Seven
“Speaking of London,” Mr. Keane said, “I’ve arranged for our brothel visit. I should have told you before, but I forgot.”
“You forgot?” Yvette was cold and sore and growing more annoyed by the moment with sitting for the artist.
“If you’ll recall, when you first came up here you were a bit . . . unsettled.”
“Oh. True.” Until this afternoon, she hadn’t been in their schoolroom in years, and the idea of spending her nights in here with him had made her uncomfortable.
Little had she guessed it would end up being nothing to the discomfort of lying sideways on a hard wooden table, wearing hardly anything, with her arm resting across her face. No wonder he’d asked repeatedly about her well-being earlier. Her left foot was going to sleep. So was her right hand.
And he was still only sketching her. She hadn’t seen him pick up a paintbrush yet. For that matter, she didn’t see any brushes or paints at all.
“Anyway,” he said, “I’m telling you now.”
Telling her what? Oh, yes. That he’d arranged for their brothel visit. “However did you manage it?”
“I engaged the help of my cousin Zoe.”
Yvette stared at him in horror. “You told her I wanted to visit a bawdy house?”
“Don’t be absurd.” He chose another charcoal. “I told her I needed her to throw a masquerade ball as soon as possible. She was more than happy to oblige, since she owes me a favor.”
“That must be some favor.”
“You have no idea,” he muttered. “In any case, the ball is at the end of next week. You and your brother should receive the invitation tomorrow.”
“Oh, dear.”
He shot her a sharp glance over the top of the canvas. “What?”
“Edwin hates masquerades.”
“Your brother appears to hate everything.”
She bit back a smile. “It does seem that way, doesn’t it? But honestly, he can be very winning when I can coax him out of himself. He broods too much.”
“I noticed.”
“Don’t worry—I’ll talk him round to it. He knows that I enjoy masquerade balls, and I can point out that it would be rude of you not to attend your own cousin’s affair.”
Mr. Keane stared hard at her. “Do you do that often? ‘Talk him round’ to things?”
“Someone has to. Otherwise he’d spend his entire life alone in a room with his automatons. He doesn’t like people much.”
“Yes, I noticed that, too.” Mr. Keane returned to sketching.
“Anyway, do you mean for us just to slip out of the ball together?”
“Yes. We’ll be in costume, so as long as no one knows what we’ve come as, we’ll be safe.”
“Does Lady Zoe live near Covent Garden?”
“No, we’ll have to take a hackney.” He made a large sweeping motion with the charcoal over the sketch pad. “Mrs. Beard’s establishment is on the near end of Covent Garden, so that’s where we’ll start.”
“Good Lord, you certainly know your nunneries,” she said acidly.
“If you’ll recall, that is why you wanted me to help you.” His eyes had gone a steely blue as he sketched.
“True.” And his knowledge shouldn’t irritate her so much, but the more she got to know him, the more it did. Perish the man.
A lock of his golden hair fell into his eyes and he swept it back, heedless of the black streak he left on his forehead. “When are you going to tell me exactly whom you’re looking for in the nunneries?”
That put her on edge. “Soon.” When he cast her a dark look, she added, “First, I need to be sure I can trust you.”
“You mean, because I’m the sort of man who spends my time in brothels,” he said in an oddly irritable tone. As if somehow he chafed at being characterized in such a way.
“Well, you do, don’t you?”
His lips thinned into a line. “Yes, I do. Quite a bit, as a matter of fact.” Now there was a certain defiance in his tone.
It roused her curiosity. She’d begun to wonder about his reputation as a whoremonger. Sometimes it didn’t seem to fit him. Wouldn’t a notorious seducer have at least tried to kiss her by now? Especially after the way he stared at her occasionally.
Of course, she might just be reading into that what she wanted to see. That he desired her. That he thought her worth seducing. Perhaps he didn’t.
That was a lowering thought. How could she have any luck gaining a decent husband if the only men she ever attracted were fortune hunters and scoundrels? If she couldn’t even tempt a rakehell while wearing a flimsy piece of linen and reclining atop a table?
Not that she wanted to tempt him. No, indeed. Though it might be nice—just once—to find out what it was like to be kissed with genuine passion. To be the object of a man’s desire, not just his greed. Since Mr. Keane had no need of her fortune or rank, he might actually desire her for herself. Or her body, anyway. At this point, she wouldn’t mind that so much.
She stiffened. Good Lord, this seductive pose was making her think the unthinkable. Which was probably his plan in the first place—to move slowly and subtly to seduce her. Although he was moving really slowly.
Once more, her curiosity about him and his habits was roused. “I’ve never understood why some men prefer frequenting bawdy houses to spending time with their wives.”
He snorted. “You don’t seriously expect me to enlighten you on that.”
“Why not?”
“You’re not even supposed to know brothels exist, much less what is done in them.”
“Being respectable doesn’t prevent me from being curious.” When he merely kept sketching, she added, “It’s not as if I’m like the average lady. I’m lying here half-naked at midnight so a rogue can paint me. That’s hardly the behavior of a saint.”
“It’s hardly the behavior of a sinner, either.” He shot her a hard glance. “To be a sinner, you have to do more with the rogue than be painted by him. You have to sin with him.”
She swallowed. “And that would be unwise.”
“It certainly would,” he snapped, and returned to sketching.
Perversely, that peeved her. For a scoundrel, he was being awfully gentlemanly.
Or was she simply not attractive enough to tempt him? Perhaps she’d imagined all those heated looks. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d misinterpreted a man’s interest in her. “Don’t you want to sin with me?”
Oh, Lord, she couldn’t believe she’d blurted that out.
His face went stony. “The art of sinning isn’t for novices, my lady. I have neither the time nor the inclination to teach it to an innocent.”
She felt as if she’d been slapped in the face. She could tell a mere excuse when she heard one. “I should have realized you were just blathering nonsense earlier.” She choked down her disappointment, struggling not to let him see it. “All those references to my ‘magnificence’ and being a ‘goddess.’ You didn’t mean a word of it.”
He strode up to glare at her. “I am not a man who lies, as a general rule.”
“No, but you flatter well enough when you want something, don’t you?”
He stepped nearer, a dangerous flicker in his icy eyes. “Oh? And what is it that you think I want, exactly?”
“This painting, of course. Though I still have no idea why you had to have me for it.” She was worked up now, feeling hurt and betrayed and once again left out in the cold when it came to men. “No matter what you said about my ‘attractions,’ it clearly has nothing to do with that, or by now you would have—”
She halted, mortified by what she’d almost admitted.
The harsh lines in his face softened, and his gaze warmed. Then it dropped to her lips. “I would have what?” He tugged her arm down, then lifted his hand to smooth his thumb over her lower lip. “Done this?” He caressed her hot cheek. “Or maybe this?”
Her breath froze in her throat. She hadn’t meant to provoke him to—
Well, of course she had, madwoman that she was. She should put an end to what he was doing; she knew quite well what it could lead to. But even as she opened her mouth to protest, he curved his hand behind her neck and bent toward her.
“No, you want more than that, don’t you?” he murmured, within a breath of her lips. “Something decidedly more sinful, I would imagine.”
Then he was kissing her, his lips molding hers, tasting hers. But before she’d even registered it, he drew back. “That’s what you were hoping for, I suppose.”
Hardly. It was the most chaste kiss she could imagine—which proved that his fervent need to paint her had naught to do with her and how she looked.
“Even the stodgiest of my suitors kisses better than that. So I think we’ve established that you don’t—”
With a low oath, he kissed her again—harder, rougher. Sinful. This time she felt it to her toes. Then he hauled her up so he could clasp the back of her head and hold her still while his mouth covered hers more fully.
Every inch of her turned soft. Pliant. Yearning. She gripped his arms, meaning to push him back but clutching him closer instead. He groaned low in his throat, then pressed her lips apart so he could plunge his tongue inside her mouth.
Heavenly day. This kiss was intense and hot, the best she’d had in her life. He plundered her mouth in long, silky strokes that had her stomach doing somersaults and her blood pounding madly in her veins. Who knew that a mere kiss could turn one into a seething knot of sensation?
Some instinct made her entwine her tongue with his, and he froze, then kissed her more wildly, more deeply, with urgent, heady thrusts that had her straining up against him.
It was so thrilling and reckless. Unlike the lieutenant, he wasn’t trying to steal her garter or some other token to use against her; he was too involved in the kiss for that. While his mouth ravished hers, he gripped her thighs as if to urge them apart, and she opened them to bring him closer, into the V of her legs. It was a far more intimate position than she’d intended, especially since it made the costume bunch up about her hips.
Now he was clasping her thighs. Good Lord! Even with her drawers between his flesh and hers, it felt so deliciously wicked.
He tore his mouth free to trail warm, openmouthed kisses up her cheek to her ear. “Do you really not know how much you tempt me?”
“No.” Having him flush against her down there was glorious. This, she’d never done before. “I . . . I’m not used to . . . tempting anyone, Mr. Keane.”
“Jeremy.” He nipped her earlobe, sending a frisson of sensation through her. “Call me Jeremy when we’re alone.”
Another intimacy. It banished her good sense entirely. “Jeremy?” she breathed.
“Yes, Yvette?”
“Kiss me again.”
This time his kiss was leisurely, as if he wanted to savor it. She certainly wanted to savor it, and the feel of him against her, and the way his fingers flexed convulsively on her thighs as if he was trying to keep from caressing her . . . She wanted to savor it all.
And wouldn’t it be wonderful to have him touch her somewhere naughty? Down there? Where no man had ever touched her? The very idea made her head swim and her knees wobble.
Cupping her head in his hands, he drew back to stare at her. “We have to stop this.”
Her throat tightened. “Why?”
That was a silly question. She knew why. The last time a man had dallied with her, she’d nearly lost her pride, her reputation, and her future.
“Because I want to bed you—here, now. I’ve spent all evening thinking of how it would feel to have you.” He swore under his breath. “Have I finally made you understand that I desire you?”
There was certainly no mistaking the heat in his eyes. “I’m . . . beginning to have some idea.”
“But a gentleman doesn’t act on his desires with a lady. Not unless he intends to court her.” His gaze bored into hers. “And despite what you apparently think of me, I am a gentleman.”
Her disappointment was as keen as it was absurd. “In other words, you do not intend to court me.”
His face closed up. “I don’t intend to court anyone, no matter how much I’m tempted.”
She’d known that instinctively, yet she’d foolishly hoped . . . “And I don’t intend to marry a rogue, so we’re in perfect accord.” Fighting for calm, she pushed at him.
He stepped back, and for the first time since she’d met him, he looked disconcerted. Shoving one hand through the beautiful hair she hadn’t even had the chance to caress, he rasped, “It’s not that I . . . God, I didn’t mean—”
“You don’t have to explain.” She jerked the hem of the costume down. Lord, she couldn’t believe she’d actually invited this . . . this humiliation. “I as much as asked you to kiss me. You were merely . . . obliging me.”
His lips thinned. “What a very polite and English way to put it.”
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? You gave me what I asked for.”
“I gave you more than you asked for.” His heated gaze drifted down to her mouth and lower, where her breasts rose and fell with the urgency of her breathing. “And more than I could afford.”
“Yes, you made that perfectly clear.” She turned toward the table, wondering how she would ever spend the rest of the evening lying on it while he watched her and painted her and did nothing about it.
Because he didn’t want her. Not for more than a moment’s dalliance.
Catching her by the arm, he hauled her around to face him. “It was also far, far less than what I desired.”
“Because you’re a gentleman—I know.” She tugged her arm free of his grip.
A look of frustration crossed his face.
He wasn’t the only one frustrated. Experiencing such passion and being told that one was good only for that was mortifying. Especially since, in spite of everything, a part of her still wished he had done more. Gone further. Taught her . . .
Heavenly day.
“Perhaps we should stop for tonight,” Jeremy clipped out. “We can pick up again tomorrow night.”
“An excellent idea.” She snatched up her clothes and headed for the door.
As she reached it, he called out, “Yvette?”
She halted. “Yes?”
“I promise not to overstep my bounds again. You needn’t worry about that.”
All she could manage was a nod before she fled. Because the truth was, she would much rather he overstep his bounds and sweep her back into his arms than play the gentleman.
And that was the cruelest turn of all.