When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,64

limbs, eyes, a mouth. What he chose to keep about him in his private quarters was unique to him.

“The duke is both taller and more muscular than I,” Duncan said, “and he prefers numbers to letters. I would call him an altogether more robust specimen. The ladies call him gorgeous.”

Matilda considered the drawing, her expression bringing to mind the early moves of her chess game.

“The duke is less refined than you are,” she said. “More of a broadsword while you’re a rapier. The look in your eyes is the same, though—assured enough to intimidate any who behold you. You have the same nose. His mouth is grim while yours is serious. I doubt he plays chess, but then, the ladies drawn to his appearance probably aren’t interested in chess.”

I am in love. I am in love with a woman who sees me as an improvement over my dear, wealthy, titled, handsome, younger cousin, with a woman who thrives on the intellectual exercise of a chess game.

“Who is this?” She ran a finger around the wooden frame of the only sketch Duncan had done himself.

“That is Jane with her oldest, Elizabeth, whom we call Bitty. The child is, in a manner of speaking, what brought Jane and Quinn together.” Courting Matilda meant treating her as a member of the family. Quinn and Jane’s unusual past was not a secret, but neither was it generally known.

“They anticipated their vows?” Matilda set the drawing back among the collection on the mantel and began re-arranging their order.

“Jane was a widow in an interesting condition. Quinn had means and no patience for sentimental courtship rituals.” While Duncan—for the first time in his life—wanted to escort a particular woman onto the ducal dance floor and waltz holding her in a scandalously daring embrace. At the conclusion of the set, he’d bow extravagantly over her gloved hand and gaze adoringly into her eyes, while Stephen, Quinn, and the rest of polite society goggled in awed silence.

Or laughed uproariously. Duncan didn’t particularly care what they thought of him or his intended, and his indifference was not his usual studied detachment. They were family, of course their regard mattered.

Matilda mattered more.

So this was love. This daft, fierce, exaltation of emotions and sensations. “Will you come to bed with me, Matilda?”

She’d set the sketch of Jane and Bitty in the middle of the collection, an improvement over the previous arrangement.

“That’s the best one of the lot. The others are competent, some of them interesting. They lack courage. The one of you and the duke, for example. See how unoriginal the composition is. Two men, side by side, looking directly at the artist. The background lacks a single symbol or contradiction, unless roman columns and latticed windows qualify. If not for your particular features, the sketch would have no texture, no topography.”

More than her specific observations, the assurance with which Matilda spoke struck Duncan. She was confident of her artistic opinions and backed them up with technical assessments. Something less substantial than memory teased at the edge of Duncan’s mind, an association, a snippet of text. He couldn’t concentrate enough to bring the recollection into focus.

“And the sketch of Jane and Bitty?”

“The best art isn’t perfect, and its imperfections are part of why it fascinates. The artist—I doubt it’s the same hand as drew the others—took risks with the composition. The mother and child are not sitting idly in the middle of the page, but, rather, in motion and enthralled with one another.”

Bitty was in Jane’s lap, reaching up to encircle her mother’s neck in a hug. Jane was bending toward the child, intent on arranging a blanket around Bitty’s shoulders.

“We see barely a profile of the mother’s expression,” Matilda went on “and less than three-quarters of the child’s, but the resemblance is caught in the features, and in the joy the mother and daughter take in one another’s affection. They love each other, and the artist loved them, and had the bravery to put his tender regard on the page. This is art, and this is love. The artist’s message could not be more boldly conveyed. These other pictures are so much sketching.”

Stephen would wince to hear that opinion of his artistic efforts. Duncan nearly crowed.

He stood halfway across the room from Matilda and flailed about looking for words. Thank you. Of course I love them. I’m not an artist. I’m not brave. I haven’t been brave for years.

He covered the distance and wrapped his arms around Matilda. “You see