Page 23 of The Duke and His Jilted Bride

Eventually she stopped in front of a painting roughly two thirds of the way along.

It consisted of two young boys and had been painted in a style similar to Gainsborough. The younger one… It was Frederick. She recognised him immediately even at what must have been nine or ten years old, already performing for the painter with a sideways smile and a hand on his hip. He was seated front and center. An older boy stood behind him, one hand on the chair’s back. He was perhaps twelve or thirteen, looking seriously to the side. His dark hair was shorter than it was now. His expression was different, one of a boy who had been asked to hold still for a long time and was getting tired.

She stood there a moment staring at the child, Evander, not certain what she was looking for exactly. Only that there was something in the painting that moved her. That boy, twelve years old, and not yet a duke responsible for anything, looking at something outside the frame like he wanted to be elsewhere.

“This was painted in the summer of 1804, I believe, if you were looking for a date.”

She turned quickly. Mrs. Foulger was at the far end of the gallery, having appeared from wherever Mrs. Foulger appeared from. She walked the length of the room with a smile, holding her chatelaine.

“I went into the library to ask if you wanted tea, Your Grace, but couldn’t find you there. I assumed you had walked too far. My apologies for the misleading directions.”

“Not at all, Mrs. Foulger. My sense of direction has always been abysmal.” She looked back up at the painting. It was about as tall as she was with a brass-coloured wooden frame. “It’s very beautiful.”

“Yes. The late Duke of Sandacre commissioned it after His Grace’s twelfth birthday. I believe he wanted the children painted together before Lord Canterbury went to his first school.” She stopped beside Aurelia and looked at the painting. “The younger one was upset about going. His Grace,” she meant Evander; His Grace always meant Evander to her, “spent the whole of that summer taking his brother fishing, apparently because that was the only thing the young marquess wanted to do, having heard there were no fish in Oxford.”

“But that’s not true,” Aurelia said, laughing softly.

“No, of course not. And who knows where he got the idea from? But His Grace has always been like that, quiet about the good things and going along with the things that don’t matter. There was a winter, oh, seven years ago now… Well, that mattered. But more to the point – it was the first winter after their father died. His Grace had been Duke of Sandacre for perhaps four months. There was a cold snap in January that went on for three weeks. It was the worst any of us could remember.”

She nodded, listening as Mrs. Foulger looked wistfully up at the painting. “His Grace had stores from the house and firewood delivered to every cottage on the estate. His Grace never even told anyone he'd done it, but we all knew, of course. He would have been twenty years old. Can you imagine a gentleman that young, with all the wealth and opportunities in the world, spending his winter doing that?”

Aurelia said nothing. Because the truth was she could imagine it. Evander was not perfect – no one was. But out of everything, she never doubted his generosity and his appreciation for real people.

“Now, I hope you don’t think of the tenants as ungrateful for not doing something grand in return. His Grace doesn't like to be thanked,” Mrs. Foulger added, which was not quite a warning but close. “Their health and loyalty came as thanks enough. But I’ve disturbed you long enough, Your Grace. Shall I take you to the library now?”

“No…” Aurelia licked her lips, thinking. “I would like to stay here a moment more.”

Mrs. Foulger excused herself gracefully, and Aurelia was alone in the gallery again with the two boys and the sound of the wind off the park.

She stayed for a long time and made the rounds, reading the plaques carefully and returning to that portrait of the two boys twice. She was still standing there when she heard footsteps in the corridor and turned, and Evander appeared in the doorway of the gallery.

He had bathed too. His hair was damp like hers, darker at the ends, and he was wearing a more casual vest than she had seen in London, an olive green that made his skin look golden. She swallowed hard at the sight, her hands and neck tingling. As he approached, he smelled of soap and something resinous like pine or cedar.

She looked back at the painting as he settled beside her, wishing he had caught her anywhere other than standing before a monument of his younger self and his dishonourable brother.

“I did not intend to come here. I lost myself,” she said, which was true.

“Everyone gets lost here at least once the first few days,” he replied. “The stairs and corridors are like a puzzle.”

He came to stand beside her and looked at the painting, and he was quiet for a moment. She was aware of him beside her and tried to tame her breath.

“My father commissioned it,” he said. “He wanted a record of us both before Frederick left for school.” Then he laughed. “But I suppose you know all that from the look of you. I suspect Mrs. Foulger told you. Of all the paintings we have, this is her favourite.” Aurelia dared to look at him at least, and found him looking at the younger boy in the painting. “Frederick hated school.”

“Did you?”

“I liked it well enough, but I had tutors here. Frederick went to a boarding school in Oxford. He was an unruly child. Mother thought it would help him to keep some distance from us and find himself. Little did she know. But he did not hate it by the end. He came home for Christmastide and had acquired six friends, and he was entirely himself.”

“And were you entirely yourself? At twelve? You look almost as serious then as you do now.”

He considered this with a smile. “I was learning what that meant in the first place,” he said. “Which is not the same thing.”

She looked at the young boy's green eyes, for ever aimed at something in the distance. “What were you looking at when they painted you?”

He looked at the painting for a moment, his brow creasing. “I believe there was a window in the room they used for the portrait. It faces the east park still.” A pause. “It was a good summer. The weather was good.”

“Good weather must be especially important to a man who rides and exercises himself as much as you do,” she said without thinking. “The maids mentioned your activities to me.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t force you out with me every morning.”