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“I know this has come as a shock,” said Richard awkwardly. “Damn it, I’m not sure now whether I should have told you today, right before our wedding. I mean, you probably need to think about—”

“Richard,” she said softly.

“—and I haven’t given you any time. It’s just, keeping secrets is so natural to me, it didn’t occur to me to—”

“ Richard .”

“—but I thought I could not wait until after we were married. I wanted to become your husband with no other secrets and—”

“Richard!”

Richard blinked. Evelyn was frowning, though somehow, it was a good natured one. “Yes?”

“I did know, you know,” she said gently.

The words did not make sense to Richard’s brain. “I beg your pardon?”

“I know. I knew, before,” she said simply. Her attention—at least, her visible attention—had returned to her notebook. Her pencil moved confidently, the scraping of the lead on the paper the only sound filling the room until she said, “I’m sorry. Was it supposed to be a secret?”

It was a good thing Richard was sitting down. The words Evelyn had said had rocked him to the core, causing him to shake his head slightly, as though that could make her question make sense.

“I mean, it was a mite obvious,” Evelyn continued, her eyes flicking up at him as she smiled.

“Your injuries… I had never seen anything like it. And though accidents happen, and Lord knows there are plenty of people in London who have suffered a fire, you had been bound, hadn’t you?

And slashed with a knife, more than once. ”

Richard’s lips parted. “I… I…”

“You see, artists notice things. We notice everything, even the details that others miss. Even if those details are the shape and character of your own skin,” Evelyn said simply.

“You’ve probably never seen the scars on your back, not properly, but I can tell you from a single glance that you had your hands tied behind your back when the fire happened.

Men who gallivant about Europe for the art don’t tend to be knifed in the back too often, either, though Percy might argue otherwise.

So I didn’t ask. I thought if you wanted to tell me, you would have. ”

She was extraordinary. How on earth had he never—but she was right, even with a looking glass, it was mightily difficult to properly see behind yourself. He had never seen the scars properly.

But Evelyn had.

“And… And that is what gave me away?” Richard asked in a croaking voice.

Evelyn nodded, brow furrowed now as she attempted something difficult on the page. “Yes. Yes, that and the fact that you mutter French in your sleep, and that you have been decidedly absent from England as far as I can tell, and I asked your nice friend Mr. Walden—”

“Walden?” Now Richard was sitting up straight. What the devil was that blackguard doing with her?

“Yes, I asked Mr. Walden whether or not you had been a spy, and he said, and I quote, ‘Don’t ask me. The idiot thinks he’s being clever, but he’s not been able to pull the wool over your eyes, I see,’ and I said, ‘No, not really,’” said Evelyn with an apologetic smile. “So you see, I did know. Sorry.”

“Sorry”?

Richard tried to collect his myriad thoughts, but it was rather like attempting to outwit a fox that was already in the chicken coop.

She knew. She knew?

And that damned Walden hadn’t done anything to help him.

When he blinked and Evelyn came back into view, it was to see her still smiling. “And… And you don’t mind?” he asked.

“‘Mind’? That you served your country and didn’t want to claim all the glory by showing off and telling me?” Evelyn snorted, shaking her head. “No.”

“I meant that I had not told you until now,” Richard said, making a mental note never to underestimate this brilliant woman. “I know how you feel about lying.”

A shadow flickered over her face. Oh, she had been hurt. Not just by him. That original injury had come from her brother, he knew. But he had added to the pain, and the scar would be visible for quite some time yet.

Perhaps everyone had scars, of one kind or another.

“It was not a lie, and I am glad you have told me now,” Evelyn said slowly. “If— how this marriage will succeed is by being honest. I have my eye on you, though.” She was grinning now. “No more spying, please.”

“I think I can firmly say that I have left that life behind me,” said Richard with a rush of relief.

Well, he’d done it. How he’d managed to do it, he wasn’t sure. The fact that Evelyn still wanted to marry him—wait. She did still want to marry him, did she not?

“Besides,” Evelyn added, “I have a few secrets of my own. In fact, I think I should probably tell you one of them now.”

“Why not?” Richard said genially.

Whatever she wanted to tell him, he would gladly listen to. What would it be? Had she once stolen a tube of paint because she had not been able to afford it, her pin money all used up? Did she harbor some unpleasant thoughts about a rival artist? Could it be that—

“I am a spy too,” Evelyn said solemnly.

Richard fell off the side of the bed. The floor broke his fall, though in a less comfortable and soft way than he would have preferred, and his head was reeling as he scrambled to his feet and stared, open-mouthed, at his future bride.

“You—You’re…” His eyes must have been falling out of his head. “Really?”

Evelyn grinned. “Not in the slightest.”

The sudden shock was more than enough to jolt his mind out of his skull, but at this juncture, all Richard could do was laugh.

The teasing look in her eye, the mischievous smile, the way she had utterly played him for a fool and enjoyed it immensely…

Oh, there was so much more to learn about this woman of his. So much to explore. So much to discover.

Here was a woman he could never get bored of.

“Now,” said Evelyn, placing her notebook down and secreting her pencil down her bodice once more, causing a rush of heady need in Richard’s loins, “shall we get married?”

It was all a blur. Richard knew that they took separate carriages; it would not do, the Earl of Lindow had said stiffly, for both groom and bride to emerge from the same carriage outside the church. People might talk.

They might talk more, Richard knew, if polite Society knew precisely what he and his bride had been getting up to almost every night from the moment they’d become engaged.

What they’d been up to long before that.

But perhaps that wasn’t the best thing to think of as he stood here at the altar, waiting for his bride to meet him, Lucy and a Chance cousin having walked the aisle first.

When Evelyn stepped into the church, it was a struggle to catch his breath. Walden by his side said something—Richard did not catch the words—and there was a rush of admiring murmurs as she walked down the aisle, but he did not hear them.

All he could do was look at this beautiful, unpredictable woman, and thank his lucky stars that his own secretiveness had not driven her away.

“You know, the light and shadow in here is quite exquisite,” murmured Evelyn as she reached him, her hand placed onto his own by her father, who appeared to be brushing away tears. “I shall have to bring my easel here one day.”

“Do you ever stop thinking about art?” Richard muttered as the vicar started the marriage service.

Her bold gaze caught his and Richard’s stomach lurched.

“Sometimes,” Evelyn said quietly. “Whenever I’m with you, I’m thinking of art and you.”

He could not help but chuckle at that. “I suppose I should be honored.”

“Yes, you should,” Evelyn whispered with a wry smile. “Don’t you think of something else while thinking of me?” Her cheeks blossomed into pink as she saw his expression. “ Richard !”

“I’m thinking about you,” Richard shot back in an undertone, reveling in the way she responded to his mere thoughts. “And I’m thinking how fortunate I am, every moment that I’m with you. And I’m wondering how you’re going to paint me next.”

And as he placed a ring on her finger, he was almost sure Evelyn whispered, “In every way possible.”