tendencies in him to keep her safe. “I will see to it,” he growled low.
“I think we should also consider another scenario. You are the one who has recently returned and everyone knows you have been the heir since January. This assassin may have been following you and your lady friend had the unfortunate luck of being a target by association or simply accident.”
“Any of those scenarios fit Julian. I don’t need to tell you that strange deaths of the males in my family recently give me pause.”
“Yes, they may have been the accidents that the witnesses claimed but…”
“…there is a Dukedom to consider.”
“Indeed.”
* * * *
Kathryn had been looking out the window when the mysterious, dark-haired visitor had arrived on horseback. He had stayed for more than an hour and when she heard his horse being brought around, she watched him again from her perch in the window. Even in the deep shadows of the night, with the angles of his face hidden, he looked familiar.
She had seen the man somewhere before.
But how was that possible? She had only been here in this place for less than twenty-four hours and at Michael’s for twelve hours. Though it did seem more like several days since this very first one had been so full.
But that man was very familiar. He reminded her in dress and carriage of a dark looking, slimmer Michael, but he was also Mediterranean with olive skin and wavy silk hair black as night. Like someone who had a French parent or parents. She could imagine the visitor as a spy, sleek, dark, dangerous, and maybe even a little wicked.
But none of that made him familiar. It was something she had actually seen before with her own eyes. She thought of the painting.
Maybe it was him. The period would be correct. She retrieved the 61
Duke of Her Dreams – Olivia Ritch
painting from the spot she had hidden it in the desk and was struck literally with the force of recognition.
Michael .
Kathryn’s brain began working in overdrive putting the pieces together. Michael and his first wife Catherine had been unhappily married in approximately 1810 or 1811 so she thought based on the snippets from her conversation with Cassandra. Here she was in what she now knew to be an estate near Wilton in the year 1816. Kathryn’s breath caught and she looked closer at the image of the man while her mind’s eye added definition, angles, and texture and light and a raised brow to the plain painted face. She added color to his skin and a slight curl of the lips and she saw him clearly for the first time.
The painting was of Michael.
How had she not realized it before? It had not been until she saw the dashing French spy look-alike in person that she had revisited the people in the picture. Now that she could recall all four of the paintings, there had indeed been a dark-haired stunner who very much resembled the man who had just ridden off. There was also her favorite of the mounted Cavalry officer, the sour couple she had purchased and a fourth. It was of a man with hounds, a more jovial looking blonder version of the other three. The Frenchman had stood, posed on his hearth with a sword.
As all of the confusion and frustration and unanswered questions of the morning coalesced into one unbelievable theory, she concluded that her presence here must be due to the painting. It was a most bizarre, unrealistic, crazy, insane…could she keep on going…theory but it was the only one that explained why she had been found and rescued by the man whose picture she had bought. Had he needed her? Did someone need her help and had she somehow been brought here by magic or conjuring. Did he have powers or was it just the power of one little magic painting?
And were the other paintings magic and were they here? Hope, thrill, and excitement grew, meshing with determination until she fairly burst from her room to search out the other artwork. This time, she didn’t crash into her tall, firmly built host as she hurried
“I think we should also consider another scenario. You are the one who has recently returned and everyone knows you have been the heir since January. This assassin may have been following you and your lady friend had the unfortunate luck of being a target by association or simply accident.”
“Any of those scenarios fit Julian. I don’t need to tell you that strange deaths of the males in my family recently give me pause.”
“Yes, they may have been the accidents that the witnesses claimed but…”
“…there is a Dukedom to consider.”
“Indeed.”
* * * *
Kathryn had been looking out the window when the mysterious, dark-haired visitor had arrived on horseback. He had stayed for more than an hour and when she heard his horse being brought around, she watched him again from her perch in the window. Even in the deep shadows of the night, with the angles of his face hidden, he looked familiar.
She had seen the man somewhere before.
But how was that possible? She had only been here in this place for less than twenty-four hours and at Michael’s for twelve hours. Though it did seem more like several days since this very first one had been so full.
But that man was very familiar. He reminded her in dress and carriage of a dark looking, slimmer Michael, but he was also Mediterranean with olive skin and wavy silk hair black as night. Like someone who had a French parent or parents. She could imagine the visitor as a spy, sleek, dark, dangerous, and maybe even a little wicked.
But none of that made him familiar. It was something she had actually seen before with her own eyes. She thought of the painting.
Maybe it was him. The period would be correct. She retrieved the 61
Duke of Her Dreams – Olivia Ritch
painting from the spot she had hidden it in the desk and was struck literally with the force of recognition.
Michael .
Kathryn’s brain began working in overdrive putting the pieces together. Michael and his first wife Catherine had been unhappily married in approximately 1810 or 1811 so she thought based on the snippets from her conversation with Cassandra. Here she was in what she now knew to be an estate near Wilton in the year 1816. Kathryn’s breath caught and she looked closer at the image of the man while her mind’s eye added definition, angles, and texture and light and a raised brow to the plain painted face. She added color to his skin and a slight curl of the lips and she saw him clearly for the first time.
The painting was of Michael.
How had she not realized it before? It had not been until she saw the dashing French spy look-alike in person that she had revisited the people in the picture. Now that she could recall all four of the paintings, there had indeed been a dark-haired stunner who very much resembled the man who had just ridden off. There was also her favorite of the mounted Cavalry officer, the sour couple she had purchased and a fourth. It was of a man with hounds, a more jovial looking blonder version of the other three. The Frenchman had stood, posed on his hearth with a sword.
As all of the confusion and frustration and unanswered questions of the morning coalesced into one unbelievable theory, she concluded that her presence here must be due to the painting. It was a most bizarre, unrealistic, crazy, insane…could she keep on going…theory but it was the only one that explained why she had been found and rescued by the man whose picture she had bought. Had he needed her? Did someone need her help and had she somehow been brought here by magic or conjuring. Did he have powers or was it just the power of one little magic painting?
And were the other paintings magic and were they here? Hope, thrill, and excitement grew, meshing with determination until she fairly burst from her room to search out the other artwork. This time, she didn’t crash into her tall, firmly built host as she hurried
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