Lady Jenny's Christmas Portrait (14 page)

Or something. Her brain was having difficulty extracting meaning from words, and the whisky was not to blame. The fault lay in Elijah Harrison’s hands, in his voice, in his kisses.

“Your hair takes my breath away, Genevieve.”

Not his words, but the look on his face—awestruck, reverent,
aroused
—made Jenny shake her head, letting her hair fall in disarray down her back.

He brought fistfuls of gold forward over her shoulders and buried his face in the abundance of it. “If I live to be a hundred, the scent of jasmine will bring me back to this moment.”

If she lived to be a hundred, how would she recall the memory of straddling Elijah’s lap, of learning his taste and scent, of wanting him so intensely that desire eclipsed all in her awareness?

“When I’m in Paris, I will miss you, Elijah. If I live to be a hundred, I will miss you.”

Something passed through his eyes. Anger, maybe, that she’d remind them both their pleasures were stolen and temporary. That was good, that he’d be angry and not relieved.

“Let me give you something more to miss—or recall fondly.”

As she had done the previous night, he used a single finger to nudge fabric aside and reveal flesh. He didn’t touch her; he let the silk of her nightgown caress the slopes of her breasts until she was exposed to him.

She’d liked the position he’d put her in, once she’d gotten used to it. Sitting on his lap, facing him, astride him, she’d felt as if she had superior control and he was pinned to his fate.

He could not get away unless she allowed it, or so she’d thought.

But her position also meant he could study her breasts, trace blue veins with a fingertip, watch as her nipples ruched up in welcome—and she could watch him studying her.

“Thou art more lovely…”

He was quoting from somewhere; Jenny could not think where. His hands cupped her breasts, bringing warmth and wanting in equally generous measures.

“Before…” Jenny struggled for words. She put her hands over his, so he would not leave her bereft of his touch.

He leaned closer, ran his nose up her sternum. “When you were sixteen?”

Brilliant man, to read her thoughts so easily. She nodded. “I never… he never…”

He cast her a look full of sadness and understanding. “You remained clothed.”

Another nod. Jenny closed her eyes, the better to savor Elijah’s touch. That Denby hadn’t seen her like this was cause for rejoicing, not regret, but that she hadn’t known this… this
wonderment
, this cherishing caress, was a sorrow.

Elijah’s hands left her. She did not open her eyes because Jenny could feel his gaze yet on her, and then… her nightgown drifted off her shoulders, leaving her entirely, wonderfully naked.

“You are glorious, Genevieve.”

She
felt
glorious, not wanton, not wicked, but passionate and wholly, completely appreciated by the man who’d untied all of her remaining bows.

He anchored a hand in her hair and tilted her head for his kisses.

“
Yes
…” Kissing was a wonderful idea. Kissing let her revel in his hair, his lips, his tongue. She sank closer to Elijah, her sex coming against the ridge in his breeches that assured her he shared her wonder.

“Elijah, please…” She got a hand between them, groping the length of his erection. “You… naked… too.”

She had missed the sight of his nudity. Missed the privilege of regarding him as God had made him, even as at each class, she’d wanted to cover him up and keep him for her private perusal.

“Genevieve, love,
no
.”

“No” was just a sound made by a man who didn’t understand what was needful. “No” was a syllable, a pair of random letters… Elijah’s hand over Jenny’s was not as easily ignored.

“No? Elijah? No? I’m sitting here without a stitch on—”

He stopped an incredulous tirade as well as a shameless spate of begging by the simple expedient of closing his fingers around her nipples. “Trust me, Genevieve. I’m saying ‘yes’ to your passion, but ‘no’ to complete folly.”

She had not the first idea what he was nattering on about, for the term “struck by Cupid’s arrow” had only at that moment become clear in her mind—and in her body. Animal need bolted from her breasts to her womb, swifter than arrows and more piercing.

Jenny arched into his hands. “Do that again.”

He obliged, slowly closing his grip on her nipples, as if the dratted man had eons to explore her responses… which thought made her a little less desperate. “Again, please.”

While Jenny tried not to pant, Elijah experimented with rhythm and pressure, and then—she did pant—with his mouth. She hung over him, helpless, as he teethed, suckled, soothed, and inflamed by turns.

And somewhere amid this conflagration, Elijah had slipped both hands down to cup her derriere and abetted her in establishing a slow rocking of her hips.

“I hate your damned breeches,” she muttered against his teeth. “But I love the feel of you.”

Yes, she had spoken those words aloud, and Elijah had comprehended them, because he lifted up, pushing his cock against her sex in a manner that astonished for the havoc it created, even through his damned, dratted, perishing,
bloody
breeches.

“Let go, Genevieve. Stop trying to manage everything. Trust me, and let go.”

Even last night, when he’d all but pushed her from his rooms, he hadn’t sounded that desperate, that… passionate. The threat in his voice of unbearable pleasure reverberated through Jenny’s body and gave her permission to obey him.

She took shameless advantage of his generosity, grinding down on him, pushing her breast into his hand, consuming him in a kiss turned wet and devouringly voluptuous.

His hand stroked over her thigh, another first—nobody touched her there; she didn’t even touch herself—

That big, warm hand moved higher, until the backs of his fingers brushed against the curls at the juncture of her legs. Jenny didn’t stop moving, but she shifted her hips to leave Elijah room to maneuver, to brush his thumb down, and down some more.

“Elijah…” She hissed his name as a bonfire of tension lit inside her at his caress.

“Let. Go.”

He did it again, just right, then again and again harder, better than just right, and the bonfire became a lightning strike of wrenching, white-hot, consuming, inescapable pleasure. When it ebbed, Jenny was draped over Elijah’s shoulders, her lungs heaving, and her body that of a stranger.

He shifted, moved a leg, then an arm. Jenny was desperate for him not to set her aside, but could not bestir herself even to cling to him.

“Not yet.” She whimpered this plea—she’d intended a stout command—to the muscles of his shoulder.

Her dressing gown wafted around her shoulders, cool, soft, and comforting. Elijah pulled it close, and thus pulled her close too. “Hush. Settle.”

One could not settle a puzzle whose pieces were cast to the winds. One could not settle a heart fractured along cracks both old and new. One could not…

Elijah’s hand landed in her hair, a smooth, sweet caress, and Jenny found she could settle her breathing. When she woke up, Elijah was still stroking her hair, but the world, the entire universe had shifted off its axis.

Her siblings’ marriages took on a different hue. Procreation became a matter of more than biblical duty. The way the duke smiled at his duchess took on a sharper focus.

And years and years in Paris, even years painting any subject she pleased, became a lonelier and even bewildering prospect.

Genevieve Windham was brilliant.

She’d seen promise in the sketch of the boy with the old hound, while Elijah had dismissed the effort as unorthodox and off balance. The issue became how to get both boys into the hound’s ambit, and create an image so perfectly composed it appeared spontaneous.

“We wondered if you might start without us.” The lady herself appeared in Elijah’s studio, William affixed to her hip, Kit grasping her hand.

She’d brought the children herself, no harried nursemaid in tow, and the tableau of Genevieve with the children did something queer to Elijah’s insides.

“Good morning, my lady.” He offered her as cordial a bow as he knew how to give, which was cordial indeed. Considering her lack of intimate experience, he hadn’t expected her to risk his company over the breakfast table, but he had wondered if she’d brave the studio today. “You are looking exceptionally well this morning.”

She set William down, and the boy predictably charged over to the hound dozing by the hearth. “Jock! Ride!”

The dog sighed. Kit dropped his aunt’s hand. “Can we wreck the card houses today, Aunt Jen?”

“We’ll see.” She watched Elijah as if he were about to pounce on her, which would have served nicely had the children not been present.

“I missed you at breakfast, my lady.” He could not have told her what he’d eaten, because he’d been so busy staring at the doorway and willing her to appear in it.

The light in her eyes shifted, became less guarded. “I missed breakfast. I slept late, so I took a tray.”

Last night, she’d said she’d miss him too, when she went to blasted, bedamned Paris. Her ambition had apparently coalesced into determination, and yet, he could not allow her to go to Paris.

This thought—this
fact
—had crystallized in his mind before he’d drifted off to sleep. He’d escorted her to her room—a mere three doors down the guest wing corridor—taken himself to bed, then tended to his own needs within five minutes of kissing her good night.

The relief had been temporary and inadequate, and as he lay among the pillows and covers, he’d come to the conclusion that Jenny Windham had nowhere near the sophistication needed to manage the predators lurking among the artists of Paris.

And yet, she’d hate him did he thwart her scheme.

“Maybe I could take a turn building the house of cards,” Elijah suggested. “Though I would, of course, need an assistant.”

“Me!” Kit yodeled.

Lady Jenny was indeed an experienced aunt. She affected a pout. “And then what am I to do? You fellows will have your fun, and I shall be left to sit by myself, with nothing to do, all alone, not even Jock to play with—”

“C’mon, Aunt Jen. I’ll help you too.”

Elijah suggested Kit choose the cards, making sure that knaves were paired with knaves, and queens with queens, and Jenny was to build the structure. William mounted up on his sleeping canine steed and sang a happy-little-boy tune no composer would recognize and no parent would mistake.

As William took up the reins of Jock’s ears, Elijah sat on the raised hearthstones and sketched. Excitement hummed along in his veins, a visceral recognition that he’d found the arrangement that would make a worthy portrait.

The point of view was only slightly from above, so that the shining crown of Jenny’s head was in evidence as she bent to peer over Kit’s shoulder. The feel of the angle was intimate, though, a child’s-level view of a relaxed morning.

Lines and shadows arranged themselves into a small boy’s smile and a sleeping dog’s contentment. While the fire crackled cheerily, the house of cards steadily grew, and Genevieve Windham’s hands became a subtle point of interest in the sketch.

When she sat back to admire her little card palace, Elijah caught her smile—loving, but always a bit wistful when in company with the children. He caught the way the boys looked at her too. They adored this relation who was as pretty as their mama, and never quite so stern. They adored her humor and affection, her gentleness, and her abiding regard for them.

The house of cards rose higher. Jock’s back leg twitched as he dreamed his doggy dreams, and William left off riding his gallant steed long enough to accept the knave of spades from his brother.

“Careful,” Jenny cautioned. “William is going to want to—”

On a gleeful cry from William, the knave went sailing into the upper stories of the palace, destroying twenty minutes of careful work.

William clapped his chubby hands then turned to Elijah, arms outstretched. “I-unt-up!”

The palace rose and fell several more times, Jock rolled over, and Elijah completed a detailed sketch of Jenny with her nephews. William occasionally supervised from Elijah’s side, then toddled forth to wreak destruction like a one-boy Vandal horde.

Jenny presided over it all from her spot on the rug, a serene, smiling presence with endless patience for busy little boys and their portraitist.

She would be wasted on Paris. Elijah started another sketch on the strength of that conclusion, a study of Jenny’s face as she regarded Kit’s efforts to find “an ace with a blood-colored diamond” on it.

Her smile, indulgent, tender, and yearning, said she even loved the child’s choice of words.

The door opened, something Elijah perceived with the part of his brain set aside for keeping track of matters not related to his sketch, like a porter’s nook in the front chamber of a grand house.

“Beg pardon, your ladyship. Shall I be taking the boys now?”

The nursemaid’s arrival would have been cause for much relief the day or two previous. “Another moment,” Elijah muttered, pencil flying.

“Soon, Norquist,” Lady Jenny said. “We were about to finish up.”

As he forced himself to retreat from the world of his sketch, Elijah realized the boys were trying to start a squabble over some lower order of card—a three?

“I-unts” became increasingly vocal, interspersed with “It’s not your
turn
,” until Elijah had to set his drawing aside and scoop William up in his arms.

“What you want,” he informed the child, “is a stout tickling.” He scratched lightly at the boy’s round tummy, provoking peals of merriment. William’s laughter, surprisingly hearty coming from so small a body, sounded to Elijah exactly as Prudholm’s had when that worthy was still small enough to tease and tickle like this.

“Elijah…” Jenny’s tone bore patience and a warning.

Don’t get the little ones all wound up, Elijah. You’re the oldest, and they look to you for an example of proper decorum.

He lifted the happy little fellow up over his head and slowly lowered him. “Enough, my lad. Time to go with nurse and have some bread and jam. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Or maybe some of your mama’s delicious stollen. Mmmm.”

“I want some of Mama’s Christmas bread too,” Kit announced. “Come along, Aunt Jen. We’ll share.”

Elijah stood, passed Sweet William off to his nurse, and took Aunt Jen by the hand. “I’m sure your aunt longs to accompany you, Kit, but she must stay here and
help
me
clean
up
this
awful
mess
.”

Kit’s gaze darted to the scattering of cards on the rug. To a small child, a deck held thousands of cards, none of which little hands found easy to stack. Such a pity, that.

“I’ll save you a piece of stollen, Aunt Jen.” Kit took his nurse’s hand and towed her toward the door. “’Bye, Aunt, ’bye, Mr. Harrison.”

“Au revoir,” Elijah murmured. When the door closed, he still had Genevieve firmly by the hand lest she attempt an independent retreat.

“The cards,” she began, turning away.

He swung her back to face him—“Hang the perishing, damned cards”—and kissed her.

“Elijah Harrison!”

He kissed her again, more soundly. “That’s for thinking you needed those children to protect you from me this morning. Which gave you more worry, Genevieve, the idea that I might take liberties, or the notion I could possibly look upon you with indifference by the broad light of day?”

She peered up at him. “Both?”

One syllable held a world of uncertainty, a world of feminine anxiety that Elijah could not bear for her to suffer. He wrapped her in his embrace. “Neither, you daft creature.”

Those words were no kind of reassurance, so Elijah cast around for others while he restored himself in some regard with lungfuls of jasmine scent. “I prosper as an artist, in part, Genevieve, because I’m a sober, hardworking fellow. I make no silly wagers. I rise early and tend to my work. I deliver on every commission I accept. You know this.”

Her arms came around him; her cheek rested against his chest. “I know you are a man.”

If she wasn’t convinced of
that
by now…

“I am a gentleman. I would not take liberties before others.” He fell silent as he realized the door—the very door not ten feet distant—was unlocked. Then, too, a gentleman would not take liberties
at
all
.

Perishing, damned inconvenient business, being a gentleman. He turned her face up to him by virtue of kissing her cheek. “And as for indifference, my dear, I am not capable of it where you are concerned. I rarely show intimate attentions to others, and do not share yours lightly.”

Those were still not the words a woman wanted to hear the morning after encountering the second man with whom she’d been intimate. Elijah knew this. He also knew she was determined to go to Paris, and more effusive sentiments would not be appreciated.

“You did not make love with me, not truly.”

She’d spoken softly, though Elijah heard the bewilderment in her voice—the hurt.

“I wanted to.” He stepped back, because making love with her right here and now was, in the opinion of his breeding organs, an increasingly fine notion. “I went back to my rooms, blew out the candles, thought of you, and committed the sin of Onan.”

The lady knew her Bible, as evidenced by the smile tipping up the corners of her mouth. “You thought of
me
?”

“I could not get the image of you out of my mind, Genevieve. By firelight, your skin is luminous, and your hair…”

She sank onto the hearthstone while Elijah dropped to his knees and started picking up cards. “You have to know you are beautiful. Shall I make a list of your features?”

“I think you already have. Elijah, this is a wonderful picture.”

His morning’s work was in her hands. “It will do, I think. Something about the boys having fun in the same space, but not exactly playing together, works. It’s a brotherly composition.”

Whatever that meant. He was on his hands and knees, turning low cards face up, and pretending not to hang on the next words out of her mouth. His artistic soul teetered between destruction and glory on the strength of her next pronouncements.

“You’ve somehow caught the love, Elijah. I cannot wait to see the finished work.”

He sat back, relief lifting through him in mind and body. “You like it?”

She looked right at him. “I adore this.”

Elijah’s next youngest brother, Joshua, had once careened into him as they skated across a frozen pond. Faster than thought, faster than anything in Elijah’s experience, he’d seen his own skates silhouetted against a blue winter sky, a strange, incomprehensible image. He’d absorbed the perfect blue of the sky in the barest instant before finding himself flat on his back, unable to breathe.

Genevieve’s three little words, fired straight at him—
I
adore
this
—had the same effect. She adored their shared passion, she adored his painting, she quite possibly—he reached a shaking hand for the last card—adored
him
.

He passed her the full deck, rose, and collected his sketch. “I must thank you for all of your patience this morning with the boys. I could never have caught that little tableau were you not in the center of it.”

She took his proffered hand and rose. Whatever she might have said was lost to Elijah when somebody tapped on the door.

He dropped her hand and stepped back. “Come in.”

“Greetings, you two.” Vim, Baron Sindal, stood in the door in all his blond, Viking glory. If he thought it odd the room held neither children nor nursemaid, he did not remark it. “I come with a summons from my baroness. Luncheon is served, and then we’re to hitch up the sleigh and invade Louisa and Joseph’s peace for the afternoon.”

Perhaps that was for the best. Perhaps breathing room was a good idea all around. “Lady Genevieve, enjoy your outing. I’ll make a start on a canvas of this morning’s sketch.”

Sindal winged his arm at Jenny. “There’s a letter waiting for you down in the library, Harrison, and your painting will have to wait. Sophie was very clear that you’re to join us on the outing. She was sure you’d enjoy renewing your acquaintance with Kesmore, and I wouldn’t dream of sparing you my sons’ company when they’re in high spirits.”

He sauntered out with Jenny on his arm, a gracious host about his daily quotient of mischief. When the door clicked shut, Elijah lowered himself to the floor beside the old hound.

“I am not a stupid man, I’ll have you know.”

The dog thumped its tail once.

“I understand what Sindal was saying. He was warning me that no footmen were allowed up here to interrupt our morning’s work with anything so distracting as delivery of the post.”

Another thump, and amid the dog’s wrinkles, two sad, sagacious brown eyes opened.

“He was telling me he’s on to us, which probably equates to a warning that he’ll break my fingers if I trifle with his wife’s sister. He did not ask about the portrait. Neither he nor his lady nor old Rothgreb himself have inquired once about the portrait.”

In which, according to Genevieve, Elijah had “caught the love.”

He picked up his sketch. “She adores me. Said almost as much in plain English.”

Saying the words out loud sent warmth cascading through Elijah’s chest. He studied his work more closely, relieved to find that even on a deliberate critical inspection, the sketch still struck him as having that ineffable
something
that made an image art, and an accurate likeness a portrait.