Chapter 12
How long had she been standing here, peering at Lord St. Alban through the narrow crack between the door and the wall? Thirty seconds? Thirty minutes?
The amount of time hardly made a difference. A single second was too long for him to have been in her studio. Surrounded by drawings of himself.
Drat it all, what had she been thinking during last night’s bout of insomnia? She hadn’t. What had once been a deliberate means of healing had become instinct. Something interested her, she must draw.
But it didn’t feel therapeutic, standing here, breath held, fingers curled into tight fists, sweat trickling down her spine, watching him through a gap in the door like she was the interloper. The impulse to push the door open and confront him grew weaker the longer he stood inside her studio, judging her work, violating her privacy.
How many sketches littered the walls? She had no idea of the precise number, but dozens. Some drawn from a mid-distance perspective, others more intimate, focused on individual features in a manner bordering on the . . . deviant.
Yes, that was the correct word. Obsessive was another correct word.
She clenched her eyes shut in mortification as he strolled over to yet another image of himself and swallowed another dram of whiskey. A few swigs of whiskey sounded like a brilliant idea right now.
What was the expression on his face? All she was able to see was his unreadable profile. Was he bewildered? Amused? Or would his face reflect what she felt for herself? Embarrassment.
He took another gulp of whiskey and set the tumbler down. Before she could draw breath, he shrugged his shoulders, shed his overcoat, and draped it over the back of a chair. In the next blink, his vest was off his body. She moved not a muscle as she drank in the muscled length of his torso visible through the fine lawn of his shirt. She’d never seen him without overcoat and vest. What she’d only suspected was now confirmed.
In short, he was well-built. In expanded form, there was no denying the width of his shoulders or the trimness of his waist or the tautness of his backside through the superfine of his pants.
She nearly jumped through her skin when he began examining one of the smaller sketches, facing her. But his expression, neutral and emotionless, gave no sign of awareness that he was being watched. In fact, his fingers loosened the folds of his cravat before flicking open the top two buttons of his shirt. The whiskey found its way to his hand again as if it was a natural extension of him.
Lord St. Alban had made himself thoroughly comfortable. In her studio. Another layer of sweat broke out across her body. And she’d thought she’d drawn him into submission, purged her system of him.
Seeing him now at ease in her private space, she understood that the feeling she’d experienced at dawn hadn’t been completion, only complete exhaustion. There was no completion where Lord St. Alban was concerned. Not even close.
He ambled out of sight, and she pressed forward into the door, straining to keep her eye on him. Dressed down to his unbuttoned starched shirt and black breeches with that tumbler of whiskey carelessly in hand, he looked every inch the female fantasy of manly dishabille. So long had she spent drawing him in black and white, she’d almost forgotten that he was a flesh-and-blood man. Almost.
She inhaled deeply and caught a trace of cloves. His scent.
This limbo couldn’t go on any longer. She must face him tonight, now, if she was to have a measure of peace. If she was to face him again. If she was to face herself again.
On a bracing exhale, she pushed the door open on silent hinges and slipped into the studio, her heartbeat a ragged roar in her ears. His back to her, he remained unaware of her presence. She found the nearest wall and slumped bonelessly against it, her body a quivering bundle of anxiety and anticipation.
She wanted this man.
It was no accident that the hazy idea of taking a lover had begun to coalesce around the time she’d first set eyes on him. Her only hope lay in the unreliable notion that it would be uncomplicated.
It could be true. He didn’t have to be as complicated as she made him out to be. She could be the one complicating the air between them.
His back muscles tensed, suggesting he felt her presence in the room. He swiveled around, his gaze meeting hers, unwavering. An energy pulsed between them, sinuous and dark. An energy that would no longer be repressed. Victorious, it flared to the surface and dared them to ignore it.
His feet began a slow prowl forward, steadily erasing the distance between them, inch by deliberate inch. She should feel panicked, or, at least, unsettled, by his purposeful approach. But those feelings refused to take hold. The anxiety and anticipation of seconds ago flared into a single overwhelming sensation: desire, white hot, ravenous.
He drew within a foot of her and stopped. The only sound in the room the jagged in and out of her breath.
So this was what it was to be a wanton? Aching from the nearness of his withheld touch, excruciatingly delicious and exquisitely tortured all at once.
“Why are you here?” she muttered.
“How should I answer that question?” he returned, his voice a low, masculine register that quaked her to the core of her sex. His head lowered, lips hovering just above hers for one, two, three rapid heartbeats, his breath a whisper across her lips. “Like this?”
He thrust forward, closing the remaining gap between their bodies, the full length of him pushing her up and against the solid wall, and their bodies went still, their gazes locked. If there was a time for turning back, this would be it.
She wasn’t certain she could survive another night after an almost kiss. And she had no intention of finding out.
Her heels lifted, her body grazing his full length. A groan escaped him, and his mouth lowered, his lips brushing hers, once, twice, her nipples hardening in want, in expectation, before another groan sounded and the kiss deepened in a tidal wave of pent-up desire too long held at bay.
The tip of his tongue swirled around hers, toying with her, teasing her. An animal moan sounded, and she realized it had come from her. His hands slid down and around to the small of her back, coursing lower until he had her bottom in hand. His knees bent, and, of a sudden, their bodies fit together like a perfectly joined puzzle.
Well, almost. She gave a quick thrust of her hips, and her foot snaked around his ankle. Oh, they could be joined so much more perfectly . . .
As if intuiting her thoughts, his long, capable fingers wrapped around her knee, and he pressed himself against her until she felt the rigid length of his shaft through gossamer layers of silk. Again her hips pushed forward, this time a more deliberate, slow grind against him. She went mindless with pleasure, pure, raw, clamoring for, nay, demanding release.
This was no uncertain first kiss. This was madness.
He tore his lips from hers, only to trace his slippery tongue down the exposed column of her neck. Her throat emitted a ragged moan as his mouth trailed lower until he reached her breasts and his hands reached up to cup them from below. One expert tug of silk, and suddenly her nipples were free. She didn’t wear bindings.
A hard glint of hunger shone in his eyes, coaxing her arousal higher. His mouth covered one nipple, his tongue flicking the taut bud, and his fingers toyed with the other until she bucked beneath his touch. A cry erupted from her throat, a primal plea for more, for everything.
She clutched the lapels of his shirt, intent on rending the cloth, if need be, her sole concern to feel his undressed skin upon hers. She hardly knew herself, a feral wild thing concerned only with pleasure.
Then, she noticed it. He’d gone still. A moan of frustration unwound inside her.
“Shh. Do you hear?”
She exhaled a rough, frustrated breath and quieted her unruly self, listening, waiting. Every muscle in her body tensed, and her eyes flew open. She heard them. Footsteps echoing down the hallway with only one realistic destination: this room.
No mistake, she and Lord St. Alban had ten seconds before discovery.
“Olivia?” he asked. “What do you need me to do?”
“You can begin by unhanding me,” she said in the precise notes of a prim miss.
His hands dropped to his sides, and she could hate herself.
“The servants know to look for me here when they can’t find me.”
Free of him, too free of him, she slid along the wall and far away from him, too far away from him. Her fingers rushed to right her bodice, smooth her hair, straighten her crushed silk skirts. All the while, his serious gaze never wavered from her, but gone was the sensuous heat from moments ago. He watched her dispassionately as if from a great distance.
A full cry of unrequited lust sought release. She didn’t want his dispassion. Quite the opposite.
“You look the perfect lady,” he said once she’d finished. “Almost.”
She cut him a staying glare before stepping to the doorway, blocking any possible view into the studio. Even the most loyal servant couldn’t be trusted with a tidbit of gossip as choice as this one. “May I help you, Mrs. Landry?” Olivia called out. The click of the servant’s heels came to an abrupt stop.
After a quick, hushed exchange, Olivia turned back toward Lord St. Alban, Mrs. Landry’s footsteps receding down the hallway. She cleared her throat. “Your daughter will be awaiting you in the Duke’s main foyer.”
He looked as if he would say something, but, then, he didn’t. What did she expect? That they would pick up where they’d left off?
Again, she longed to cry out. She wasn’t finished with him yet.
She was being unreasonable, but her body didn’t care. It wanted what it wanted, and it wanted him.
He picked up one, then another, article of clothing and calmly dressed as if this night was a usual occurrence. A storm gathered inside her. The dratted man was entirely too self-possessed for her liking. A need to throw him off balance and keep him that way until he was gone from this room rose.
“Who would have thought you could kiss like that?” came out of her kiss-crushed lips. Surprise sparked in his eyes, and a little thrill fired through her. Good. It was a lie. But it was one she must tell herself, one she must tell him, and one they both must believe.
He cocked his head. “Who wouldn’t?” he asked, daring her to continue with the lie.
“You’re so very reserved. I would’ve thought your lips starched as stiff as your shirt.” Her fingers skated up and down the doorjamb, as if she was bored.
“Lady Olivia, I think we both know what’s as stiff as my starched shirt.”
She made herself go very still and keep her eyes locked onto his. She wouldn’t look. She wouldn’t use her peripheral vision, either.
He began walking toward the door. Toward her, her traitorous heart suggested. Her attempt at controlling the situation was reversing on itself. She held up a defensive hand. “I think that’s enough—” She stopped mid-sentence. She’d almost completed it with for now.
“They’re lovely, you know.”
Her arms crossed protectively over her chest.
“The sketches, my lady,” he clarified, the beginnings of a smile playing about his mouth.
“A narcissist, are you?” she threw out, a cover for the satisfaction that streaked through her at the sound of his praise.
He shook his head at her, like she was an obdurate school girl. “The beauty isn’t in the subject, but in the artist’s rendering of it.”
He came within a few feet of her. She would have to step aside or risk letting his body collide with hers. For a split second, she considered the latter. Its risks. Its rewards. But, at the last second, her feet acted sensibly and allowed him room to pass.
When he drew level with her at the doorway, his stride shortened and his pace slowed. For one wild second she thought he hesitated, that he would stop. But he didn’t. He rounded the corner without a backward glance.
Her gaze fixed absently on the room before her, she slumped against the wall. This time she permitted herself to collapse to the floor in a puff of ballooned silk skirts.
The taste of scotch lingered on her lips . . .
The imprint of his gorgeous, capable hands lingered on her skin . . .
The unrequited craving of lust lingered in her sex.
And she thought she’d drawn this obsession into submission?
Perfect little mess, indeed.
~ ~ ~
Mina had been in a few grand homes in her life—her father’s new mansion came to mind—but never one as grand as the Duke of Arundel’s.
Her gaze lifted toward the ceiling stretched to near infinity above their heads as she and Lucy stood in the foyer awaiting her father. She spied tiny angels peering over fluffy clouds painted onto its surface.
“Too bad ceilings can’t be stars all the time,” Lucy said.
Mina nodded. Lucy had the most charming way of turning words.
The girl reached out for her hand. “We must make a plan to see each other again. Soon?”
She gave Lucy’s hand a testing squeeze, and when Lucy’s eyes lit up in a smile, Mina knew it had been the correct action to take. She’d never had a friend like Lucy. Nannies, teachers, servants, and stars had been her friends. And Father. He was a friend, too.
But never a friend like this. A girl. A silly, frilly, delightful girl who used words the way artists used brushes.
The sound of footsteps echoed down one of several hallways that fed into the foyer. Mina turned toward the sound, expecting to see Father round the final corner, but it wasn’t he who came into view. It was a boy. No, not a boy precisely—he looked to be a few years older than her—but boyish. Not yet a man.
His face . . . it would be called beautiful on a woman. But on a boy not yet a man? She wasn’t sure. Angelic, perhaps, with his blond hair shot through with streaks of platinum and his pale amber eyes. Except he wasn’t at all like the chubby babies strewn across the ceiling above. He looked like the heir to the sun.
He caught sight of them, and his feet slowed. His eyes met hers for the briefest flicker of a second before continuing over to Lucy. “Lulu,” he called out in the most aristocratic voice Mina had ever heard, “what have I told you about treating the downstairs help like they are one of—”
“Us?” Mina finished for him. Her heart threatened to jump out of her chest, and her skin went hot, then clammy. She’d never said anything so bold in her life.
His eyes cut toward her, this time for a longer second. They held a measure of assessment, curiosity.
“Hugh!” Lucy cried out, “Miss Radclyffe may not be dressed in the first stare of fashion, but she is the daughter of the Viscount St. Alban. You must apologize this instant.”
Ever impulsive, Lucy wrapped her arms around Mina. Instead of feeling stifled as she usually did with embraces, she felt buoyed by the gesture. She lifted her hands in reciprocity and gave Lucy’s back a few reassuring pats.
“Mina,” Lucy said, no move to relinquish her grasp, “I’m so sorry for my dunderheaded cousin.”
“My apologies, Miss Radclyffe,” Hugh said, not bothering to meet Mina’s eyes again. He slid on a pair of kid gloves and offered a slight bow before slipping out the front door.
Lucy released Mina and took a step back. “Hugh, or Lord Avendon, as he insists on being called lately, is second in line to the dukedom, behind his father, and I’m afraid it’s gone to his head.” Lucy’s eyes turned sympathetic. “People like him must be terrible for you.”
Mina averted her gaze. She had no interest in pursuing this line of conversation with Lucy, a girl she hardly knew and who couldn’t possibly understand how terrible people could be.
Once again, footsteps echoed down a hallway. This time it was her father. He joined them and asked, “Are you ready, meisje?”
“Yes,” Mina replied, the Dutch endearment warming her. She would ever be his little girl. As she was about to rest her hand on his forearm, she noticed that he looked a little . . . askew. “Father, your cravat has gone crooked.”
He reached up and tugged the garment straight. “Is that better?”
She nodded and directed her attention back to Lucy. “Thank you for showing me a wonderful evening.”
“Perhaps I can introduce you to my modiste, soon?” Lucy asked, uncertainty in her eyes.
“I should like that,” Mina said, seeking to reassure her new friend, even as she understood that more fashionable clothes wouldn’t alter how London Society viewed her.
She and Father stepped through the doorway and into chilly night air. She disliked leaving Lucy on this sour note, but it couldn’t be helped. There were certain aspects of her mixed heritage that she must face alone. And fixating on the terrible wasn’t the way she chose to go about it.