Flirting With Forever (14 page)

“This was my mother’s. She got it from her mother-in-law after my father proposed. Then she gave it to my brother’s wife when he proposed.”

He looked up, curious. “And then your brother’s wife gave it to you?”

“No, she passed away, actual y.” Her face clouded, and he regretted the question. “My brother wanted me to have it.

I think he felt it would keep a piece of her alive for him.”

Aye, Peter thought, to send both a bolt of joy and sorrow through him each time it came into view. How tiringly predictable the despairing are. He touched his emerald and wondered what sort of bittersweet treasures Mrs. Post kept of her dead husband.

“You have seen a world of unhappiness,” he said. “A husband, a sister … ’Tis a comfort, I suppose, you have a brother with whom to share—”

She held up a hand, wrenching discomfort on her face. “I have a confession to make.”

“Oh?”

“I am not a widow. I have misled you.”

Peter, who had anticipated the revelation of her real name, felt his stomach lurch. “I see. You are married.”

A beat. “No.”

But this was not the “no” of a maiden. He steadied the pencil and waited.
You fool.

“There is a man—”

Peter’s heart clenched.

“—though we are not married.”

“You are lovers?” The words were as natural as if he were asking about the tides or the upholstery on a carriage.

He finished the drape of the gown and flipped the page in the book. He would not deny himself at least a smal sketch of that hair, even if it were the only way he might possess it.

“Yes,” she said with a hard, crimson flush. “Wel , no, not now. We were once. We were engaged to be married, though it ended badly, and I left him. That was in June. He has asked me to reconsider.”

The blood howled in Peter’s ears, though he noted instantly she did not say she’d accepted. He brought the pencil in an untamed curve across the page, fol owed by another, and another. “Tidings of joy to you, then,” he said, trying to keep the question from his voice.

“Aye.”

The look on her face did not match the pronouncement.

“When is the happy day?” he asked.

“What? Oh, I don’t know. His offer was very recent.”

Which is why, Peter thought, she came to me. The portrait would be her answer.

In the face of this burning disappointment, he had two choices. He could tel her his diary was ful , thus ensuring this foolish misadventure of his would be stopped before it began. Or he could paint her and accept their time together for what it would be: a stupidly painful crush played out in a series of sittings in which Peter would lose himself in her image if not the woman herself while the flames of intimacy licked painful y at his heart.

It had been a long time since he’d felt anything in that stony organ except despair, so it was with some surprise he found himself wil ing to trade one punishment for the other.

His shoulders relaxed. The terms, as it were, had been negotiated. He would burn and twist, like a pig on a spit, but he would possess her metaphorical y. And no woman who had ever been possessed by Peter Lely left without the stamp of him on her somewhere.

“Come,” he said, jumping to his feet and offering his hand. “Let me take you to the portrait studio.”

“But why not stay here?”

“The studio has better light.”

“But …”

“Come. The room is just upstairs.”

“Over this one, you mean? Directly over this one? At the top of the house?” She clutched her bag possessively.

He looked at her, confused. “Aye.”

She put her hand in his. “I should like to see it.”

Cam gazed around the smal space in surprise, her hand stil warm from his touch. He had led her up a short flight that reversed at a landing, to a long but narrow room. The space was lit by a row of windows angled above them, fol owing the line of the slanted roof overhead. Four bars, here we come, she thought. Through the diamond-paned glass, the orange-red rays of the sun spread like the layers of a tequila sunrise. Across the room, a set of double doors led to a narrow balcony. An easel stood against the south wal , next to shelves of brushes and jars. In the center of the room a double-sided fireplace, beside which Peter now crouched, rose from the floor to the roof. An upholstered chaise sat across from the easel.

“This studio is for my evening work,” he said. “We have light ful west.”

The room’s sensibility differed immensely from that of the lower rooms of the house, partly because of the smal er scale of the elements—a lantern instead of sconces and chandeliers, shelves instead of a workbench—and partly, Cam realized when she turned, because of a low, wide settee that stretched out in the darkened space on the other side of the fireplace.

Covered in etched dark velvet, the settee’s cushion was perfectly flat and long enough to seat four with ease.

Several plush throws lay folded near one arm, and a dozen or more cushions in various silks and Far Eastern prints camouflaged the settee’s odd depth and high-backed frame.

It wasn’t until she spotted the decanter of pale yel ow wine and glasses on a low table to the side that, with an unexpected pulse in her bel y, she saw that it wasn’t just a settee, it was a seducing couch.

His evening work, eh?

She turned and crossed her arms. “My fiancé says he despises an evening light.”

As she had hoped, Lely flinched at the word
fiancé.

Nonetheless, he continued his arrangement of dry grass and kindling beneath the grate.

“Why is that?” he said.

“He says it makes every brushstroke lie.”

Peter stopped and turned, and Cam instantly realized her error.

“Your fiancé is a painter?”

“He is …” The wheels of her mind spun but nothing came. “… a painter, aye.”

“Would he not prefer to paint you himself ?”

Cam felt the familiar rush of embarrassment. “No. This is meant to be a surprise.”

He returned his gaze to the kindling. “What is his name?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t know him.”

“I know almost al of them.”

“Jacob,” she said. “Jacob Ryan.”

“Ah,” he said, brushing his hands on his breeks and standing. “You are right. I do not know him. Irish, is he?”

“His father, yes. His mother is from London.”

“And his work?”

“Portraits, mostly.” She thought of the fruit in Lucite.

“Some, er, stil lifes.” Stil lifes were what she had once painted. She waited for Peter’s dismissal of the genre.

Portraitists were notoriously snobby when it came to stil lifes. Of course, in the 1600s, “historical” paintings—

scenes from the Bible, mythology or history—were considered the highest form of painting, so Lely’s work was already a step down from the highest rung of the ladder.

She wondered on what rung of the ladder Restoration-era painters would put the sort of postconceptual art Jacket did.

Probably a ladder in a different universe.

Lely made no comment, just picked up the lantern he’d brought from below, and used a stiff piece of paper to move the flame to the kindling. The room fil ed with a golden glow just as footsteps sounded on the stairs.

“Who goes?” Lely demanded.

“Tom, sir.” The lad popped into view with a tray of food in one hand and a decanter of ruby red liquid in the other. “I have given your message to Miss—”

“Thank you, Tom. Put the tray there. Instruct Stephen to prepare my standard palette, with the exception of carmine and ochre. Four brushes. Not the boar’s bristle.” Tom nodded and placed the tray as directed.

Like an architect envisioning a cathedral, Peter appraised her form. “A quarter-size, I should think,” he said, more to himself than anyone else, as he flipped through bare canvases leaning against the wal . He untied his neckcloth and tossed it on a table. “May I assume we have abandoned the notion of Athena, Mrs. Post?”

She wasn’t even sure she wanted a portrait, but the room appeared to be fitted for only one other potential occupation. “Aye.”

“Have the apprentices finished for the evening?” Lely asked Tom, who paused at the top of the stairs.

“Aye, sir.”

“And Miss Gwyn?”

“Gone.”

Cam wondered if the dress had gone with her.

“Thank you, Tom. No interruptions. Let Stephen know.

Handsomely, now.”

Cam gazed longingly at the cheese, olives, grapes and rol s. She hadn’t actual y eaten that hot dog.

Unbuttoning his waistcoat, Lely caught her look and smiled. “The cheese is from Gloucester. The rol s from my cook. She has a delicate hand. Eat. You cannot after I begin,” he said and disappeared into the area with the seducing couch.

Cam dropped reluctantly on the chaise, stil clutching her purse, and cut a slice of cheese. She gazed at the knife, steel with a narwhal and mermaid entwined in the carved wooden handle. It was a fine detail, and she was determined to add it to her manuscript when—if—she returned. Distracted, she chewed without thinking, but the cheese’s smooth, buttery flavor was hard to ignore. She wondered if she could hide the removal of the phone in another movement, like the fil ing of her glass.

She adjusted her body so that her back was between the purse and Lely, and popped the flap open. She turned to check on him. He was out of sight. She’d ease the phone out, walk to the window and she’d be golden. She turned back, slid her hand forward—

Lely lifted the bag from her knee.

Oh.

“Try this,” he said, the purse and the decanter of white wine in one hand, a glass outstretched in the other.

“Um …” She took the glass. It was fil ed with the same white wine as the decanter. “You do not care for the red?”

“Not for our work.” He placed the bag on a table by the easel.

Out of ideas, she tossed back a gulp. The wine was cool and velvety. Unlike a Pinot or Chardonnay or, in fact, any other white she’d ever had, this wine boasted the intensity of a brandy or sherry. Prickles of warmth stung her cheeks.

Yowzah!
It was heavenly. The Macal an of whites. She took another sip and suddenly the wool of Lely’s coat began to feel warm. She flipped it off her shoulders and caught him observing her.

He looked away but not before another round of warmth rose up her neck. She liked the way he looked at her. It was neither intrusive nor surgical. It was warm and admiring.

“Won’t you pour one for yourself ?”

“I don’t drink while I work.”

Cam wished she had something on which to take notes.

Lely was emptying powders and liquids from different jars into tiny ceramic bowls. She thought it might be alcohol, but when the scent reached her nose, she knew it was turpentine. The techniques of Lely’s time were the subject of a certain amount of conjecture by art historians. She watched his preparations with interest. She watched his face with more interest.

“That’s quite a selection,” she observed, gesturing toward the shelves stacked with supplies.

He shrugged. “Tools of the trade.”

“I thought you asked for Stephen to prepare your palette.”

“There are a few colors I’d prefer to do myself.”

The fire began to do its job, and he loosened a button under the hol ow of his throat. The linen fel open and a narrow swath of chestnut hairs came into view. Cam took another long sip and watched them sparkle in the firelight.

“This is real y strong wine.”

“Rhenish,” he said without lifting his eyes from his work.

“Finish it and pour yourself another.”

Ah, so that’s how it worked, was it? The wine loosened the tongue, then the inhibitions, then the dress. She thought of the woman with the peony and that pale, unfettered breast. Had that been the gleam of Rhenish in her eye? Is that what that finishing touches of white in the iris had captured? And what had come after the finishing touches?

Or in an artist’s garret like this, were the finishing touches something quite removed from the canvas? Cam turned her gaze to that low, cushioned settee and drained the glass.

She had been seduced a handful of times—not that she intended to al ow Lely to seduce her, of course—but she didn’t think she had ever been so acutely aware of the machinations of seduction in a man who had not touched her and who, in fact, had barely spoken to her. It was unusual and intriguing.

He finished his table work and gave her a long, considering look.