Chapter 15
The following morning, Edward must prove that he was humorous.
He was not entirely sure how one proved to have a sense of humor.
In his experience, humor was either present or not.
It was not a skill one demonstrated on command, like fencing or marksmanship.
He had spent twelve years in the intelligence service, and the funniest thing that had happened to him in that time was the incident in Prague with the bread knife, which was not the kind of story one told in polite company.
But before he could ask his bride how exactly he was supposed to do that, her sister Caroline accosted him in the corridor with the efficiency of a pregnant woman who had been planning an ambush since dawn.
She was carrying an easel under one arm and a box of paints under the other.
She should not have been carrying either of them in her condition.
Her belly led her around corners like the prow of a ship, and she navigated the corridor with the careful deliberation of someone who had long since lost sight of her own feet.
“You,” she said. “Sit.”
He looked at the easel. “What is this?”
“A portrait. I am painting you. Sit down.”
“Nobody paints me.”
“I do. And today is the day you must prove you are humorous, so consider this part of the test.” She marched into the drawing room, set the easel up by the window, and pointed at a chair. “Sit. Do not move. Do not glare.”
“I am not glaring.”
“You are always glaring. It is your natural state. Try to look pleasant. Think of something that makes you happy.” She squinted at him. “Or something that does not make you want to kill someone. Either would be an improvement.”
He sat.
He sat because she was six months pregnant and carrying an easel, and arguing with her would be like arguing with the weather: pointless, exhausting, and ultimately futile because the weather was going to do what it wanted regardless.
Caroline set up her canvas. Mixed her paints with the focused efficiency of a woman who knew what she was doing and did not need to be told.
She had talent. He could see it in the way she held the brush, in the way she mixed colors without hesitation, in the way she looked at him with an artist’s eye that saw shape and shadow and light rather than the scar on his jaw or the reputation behind it.
“Now,” she said, lifting the brush, “I am going to ask you some questions, and you are going to answer them honestly.”
“Is this the humor test?”
“This is the finding-out-who-you-are test. The humor is a bonus.” She dabbed at the canvas. Blue for the background. She was fast. “Question one: If Valeria told you she wanted to learn to ride a horse bareback through the countryside, what would you say?”
“I would say she should learn from someone qualified.”
“Wrong answer. The right answer is, ‘I will teach you myself, and we will race.’ Try again.” She mixed a new color.
Brown for his hair. She was painting quickly, capturing the broad shape of him before the light changed.
“Question two: If Valeria served you a meal she had cooked herself and it was terrible, what would you do?”
“Eat it.”
“Better. Would you tell her it was terrible?”
“No.”
“Also wrong. She would want to know. She would want to improve. She does not want a man who lies to spare her feelings. She wants a man who tells her the soup needs more salt and then helps her fix it.” Caroline shook her head. “You are not very good at this.”
“I have never been tested on my domestic skills.”
“Clearly.” She squinted at the canvas and fixed a line. “Question three: If you woke up and Valeria had painted little flowers on your forehead while you slept, how would you react?”
Edward frowned. “My bride would not pull such immature tricks on me. She is not like that.”
Caroline stopped painting. She put the brush down.
Then she turned and looked at him. The warmth had left her face.
What replaced it was fierce, protective, and not amused at all.
At that moment, she looked exactly like her sister—the same jaw, the same eyes, the same capacity for absolute certainty.
“But you are wrong, Duke.” Her voice was low. Somber. “She is exactly like that. Everything I just described, the flowers, the tricks, the mischief… those are things she has already done to someone in the past. Our father, to be exact.”
She picked up the brush again. Put it down. She was not painting anymore. She was talking, and she was not going to stop until she had said everything she needed to say.
“She once put a frog in Evan’s boot, and he screamed so loud that the horses started and the groom fell into the water trough.
She once convinced the entire staff that Father had declared a holiday, when he had done nothing of the sort, and they all took the day off.
Father came downstairs to an empty kitchen and no breakfast, and Valeria was sitting at the table, eating an apple she had stolen from the orchard with the most innocent face you have ever seen in your life.
She once swapped sugar for salt in the kitchen before a dinner party and watched fifteen guests try to eat the sweetest soup of their lives while Father turned purple and John laughed so hard that he fell off his chair. ”
Her voice was shaking now. Not from anger, but love. The fierce, desperate love that came from watching someone one adored be diminished and not being able to stop it.
“That is who Valeria is,” she continued.
“That is who she was before Gordon took her, locked her in a house, starved her, silenced her, and turned her into the careful, controlled, measured woman you have met. The woman who does not laugh too loud or eat too much or reach for a second piece of bread without looking over her shoulder. That woman is not Valeria. That woman is what Gordon made. And if you never let the real Valeria come back, if you never give her room to be ridiculous and childish and impulsive and silly—” Her voice cracked.
“Then I am not sure you are the right man for her.”
Edward let her words sink in. He turned them over in his mind.
He thought about the woman who had designed a maze and then got stuck in her own creation.
The woman who had played riddles in a gazebo.
The woman who had run across a lawn, let a nine-year-old beat her in a race, tripped her own brother during blindman’s buff, and laughed so hard she had to hold her sides.
The woman who had made up stories about foxes and hens, and had not cared that the plot was predictable.
The woman who had cheated at every game and denied it afterward with a straight face.
He thought about the way she looked when she was laughing. Not the measured, practiced laugh. But the real one. The one that shook her whole body and lit up her face and made the room brighter just by being in it.
“I did not know her before,” he said quietly.
“No, you did not. But you are going to marry her,” Caroline said.
Her hands were shaking. “And if you cage that, if you control it, if you make her feel that she has to be serious and careful and measured around you, then you will be no different from Gordon. No matter how many doors you hold open.”
The words landed like a blade. Clean, precise, and deep.
Caroline picked up her brush again. She tried to paint. The line wobbled. She tried again. The line wobbled again. She put the brush down and pressed both hands to her face.
The tears came then, the kind that had been held back for three years of watching her sister disappear behind a locked door, three years of writing letters that were never answered, three years of not knowing if Valeria was alive or dead or somewhere in between.
She cried the way pregnant women cried, completely and without warning, and with the full force of every emotion she had been bottling up since the day Gordon took her sister away.
“I just wanted to make sure,” she hiccuped. “I just wanted… I am worried about her.”
At that moment, Valeria entered the room.
She took one look at Caroline. One look at the tears, the shaking hands, the paint-smeared face, the enormous belly, and the woman inside all of it who was still, underneath everything, the baby sister who used to climb into Valeria’s bed during thunderstorms.
She crossed the room and pulled Caroline into her arms.
“You should not be chasing away my groom like you once chased away your own,” she chided, but her voice was soft, and her hands were gentle on Caroline’s hair.
Caroline laughed through her tears, the sound wet and ragged. “That did not get me far.”
“No, it did not. But I am here. I am not going anywhere. Go find Richard. Let him fuss over you. You have earned it.” Valeria guided her toward the door.
Caroline stopped. Wiped her face with the back of her hand. Dropped her brushes on the floor. Looked at Edward with red eyes. Looked at Valeria. Then she left, dropping more brushes as she went, waddle and all. The sound of her footsteps faded down the corridor.
Valeria turned to Edward. “Do not mind her. She has been emotional since the fifth month.”
“She is right,” he admitted.
She looked at him. “About what?”
He did not answer. He was looking at the wall above the fireplace. His jaw had tightened. His hands, which had been loose at his sides, clenched into fists.
She followed his gaze… and understood.
The portrait. Gordon’s portrait. Oil on canvas. Large. Dominating the room. The painted smile. The painted hands. The painted eyes that had watched her eat and read and breathe for three years.
“Was that yer husband?” Edward asked, though he already knew the answer.
She nodded, shuddering.
He looked at the brushes littering the floor, at the paint pots and the rags, and the look on his face was not anger. It was not pity, either. It was the look of a man who had just found a target.