Flirting With Forever (10 page)

And this, Cam thought, is why we need men like Jake Ryan.

She felt like she’d been slapped. She’d been sized up—

that rake of eyes over her body had been undeniable—and dismissed. She’d known men like this before—hel , she’d
had
men like this before. They were general y self-involved windbags who felt the size of their wal et, talent, Mercedes or dick made up for a lack of soul.

She watched him stride down the hal , shoulders back, head high, emperor of al he surveyed.
Grrrr
. She’d had enough of that in her life. Had had it up to here. First her father, then her sister, then Jacket. Someday, someone would get a piece of her mind. But at least her dismissal meant that longed-for opportunity had arrived.

“Privy,” she barked to a startled Stephen and slipped away.

She turned the corner, heading straight for the models’

room.
Take my custom elsewhere, huh?
She’d like to tel him what he could do with his freakin’ custom. She flew past Mercury, past the stairway, past the studio.

She screeched to a halt. Peter was in there, rifling a drawer in the bench, his back imperiously straight. She looked at the models’ door, locked but surely penetrable, then back at the studio.

The hel with it. This guy needed his ass kicked.

Mrs. Post burst into his studio like a savage, shoving the door aside with a bang, but Peter, who heard her in the hal , ignored the theatrics. He gave her a cool glance, damning his heart for its inexplicable rise, and returned to the mixture of cobalt and oil.

“I have come for a commission,” she said.

“My diary is ful .”

“Is this how al of your patrons are treated? I had heard you were rude. I didn’t realize you were also a fool.”

Peter stiffened. Only one other person in his adult life had ever dared speak to him in such a manner. He thought of Ursula with a viper’s tongue when she so chose and an angel’s mouth. How he had liked to put that mouth to use when their arguments had ended. He looked at his companion’s ful , wide lips and found himself unexpectedly wondering if she’d resemble Ursula in that way as wel .

“I apologize if I have offended you.” He bowed briskly and reached for the bowl.

She didn’t move. “Is there something more, Mrs. Post?”

“Aye. You’re a total shit.”

Peter jerked upright, unable to believe his ears, and Stephen, who had just reached the doorway, stopped dead in his tracks.

“Madam—”
Stephen began.

“Leave us.” Peter held up a hand and turned the ful power of his gaze on the woman. He was a large man, and his glare made the blue fire in her eyes rise, just as it had in Ursula. A charge ran down his back. Stephen wheeled in a half circle and disappeared.

Peter clasped his hands behind his back and surveyed his companion. However despicable Peter found the effort, Stephen had executed his job wel . She had the shapely hips and earthy, round breasts of Ursula as wel as the damn-you-to-hel face when she was crossed. His only question now was, was this interloper a woman freely interested in him or had Stephen purchased her interest in the back lanes of Covent Garden? He was surprised and a bit ashamed to find himself pruriently eager to know the answer.

“What is your name?”

“Mrs. Eugenie Post.”

“Your
real
name.”

She seemed to falter. Had she thought him blind to the game?

“None of your goddamned business.”

He exhaled. There was something irritatingly entrancing about a woman who refused to bend.

“But you
are
a widow?”

“I am.”

Then not a whore? He narrowed his eyes. The dress was beautiful—especial y with her coloring—but dresses could be bought. There was a regality to her posture, could be bought. There was a regality to her posture, however, that could not be pretense. She was an intel igent, wel -bred woman.

“Did you speak in such a manner to your husband?”

She picked a speck of lint from her sleeve. “When he deserved it.”

He had circled behind her now, and the woman turned to hold his gaze.

“I should speak to any man or gentleman so,” she added with a significant look, “should he deserve it.”

He dropped his gaze, abashed. He
had
been inexcusably rude in the waiting room.

“I beg your pardon. I was unnecessarily abrupt.”

She pursed her lips. His defenses were crumbling.

“You understand I am in no mood to be played upon,” he said.

“I have no intention of playing, I assure you.”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “Whence are your people?”

She blinked. “My people? I am German and Welsh. Is that what you mean?”

He’d been right. The accent, the eyes, the skin.

“German, is it? Where?”

“North. Bremen, I believe.”

He nodded. He knew Bremen.

“It is not,” he said after a long pause, “that you do not tempt me. If I am honest, you do. But I am simply not capable of such a thing now.”

“Of a commission?” She looked at him, confused. “I treated you like a scrub, and for that I apologize, but I cannot …” Oh, why had Stephen chosen such a moment to push this?

“Cannot? Cannot what?”

As he searched for words, he discovered he was not as certain about what he could and couldn’t do as he’d thought. “I-I—”

His answer was cut short by the sound of a large group of people trooping up the stairs. “The royal entourage!”

someone wailed.

Stephen reappeared in the doorway. “The Duchess of Portsmouth is with him.”

“Bloody Christ!” Peter paled. If the king were to be embarrassed in front of his lover, he would be furious, and the last thing Peter needed now was a furious king. “What about Nel ?”

“Locked away.”

“And the painting?”

“I wil send someone to remove it.”

“Hurry!”

“Peter … ?” Stephen tossed a worried expression in Mrs. Post’s direction.

“Aye, I know.”

“What?” she demanded.

“Put Charles and the duchess in the Gold Room,” he said to Stephen. “I wil attend shortly.”

Stephen disappeared, and Peter shut the door and leaned against it. “I must insist you stay here. Do not exit this room.”

“What? No. I should like to meet the king—I mean, if it’s possible. I should like to very much, in fact.”

“I cannot al ow it.”

“You have redeemed yourself, Mr. Lely, but you are not my keeper. I refuse to be held against my wil .”

She started for the door, and he angled his bulk in front of her. The blue flames returned to her eyes, and while Peter wished for time to find out what else might fan them, time was a luxury he didn’t have.

“The king has more power than you can imagine,” he said flatly, “and a disturbing predilection for redheads. I see you smile, milady, but I assure you, ’tis not a matter for lightheartedness. I have seen women seized who have been foolish enough to catch his eye and then reject his invitation. Your liberty would be restored in a matter of hours, but I do not think you’d care for your state when he is done. He is a king, and I make no apologies, but if you wish my protection, you must stay here.”

“If you wish my protection …”
Despite a growing fear about her presence here, Cam thought there was something wildly romantic about the phrase, especial y accompanied by the earnestness in those warm brandy eyes. She leaned against the door, tingling as Peter locked it, and it was with a smal smile she pul ed the phone from her clutch and checked the display for a signal.

Nothing.

Of course, she reminded herself as she journeyed closer to the wal most likely to be adjacent to the models’ room, tingling had rarely been a harbinger of good decision making. Jacket hadn’t offered her protection before he’d dragged her to the ladies’ room that night—in fact, she’d barely gotten him to
use
protection, if she remembered correctly—but he had whispered to her that the seriously sexy real-estate developer eliciting her opinions of postmodern art and buying her fifteen-dol ar martinis that evening was rumored to have started the most virulent strain of genital herpes this side of the Atlantic, which, when you think about it, was about as close to protection as one was likely to get in the modern art world.

She remembered with a smile how the brandy in Peter’s eyes had stirred at her acquiescence.

“Thank you,” he’d said gruffly. “I wil repay your trust.”

And as much as she’d like to meet the king who had not only known Van Dyck but actual y posed for him, she was wil ing—for a bit, at least—to put her faith in Lely.

“Ah, Peter,” she said. “You are a curious man.”

“Curious?” said a voice behind her. “Upon my word, if you two aren’t fucking by Friday, I’l be a baboon’s berth mate.”

Cam spun around and nearly dropped the phone. A slim woman in a robin’s-egg blue dressing gown emerged from a neighboring room. She held a shepherd’s hook in one hand.

“Then I hope you’ve got a double hammock,” Cam said, slipping the phone back into her bag. “I am not one to be mastered by impulses.” She checked to see if her pants were on fire.

The woman eyed her as long as she politely could, then added, “I’m Nel , by the way.” She set the hook against the wal .

“I’m Campbel Stratford. Er, Eugenie Stratford. Eugenie Campbel Stratford Post.”

“That’s a mouthful.”

“Cal me Cam.”

“Very nice to make your acquaintance, Cam.” She took Cam’s hand and smiled, sprouting dimples.

She had bright pink polish on her fingernails and a personality that fil ed the room.

“Aren’t you supposed to be locked away?” Cam asked.

“Aye. ’Tis standard procedure when Squintabel a arrives.

But I suspect poor Stephen thought I was in the dining room and locked that. I finished my eel pie there a quarter hour ago.”

“Squintabel a?”

“The Duchess of Portsmouth. Bit of a cockeye, you know. I believe there may be hunchback blood in the family.”

Cam heard the patter of running feet and furiously whispered orders. She examined Nel ’s ankles. No wreaths of leaves, but there was that shepherd’s crook… . “Are you to be a royal supporter as wel ?”

Nel laughed. “Only if cockstands are the object in question. I am the king’s
other
mistress.”

Cam felt the smack of surprise. This was Nel Gwyn, the spirited young actress with whom Charles dal ied for almost a decade and who was the mother of at least a couple of his il egitimate children. And while Nel ’s hair was more of an auburn than the copper of Cam’s, there were enough streaks of red to explain Charles’s attraction.
Nell Gwyn
and the king!
The bubble of authorial excitement nearly made her clap.

Cam said, “So no posing as the Danish coat of arms for you, then, eh?”

“No. I am the Madonna.” Nel gestured toward the opposite end of the room. There, next to a cushioned opposite end of the room. There, next to a cushioned chaise, sat a nearly finished painting of Nel , utterly nude, lying on the same chaise, accompanied by a smal cherub.

“Madonna,” Cam repeated, “the mother of Jesus?”

“Madonna or Venus. I forget which. Charles changes his mind so often.”

Apart from the questionable portrayal, the work was stunning. As Cam approached the canvas, the flush of Nel ’s skin gleamed in warm light, the pil ows on which she lay looked as if they would rise like clouds into the sky, and the pale blue dressing gown, the very one she now wore, draped off her shoulders, exposing pale breasts, a curving waist and a long, slender leg bent at the knee. Her head was reclined against the pil ows, angled slightly as if she were sharing a sly secret with the viewer, and sensuous waves of red-brown hair trailed across her shoulders and onto the white silk. Cam could almost see the individual strands, feel the lush fabric, smel the perfume on her skin.

Cam saw what Peter saw, and for a long moment she wondered what it would be like to be thus observed. She also wondered if Peter was in love with Nel .

“It’s beautiful,” Cam said truthful y. It was also mildly shocking. It wasn’t that artists hadn’t been painting women nude during this time. They had from time immemorial.

What made it shocking was that women of the court—she could hardly add
upstanding
as she knew Nel had been a prostitute as wel as an actress prior to going to bed with the king—did not pose without clothes. It was one thing for a woman of the street or the artist’s wife to pose for him. It was quite another for a woman who expected to maintain a place of honor and position to do it. This was the same quality that had made Peter’s paintings of the women with a breast exposed so intriguing.