Chapter 9 #2
Richard’s eyes snapped to him, gray as cold steel. “Careful.”
“Guilt for what, though?” Edmund pressed, undeterred. “For surviving? For not saving everyone at a war you were never supposed to fight?”
“Enough,” Richard said, voice low and sharp.
Edmund held his gaze for a moment longer, then sighed and leaned back, lifting his hands in surrender. “Very well. I’ll not press. Not today.”
Richard drained his glass, the burn of the brandy grounding him. “Good.”
For a time, the conversation drifted toward safer ground—land management, mutual acquaintances, the dull necessities of noble life. Yet the unease remained, like a coiled shadow between them.
Edmund studied him quietly. “Tell me about her,” he said suddenly.
Richard’s brow furrowed. “Who?”
“The lady. Caroline Hughes, was it? You never bring women here.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Edmund grinned. “I’ve known you since you were a lad. When you say there’s nothing, it means there’s everything.”
Richard ignored him, setting his empty glass aside. “She’s stubborn. Too curious for her own good.”
“Sounds perfect for you.”
“She doesn’t know when to stop talking.”
“Neither do you, when you’re angry.”
“She sees more than she ought,” Richard said finally.
Edmund arched a brow. “And that bothers you?”
“Yes.”
The single word came too fast, too sharp.
Richard rose from his chair and walked to the window, staring out over the gardens.
The afternoon light poured through the glass, glinting against the leaves of the orange trees.
Somewhere beyond the hedges, he could see a flash of pale green fabric—Caroline’s gown, as she strolled along the path with Sophia.
He turned away before the sight could soften him further. “She will see too much and become overwhelmed.”
Edmund leaned back, smiling faintly. “You sound like a man trying to convince himself of that.”
Richard ignored him, picking up a paper from the desk, though he didn’t read it.
“Careful, Ashwood,” Edmund said, his voice lighter now, but with meaning behind it. “If you’re not cautious, that lady will tear down the walls you’ve spent years building.”
Richard looked up, his eyes unreadable. “Let her try.”
Caroline lingered in the upper gallery overlooking the entrance hall, her sketchbook open across her lap. From here, she could hear faint traces of voices below—Richard’s low, measured tone, and Edmund’s deep rumble of laughter echoing after him.
She had not meant to listen. Truly, she hadn’t. Yet something about their friendship fascinated her—the ease with which they fell into banter, the unspoken weight that passed between them when laughter died.
She heard the scrape of chairs, then the closing of the study door. Edmund’s boots thudded across the hall. “I’ll take the guest wing, then!” he called. “Try not to glare holes through the walls while I sleep, Ashwood.”
Richard’s reply was too quiet for her to catch, though it made Edmund laugh once more before he disappeared up the opposite staircase.
Moments later, the Duke himself stepped into view below, one hand pressed briefly to his temple as if the conversation had cost him more than he cared to admit.
He paused at the base of the stairs, and in the dim glow of the sconces, Caroline saw something shift in his expression—an exhaustion that was not merely physical.
Without thinking, she spoke. “Long day, Your Grace?”
He looked up, startled. For a heartbeat, she thought he might ignore her, return to his solitude as always. Instead, he exhaled softly and inclined his head. “Too many problems for one man, and not enough patience to solve them.”
Caroline closed her sketchbook and rose, moving to the banister. “That sounds remarkably human of you. Shall I alert the papers?”
He gave her a look that might have been amusement—or warning. “You have a sharp tongue, Lady Caroline.”
“It’s the only weapon I’m permitted to carry.”
His eyes lingered on her face, tracing the shadows and lamplight. “And how deftly you wield it.”
He turned toward the corridor leading to his study. “Good night, my lady.”
Caroline hesitated, the urge to follow him warring with her better judgment. Curiosity won. “Your Grace—before you go… may I ask you something?”
He paused. “You usually do.”
“Why do you work so late?”
“Because sleep is wasted on men who think too much,” he said.
“Or perhaps you fear what comes when the thinking stops.”
That drew a flicker of surprise—then something unreadable passed across his face, gone as swiftly as it came. “Good night, Lady Caroline,” he said again, quieter this time, and disappeared down the hall.
Later, long after the lamps were dimmed and the corridors stilled, Caroline sat by the fire in her chamber with her sketchbook open once more.
She had begun drawing the orangery earlier that evening—the lattice of vines, the long shadows cast by the chessboard—but somehow her pencil had drifted elsewhere.
Now, upon the page, Richard took shape.
It was not the Devil of gossip sheets, nor the Duke seated in judgment over his tenants. It was the man she had glimpsed between those two selves—the quiet strength behind his silence, the weariness at the corners of his mouth, the faint tilt of his head when he was listening.
The scar was there, yes, but softened by the gentler lines around it. She had meant only to capture his likeness, yet the pencil betrayed her: what emerged was not merely his face but the loneliness behind it.
She stared at the sketch, startled by what she had done.
“Foolish,” she murmured to herself, closing the book too quickly. The sound echoed in the stillness of the room. She leaned back, pressing her fingers to her temples. “You are being very foolish, Caroline Hughes.”
And yet, when she shut her eyes, she saw again the way he had stood before his tenants that morning—calm, resolute, fair. The way his voice had softened for that trembling girl. The way he had looked up at her on the stairs, eyes shadowed but not unkind.
The heart she had sworn to guard was beginning to disobey her.
Richard sat once more before the dying fire in his study. Edmund had gone to bed, leaving behind an empty glass.
Richard turned their conversation over in his mind, restless. The rain beat harder against the windows, a steady drumming like memory itself. He reached for a sheet of paper, intending to distract himself with estate accounts, but his hand stilled halfway.
He was thinking of her again—her laughter in the orangery, the defiance in her eyes, the way she had looked at him that morning while he judged the tenants. It unsettled him. No, it angered him.
He had spent years building a fortress of silence around himself. Now this woman—this inconvenient, willful, infuriating woman—was walking through it as though the walls were made of air.
Richard rose abruptly and crossed to the window. Outside, the rain glistened across the terrace, reflecting the faint glow of the lamps. Somewhere above, he imagined she was awake still, pacing, sketching, thinking.
He rested one hand against the glass. The chill seeped into his skin. “Don’t,” he whispered to the empty room, though whether he meant her or himself, he couldn’t tell.
A knock startled him.
He turned as a footman entered quietly, bowing. “A letter arrived by express rider, Your Grace. It bears the crest of the Admiralty.”
Richard’s expression froze. “Leave it.”
The man obeyed and withdrew, closing the door behind him.
For several seconds, Richard did not move. Then, slowly, he crossed to the desk and broke the seal.
He read it silently. Then, he folded it once, twice, slid it into the drawer, and locked it there. He poured another measure of brandy and sat down heavily, staring into the fire until the embers blurred into a dull red haze.
Caroline turned restlessly, her mind circling back to the image she had drawn, and sleep refused to come.
Finally, she rose, wrapped a shawl about her shoulders, and lit a candle.
She hesitated at the door, every sensible instinct telling her to stay where she was.
But curiosity—always her undoing—won again.
The corridors were dark, the air thick with the scent of smoke and rain. She made her way toward the grand staircase, the candle flame quivering as she descended.
As she reached the landing, she caught sight of him through the half-open door of the study: sitting alone, head bowed, a glass forgotten in his hand. The firelight gilded his hair, shadowed his face. He looked—she could find no better word for it—haunted.
Her first impulse was to go to him, to ask what troubled him. Her second, wiser instinct held her still. Some walls could not be scaled in one night.
Instead, she lingered quietly at the doorway, watching him for a moment longer. Then she withdrew, closing the door with the softest click.
"As she turned to retreat toward her chambers, a figure nearly collided with her in the corridor.
“Caroline!” Sophia’s whisper was both scandalized and amused. “What on earth are you doing awake at this hour?”
Caroline clutched her shawl tighter, heat creeping up her neck. “I—couldn’t sleep.”
Sophia’s grin widened in the flickering light. “Of course not. No one with an ounce of spirit could, not with tomorrow’s spectacle to think of.”
Caroline blinked. “Tomorrow’s what?”
“The opera, my dear!” Sophia’s eyes sparkled. “Richard never attends, so everyone in London will be watching. The Devil of the Ton at Covent Garden—it will be the event of the season.”
Caroline’s lips parted in surprise. “The opera? He never mentioned–”
“Oh, didn’t he? He told Mama at dinner.” Sophia laughed softly. “He said it was time he showed his future duchess to the world. I thought you already knew.”
Caroline’s stomach flipped. She had been so consumed by her drawings, by her own confusion over him, that the evening meal had passed in a haze. “I must have… missed that particular detail,” she managed.
“Well,” Sophia said, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “prepare yourself, cousin. The ton adores a scandal, and you are about to provide one.”
Caroline exhaled slowly, her pulse thrumming. “How delightful.”
Sophia giggled and squeezed her hand. “Get some rest, or you’ll be yawning through Mozart.”
When she had gone, the silence returned, broken only by the faint crackle of distant firelight. Caroline lingered for a moment, candle trembling in her grasp. Then she turned and made her way back to her chambers, mind spinning.
Back in her chamber, she reopened her sketchbook and, with careful strokes, added one final detail to his portrait—the flicker of light in his eyes that spoke not of cruelty, but of pain.
When she set down the pencil, she whispered to herself, “Whatever you’re hiding, Richard Belford… I will learn it.”