by KJ Charles
“I shall be interested to see your theories in action, Lord Alexander,” Sir William said. “Do you tolerate observers when you draw?”
“That’s entirely up to the Duchess,” Alec said, cursing everyone.
Her Grace waved a hand, and the appointment was made for ten-thirty the next day.
“Well done,” Jerry murmured in his ear as they retired for a game of billiards after dinner, mostly on the grounds that nobody else played it.
“It’s all very well for you to say,” Alec remarked bitterly. “I’ll have Sir William Cooke watching me as I try to pretend I’m the new Millais.”
“Oh come.” Jerry had a cue in one hand, the other resting casually on Alec’s shoulder. It felt very warm, and so did his breath on Alec’s ear. “You’re good, very good. Do you need me to demonstrate how good you are?”
“Not in here.”
Jerry leaned in and drew Alec’s earlobe between his teeth, scraping it gently. Alec shivered. “Perhaps not. Why don’t I teach you to play billiards half-decently instead?”
“Or we could go upstairs?” Alec suggested. It was far too early, he knew, but he wanted closeness. He wanted to be with Jerry because it was so much easier to believe him when he was there, overwhelming Alec’s senses, and indeed sense.
Jerry shook his head. “I think I’d rather watch you bending over the table. That is a very nicely fitted pair of trousers. Take your coat off first, though. And then I’m going to teach you how to play billiards, and you’re going to learn, if you’re not too distracted by wondering what I’m thinking, and what better uses I could find for the table. Or the cue.”
“Jerry!”
“I want to watch you,” Jerry said softly. “I particularly want to watch you when you know I’m watching you, and you’re all too conscious of every movement.”
“We are playing billiards, yes?”
Jerry grinned. “Think of it as a metaphor. And get your coat off.”
Alec stripped off the black coat, and his necktie, then removed his waistcoat as well. He had always felt there was something particularly appealing about a man in braces, and the slant of Jerry’s brows suggested he might agree. He rolled up his sleeves. “Well, then. Shall we begin?”
“Let’s see you handle the cue.”
Alec picked up the cue and leaned in, bending over the table with legs braced wide. He circled the smooth length of wood with thumb and forefinger, then slid his hand deliberately along it and back, up and down.
“I think I see where you’re going wrong.” Jerry’s brows were raised in a sardonic way, but a smile twitched at his lips. “Here.” He came up behind Alec and leaned over him, hands meeting Alec’s. “Relax your grip, it’s very tight. And you don’t need all those fingers. Two will do very nicely to ready you for the push.”
Alec bit his lip savagely, but he could feel the giggle rising, bubbling in his chest. Jerry added, sounding somewhat stifled, “Line yourself up, nose to ball,” and that was it. Alec collapsed, howling. Jerry staggered to brace himself on the edge of the table, and they were both still shaking with stupid, wonderful, happy laughter when Sir William and Mr. Forbes came in to see what all the noise was about.
AND THEN CAME MORNING, and the Duchess.
They’d ended up staying late in the billiard room, and Jerry had actually got him handling the cue properly, albeit with some further outbreaks of mild hysteria. They’d kissed goodnight afterwards—nothing more, just long, slow kisses, bodies warm and together—and Alec had fallen into bed and slept like the dead for the first time since he’d got to Castle Speight. He woke past eight, refreshed and ready to face the day, at least until he remembered what it held.
He had to spend perhaps two hours with his stepmother while Jerry broke into her safe in broad daylight. Marvellous. He sat up, aware of a sick anticipatory feeling in his stomach, and took a few deep breaths, then went to the window and looked out. The room was on the side of the castle but there wasn’t a single window without a view. He could see the downlands rolling away, the distant smudge of Lancaster’s dirty air on the horizon, and directly below, Jerry and Susan, walking together in what appeared to be civil or at least non-violent conversation. That was promising.
Breakfast, a solitary stroll in the gardens, some deep lungfuls of clean air. He set up his drawing things in what had been the Blue Morning-Room, but was now primrose yellow, pulling the curtains back fully to let the light flood in, and choosing a position for the Duchess’s chair that would illuminate her face without the inconvenience of sun in her eyes. He donned his spectacles, sharpened his pencils, took out his new unused sketchbook, and waited.
The Duchess came in at a quarter to eleven, accompanied by her sister. Alec stood hastily. “Good morning, Your Grace, Miss Hackett.”
The Duchess tensed her face, drawing her lips into a flat line which Alec assumed was to suffice for a smile, and looked around. “It is very bright.”
“Wasteful. The sunlight will sadly fade the upholstery,” Miss Hackett observed.
“Then we shall have it replaced,” the Duchess informed her crushingly. Alec didn’t harbour any hope that was a defence of him; he recognised the Duchess’s tone. Anyone who spoke would be rebuked, ridiculed, or denigrated, until sullen silence and the Duchess reigned unopposed. That was how it had been in every school holiday for ten long years.
He took a moment to work out the best possible phrasing, knowing it was futile because she’d find something to be insulted by, and said, “When it suits you to begin, ma’am, I have positioned this chair for the light. I hope it will be comfortable.”
“Of course it will be comfortable,” the Duchess said, stiff with offence. “I chose the furniture myself. I hope I am capable of selecting a chair fit for its purpose.” Miss Hackett sniffed in agreement. Alec bowed in lieu of an answer that would be wrong whatever he said, and couldn’t help a swift glance at the clock. Two minutes down, one hour fifty-eight to go.
“If you’re ready to begin, madam?” He went to the chair, moving it an entirely unnecessary inch because gentlemen moved chairs for ladies. The Duchess seated herself in a rustle of stiff skirts. “Thank you.” He moved his own chair slightly rather than ask her to look round. “I’d like to do some preliminary sketches today, for your approval and to make sure I have the right approach.”
“What possible approach is required? You paint a picture of my face and attempt to achieve an accurate likeness.”
“There’s a little more to it,” Alec said mildly. “A portrait tells us all sorts of things about the sitter. The expression you wear, the background, the clothing, the pose. We—you—need to consider who the portrait is for.”
“What do you mean, for? It is for the Duke. Who else would it be for?”
“Well, it might be for the public, or for posterity. It might be your record in the family gallery, the image by which you will be remembered in a hundred or two hundred years—”
“You think very highly of yourself,” the Duchess remarked.
“I’m speaking generally, madam. A portrait might be aimed to hang in the Great Hall, a blaze of ducal magnificence, or it might be for your husband’s rooms, a private, domestic image rather than a public one. The clothing, the setting, the pose will all be part of the message any portrait conveys. That’s what I mean about who it’s for.”
The Duchess apparently had not considered that aspect. She frowned.
“There’s no need to decide now,” Alec added, seeing a way to kill time. “Perhaps I could do a couple of different sketches, to indicate what I mean? I find it much easier to decide these things when I have something to look at.”
“Ilvar shall decide,” the Duchess said. “Well, go on.”
“Thank you, madam. Please, relax. Converse, if you choose.”
The Duchess’s nostrils flared. “I do not need your permission to speak to my sister in my home.”
“I meant—” Alec began, and stopped himself. What was the point? “No
, madam. I beg your pardon.”
“Well. Get on.” She put her chin up, mouth tight.
The stupid thing was, Alec thought as he let his pencil slide over the paper, she provoked the hostility she expected. She gave and took offence at every turn, constantly slapping people down in a manner that suggested she was retaliating, if one could retaliate for an insult that hadn’t actually been given.
He had no doubt they had been given in the past. Her wedding celebration had been shunned, her name spoken with distaste, her character torn apart in gossip and the press as an adulteress who had driven her husband to self-murder, whatever the coroner had concluded. All the same, she’d been a duchess, one step below the Queen herself, for twenty years. Could it really be so hard to ignore insult, or rise above it?
He looked down at his sketch, up at the Duchess. He wasn’t getting her, he knew it. Her face was set in the habitual mask, an impenetrable expression that reminded him a little of Jerry, somehow. It was how he looked when he didn’t want his face to be read, how he’d looked when he’d understood Alec had been working with Susan all along.
It’s how he looks when he’s afraid. The thought came into Alec’s head unbidden, and he blinked at it. That didn’t make sense. Jerry had been hiding hurt then, and anger...
Except he’d said himself that he’d needed to have his face rubbed in the mess to realise he loved Alec. What if he’d realised then, at the moment of betrayal, that he was no longer in control of his feelings, or Alec, or any of it? Jerry didn’t shy away from a fight, or a risk. But to find his heart in a traitor’s hand—oh, that would have made him afraid, all right. Jerry had been terrified. No wonder he’d struck out; no wonder he’d defended himself with attack.
And the Duchess had been afraid for twenty years. The realisation dawned so blindingly bright that Alec’s pencil stilled. Of course she was afraid. Of course she couldn’t rise above the sneers, because every questioning of her first husband’s death was a threat, every mention of her adultery a reminder of her criminal trespasses on the road to marriage. Any remark, no matter how innocent, that could possibly be construed as an attack on her position would be felt as one, because she knew in her heart the position wasn’t truly hers. Because she was guilty as sin, and married to a murderer.
The last twenty years must have been hell.
“Have you finished?” The Duchess’s impatient voice cut through his reverie, and Alec realised his hand was slack and unmoving.
“I... No. No, I’m only just starting.” He turned the page to a clean sheet. “I had a thought, that’s all. Inspiration, if you like. Artistic inspiration.”
The Duchess made a scornful noise. Alec didn’t care. He wanted to draw this. He wanted to draw the mask, and show it for what it was. He wanted to find the fear in her eyes.
There was a knock on the open door some time later. “May we enter the creative sanctum?” Sir William Cooke enquired.
“Please,” Alec said, without looking up. His pencil skidded over the page.
“Alexander,” the Duchess snapped. “You will greet the Duke with due respect.”
Alec glanced round. Yes, his father was entering, with Sir William, whose eyes had snapped wide at the Duchess’s tone, Sir Paul Maitland, and Mrs. Forbes. “Sir,” he said, bowing where he sat. “Excuse my informality.”
The Duchess took a sharp breath. The Duke cleared his throat. Sir William, who had crossed to behind Alec, said, “Good heavens. Good Lord. Lord Alexander, may I ask—”
“Could we talk later,” Alec said, not making it a question. He wanted them all to shut up. He had the Duchess in front of him but also in his mind: the years of slights and snaps and sneers, the unkindnesses large and small, the endless efforts to eradicate memories of her predecessor. Was that for herself, or for the Duke’s sake? Did they speak of what they’d done to be together? When she slept badly and woke in the night, what did she see?
Sir William moved away after a moment. Alec heard him murmuring something that included “remarkable,” and “awfully good”, and ignored it. He knew what he was putting on the paper was good. It was true.
The watchers moved around behind him, muttering and whispering in a way Alec normally loathed. He ignored it, and when he heard a rustle of paper, people looking at his other sketchbook, he ignored that too. He only had eyes for the face emerging on his page, and for the Duchess, sitting opposite him, hands folded in her lap.
No, they had been folded. Now they were clenched, and the knuckles were rather pale.
I see you, Alec thought. I see you and you know I see you, don’t you? No jewels to hide behind now, no position to throw up as a shield, and I don’t care for your contempt. I see you, madam. I see your guilt.
He glanced at her face and her eyes met his. They had been averted until now, glaring over his shoulder. She looked at him, and Alec looked back, and her chin went up in a defiance that caught his breath. He could paint her like that, like Boadicea, a warrior woman who’d fight to the last, and it would be as true as the other.
Then there was a sharp gasp from behind them, and the Duchess’s gaze snapped away. “Ilvar? Ilvar!”
“Your Grace?” Sir William asked.
Alec twisted round. The Duke was looking at his other sketchbook, face slack, mouth open. That was the one Alec had filleted to remove most of the pictures of Jerry, and he had a horrified second’s doubt as to whether he’d left in a treacherously bare-shouldered sketch, or if his father had seen too much in the picture he hadn’t brought himself to tear out.
“Ilvar!” The Duchess rose. Alec stood too, an ingrained courtesy, and saw what his father was looking at.
It was the picture of Cara, the one that looked like his mother. The Duke held it out in front of himself at arm’s length because of his long-sightedness, thus allowing everyone to see it. His hand was shaking.
They stood around the picture, the Duke, the Duchess, and Alec, with the other guests looking from one to another in bewildered fashion, in a silence that stretched out endlessly, punctuated only by the Duke’s harsh breaths, and then the Duchess moved. She took the sketchpad from the Duke in a single sharp tug, and ripped the page across.
Alec couldn’t help the cry that escaped him. Sir William exclaimed too. The Duchess tore the remaining part of the picture off the sketchbook, dropped the book to the floor, ripped the two halves of the picture, ripped them again, and let the pieces flutter to the carpet.
Alec stared at her. She stared back, lip curling contemptuously, and it turned out Jerry was wrong about his ability to bend against pressure, because that was the point Alec broke.
“That was Cara’s picture,” he told his father, lips feeling a little odd. “Your daughter Caroline, sir, the dead one. She died in winter, gasping for breath in the fog because you wouldn’t help her. Do you remember her at all, sir? Do you care? Sir?”
“And there it is,” the Duchess said. “I knew he was deceiving you, Ilvar, I told you it was a pretence. They have always insulted you, and this is one more piece of malice.”
“No, that was a picture of my dead sister,” Alec said. “I’m surprised you even recognised her. Or were you afraid it was someone else?”
The Duchess’s mouth tightened. “We have tolerated enough. You have chosen to continue your path of insolence and insult in the teeth of your father’s forbearance, and you will leave this house at once.”
Alec ignored her. His eyes were locked with his father’s. “Did you think it was my mother’s picture? They were very alike, Cara and Mother. Did you think it was the Duchess of Ilvar?”
“I am the Duchess of Ilvar!” That was a shout. “Get out, or I will have you thrown out!”
“I know what you are, madam,” Alec snarled, but he didn’t look away from his father. He could see the guilty horror on the man’s face, and it was fuelling his rage, burning away the lifelong uncertainty. “Why were you shocked to see a picture of my mother? Why are there no portraits of her anywhere? Why hav
e you dug up her garden and changed the house? Do you think you can wipe away your guilt if you obliterate every trace and tear up every picture and pretend she never lived?”
The Duke was breathing hard. “How dare you?”
“How dare you?” Alec shouted. He had no idea what the time was; he’d been caught up in his work and hadn’t looked. He couldn’t begin to guess if Jerry had been able to open the safe yet, and didn’t care because he had the confirmation he needed. He’d always believed Cara, but now he knew for himself. “You rid yourself of my mother, and every trace of her after her death, and you even got rid of the daughter who looked like her. Did it work, pretending that Mother never existed? I bet it didn’t. I bet she’s been with you every night since the last one.”
The Duchess slapped him. Alec didn’t even see the blow coming, he was so focused on his father, and it sent his head snapping sideways and his spectacles flying. He straightened, shocked, hand going to his face.
“You miserable ingrate,” the Duchess hissed. “You’ve always hated me, and your father for marrying me, and this is nothing but the vicious, contemptible spite to which you and your nasty siblings have subjected my husband for years. Ilvar should disinherit you all.”
“Yes,” the Duke mumbled. His lips were white, trembling. “Yes. Unfilial, unkind—”
“Oh, come off it,” Alec said. “Self-pity, Father? Playing the victim? Really?”
The Duchess turned on her heel and stalked to the door, pushing Sir William out of the way with an angry hand. “Ho! Footmen! At once! At once, I say!”
“You deceived me, Alexander.” The Duke drew himself up straight. “You promised me you had thought better of your obstinacy, you apologised—”