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“I should have asked you more about your work,” Dom said, raw honesty darkening his voice. “That’s my fault. But you . . . you pushed me away, Torie. You dismissed your own painting by letting me think that your father’s characterization of you painting kittens was correct.”

Torie swallowed hard. “I’ve never spent much time with cats, so I don’t paint them.”

“This is not about cats,” Dom stated. “It’s about the way you hid your true self, just as your sister did. I was hoodwinked by both my fiancées. In fact, hiding your talent and letting my ignorant assessment of your work stand is worse than Leonora’s bad temper.”

Torie saw exactly what he meant. She had hidden the importance of her ideas about time behind society’s notion that women painted frivolous subjects, in the same way that she had hidden her passion for art behind being a silly butterfly.

“I do love you.” His voice rasped. “I’m in love with you. I went to Somerset House because I wanted to do something to show you that I valued you, no matter the disparagement of your work in the eyes of polite society.”

“Oh, no,” Torie breathed, her gut twisting. “What did you propose?”

The derision in his eyes was directed at himself, not her. “I tried to talk the president of the Royal Academy into allowing my viscountess to exhibit a painting of kittens in the Summer Exhibition.”

Torie’s eyes rounded. “In the Summer Exhibition?”

“The same.” The corner of his mouth curled up but without humor. “I was prepared to bribe him handsomely. West was horrified—until I informed him that my wife’s maiden name was Victoria Sutton, and yes, she likely signed her paintings V. Sutton. You can imagine how quickly his expression changed.”

Alarm shot through her. Her viscount was bad-tempered—and proud. West would dine out on this story for many a night, and Dom knew it.

“I misled you,” Torie admitted, twisting her hands together. “I do hide behind kittens when my paintings are discussed.”

“Why? Why not just inform the polite world that you are a great painter? Or if not them, why not tell me?”

“My father approved of my painting ladylike subjects,” she said, faltering. “I failed him in so many other respects.”

“His judgment of you stemmed from your inability to read, not your painting. As I recall it, he boasted of your ability when you first met the twins.”

Torie took a deep breath. “He doesn’t mind that I can’t read. If you’ll remember, he thinks that women have no need to read. Yet if I, an illiterate ninny, tried to paint historical scenes, the mockery would have been deafening. My inability to read is always taken as an indication of ignorance. No one criticizes a lady who paints adorable animals. Do you see what I mean?”

“I think your father is contemptible, and I do see the parallel between talk of kittens and the jests you offer in ballrooms, hoping to head off criticism based on your illiteracy.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Torie said, never having thought of the two in parallel. “My point is that a woman who paints kittens is not trying to rise above her station. The subject itself admits her presumed foolishness.”

Dom bit off a curse before she heard the whole word. “That wretched situation doesn’t explain why you concealed your artistic success. I gather you could have sold one of your paintings for two thousand pounds or more. Surely Sir William’s lack of interest reflects his ignorance of their worth.”

Guilt was burning in Torie’s gut, but now resentment was prickling to life. “Of course he would have been interested. If I sold a painting, the money would have been Sir William’s, not mine. As his daughter, I had no claim to money made from my own work.”

“Nor have you as my wife.” Dom’s jaw was steel. “Are you saying that you concealed your artistic success fearing that I would confiscate any money you might earn, as your father undoubtedly would have done?”

“No!” Torie cried. “I never thought that. It had simply become a habit. It takes me months to finish a painting, and sometimes I abandon it in the middle. If my father saw my work as a source of money, he would have expected me to churn out a painting a week.”

“I understand.”

“If you—we—ever need money, I would be happy to sell every painting I make. I didn’t mean to hide myself from you. I genuinely never thought of it that way. Ladies don’t . . .” She faltered. “I was taught not to boast.”

“Sharing yourself, your passions and successes, is not boasting.” Dom ran his hands through hair already tumbled by a long drive in an open carriage. “Your lying by omission hurt because you’re everything to me: my family, my lover, my best friend.”

A sob rose in Torie’s chest.

“Standing in front of Benjamin West, realizing that I deserved his mockery because I didn’t know my own wife, felt like a knife twisting in my gut.”

“Oh, Dom, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to!”

“All those afternoons after we made love on your settee, you never thought of telling me about your work? You never considered sharing your talent, your ideas about time, your fame . . . nothing?”

Torie swallowed hard and shook her head.

“Why not?”