Singleton obviously did not want Caro to lead Mr. Stone down to the gallery herself, but who else could do it? The curator of the duke’s collection had been one of the first to desert them, when he’d realized his salary wouldn’t be paid. More retainers had rapidly followed.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Singleton said stiffly.
Mr. Stone watched the exchange with a quirk of his lips, though Caro wasn’t certain what he found so entertaining.
“Please follow me, Mr. Stone,” she said with a cool dignity she’d learned from the dowager.
Keeping her head high, she stalked across the large room past Singleton and out onto the landing.
Chill air poured up the stairwell, but Caro resisted shivering. She’d discovered long ago that never reacting to weather, bizarre circumstances, or taunts drew more respect than falling into hysterics at the least provocation.
Mr. Stone’s tread echoed as she led him down one flight of stairs to the gallery. While he stayed a few paces behind her, she felt his presence like a flame at her back.
The Third Duke, Caro’s husband’s great-grandfather, had turned almost the entirety of the first floor into a gallery for his budding art collection. The next three dukes had added to the artworks—the dowager’s husband contributing the most of all—and the collection was now famous throughout Britain.
Four windows marched along the gallery’s front wall, letting in what feeble light trickled through London’s clouds and smoke. The walls had been papered in a pale green, faded now, chosen to allow the deep colors of the artworks to catch the eye.
The dukes had mostly collected paintings, though small marble sculptures on plinths dotted the room. Caro’s husband had always shielded her from the nude Daphne and Apollo with his coat, which had made her laugh.
Poor Leopold. He’d been cowed all his life by his hard father and had vowed never to put his own son through what he’d suffered. Probably the bravest thing Leopold had ever done was to make sure small Leo knew he was loved for himself.
Caro swallowed regret and swept her arm in faded lavender silk to indicate the paintings filling the walls.
“Some of these are in dreadful need of cleaning,” she said in apology. “And many are from artists who never became famous—my husband’s forebears simply liked them. But these should be of interest.”
She led him toward the two Rembrandts, which reposed in quiet splendor on easels Singleton had set up for them.
One depicted a young woman draped in sumptuous silk and brocade, with a crown of flowers on her head. The second was a portrait of the artist himself, his wrinkled face and bulbous nose solemn under a beret.
“I hope to find a buyer who will treasure them,” Caro said with admiration. One of the solaces in a life grown desperate was to wander the gallery and view beautiful things. “It is a wrench to part with them, but?—”
She broke off when she realized that Mr. Stone wasn’t listening. He’d stepped to the paintings, his attention caught.
Her heartbeat quickened as she watched him.
Mr. Stone possessed a restlessness Caro had never encountered in the gentlemen carefully chosen to speak to her as a debutante. Nor had she seen it in her husband’s circle, made up of older men who held the power of the nation in their hands. Mr. Stone was perfectly still, but she sensed he could dash away at any moment and be gone.
Which would be a pity. Something had awakened inside Caro when she’d been in his near-embrace at the window, as though a lamp long doused had suddenly been ignited.
Mr. Stone was well-muscled under his thick wool coat and simple trousers tucked into boots, as though he rode a lot. Or perhaps he wrestled bears—who knew what art assessors got up to in their own time?
His jaw held a shadow, as though his whiskers grew back as rapidly as he shaved them. They fascinated her, those whiskers, though Caro could not say why.
The shadow could not hide the long scar that began on his cheek and ran down under his collar. She could not say why that fascinated her either.
Raw men had never been allowed into Caro’s world, kept far from her curated, fenced-off girlhood as possible. Caro would have grown up innocently gullible if it hadn’t been for her much more worldly friends. She’d never dared breathe a word to Mama what she, Louise, and Jo had laughed about together in private.
Caro’s gaze strayed to Mr. Stone’s firm hip cupped by fawn wool, and then he cleared his throat.
He was staring straight at her. As Caro dragged in a swift breath, a knowing smile danced on his lips.
Heat boiled through her. She was a matron, for goodness’ sake, the mother of a duke, and not the sort of widow who pursued torrid affairs. Mr. Stone was here to purchase the Rembrandts, nothing more.
Mortification and an unfamiliar longing twined inside her in a confusing mix.
“Your conclusion, Mr. Stone?” Caro asked, rather breathlessly.
The hint of a smile became a broad one. It was teasing, though, nothing lustful or lewd, as had been the case with a few other creditors before Singleton had escorted them out. Perhaps Mr. Stone was flattered that such an aging crone had so lustfully gazed at his well-honed body.
