Length8h 30m
About this audiobook
Julian Ashworth has read the letter three times, each pass a fresh humiliation. *Your father's notes fall due on the first of May. I trust the Ashworth honour will prove more durable than the Ashworth credit.*
He touches the corner to the candle flame and holds it until the heat kisses his thumb, then drops it into the grate with the rest of the morning's correspondence: three bills, one threatening, one polite, one already six months old.
The clock strikes nine. He straightens his waistcoat, tucks his cravat higher, checks his reflection in the dark window glass, and looks just long enough to be certain the mask is holding.
The ballroom has not been used for dancing since his mother died. The chandeliers are still wrapped in Holland cloth. Somebody has set an easel in the middle of the parquet, and a stool with a faded red cushion, and there is no painter beside them, because the appointment was for eight.
Owen Dalrymple arrives at a quarter past nine with a satchel in one hand, a canvas under paper in the other, hair the colour of new rust escaping its tie, a smear of green along his jaw, and no apology whatsoever.
*"Would you like a portrait that looks like you, or a portrait painted at the appointed hour?"*
Julian sits, because arguing would make him petty, and lifts his chin to the angle he practised in the mirror. Owen draws something else entirely, and will not paint the man in the mirror, and says so.
The portrait is not vanity. It is for Lady Margaret Denby's mother to approve his suit, because Julian has one month to find a wife, and the Denby fortune is the only thing standing between Ashworth Hall and a moneylender on Lombard Street whose card reads *Discretion assured.*
Philip Ashworth arrives precisely on time, the way he always does when he wants something, with a smile fixed on his round face like a mask painted onto wood, and lists for Julian exactly how hollow the title is and exactly what happens when he fails.
Then letters that Julian burned turn out not to have been burned, and somebody knows what is in them.
A historical romance between two men across one London Season: an heir keeping a house upright with posture and a properly tied cravat, a painter who works when the light is right and not before, an engagement supper that nobody at the table means, and a choice between a marriage that solves everything and a life that does not. The romance is closed-door.
Audiobook details
GenreRomance, Biography and Memoir
Length8 hrs 30 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 15, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Chapter 1 - The Portrait That Sees Everything
2Chapter 2 - The Lie I Wear Like Skin
3Chapter 3 - The Enemy Within
4Chapter 4 - The Taste of Paint and Honesty
5Chapter 5 - The Wall That Shows the Crack
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6Chapter 6 - The Mask That Frees the Soul
7Chapter 7 - The Echo of a Mistake
8Chapter 8 - The Love Note That Burns Twice
9Chapter 9 - The Debt Collector’s Whisper
10Chapter 10 - The Rival’s Game
11Chapter 11 - The Proposal That Smells of Desperation
12Chapter 12 - The Artist Who Paints the Truth
13Chapter 13 - The Engagement Supper
14Chapter 14 - The Confession That Breaks the Cage
15Chapter 15 - The Betrayal at Midnight
16Chapter 16 - The Gilded Chain
17Chapter 17 - The Artist in the Shadows
18Chapter 18 - The Gaze That Does Not Lie
19Chapter 19 - The Rumor Takes Root
20Chapter 20 - The Ultimatum at Dawn
21Chapter 21 - The Last Sitting
22Chapter 22 - The Vow That Traps Two Hearts
23Chapter 23 - The Fall
24Chapter 24 - The Grand Gesture in Mud and Blood
25Chapter 25 - The Estate in Ashes
26Chapter 26 - The Painter’s Farewell to England
27Chapter 27 - The Crossing
28Chapter 28 - The Truth in Oil and Color
29The End
30About the Author
31Also by Devyn Frost
32Acknowledgements
33A Note from the Author
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