She Refused to Curtsy to the Most Feared Duke in London—But Instead of Punishing Her, He Protected Her From the Ballroom’s Cruel Whispers. Months Later, Just as They Fell in Love, One Rumor Made Her Believe He Was a Terrible Man.

 PART 3

Only when the turning figures of the dance carried them beyond earshot did Emily lift her accusing gaze to his. “I did not promise you anything.”

“I know.”

“That is remarkably contrary to how truth works.”

“Is it?” His hand remained warm and steady at the small of her back, guiding her through the pattern with the same unshakable command he seemed to bring to every room he entered. “You were about to accept a second dance with Ingrams, which fails to explain why you invented an agreement on the spot.”

“A second dance invites conclusions.”

“Conclusions about Casper,” he said, and something in his voice sharpened.

“We grew up together,” she said. “Since I was six.”

His focus bore down on her with new intensity. “For how long.”

“We climbed trees. Fell into ponds. Stole pastries and blamed his brother.” A faint smile. “Nothing sinister.”

“Ingrams climbs trees dreadfully.”

A soft laugh escaped her before she could stop it, and for a moment the tension between them loosened into something almost easy. Then his gaze dropped, and caught on the reticule swinging from her wrist — a small hand-painted miniature set into the velvet, two faces intertwined.

“How lovely,” he murmured. “I do not believe I have ever seen such a thing on a lady’s evening bag.”

“I painted it myself.” A faint flush touched her cheeks. “Plain satin seemed dull.”

“What does it represent?”

“Two souls bound together.” She met his eyes, deliberately cool. “Two people who understand one another entirely.”

A low, teasing chuckle rumbled through his chest. “Silly,” he murmured, though his eyes were warm. “You carry a painting of eternal devotion on your wrist, and yet you speak as though romance is a fairy tale.”

“It is a fairy tale,” she said, chin lifting even as her pulse betrayed her. “Most people marry for convenience and spend a lifetime managing the bargain. A shared soul is an invention of novelists.”

“Is it?” His voice dropped, all mockery gone, leaving only something steady and raw beneath it. “Then perhaps, Miss Douglas, you simply haven’t met the person who will make you believe in it.”

Four months later, Emily stood inside a Venetian palazzo, portfolio tucked beneath her arm, enduring the bewildered stare of a footman who had clearly not been told the commissioned artist was a woman.

He led her to a study. A man stood at the tall windows overlooking the canal, back turned, a folded letter dangling from one hand.

“You must be the painter,” he said, without turning.

Emily froze.

“My uncle was called away this morning,” he continued, unaware. “He left instructions that you were to be made comfortable until —”

He turned. And the Duke of Westfall stared at her, for the first time since she had met him, entirely at a loss for words.

“Miss Douglas.”

“Your grace.”

“You are Douglas.”

“I generally have been.”

“My uncle referred only to a painter named Douglas.”

“And you assumed a gentleman.”

“Apparently,” he admitted, “the household did.”

That almost earned him a smile. Almost.

He explained, haltingly, that his uncle had dismissed three established portraitists after seeing her work in London — that the others had painted their subject grander than he was, while hers had painted the man. Not prettier. Not softened or refined by a lady’s hand. True.

“You did not know he’d seen it,” James said, watching the shift in her expression.

“No.”

His aunt, Lady Margaret, arrived moments later with the news that preliminary sittings must begin the next morning — sittings, she announced with an innocence too bright to be believed, of family. And since James was the only Stanley currently in residence —

“No,” Emily said.

“No,” James said, at the exact same instant.

Lady Margaret’s smile only widened. “Excellent. Tomorrow morning at ten.”

By ten the following morning, Emily had discovered that painting James Stanley was considerably more dangerous than dancing with him. Dancing, at least, was loud — conversation could hide the tension. Painting demanded long, unbroken scrutiny, and beneath it, the polished aristocratic mask he wore for London slowly, unwillingly, came apart.

“Stop preparing your face,” she told him, lowering her charcoal.

“This is merely my face.”

“Then that is remarkably unfortunate.”

The faintest twitch pulled at his mouth. “Better.”

She sketched the pale scar near his temple with careful precision. He noticed the movement of her hand.

“Most portraitists remove that.”

“I am not most portraitists.”

“No,” he said softly. “You are not.”

For an unguarded instant, the Duke disappeared entirely, and only the man remained.

The sittings continued for six days. By the third, Emily no longer needed to tell him to stop arranging his expression; by the fourth, he had stopped pretending not to watch her while she worked. She learned that he read estate correspondence with a pencil between his fingers and frowned at columns of figures as though each dishonest number had personally offended him. He learned that she hummed under her breath when mixing skin tones and chewed the inside of her cheek when a line refused to behave. None of these discoveries ought to have mattered. They accumulated anyway, small and dangerous, until familiarity began to feel less like knowledge and more like possession of a secret.

On the final evening, Lady Margaret insisted they both abandon the studio before candle smoke ruined Emily’s eyes. Dinner stretched late, and afterward Emily escaped to a narrow terrace above the canal. Venice had gone silver beneath the moon. The roofs seemed close enough to touch, and the water carried broken reflections of stars between the palazzi.

James found her there without announcing himself.

“You are staring upward,” he observed. “I had begun to think painters only looked at things they intended to capture.”

“Some things improve when no one attempts to own them.”

He leaned against the stone balustrade beside her. For several minutes neither spoke. Then, with the odd frankness darkness sometimes allowed, he admitted that he rarely slept through the night. Too many years repairing his father’s estates had trained his mind to wake at every imagined disaster: tenants without roofs, accounts gone missing, a roof beam failing in winter.

“What do you do instead?” she asked.

“Walk. Read. Occasionally count stars like an idiot.”

She smiled. “The most feared duke in London defeated by insomnia. There is justice in the world after all.”

“If I ever offer you a dozen sleepless nights watching the stars, Miss Douglas, assume I am discussing astronomy and not attempting seduction.”

“How reassuring. It would be the least romantic proposal imaginable.”

He turned his head. The teasing in his face faded into something warmer. “Perhaps the company would improve it.”

Emily looked back at the canal before he could see how completely that quiet sentence had unsettled her. The next morning, while packing her charcoal, she discovered she had sketched the night sky in the margin of his portrait study — and beside it, without remembering doing so, the outline of his hand resting close to hers on the terrace wall.