Page 33 of Courting the Wrong Duke

Then, after a brief pause, his expression softened.

“My late father believed that a nation reveals itself not merely through its victories or its commerce, but through the works it chooses to preserve. He taught my brother and me that paintings are more than decoration. They are memory. They remind us who we were, who we are, and who we might yet become.”

For the first time that evening, the room fell completely still.

When Algernon concluded, warm applause echoed throughout the gallery.

As he stepped down, Augusta reached quietly for his hand.

Her fingers closed around his.

Algernon acknowledged the gesture with the slightest turn of his head, yet his own hand remained perfectly still at his side.

It was such a small thing that William doubted anyone else noticed.

He almost dismissed it himself.

The applause gradually dissolved into conversation as guests dispersed through the adjoining galleries. Some lingered near the historical canvases, while others drifted toward portraits or landscapes, the steady murmur of admiration and polite debate filling the rooms once more.

William caught Rosalind's eye across the gallery.

Without speaking, he inclined his head toward one of the smaller exhibition rooms branching from the main hall. It was quieter there, its walls devoted almost entirely to landscapes that attracted fewer admirers than the grand historical pieces.

For a moment she merely regarded him.

Then, with the slightest inclination of her own head, she understood.

She murmured something to Lady Eastmere before crossing the gallery with Isabella at her side.

William deliberately slowed his pace, allowing Gabriel and Isabella to reach the first landscape ahead of them.

“I always envied painters,” Gabriel remarked, studying the broad sweep of hills and sky before him. “When I was younger, I thought I should like to become one.”

Isabella smiled. “I should never wish to be painted.”

Gabriel glanced at her with quiet curiosity. “No?”

“No.” She folded her hands loosely before her. “I would far rather be the one holding the brush.”

His brows lifted. “You paint?”

“I do.”

“I confess that surprises me.”

“That,” Isabella replied with a smile, “is because gentlemen generally imagine women make better subjects than artists.”

Rather than laughing, Gabriel considered the remark with unexpected sincerity. “I suspect there is some truth in that.”

His attention returned to the painting. “There is something strangely familiar about this one.”

Isabella studied the landscape for a moment before nodding. “There is.”

“I cannot decide whether I have seen it before.”

“Perhaps you have.” A teasing smile touched her lips. “Or perhaps landscapes simply have the advantage of being allowed to differ from one another.”

Gabriel looked at her. “Unlike portraits?”