What a Duke Dares (Sons of Sin 3)

“I set out to buy it after we got married. It seemed a suitable gift for a new duchess. But he passed away last April and I had to negotiate with his heirs.”

“But why did he change his mind? He said it was his most precious possession.”

“He always intended it to be yours, apparently. There’s a note down in the library that came with the painting. He calls it a gift of love.”

“He didn’t love me.”

“I think in his way, he did.” Cam stared at the picture, reverently tracing its lines. All hint of teasing had vanished. He looked like the man who had begged her to stay, vulnerable and passionate and so dear. “You can see it.”

“I can see love, but it’s my love for you,” she whispered, touching the graceful curve of the girl’s naked shoulder. “What do you see?”

For a long time, Cam studied the beautiful woman in the Goya portrait and then the beautiful woman who, praise all the angels, was his wife. As she’d said with her usual perception, the love was clear to see. In both versions of Penelope Rothermere.

Cam hadn’t realized until the painting arrived today that he’d proffered mere gold for something beyond price. A late masterpiece from a transcendent artist. A glimpse at Penelope in those years when she’d been lost to Cam.

He still shuddered to think that if chance had played differently, she might never have worked her way back to him.

“I see a lovely girl,” he said slowly.

She glanced at him. “You’re not shocked? After all, I’m one fur stole away from naked.”

He shrugged. “Only a prurient mind would see sin here.”

In the days when Pen’s escapades had tormented him with jealousy, he’d devoted too much time to imagining the wanton images on this canvas. But despite the amount of perfect white skin displayed against the shadowy background, the woman radiated an innocence that vanquished criticism. If Cam had seen this portrait before he’d married Pen, her virginity wouldn’t have been a surprise.

Pen kept her back to the viewer. Sable draped diagonally from one upper arm to her hips, baring her to the small of her back. She’d drawn her black hair in a rope across her shoulder to reveal the tender nape of her neck.

She turned to stare out of the frame, eyes huge and glowing, lips parted on a breath. The old painter had caught so much of Penelope. Her defiance. Her intelligence. Her sweetness.

And something else.

“Look at the painting.”

With a puzzled frown, she obeyed. “What is it?”

Cam stared unwaveringly at the real Pen, curling his arm around her shoulders. “What do you see?”

Pen took a long time to answer. “I see a woman in love. Isn’t that what you see?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t in love with Goya.”

“No, you were in love with me.” He said it without gloating, although her love always made him feel like the luckiest devil alive. “What else?”

He felt her start as she saw it. “The girl in the painting is in love, but she has no hope of happiness.”

“That’s it,” he said on a long hiss of satisfaction that she understood.

The shining eyes of the girl in the portrait were sad. How had Goya captured the truth hidden from Cam until it was almost too late? A mystery of genius, he supposed. But the great Spanish painter had known that Penelope Thorne was young and beautiful and brimming with spirit. And desperately in love with someone who didn’t care.

Cam crossed to the dressing table to retrieve the heavy silver mirror from his mother’s brush set. He returned to Pen’s side. “Look in the mirror.”

For a long time, Pen stared at her reflection. Then she turned unsmiling to Cam. “Now I know what it is to love and be loved.”

“You do.” He paused. “I’ll love you forever.”

Her eyes glistened with tears. “And I have loved you forever.”