Page 8 of His Duchess of Scandal (Brides of Scandal #1)

His daughter said nothing, but she looked down, chewing on her lower lip. The red ribbon at the back of her head had slipped down her tight curls. She got them from her mother, whereas Charles’s hair was black but straight.

“Did you do it, Phoebe?” he asked.

She was as silent as the footmen had been, but he saw her shifting. He saw how she lifted her thumb to her teeth and bit on it as if she had to busy her mouth not to admit her wrongdoing.

“Fine,” he sighed, pushing to his feet. “There will be no outing with Miss Ternan for a fortnight. You may forget the fair in Branmere Village, and there will be no sweets, either. It is a shame, for a new shop recently opened on the high street.”

Perhaps it was cruel to dangle the two things in front of her, but he couldn’t let her keep getting away with her pranks. Grounding her wasn’t a deterrent, ordering her to be watched did nothing, and shouting or silence did very little as well, except make her throw a tantrum.

She never showed remorse and simply did another thing the following day. It was an endless cycle of trying to predict what she would get up to next.

Phoebe’s head snapped up at the threat, and she opened her mouth, her nose scrunching up like it did when she was about to cry or whine.

For a minute, Charles’s frustration abated, but then he remembered the burn of humiliation. Not only for himself, but for the Aphrodite he had taken to bed on that forbidden night.

“Papa,” Phoebe whined. “Papa, I have been looking forward to the fair for so long! Miss Ternan promised .”

“Well, you should have thought about that before you played this foolish prank,” he chided, shaking his head.

“I cannot let you go on not learning that sometimes your actions have bigger consequences than your governess squealing over an insect. This is bigger, Phoebe. Someone innocent will be—likely already has been—implicated. This time, you have gone too far.”

“But—”

Before she could begin howling in protest, voices from downstairs caught his attention.

Charles surged to his feet and marched to the door, ready to demand what was going on.

“I must see the Duke of Branmere at once!” a female voice shouted.

He frowned, glancing back at Phoebe.

“Stay in your room,” he ordered, and then rushed out of the room.

“Where is he?”

That voice… where did he know it from?

He hurried to the landing of the first floor and swung onto the main staircase.

From there, he saw a cloaked woman with her hood up, only a few strands of brown hair hanging around. It was the color of the chocolate his father had always snuck him after dinner as a boy.

She squared off against Mr. Willoby, the butler.

“What is the meaning of this?” Charles demanded, hurrying down the stairs.

The cloaked lady whirled around, her hood slipping down with how fast she moved.

He froze.

Aphrodite.

As his eyes locked onto hers, recognition flooded through him so abruptly that he halted right there on the stairs. His heart thundered in his ears.

“ You .”

Her blue eyes, the color of far-off shores, widened.

“You.” She frowned, rearing back. “ You ? You are the Duke of Branmere?”

“And you are—” He paused. “I do not know who you are.”

Either the lady didn’t care or didn’t want to reveal herself, for she only stomped towards him, ignoring Mr. Willoby’s protests.

Charles didn’t stop her, half entranced as she filled his vision in a blur of anger.

“You!” she spat. “I do not care who or what you are, or what your title is, for I am outraged . Why—why would you paint me the way you did and then show it to the world? Why would you say I posed for you?”

Charles blanched, raising his hands.

“I did not,” he fired back. “I did not make such a claim, nor did I intend for anybody to see that painting. It was not for public eyes. The painting was merely a?—”

“A what ?” she hissed. “A perversion of indulgence?”

Well, you did bare yourself to me as much as I did to you .

Judging from the fire in her eyes, he knew it was not the right thing to say.

“It was a mistake,” he said. “I should not have done it. But the fact that it was shown was a mistake.”

“A mistake or not, this is preposterous.”

Heavens, he should not find her angry voice attractive, yet there was something about the way she spoke to him. She knew his rank, yet she raged at him without any care.

“Did you not think it would be discovered, eventually?” she scoffed. “I am already ruined, but you have made everything worse ! My family— my family —Heavens, what have you done?”

What have I done ?

He barely recalled painting the Aphrodite from that night, so different from this furious woman before him.

He remembered brushstrokes that infuriated him because her skin had not glowed with moonlight as he recalled. He remembered how he thought he had not painted her curves well enough, nor the dip of her waist, but actually painting and framing it…

He had been so engrossed in the memory of her that he had not let himself think of anything but finding that likeness.

He had known—or thought he had known—that he would never see her again. Yet there she was, her features much brighter, standing in his well-lit hall, as opposed to Anton Bentley’s dimly lit corridors.

“I wanted to…”

Immortalize the woman who had expressed a refreshingly bold view of my art, who made the softest, most surprised noises when I touched her, who looked terrified going into the show but had commanded the room without even realizing it .

“You wanted to have power over me?” she hissed. “Is that it? Make you think that I owed you something, and this was the way to hold something over me?”

“No,” he answered sharply. “It was all an honest mistake. It was never supposed to be moved. I have a studio here, but I also have a private one in a quieter part of London. I had plans to move the painting there, in fact.”

He scrunched up his face in annoyance at being reprimanded in front of his butler, who pointedly looked away when Charles glanced at him.

“Besides, how was I supposed to know you were a gently bred lady? Anton Bentley’s parties host a variety of people. Most are actors.”

“You are not an actor, it seems,” she sneered.

“I was invited as a painter, not a duke,” he told her quietly. “I was invited as—” He stopped himself from confessing he was Christian Dawson, a persona that allowed him to showcase his art without ruining his reputation. “As an anonymous guest. You were told to use a false name, no?”

“I was,” she replied tersely. “Not that we exchanged names, anyway.”

“Lady Phoebe!” a maid scolded.

Charles tore his gaze away from the beautiful stranger before him.

He whirled around to find Phoebe almost hanging over the staircase railing, watching their argument unfold. The maid hurried to her.

“Phoebe!” Charles shouted. “Back to bed, now .”

The lady followed his gaze, and he turned back to her in time to see her eyes widen.

She frowned and then looked at him, betrayal darkening her face. “You are married and a father?”

“Widowed,” Charles corrected her quietly.

She started, but her voice was tight when she asked, “And—and when we—that night…”

“In here,” he muttered, nodding towards his study.

There were too many maids peeking around corners, too many footmen finding something conveniently to do near them, too many gossips waiting to spread word of the mysterious beauty confronting their master.

Surprisingly, she followed him.

Hermia tried not to think about how the last time she had followed this man into a room, he had given her a night that haunted her dreams in the most sinful way…

But the sensuality and flirtatious gazes from that night were nowhere to be seen now, not as Ares shut the door behind them.

No , he wasn’t Ares anymore. This was the Duke of Branmere.

She was livid , and she could not tell if he was being sincere about any of it. She did not know this man, did not know his tells or his personality.

All she knew was that he had the most intense gaze she had ever fallen into.

The Duke of Branmere didn’t go very far before he turned back to her, and again, she found herself staring into those eyes.

Her heart fluttered the same way it had that night.

“You think I am lying,” he guessed angrily.

“I do not know you to think otherwise,” she countered.

“All I know is that you have done something incredibly selfish, and I have no reason to believe that you did not orchestrate it. I have been told of your charity auctions. Did you think a nude painting would sell for a great amount of money? The ton certainly would. They’re scandalized, but that only makes it more of a gold mine.

Everyone wants what they believe they shouldn’t have, so they’re willing to pay more for the notoriety that comes with it. ”

“It was not a nude painting,” he snapped. “I would not paint you in such a way without your consent.”

“No, but you painted me anyway and showcased it! The scandal sheets dubbed me nude .”

“You were not,” he insisted. “I—If you must know, I recalled your gown from that night. It reminded me of muses from Ancient Greece.”

“That was the point,” she muttered, sighing.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache coming on.

“My Lady, it was an accident,” the Duke said. “I swear it on my daughter’s life. It was never, ever supposed to be shown. I could not get you out of my mind, and I usually process that by taking it from my thoughts and putting it on canvas. It was an innocent mistake.”

“Hardly innocent, given the nature of the painting, the lack of my approval, the public unveiling, and how we met.”

“Lady—” He broke off.

Hermia realized she had not given him her name, but she deigned not to answer yet.

The Duke looked at her as though he expected her to answer, as though he was used to being greeted with stubborn silence. Or perhaps he was, but not for it to last very long.

Hermia held his eyes stubbornly. In doing so, she realized just how close they were standing.