This was not, she told herself, a show of eagerness. It was simply the practical consequence of having woken at half past five and finding continued sleep entirely unconvincing as an occupation. She had dressed without her maid—she was used to getting dressed on her own because over the course of the last several weeks she’d readied herself for the late-night excursions with the Duke—in a plain dark pelisse and her most sensible half-boots. Caroline had left the house while the upstairs corridor was still quiet and the kitchen had only just begun its first noise.
The park in the early morning was a different country from the park at the fashionable hour. The paths were largely empty except for a groom exercising a grey mare, a woman walking two dogs whose enthusiasm considerably outpaced their owner’s pace, and a gardener moving between the beds with the unhurried purpose of someone who had settled his priorities before sunrise.
The air had the clean, particular quality of March mornings, still carrying winter’s edge but with something underneath it, faint and decided, that communicated that the cold was losing the argument.
She had arrived first. She established this, noted it, and declined to examine what it communicated.
He appeared at four minutes past seven, from the direction of the east path, in a dark coat and no hat, walking with the particular, contained purpose she had come to recognize as his version of apparent ease. The Duke’s walk was meant to convey that he was going somewhere and had decided not to appear to be going there with any urgency.
He saw her immediately. He did not slow, but did not quicken his pace, either. He arrived at the gate and stopped at a distance that conversation permitted without attracting commentary.
“You are early,” he said.
“You are late,” she returned.
Something moved in the corner of his mouth. He looked at the path rather than at her, briefly, which was a thing he had not done as often before the circus; before that, he had generally met her eyes directly, with the unhurried attention of a man who had decided she was worth the effort of full regard.
This version, the looking-sideways, the slight tension in his jaw, was new, or at least newly frequent, and she found she did not care for it.
“I wanted to speak with you,” he said.
“Your note indicated as much.” She kept her voice even. “You mentioned a matter we needed to discuss.”
“Yes.” He turned his coat collar once in his hands, which was the gesture she had identified, weeks ago, as his equivalent of hesitation, the gesture of a man who had decided to say something and was conducting a final inspection of the decision before proceeding. “Your brother is moving forward with Ashby.”
“I am aware.”
“He mentioned it at White’s yesterday.” Anthony looked at the path. “He is serious about it. More so than the others. He told me he has already had Ashby’s estate affairs reviewed.” A brief pause. “It will not be long before the formal question is put.”
Caroline said nothing. A sparrow landed on the path two feet ahead of them and regarded them with the frank, unconcerned attention of a creature who had arrived at the conclusion that most human business was not worth the bother. Then it departed.
“Given that,” Anthony said, “I thought it worth raising the question of whether we should conclude the arrangement between us.” He said it in the even, neutral register, but it was something in his expression that unsettled her. His thick brows drew together slightly, his jaw tightening. He looked like, though he was the one making the suggestion, he would be disappointed if she agreed. “You have completed five of the six items. The list is effectively done then.”
“No,” she said sharply.
He stared at her, as though surprised she would press the issue.
“There are six items on the list,” she said. “Five have been completed.” She met his eyes directly. “The sixth has not.”
He looked at her with the expression he wore when she had said something he had not prepared for and was recalibrating. It lasted only a moment before he managed it.
“The sixth item,” he said, “is?—”
“The sixth item is to paint a naked man,” she said, with the plain precision of someone completing an administrative clarification. “Which has not, to my knowledge, occurred.”
His jaw tightened. “Caroline.”
“You said you would help me with this endeavor,” she said smartly. “The list is not complete. Therefore, the arrangement is not complete.”
She kept her tone entirely practical, because admitting that she had reached for the list the way a drowning person reached for a rope, not because it was the point but because it was the nearest available thing to hold onto, was not something she was ready to do in a public park at seven in the morning.
“If you wish to renege on what you agreed to, that is your prerogative. But I will complete the list regardless.”
He went very still.
It was the particular stillness she had observed once before: at the gaming hell, when the man in the black mask had directed his attention at her, and Anthony had placed his hand at her waist without a word. His stillness was that of a man who had reached a line and recognized it.
“If I do not pose for you, who will be your subject?” he asked, half-growling, the neutrality now gone.