbit named Barnaby who dreamed of adventure.”
Oliver settled deeper into his pillow, his eyes fixed on Edward’s face.
Edward read on. His voice felt strange to his own ears, softer than he recognized, lacking the sharp edges he used with everyone else.
The story unfolded in gentle rhythms, Barnaby the rabbit encountering a wise owl and a mischievous fox, and a lost duckling who needed help finding her way home.
Oliver’s eyes grew heavy. His breathing slowed. His small body relaxed into the mattress, the tension draining away until he looked like any ordinary child, safe and warm and untroubled by grief.
Edward finished the story to an audience of one sleeping boy. He closed the book and set it on the nightstand.
Oliver had shifted in his sleep, the blanket slipping down to expose one thin shoulder. Edward reached over and pulled the covers higher, tucking them around the boy’s slight frame.
His hand hovered over Oliver’s hair. The urge to touch him, to smooth back those dark curls, rose from somewhere deep. To offer comfort. To be the uncle Leonard would have wanted for his son.
He pulled his hand back.
He did not deserve to offer comfort. Had not earned the right to affection. He had failed Leonard. Had let his brother walk out into the night and never brought him home. Had stood in their father’s study, silent and compliant, while the old duke disowned his own son.
What right did he have to this child’s trust? What right did he have to pretend he could be the father Oliver had lost?
Lady Sophia’s words echoed in his memory.
You are the closest thing he has to a parent now.
She was right. She was always right, damn her. And he was failing this boy just as surely as he had failed Leonard.
Edward rose from the chair. He took one last look at Oliver, so small in that large bed, so alone in this house full of servants and silence.
Tomorrow he would do better. He would try, at least.
He walked to his own chambers and did not sleep until dawn.