Nine
“Are we boring you, my lady?” a voice sounded from the nether reaches of Yvette’s consciousness.
She jerked awake. Heavenly day. She couldn’t believe she was standing with her hands on her hips in the middle of the music room and still managing to nod off. Someone should have warned her that modeling for an artist was tedious.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Keane.” She glanced at Edwin, who watched her with a hooded stare. “As my brother said this morning, I’m not used to rising so early.”
Jeremy, too, was watching her, but his gaze was clinical, removed. “It’s all right. We’ve had a long day. The sun is setting and I’m losing the light anyway. Might as well stop for now.”
“But—”
“I can keep working on the background.” Jeremy smiled tightly. “Trust me, I have plenty to occupy me.” He glanced at the clock. “Why don’t you and your brother go on to dinner? Don’t mind me.”
She let her shoulders slump, and it felt so incredible, she wanted to do a little dance. Someone should also have warned her that modeling for an artist was extremely uncomfortable. Her spine felt as if someone had played piano on it for the past hour.
Then his words registered. She frowned. “You’re not dining with us?”
He avoided her gaze. “No, I believe I’ll keep working. But if you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate having a tray sent in to me.”
“Of course.” She donned her role as mistress of the manor. “Perhaps we’ll see you later this evening. In the drawing room.”
Jeremy cast her a meaningful glance. “Yes, later. Maybe.”
Her every sense went on high alert as she headed for the kitchen to order his tray. Somehow she’d managed to forget that they were to have a far more intimate sitting this evening.
You need fire and life and the thrill of the night.
What a devil. He thought he knew everything about her. And yes, he might be right about what she needed. But she wasn’t willing to give up her future for it, or to watch as some scoundrel abandoned her for his mistress or other petty enjoyments. She needed a husband who wouldn’t disappear at the first sign of trouble, and she was fairly certain Jeremy could never be that. Look at how he had run off to England to escape his family.
He claimed she was like him, but she wasn’t. She would never shirk her responsibilities, just to have fire and life and the thrill of the night. She’d learned her lesson only too well with the lieutenant.
She had—truly she had. Even if Jeremy was the most fascinating man who’d ever kissed her.
Dinner proved an awkward affair. Edwin seemed even more melancholy than usual, especially with Jeremy not there. It didn’t help that her thoughts were elsewhere, too. On what might transpire later. On whether Jeremy might attempt to kiss her again. On what she would do if he did.
“Take care, Yvette,” Edwin murmured.
She practically jumped in her chair. Good Lord, her brother had begun reading minds.
She feigned a smile. “About what?”
“About Keane. The air fairly crackles between you. I don’t know what happened this morning before I came in, but I couldn’t help noticing that when you returned from changing your clothes, you were wearing that red silk evening gown I hate. I would have preferred that you wore something for your portrait that was less—”
“Interesting?”
“Yes, if by ‘interesting,’ you mean it shows too much of your . . . er . . . shoulders. That’s the kind of ‘interesting’ a man can’t help but notice. Especially a man like Keane.”
“All he saw was that it was bright red and brought out the color of my hair.” Sadly, that had seemed to be true.
“That’s not what it looked like to me. I realize you find him an intriguing man of the world—”
“You have no idea how I find him.” She was getting tired of men presuming to guess her thoughts. And then comment on them.
“I’ve seen the looks you give him,” Edwin persisted.
“What looks? The exasperated ones? The annoyed ones?”
“Yes. Those. You don’t take other rogues seriously, either laughing or flirting or mocking them. But you’re nervous and cautious around Mr. Keane. Which is how I can tell you like him.”
How startling that Edwin had surmised such a thing. He wasn’t usually so astute about people’s feelings. “That’s preposterous.” She forced herself to meet his gaze. “I wouldn’t be so foolish as to like his sort.”
His somber gaze saw right through her. “But you must admit that you—”
When he caught himself with a look of chagrin, she lifted one eyebrow. “That I what?”
“Nothing.” He smoothed his features. “I must have misread your feelings.”
“Yes, you must have.” She placed her napkin on the table and stood. “I’m going to bed. Rising at dawn is clearly not for me.”
He blinked. “What if Keane comes to the drawing room?”
“Then the two of you shall have a fine talk. You don’t need me for that.”
She could feel him watching her as she left. Was she really that transparent around Jeremy? If even Edwin could sense the simmering attraction between them, then it was dangerously obvious.
Once in her room, she told her maid she was ready to retire, then suffered through the motions of that preparation. But after her maid left her, she realized it was still too early to meet Jeremy in the schoolroom. So she lay down on the bed, meaning only to rest a moment.
She awoke to the sun streaming through the curtains at dawn.
Oh, Lord! She’d slept through their assignation!
Muttering every cant term for “ninny” that she knew, she called for her maid and dressed hastily. She ignored the poor girl’s protestations that something must be amiss for her ladyship to be retiring and rising so early. It wasn’t like her ladyship at all.
No, it wasn’t. But at least she’d finally had a good night’s sleep. Perhaps that would help her to endure a day of posing in public, followed by a night of posing in private.
A shiver shook her. It was the posing in private that she’d dreamed about all night. The kissing in private. The touching—
Heavenly day. She had to stop thinking about that!
Hoping to get a moment alone with Jeremy to explain last night’s absence, she hurried toward the breakfast room, but before she could reach it, an arm snaked out to pull her into an alcove.
It was him, wearing that stormy look that both alarmed and excited her. “We had a deal. You’re not holding up your end of it.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry. I fell asleep. I’m not used to these hours.”
“Really?” A faint sneer twisted his lips. “So it had nothing to do with what happened our first night together, nothing to do with the words we exchanged yesterday morning before your brother interrupted us?”
“Certainly not!” She glanced furtively beyond him into the hall, but no one seemed to be nearby, thank heaven. Still, just to be safe she lowered her voice. “I intended to show up last night. And I promise to show up tonight.”
His hand still gripped her arm, holding her so close she could smell coffee on his breath. “Do you swear it?”
“Yes. I’ll swear it on the Bible if you require it.”
He searched her face, then released her with an oath. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Good. Because you don’t seem the sort to carry around a Bible.”
His lips twitched. “No.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I suppose it was foolish of me to think you could spend all day and night posing.”
“It was only my rising early yesterday that made it difficult, I assure you. But from now on—”
“From now on we should meet every other night, so you can get a good night’s sleep in between.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Then your painting would take forever!” She thrust out her chin. “I can keep up these hours if you can.”
“I doubt that,” he said in a lazy drawl. “Such hours are normal for me.”
She winced. “Yes, I’m well aware of the dissolute life you lead.”
“That’s not what I meant.” His gaze turned brittle. “And to quote your ladyship, just because you and I shared a few kisses doesn’t mean that you know me. You have no idea what sort of life I lead.”
She was beginning to think that might be true. “Very well,” she said, assailed by an odd breathlessness, “why don’t you explain it to me?”
That seemed to take him off guard. The seconds stretched out as he stared at her, his eyes the vivid blue that had begun to haunt her dreams. His gaze drifted down to her lips and fixed there, making her heart flip over in her chest.
Then he jerked his gaze away. “No need. I won’t be here long enough for that to become necessary.”
The cold statement sliced through her, and she fought to hide her hurt. “Suit yourself. But then don’t blame me for not understanding you. I can hardly help it if you don’t want to be understood.” Sliding away from him, she walked out of the alcove. “I’ll see you in the music room after breakfast.”
He didn’t even try to stop her as she hurried off. And that annoyed her, though not nearly as much as his statement that he wouldn’t be around long. She shouldn’t expect anything more of him. Samuel had never stuck around with any of his mistresses. The lieutenant hadn’t even stuck around after he’d kissed her.
Of course, that was because Samuel had nipped the scoundrel’s plans in the bud—but still, men had a tendency to run off when things didn’t go their way. Or after they got what they wanted from a woman.
But Jeremy hadn’t gotten what he wanted. He hadn’t bedded her. He’d barely even kissed her. Though perhaps seduction wasn’t what he’d wanted at all.
An exasperated breath escaped her. She didn’t really know what he wanted, other than to paint some odd work about Commerce and Art and seething emotions she didn’t really understand. And to lecture her on who he thought she was.
Presumptuous fellow. She knew who she was. She just didn’t know who he was. Not really.
Perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps if she could find out more about him she could better understand his situation. Why he’d left America. What he was running away from. Why he was so angry about his family trying to drag him back to his home.
Fortunately, at breakfast Edwin gave her the perfect opening for her questions as he thumbed through the mail. “Strange. I’ve received something from Lady Zoe.”
“Mr. Keane’s cousin?” She glanced at Jeremy. “Perhaps it’s word of his family’s arrival.”
“Good God, I hope not,” Jeremy muttered, and poured himself some coffee.
“Why?” she asked. “Surely your sister isn’t such a dragon as all that. Or is it your mother who alarms you? She must be awful if you ran off to England to escape her.”
His gaze narrowed on her. “She’s not awful, and I’m not escaping anything. I’m merely attempting to broaden my knowledge of art, to view masterpieces I would never have the chance to see in America.”
“So why do you care if your family comes to visit you? It’s not as if they can force you to go back with them.”
“Actually,” Edwin interrupted, “the missive isn’t about Keane’s family. It’s an invitation to a masquerade ball a week from Friday.”
“Oh. How very . . . intriguing.” She’d forgotten all about Jeremy’s plan.
Jeremy glanced at Edwin. “Ah, yes, before I left town, Lady Zoe mentioned that she was throwing one and wanted to invite the two of you. She asked if I thought it would be awkward for you to be around your former fiancée’s relations. I told her that if you found it so, you would just refuse to attend.”
When Edwin stiffened, Yvette bit back a smile. The best way to make sure her brother did as one wished was to challenge him not to. It got his back up. Edwin could be very proud sometimes.
“So what do you think?” she prodded her brother. “Shall we go? It sounds like fun.”
“I see no reason to avoid it,” Edwin said blandly.
She couldn’t resist teasing him. “Really? I thought you hated masquerade balls.”
“I’m not nearly the dullard you take me for. I know how to enjoy myself.”
“But not by wearing a costume. Not by dancing with—”
“If you’re trying to talk me out of attending, you’re doing a good job of it,” Edwin said.
Uh-oh. “Sorry. That was not my intention; I’d genuinely like to go. So you must take me.”
He sighed. “I suppose I must.”
She slanted a glance at Jeremy. “How else am I to find out from Lady Zoe everything I can about Mr. Keane and his frightening relations?”
The artist’s face closed up. “There’s nothing to find out, I assure you. Or at any rate, nothing terribly interesting.”
“I seriously doubt that.”
“Anyway,” Edwin interrupted, “if we’re all going, Yvette, I shall send an acceptance. I can do it while you’re posing for Keane. I’ll play secretary, and you can dictate my response.” A sudden gleam in his eye put her on guard. “Perhaps it’ll keep you from falling asleep. I don’t know how you managed that while you were standing up. You’d think that your militant stance alone would have kept you on your feet.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “I defy anyone not to get bored while maintaining a fixed position for hours.” She dipped her toast in her runny egg. “And I stayed awake much longer than I would have if I’d sat in a chair. Aren’t you glad now that I chose my ‘fishwife’s pose’?”
“I’m not glad about anything,” Edwin grumbled. “I begin to regret that I ever suggested this portrait.”
She laughed outright. “Why? Because I’ve turned it to my advantage?”
He flashed her a rueful smile. “Because if you keep falling asleep, Keane will be camped here until doomsday trying to finish it.”
“No, indeed.” She ate a bite of toast. “He’s got family coming any day now.” She shot Jeremy a look of challenge. “If he’s still working when they arrive, we can invite them to stay at Stoke Towers.”
To her surprise, a laugh burst from the American. “Mother would never do that. This is her first trip to London. She isn’t going to settle for moldering out at your country estate when she can be shopping on Bond Street.”
Aha! That was one clue about his mother. “She enjoys shopping, does she?”
“Doesn’t every woman?”
“Not your sister,” Edwin put in. “Not according to what you told me at the wedding.”
“He told you about his sister at the wedding?” Yvette said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why would I?” Edwin looked truly bewildered. Sometimes he was too oblivious to be believed. “You didn’t ask. And it had nothing to do with you.”
“Perhaps I’m curious to know why Mr. Keane chose to abandon his sister to their family mills to come here.”
“That’s a tale for another time,” Jeremy said smoothly. Pushing away from the table, he stood and laid down his napkin. “If I’m to get any work done, I’d better go make sure that Damber has everything ready for when her ladyship is done with her breakfast.”
To her vast irritation, he gave a courteous bow and walked out, leaving her no more the wiser about why he was avoiding his family. It was so frustrating!
And Edwin was no help at all. That day, while she posed for her portrait, he chatted with Jeremy about everything except what she wanted to know. She didn’t think he did it deliberately, but it was still vexing. Every time she broached the subject of Jeremy’s mother and sister, Jeremy changed the subject to something that interested Edwin, and that was an end to her gaining any useful information about Jeremy’s life outside his work as an artist.
So while they talked, she tried getting information from Damber. Unfortunately, she never got to be alone with the apprentice to really interrogate him about his master. Still, she was able to glean a few things from their long conversation about street cant and painting and such.
Apparently Jeremy’s family was quite wealthy. He’d received an excellent education at a boarding school in Massachusetts, then had left home to study painting in Philadelphia at the age of nineteen. He had only the one sister and was half heir to the family mills.
And he worked late most nights. How he managed that while also cutting a wide swath through London’s stews and gaming hells was beyond her, but Damber wasn’t forthcoming about that.
Later that evening, when she was posing privately for Jeremy, she came right out and asked him. He merely made some flippant remark and went on painting. Indeed, as the evening wore on and she quizzed him about his life in America, he continued to deflect her questions with jokes or facile tales of his travels, the sort she would imagine he used with any model.
Meanwhile, his formality chilled her to the bone. He called her “my lady” so often that she finally informed him acidly that only servants called her that. He refused to let her see the painting and threatened to expose her plans to her brother if she even attempted to look at it. And though he touched her sometimes to reposition her, his impersonal demeanor told her she was merely the model for his dratted work.
And that hurt. It was almost more than she could bear, to be alone with him with the reminder of their intimate kisses shimmering in the air while he treated her with cold professionalism.
He was a known rakehell, for pity’s sake! Didn’t they attempt to bed anything in skirts?
Not Jeremy, apparently. Over the next several days, he and Edwin discussed art and America and society until she was sick of it. At night, Jeremy told her so many stories of his adventures she was sure she could publish an account of his travels.
Yet she learned from it only that he could be an amusing raconteur. Which perversely meant that when it came to his feelings or anything that really mattered, he was more impenetrable than the cockney slang of a Spitalfields doxy.
He sharpened his wit on her; she sharpened her wit on him. But it ended there. She saw nothing deeper of him. He might as well have been one of Edwin’s well-crafted automatons, moving in carefully circumscribed ways, speaking of carefully circumscribed things in his brittle, removed manner. It was enough to make a half-dressed female scream.
Or cry. But she refused to cry over the likes of Jeremy Keane. She’d already told herself he was wrong for her. Why did she care if he agreed? She didn’t. She wouldn’t.
So on the morning of her ninth day of posing for the portrait, she’d decided to give up on trying to know him better. Tomorrow night was the masquerade ball and their visit to the bawdy house. Once that was done, she just had to suffer through his finishing the two paintings.
Clearly, whatever connection to him that she’d felt their first evening together had been imagined. Or else he was a master at keeping himself in check. And in her experience, that was never true of rogues.
Probably he’d kissed her to shut her up about her desirability so he could keep her compliant with his aims to paint her. Or something equally manipulative.
“Must you scowl?” Jeremy grumbled as he daubed and dabbed at his canvas. He seemed as out of sorts this morning as she.
“I didn’t realize I was,” she said coolly. “How unfeminine of me. God forbid I look like anything but a delicate flower for my portrait.”
Her sharp tone must have caught Edwin’s attention, for he glanced up from the accounting ledger he was going over. “You couldn’t look like a delicate flower if you tried. And who wants a delicate flower, anyway?”
“No sensible man, that’s for certain,” said a voice from the doorway.
She glanced over and broke into a smile. “Warren!” Abandoning her pose, she hurried over to the Marquess of Knightford, who also happened to be Edwin’s oldest friend. “It’s been ages!”
“Indeed it has.” With the usual twinkle in his eye, he bussed her on the cheek.
Warren Corry was the only man, other than Edwin and Samuel, allowed such familiarity. He was a flirt and a devil and notorious for breezing in and out of some of society’s loftiest bedrooms, but to her he was part of the family.
Still, the impudent look he now gave her might make it difficult for an outsider to tell. “You’re looking very lovely,” he said with a wink and a grin. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you in that gown, but it’s most fetching. Brings out the bit of red in your hair.”
She shot Edwin a triumphant look, and in the process caught Jeremy’s gaze. He was staring daggers at Warren. It gave her pause, especially since it was the first hint of emotion he’d shown in days.
How odd. Could he be jealous? Oh, wouldn’t that be delicious? She could finally vex him the way he’d been vexing her.
Though he didn’t seem the sort to be jealous. Probably he was merely irritated that she’d broken her pose. Well, she wasn’t a machine. He would just have to get used to it.
Deliberately, she turned her back on him. “What are you doing here, Warren? You can’t be visiting your aunt and cousin.” The estate of Warren’s aunt lay quite close to Stoke Towers. “They’re wintering in Bath.”
“They were, but as of last night they’re home. My aunt got bored and decided she and Clarissa would be better off in the country after all. So I was charged with accompanying them back.” As guardian to his cousin Clarissa, he was often charged with such tasks. He sometimes even did them.
“You poor dear,” she teased. “But that doesn’t explain why you came right over to visit us the minute you arrived.”
“Actually, Clarissa sent me to fetch you. She’s still unpacking, but she hoped you might come help her and her mother pick her costume for tomorrow night’s masquerade ball at the Keanes’ in London. I assume you’re going?”
“Of course! We all are.” She cocked her head. “I didn’t realize that you knew Lady Zoe.”
“I don’t, but my aunt went to school with Lady Zoe’s aunt.”
“You mean, Zoe’s Aunt Floria?” Jeremy put in.
As if Warren’s coronet of rank had suddenly dropped onto his head from on high, the marquess stiffened and turned to stare coldly at Jeremy. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced, sir.”
A light glittered in Jeremy’s eyes. “No. I don’t believe we have.”
“Forgive my bad manners.” Edwin swiftly performed introductions, adding, by way of explanation, “Keane is painting Yvette’s portrait.”
“Is he?” Warren said in a surprisingly testy voice. “Did you know that he is often seen out and about in Covent Garden?”
“So are you,” Jeremy countered. “I’ve seen you myself.”
A flush crept up Warren’s neck. “I happen to enjoy attending the theater.”
“Among other . . . establishments.” Jeremy shot Yvette a veiled glance.
How odd. Why was he was being so vulgar? Wait—did he think Warren had something to do with her trip to the bawdy house?
Oh, for pity’s sake. She lifted an eyebrow at Warren. “As it happens, Edwin and I are quite aware of Mr. Keane’s love of nunneries.” She frowned at Jeremy. “We’re equally aware of his lordship’s preference for them. So why don’t the two of you stop accusing each other of habits you’d probably congratulate each other for if I weren’t around?”
Warren blinked. Edwin gave a choked sound that sounded something like a laugh. But Jeremy just watched Warren with a challenging gaze, as if ready to protect her should Warren assault her honor.
It was rather sweet. And utterly unexpected, given the way he’d been behaving lately.
“Now,” she went on, “if you gentlemen will excuse me, I’m going upstairs to change into something more suitable for strolling over to Clarissa’s with Warren. I shan’t be long.”
“What about your portrait?” Jeremy called as she walked away.
“Oh, let her have a few hours off,” Edwin put in. “She’s been a good sort about posing. I confess I didn’t expect her to last this long.”
She paused to look back at Jeremy with a blithe smile. “Why don’t you work on the background? Or on one of those other paintings Mr. Damber says you work on at night?”
At her reminder that he owed her for doing him a favor, Jeremy stiffened, then gave her one of his mocking bows. “Whatever her ladyship wishes.”
Edwin’s chuckle followed her up the stairs.
Let Jeremy retreat into his cold fortress. If she didn’t escape him for a few hours, she might do something reckless.
Like remind him she was a woman he supposedly desired. And that wouldn’t be remotely wise.