Four
The sun sank toward earth as Jeremy tooled his curricle up the drive to Stoke Towers. To him the place was just one more lavish English country house.
But to his young apprentice, it was apparently far more. “God strike me blind!” Damber said. “You sure have a lot of rich friends and family in England, sir.”
After having been dragged through tumbledown hotels and inns for the past three months on the Continent, the lad had apparently forgotten that Jeremy wasn’t just any artist. Sometimes even Jeremy forgot it. When he traveled, he preferred to live like the rest of the populace.
“Ah, but these are neither friends nor family,” Jeremy said. “They’re clients. And they’d best be rich if they’re to afford me.”
“From the size of the bowman ken they’re living in, I’d say they’re fat culls indeed.”
“Language, Damber,” Jeremy said sharply.
“Talking like you gentry coves is hard,” the lad replied without a hint of repentance. “And what does it matter anyhow? You said I got the finest hand with a brush you ever saw. Ain’t that enough?”
“No, it ‘ain’t.’ If you sound like a coarse devil, it won’t matter that you paint like a saint. No one with the money to buy your art will notice you if you don’t seem at least moderately educated. And you do want to progress beyond apprentice, don’t you?”
“I suppose,” muttered the ungrateful devil.
“Then speak correctly. I know you’re capable of it when you concentrate. I’ve heard you.” He ran his gaze over the towering lad. For once, Damber’s cravat was straight, his waistcoat buttoned, and his shirt tucked properly in his trousers. “You’ve finally begun to look like a gentleman, thank God. Now you must talk like one.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.” Damber cast him a cheeky grin. “P’raps if you paid me more . . .”
Jeremy rolled his eyes. The lad already made twice what Jeremy’s American apprentices had made. God, he was cocky. Which probably wasn’t surprising, given the boy’s rough upbringing. But despite the differences in their backgrounds, Damber reminded Jeremy of himself at that age—sure of his talent, passionate about painting, and thirsty for knowledge.
Which might not be a good thing, actually. If Jeremy had been a little less thirsty, his life might have been different. He wouldn’t have pursued Hannah as a painting instructor. He wouldn’t have tumbled into bed with her and ended up married too young.
He wouldn’t have—
Thunderation, why was he brooding over that after all these years? Hannah and Theodore were dead, along with the man responsible. Time for him to move on. To stop dwelling on the past. To look toward the future.
His masterpiece.
As if Lady Yvette had somehow read his mind, she appeared on the steps of Stoke Towers, accompanied by a footman, and his blood quickened. Yes, his masterpiece, and his lady muse herself.
After nearly a week apart, he’d expected not to be so taken by her, but if anything, she was even more stunning in her ordinary gown of russet and gold stripes. And as before, her porcelain cheeks were faintly tinged with peach and the sun teased out the hint of red in her brown hair.
He should use burnt umber for that shade of chestnut. Perhaps with a little cream to capture the highlights and some black for the shadows. For Art Sacrificed to Commerce she’d have to wear her hair down, cascading over the edges of the marble slab.
Marble slab? Would Stoke Towers even have something that would prove adequate as an altar?
“Is that who you’re painting?” Damber said breathlessly. “She don’t look like some delicate gentry mort; she’s a Long Meg, to be sure.”
“Watch the vulgar language, Damber,” Jeremy said mechanically. “She’s not a Long Meg or—”
“But she is. She’s almost as tall as me.”
“That’s not the point! You shouldn’t call her that. Or ‘gentry mort,’ for that matter. She’s a very fine lady, whom I intend to immortalize.”
“What’s ‘immortalize’?” Damber asked.
“Look it up in that dictionary I gave you.”
“And you complain about my language,” Damber grumbled. The boy hated looking things up. “You’ve got your own cant with all your fancy words. I’ll wager ‘immortalize’ means something nasty like ‘take a lady to bed.’ It’s got ‘mort’ in it, so it’s got to be about ladies.”
Jeremy stifled his laugh, not wanting to encourage the lad. “You’ll have to find out for yourself in the dictionary.” Frankly, it was a miracle the boy could even read, but someone somewhere had taught the young giant.
Damber shot him a sly look. “Wouldn’t blame you, sir, if you wanted to take that one to bed. She’s got a bosom on her that would float a ship. Though I bet she’s as stiff-rumped as—”
“That’s enough. A gentleman doesn’t talk about ladies that way.”
God, he couldn’t believe he’d said that. Trying to educate his apprentice was turning him into a stuffed shirt.
Though the lad wasn’t far off. Lady Yvette was indeed a bit stiff-rumped. And she did have an impressive bosom. Jeremy couldn’t wait to see how it looked in that Grecian costume he’d acquired.
The image that rose in his head made his blood run hot. And that made him curse under his breath. He wasn’t here to seduce her, as appealing as that might seem.
Annoyed with himself, he jerked the horses to a halt in front. But before he and Damber had even finished disembarking, Lady Yvette was marching down the steps.
“I expected you here earlier,” she said coolly as the footman left her side to unload the curricle.
Damber nudged him, as if to say, See? Stiff-rumped and proud.
Jeremy ignored him. “Impatient to begin, are you? I do like enthusiasm in my women.”
A telling blush rose up her beautiful neck to her cheeks. “I’m not one of your ‘women.’ And it wasn’t enthusiasm. I just . . . We thought you’d be here sooner, that’s all.”
“Your brother said anytime after two. He didn’t specify an hour.”
“No, but I assumed . . . Oh, never mind.” She faced Damber, who was giving her the once-over with an insolence she apparently chose to overlook. “You must be Mr. Keane’s apprentice.”
He gave a curt bow. “The name’s Damber, my lady.”
She cocked her head. “What an interesting name. Did you know that it’s street cant for ‘rascal’?”
“It is indeed, my lady,” Damber said warily.
“Is it a nickname?” she went on with an air of fascination that surprised Jeremy.
Damber, too, apparently. “I suppose. Only name I ever had.”
“I see.” Compassion glinted in her eyes. “Well, then, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Damber. I’ve informed the servants that you’ll be staying in our extra room downstairs. I hope you’ll be comfortable there.”
“Long as it’s no spring-ankle warehouse, I’ll be fine,” Damber mumbled. Then, as if realizing what he’d said, he added, “I mean—”
“I should hope it’s better than a gaol,” she said cheerily. “We have no catchpoles or caterpillars here, I assure you.”
Damber perked up. “No, but I daresay you’ve plenty of country Harrys.”
She laughed. “We do at that, sir. And high shoons, too.”
Damber broke into a grin, then shot Jeremy an accusing look. “You said I wasn’t to use cant around a gentry mort, and here she’s using it more than me.”
“Than I,” Jeremy corrected him, then realized how ridiculous that sounded in light of the conversation.
How the devil did she understand Damber, anyway? Jeremy only did half the time. From his many trips to the stews, he thought “catchpoles and caterpillars” were sheriffs and soldiers. And he could guess what a country Harry was. But a high shoon?
“I’m afraid I’m not your typical gentry mort,” Lady Yvette told Damber, with a twinkle in her eye.
To put it mildly. Come to think of it, she’d known quite a bit of coarse slang the night they’d met. Granted, her other brother had apparently been a criminal, but not the ill-mannered kind Damber had grown up among. So where had she learned it?
“I collect street cant for my dictionaries,” she explained, as if she’d read his thoughts. “It’s a hobby of sorts. Indeed, I would be delighted to have you add to my store, Damber, especially if you know any boxing terms.”
Damber’s mouth fell open. “I know more than anybody! You just tell me when, and I’ll give you as many as you like.”
“I shall take you up on that sometime.” She glanced at the footman, who’d come up beside her to wait, having finished unlashing the men’s bags from the back of the curricle. “But for now, you should probably get settled in.”
“Aye, my lady,” Damber said with a bob of his head.
She faced Jeremy. “Forgive me, Mr. Keane, but I’m not sure exactly what a painter’s apprentice does. Will you need a valet, or will Damber—”
“My apprentice will do just fine for whatever I require,” Jeremy said, ignoring Damber’s groan. “If your man will show him to my room, he can start unpacking, retightening the canvases, and mixing my paints for the morning.”
The lad had been getting too full of himself of late. It wouldn’t hurt to remind him that talent was nurtured through hard work, and not all of it was as enjoyable as painting and sketching. Or, for that matter, trading slang terms with an unconventional earl’s daughter.
“Very well.” She turned to Damber. “Tom will show you to Mr. Keane’s suite.” She seemed to note the footman’s stiff posture and added, “And your master is right. Perhaps you should save your use of street cant for me and Mr. Keane. I’m not sure my staff would . . . appreciate its colorful qualities.”
“I’ll be pleased to do whatever your ladyship wishes,” Damber said in the King’s own English, though the gleam in his eye and the tip of his hat were anything but gentlemanly.
She laughed as Damber walked off with Tom, cocky as ever. “He’s a bit of a rogueling, isn’t he? Clearly, you taught him well.”
“Trust me, he was born knowing how to turn a woman up sweet. And what he wasn’t born knowing, he learned in the stews.”
Her smile faltered. “Is that where you met him?”
“God, no. I stumbled across him in Hyde Park, where the lad was sketching people for money.”
“Lad?” she echoed.
“That hulking brute is only fifteen, believe it or not. If you’d seen him when I first met him, too scrawny for his frame, you’d have thought him younger still.”
She searched his face. “You feed him well, I gather.”
“He feeds himself well,” Jeremy grumbled. “He’s been eating me out of house and home ever since I hired him to be my painter’s apprentice.”
“So why did you?” She watched him with a veiled look. “Few people would take on a street urchin for a post.”
“I regret the decision daily, every time I’m forced to wrestle with the lad over speech and manners. But . . .” He smiled, remembering the drawing of Damber’s that had arrested him. “Then he’ll show me one of his sketches, and I’m reminded of why I did it. Because he has a good eye and an amazing talent. That’s rarer than you might think.”
“Yet not many would try to nurture it.”
Her eyes warmed, and he was once again struck by their lovely color. What a shame he wouldn’t be able to capture those cat eyes sparkling from beneath dusky lashes. In his masterpiece they would be looking upward, only one of them visible, and that in profile.
Then again, there was the portrait. He’d get to paint her eyes for that. It was some solace for being forced to do the sort of work he detested. He could use the cobalt blue, tempered with Indian yellow and a trace of umber to get that emerald hue. But how would he capture the emotion within?
She had kind eyes, the sort a man could lose himself in, drowning in their soft sweetness while he—
Damn, there he went again. “Where’s your brother?” he asked sharply as he realized they were entirely alone.
“Edwin had urgent business to attend to with our steward. But he will join us for dinner. In the meantime, I thought we could tour the house.” She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “It will give us a chance to pick which room will suit your purposes for your secret work.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, surprised by the conspiratorial glee in her voice. She was apparently enjoying their subterfuge. “Lead on, madam.”
As she walked inside and began to take him around, he found himself memorizing her movements: the turn of her head when she glanced back at him, the abbreviated wave she gave when indicating something he should notice, the lift of her imperious brow when he made some wry comment.
He should be focusing on the succession of rich rooms they passed through, but he’d rather study her. After all, he was to paint her.
That was the only reason he watched her obsessively. It wasn’t because she fired his blood—oh no. He wasn’t that foolish.
Right. Of course he was that foolish. He was a man, after all, faced with a lovely and remarkable young woman. He’d have to be carved of granite not to notice her attractions as she mounted the stairs ahead of him.
He wished she were already wearing that flimsy Grecian costume. Back in his wife’s day, gowns had clung to a woman, showing every curve, but they’d grown stuffed of late—with petticoats and drawers and what all. It was hard to see the female figure beneath.
Oh, to see Lady Yvette’s figure beneath. To run his fingers up those long legs to where her stockings ended and the bare flesh began. Odd that one buttoned-up English lady could so fire his imagination.
And his lust. Damn her.
“Does your apprentice know about the other painting?” she asked as they reached the next floor.
“He’s aware that I’m working on a second project while I’m here, yes. I had to tell him that much so he’d understand why I’m having him mix extra paint, stretch extra canvases, etc. But for all he knows of the subject, I might be doing a private portrait of your brother’s mistress or illustrating your diary.” He grinned. “I could be up to any manner of shenanigans.”
She flashed him an arch smile. “So he’s been with you long enough to know your dissolute character.”
“He knows enough,” Jeremy said blandly.
“But once the painting is exhibited, won’t he guess that I modeled for it?” She strolled down the hall.
“I create six or seven works a year. If this is chosen to be hung at the Royal Academy’s exhibition next summer, he won’t see it until then, much less be aware of when I painted it. It could be a work from before I hired him.”
“Still—”
“Leave Damber to me.” He caught her hand to halt her. “I promise to preserve your reputation, even with him.”
Only after her eyes widened did he realize that her hand was bare. That the way he held it was intimate. That her skin was buttery soft, and her fingers more delicate than he’d expected.
That her breath had begun to quicken . . . as had his pulse. Thunderation.
He dropped her hand.
For a moment she stared at him with a look of unsettling intensity, as if trying to parse out his intentions. Then she released a ragged breath that clutched at him somewhere deep, and turned to walk briskly down the hall.
Fighting his lecherous urges, he strode after her. God, what devil possessed him? He ached to keep touching her. Which was absurd. He generally had better control over his desires.
She showed him into a spacious salon dominated by a large pianoforte. “Perhaps we could use the music room.”
She sounded perfectly demure again. Obviously he wasn’t quite the temptation to her that she was to him. That ought to relieve him.
But it didn’t.
“Edwin rarely comes in here,” she went on, “and it’s wonderfully bright.”
“It is indeed.” He glanced around. “But aside from the fact that the earl will expect me to spend my days on the portrait, how will you keep the servants from noticing that you and I are disappearing for hours on end? Someone is bound to go looking for you and find us here. I don’t see how you can keep it a secret as long as we are in the house. I’d hoped you might have some abandoned outbuilding—”
“No, that won’t work.” A frown creased her brow. “Everything is in use during the day. I suppose we could pretend to go riding and find a field somewhere . . .”
“Come now, your brother is sure to be suspicious if we say we’re going riding alone together. He’ll want to join us, especially when he sees me packing my canvases and sketch books, et cetera, to take along.”
She released an exasperated breath. “What if we were to do it at night after everyone has gone to sleep? Can you paint at night, in dimmer light?”
“I can and have, though it’s not my favorite.” He eyed her askance. “But you’re proposing that the two of us spend our evenings alone together.”
Averting her gaze, she tipped up her chin. “Yes. What of it?”
“Didn’t you characterize me as the sort of man who would as soon toss you down and have my way with you as look at you? You practically accused me of being as bad as your scurrilous brother Samuel.”
“True, but I also said I know all his tricks. And yours.” She crossed her arms over her chest defensively. “If we’re in a room in the manor and you misbehave, I can always call for a servant.”
“If you’re naïve enough to think that threatening to call a servant would save you from seduction, then you don’t know any man’s tricks,” he said dryly.
That seemed to give her pause. As well it should. “But if you try anything with me, you won’t get your painting. And surely that’s more important to you than attempting to bed one more woman in a long string of them.”
“Of course,” he said with a smooth smile.
She was right—it should be. Unfortunately, she didn’t realize what a potent enchantress she was. The prospect of painting her while she was dressed in a flimsy costume had him fairly salivating.
Being alone with her at night for hours on end would be tempting fate. So of course, he must do it. He’d never been one to back down from a challenge.
“Very well,” he said, “we’ll work while everyone else sleeps. But this room won’t do. It’s fine for the portrait, but the thing that makes it perfect for painting in the daytime will make it disastrous for our evening trysts.”
He gestured to the windows with their flimsy net curtains. “I’ll need plenty of candles, lamps, and firelight to see by, and that will give away our presence to anyone who passes by below—servants, grooms, local populace. Not to mention your brother. Someone might come to investigate.”
“That’s true.” Her brow furrowed. “We need something more secluded and private, but indoors. Perhaps down the hall?”
“It’ll need to be far away from your brother’s bedchamber or he’ll hear us.”
“True.” Wandering out of the room, she looked around. “Edwin’s suite is on this floor, as is yours. We can’t use the library, because Edwin likes to go in there when he can’t sleep. On the floor above, where my bedchamber and the others are, there might be a spare sitting room we could use.”
“Too small.” He peered up the open well of the staircase. “What’s on the floor above that?”
She tensed. “Nothing, really. Just the old nursery and schoolroom.”
“The schoolroom might do.” Without waiting for her, he strode up the stairs.
“It isn’t ever used,” she protested as she hurried after him. “I can’t even remember the last time a fire was laid in the hearth.”
“As long as the fireplace still draws, it should be fine.”
When they reached the top floor, he paused to look around, seeing only a series of closed doors. “Which room is it?”
Looking oddly reluctant, she meandered to the end of the carpeted hall and flung a door open. “Honestly, I don’t think—”
But he was already stalking past her and into the room. A drugget covered the floor and Holland cloths draped the furniture, supporting her assertion that the room wasn’t used. A globe sat bare and forgotten in a corner, a blackboard hung on the wall, and a few spindly chairs were scattered about.
Best of all, in the center of the room stood a massive oak table that had obviously been deemed too marred by scratches and stains to warrant protecting. It could serve as an altar if he covered it with white fabric.
He ran his hand over the dusty surface. A pity he couldn’t use it as it was. The wood had stories to tell; he could practically hear it calling to him. But the altar’s surface must be pale enough to show the blood that he would paint coursing down from his sacrifice.
His beautiful, provocative sacrifice, who remained frozen in the doorway, clearly uncertain of his choice. “Surely you don’t think this will do.”
“Actually, it’s perfect.”
He wandered the room in a fog of thought. He’d originally envisioned a wilderness scene, with Commerce as a stodgy fellow he meant to paint in later, looming over the lovely Art lying prone beneath his knife as her blood dripped onto the granite altar. But why should Commerce be outside? Better to use that classical frieze that spanned the schoolroom’s ceiling. And the fretwork above the windows, like something out of a Grecian temple, or a bank.
Yes! The modern equivalent of the worship of money was the institution where all that money was kept! Banks often had Grecian architecture, some elements of which were in this very room.
Excitement coursing through him, he scanned the marble fireplace with its plaster medallion above, perfect for a bank. And the oak table could work as a counter, like those where clerks stood to serve the account holders.
He frowned. But the oak was still too dark to show the blood. Maybe if he—
“Mr. Keane!”
The voice startled him. Only after he turned to find Lady Yvette looking worried did he realize she’d spoken his name more than once. “Yes?”
“Where were you?”
He smiled ruefully. “Forgive me, my lady. When I’m working I get a bit lost in the project, and my surroundings disappear.”
She nodded. “Rather like Edwin when he’s working on his automatons.”
“Automatons?”
“Machines that you wind up and—”
“I know what an automaton is,” Jeremy remarked. “I just wouldn’t have expected your brother to have any.”
“He does them for the boys’ school we support. Says that they help the boys learn physics and mechanical skills and such. But I think he also does it because of Papa.”
“Oh?”
“Papa collected dozens through the years. At first, Edwin fiddled with them only when they broke, since Samuel and I were so amused by them.” Her face clouded over. “Then later he started making his own after Mama got sick, when he had to spend hours at her side because . . .”
Whirling on her heel, she walked into the hall. “We should go downstairs,” she said in a remote tone. “I hear Edwin calling. And it wouldn’t do for him to find us up here.”
“No.” Jeremy hadn’t heard anyone calling, and he doubted she had, either. Something had spooked her, and he wanted to know what.
But now wasn’t the time to raise the question. He’d wait until she was posing for him and couldn’t easily run off. Then he’d find out exactly why his Juno was so skittish.