Page 49 of A Family Bargain with the Duke

CHAPTER 22

Julian found the drawing propped against his inkstand the following morning, before the household had properly woken, before the first of the day’s correspondence had been brought into the study.

Four figures, rendered in Kit’s careful, patient charcoal. Julian himself, unmistakable in the set of his shoulders. Louisa beside him, with Eleanor cradled in her arms, her head tipped slightly toward the baby the way she so often held it.

And Kit, standing close at Louisa’s other side, close enough that his sleeve brushed her skirts, drawn with the small, deliberate care of a child who had placed himself in the picture without a single moment’s hesitation over whether he belonged there.

“Well,” he murmured to the empty room, the ghost of a smile touching his lips. “I suppose that settles the matter.”

He was not entirely certain which matter Kit imagined himself to have settled. Perhaps none at all. Children, after all, possessed a remarkable habit of drawing the world precisely as they believed it to be.

Julian found himself looking longest at the space between his own figure and Louisa’s. Kit had left scarcely any distance between them, as though it had never occurred to him that there ought to be.

He let out a slow breath and set the drawing back against the inkstand.

It remained there as he worked through the morning’s correspondence, constantly drawing his eye. More than once, he reached for a letter only to find himself looking back at the charcoal figures instead.

Eventually, he gave up pretending it was a distraction. He rather liked having it there.

Dominic arrived a little past three that afternoon, unannounced as he usually was, and let himself into the study with the same easy familiarity of two decades’ habit, dropping into the chair opposite Julian’s desk before he had even properly greeted him.

“You look busy. Good. I shall interrupt you regardless.” He reached for the brandy, poured himself a measure, and had just settled back with it when his eyes landed on the drawing still propped against the inkstand. His eyebrows rose, slow and deliberate.

“Do not say a word.”

“I have not said anything yet.” Dominic’s mouth twitched, fighting a grin he was making very little effort to properly suppress. “Though I confess the restraint is costing me more than you might imagine.”

“Then continue exercising it.”

“I am a man of considerable discipline, Julian, when the occasion calls for it.”

“Your confidence in my worst impulses wounds me.”

“It has been earned over many years.”

“Fair.” Julian returned to the ledger before him.

“I should like the record to show that I have behaved with remarkable restraint.”

“You have been in the room less than a minute.”

“Precisely. An excellent beginning.”

Julian gave a quiet huff that almost sounded like a laugh.

Dominic leaned back in his chair, swirling the brandy in his glass. “For instance, I have not observed that the drawing takes pride of place on your desk.”

Julian continued reading.

“Nor have I remarked on the fact that it appears to have replaced the dispatches from the Home Office.”

“It has done no such thing.”

“No? Then why can I scarcely see the dispatches?”

Julian looked up at last. “Because your eyesight is failing.”

“Cruel.”