Page 30 of The Lady is Trouble

The bridle slipped from Julian’s fingers. “Ashcroft?”

“Holy hell,” Humphrey breathed.

Cookson’s response proved the validity of the report. “You bloody, grand bastard,” he snarled. “You thieving trickster!”

“Correct on all counts.” Bracing his arms on the block, Finn dropped his head to his hands. “A parade of ghastly images housed in your mind, sir. Thank you for that.”

Cookson’s throat pulled on a long swallow. “He read my bleeding mind, he did.”

Julian advanced on the man before he had a chance to lodge another threat. He wedged Cookson’s head against the post, his blood rioting through his veins. He could end this here. One snap to mitigate risk.

One snap to protect his family.

“Julian,stop.” Finn’s plea was a dry rasp behind him. “If you,” he added, directing the words to Cookson, “think my stealing your thoughts is upsetting, next time I’ll scramble your brain like an egg.”

“Not a word,ever.” Julian closed his eyes, fighting the images Cookson’s shirt collar was sending through him. “And your association with the Duke of Ashcroft is finished. Do we understand each other? We have people who could use your skillset on the Welsh coast. You leave tonight.”

Humphrey stepped in and knocked aside Julian’s hand, allowing the haunting visions to drain away. “You’d better take the offer, my friend. These two are what you would call civilized, but me, ah, you wouldn’t be the first person I’ve killed, and you’d likely not be the last. But I’m trying to limit myself—and I’m fairly sure you’re not worth going to hell over.”

“Ashcroft,” Cookson gasped. “What to tell him?”

Julian shared a look with Humphrey across the rank distance. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of the Duke.”

The undertaking was a foolish impulse.

One born of little sleep and the compulsion to return that distressing, wondrous sketch, which sizzled like a coal in her skirt pocket. Showing up at Julian’s secluded quarters without escort suddenly seemed foolhardy.

Even for her.

However, she couldn’t keep what served as evidence of his fascination and maintain her promise to suppress hers.

Exiting a copse of trees, she passed through two ancient stone pillars standing sentry, glancing around to ensure no guards monitored here as they did the main gate. During her morning session with Edward, he’d mentioned Julian would be engagedelsewherethis night—so here she was. After sneaking out a parlor window that had no sentry attached.

Moonlight splashed across the brick portico as she stepped onto it. Halting at the door, she replayed Simon’s words: top desk drawer, right side, beneath spectacle case. She turned the handle. Locked. Sighing, she pulled a hairpin from her pocket, where it resided alongside the sketch. The metal felt cold to the touch, telling her the blaze emanating from the drawing was a figment of her passionate imagination.

It had been years since she’d picked a lock, but Finn had provided exhaustive lessons, and she’d been an apt pupil. Concentrating, she pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth and felt the hairpin settle in the tumbler.

The tantalizing scent hit her before the realization that she was not alone. Citrus, smoke, man. The tip of a muddy boot entered her vision as she glanced down. Oh, dear God in heaven, she was as doomed as doomed could be.

“I wasn’t expecting you.” He brushed her aside, his touch traveling like sunlight through her.

“Jules,” she whispered directly into his ear. Stilling, he turned his head. Gazes locked, they stared as the night wrapped them in a mantle of radiant heat. “You’re not going to believe why I’m here.”

“Hmm…” He gave the hairpin a twist, and the door swing wide. “I just might.”

She glanced at the line of trees just visible in the scattered moonlight. If she started running, she might be able to make it to the house before he caught her.

He issued an aggravated snort and took her by the upper arm, hauling her inside, and with a swift kick, closed the door behind them. A rainbow of color, just as Simon had said, splattered the planks beneath her feet; canvases large and small—finished, blank, and somewhere in-between—were perched against the walls, the settee, the Chesterfield sofa. Nudes, landscapes, portraits. Wooden shelves holding tubes of acrylic and oil paint. Charcoal pencils, sketchpads. And on every surface lay ragged bits of cloth doused with the same colors that had hit the floor.

Shadow cloaked the bedchamber off the main room, but she noted the massive tester bed, the crimson counterpane lying in a twist upon the mattress. She tore her gaze away when her belly started to jump, her mind conjuring images it had no permission to conjure. Her senses unfurled like rose petals in the spring as she searched for equilibrium.

This was Julian’s world, and the secret he had kept from her.

The urge to sink to her knees before a canvas and study the wild slashes of color until Julian made sense to her rolled over her like a wave. Becausethisman, she knew nothing of.

“I can explain why I—” She turned, her breath seizing.

Arm braced on the doorjamb, the other hanging limply by his side, Julian’s aversion to this intimate examination of his life was evident in his unsettled, rippling aura. Eyes shadowed, shirtsleeve torn and bloody, he looked like a man on a precipice, wavering between surrender or a fight.