When a Duke Says I Do Read Online Free PDF

and wanted to surprise Miss Elizabeth with the final creation. Elsie had been slightly amused, knowing precisely why no one was allowed into the room, but she remained silent. There was something about his assistant, a compelling combination of strength and vulnerability that made her want to protect him.
    It had been two nights since she’d discovered Monsieur’s secret. She found it was beyond her control not to peek into the room, knowing Alexander was hard at work on her mural. Besides, she liked the company, such as it was, in these lonely, dark hours when the rest of the world lay asleep. Her bare feet were soundless as she walked across the cool marble, and she was about to reach for the door when an odd sound stopped her cold. Her entire body became attuned to a noise coming from within the ballroom that sounded painfully familiar.
    Silently, she opened the door, hardly daring to breathe, until she could better hear the heartrending sound of a man’s despair. Alexander stood, one arm straight against the mural wall, one hand dangling, fisted tightly, by his side, his head bent, his body shaking. He was weeping.
    She could not count how many times she had heard such a sound coming from her father’s room, the quiet agony of a man whose heart was breaking but who was trying desperately not to let anyone know.
    In a moment, Elsie was by his side, looking helplessly up at him as he stared with anguish at the wall. “Alexander, what is it?”
    He startled, as if he hadn’t sensed her there, then rubbed his face against his sleeve in one quick motion.
    “Are you all right? Is there something I can get for you? Monsieur?”
    He shook his head, his cheeks suddenly ruddy with embarrassment or perhaps anger that she’d discovered him in his weakness. He didn’t look at her, still stared at the wall, and finally, Elsie followed his gaze and gasped.
    “Oh,” she breathed, taking in what he’d drawn in fine detail. Two little boys climbed up the rock, the smaller one holding out a sturdy hand to help up the bigger lad. It was the expressions that were so moving; that little boy’s eagerness tinged with hero-worship, the older one’s accepting help he probably didn’t need. It was there, in a few finely executed lines of charcoal, living, breathing boys that she could almost hear; she could almost picture the water glistening on their skinny little bodies.
    “My goodness,” she said, staring in disbelief at the drawing. She knew it would be even more magnificent when he painted the scene. It was almost painfully beautiful. No wonder it brought him to tears, for there was something about those boys that tore at the heart, some intangible quality she couldn’t define. “They’re beautiful, Alexander.”
    He looked at her sharply, then almost as quickly looked back to the mural with a strange intensity. Elsie stared at his profile, and realized she was in the presence of a masculine beauty she’d never before seen. His jaw was well-defined, sharp and finely sculpted, his nose aristocratic, his mouth almost too perfect, as if an unattainable ideal manufactured by an artist. His cheeks, still slightly damp from his tears, were ruddy, and his eyes, which stared so intently at the wall in front of him, were framed by a strong brow and shadowed by thick, straight lashes.
    “I shall never tell your secret,” she said fervently, wanting to put an end to some of his torture. “And I’ll tell you why. First, I made a promise to you, one that I will honor. Second, if I did reveal your secret, my beautiful mural would never be finished.”
    He seemed to relax, but still made no move to continue working. Always when she spoke to him directly, he seemed to tense, as if her words were battering him and he was bracing himself for the blows. Elsie suspected she made him nervous, that he was not used to working in front of clients.
    “Do you mind my visits? I imagine it gets rather lonely here working by yourself. Do you wish