Chapter 13
The following morning at The Royal Academy
There was something to be said about a dashing gentleman forever frozen in time and neatly captured in a canvas. Not only could the gentleman be ogled in blatant regard, but one could, at the same time, imagine the gentleman to be the most charming of characters.
Willow was by no means an expert in art. She could hardly explain what she found appealing in any given piece that caught her fancy. Neither was she a dilettante but she did find there was something peaceful about admiring good art. For the most part, she just liked to browse over portraits to marvel at how talented the artists that painted them were—she never tired of the amount of detail they managed to express in their work.
Today, howbeit, Willow just wanted to clear her mind, and nothing opens your mental faculties and carries you away like visiting an art gallery. Alas, that was proving impossible to do.
Because her husband had decided to accompany her.
Willow cast a sidelong glance at him.
Must the man look so dashing? Like the gentleman in the portrait she was inspecting, he bled confidence and male arrogance. Unlike that man, who was leaning against a giant pillar with a charming smile, the duke was as stiff as a tree trunk.
Willow’s gaze traveled over his clenched jaw before dropping to his hands. They weren’t clenched, but there was a twitch in his thumb that belied his restlessness. The picture of a grouchy male.
A sudden urge to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him assailed her. These days she was confronted with many such urges, so she’d become quite the expert in brushing them aside.
Her head swiveled back to the painting, her breathing shallow. Brushing them aside did not mean she was free of their effects.
Willow knew better than to fantasize about her husband. Unfortunately, regardless of all his faults, the man was tempting as sin. It was hard not to daydream and give in to bouts of hot fantasies when around him.
She snuck another peek and found his cool black eyes staring back at her.
“Do you not enjoy art?” Willow asked. Because really, she couldn’t just glance away now that he had caught her stealing lingering glances at him. And honestly, he ought to have remained home if he was only going to sulk about.
“It’s crowded.” His brooding eyes flicked beyond her to the painting she had been admiring. “And how long can one stare at Viscount Granville Leveson-Gower?”
Willow’s gaze traveled back to the portrait.Thatwas Viscount Granville? She regarded the man in a new light. She would never have guessed.
“The man’s a stuffed-shirt.”
Willow shot her husband a look that saidlook who’s talking. “I believe this was painted while he served as an Ambassador in Russia.”
“Remarkable.”
“He worked himself up from a second son to a titled peer,” she pointed out, bemused. “That is something.”
“And here I thought the man could not become any staler.”
Willow bit back a smile, and then felt him tense when a trio of giggling ladies passed them. She turned to him and asked, “Why did you accompany me if you knew you’d be miserable?”
“I’m not miserable. I just don’t find pleasure in gawking at paintings of men.”
“Your posture is stiff, you are clenching your jaw, and you have a twitch in your fingers—all signs of being utterly miserable.”
“Perhaps I did not wish to deprive myself of the company of my bewitching wife?”
“But what you mean to say is that you did not wish to take the chance of me slipping away to meet my sister.”
“Were you going to meet your sister?” Black eyes scrutinized hers.
“I came to enjoy the art, Ambrose.” Willow paused. “Believe it or not, I do possess a refined appreciation for culture.”
“Of course you do.”
She huffed and moved on to the next portrait. “But the more pertinent question, I suppose, is why you are tolerating an outing you loathe when you could have sent one of your lackeys to follow me around?”
