Beyond Seduction (13 page)

old woman's. "Do you remember the royal purple you showed me last month?"

"Of course," she said with a businesswoman's smile. "A lovely silk velvet."

"We'd like something in that for evening. Off the shoulder and not too much bustle. But I leave the

style to you. You know what I like."

"Indeed," agreed the seamstress, "and perhaps a matching cloak?"

Nic turned on his heel to look at Merry, a sharp, elegant motion that took her by surprise. His eyes were considering but soft. "A real coat, I think. Warmly lined. A dark tweed. Chocolate, if you have it. Or Chinese green. And velvet lapels. Black."

"Very good," said the seamstress. From her respectfully inclined head she obviously sensed that he was done.

Merry didn't speak until the assistant showed them out the door. "I need an evening gown?"

"You might," he said, his expression amused but uninfor-mative. She fought a trickle of alarm. She

hoped he wasn't planning to take her out in public. The last thing she wanted was to be spotted before

her ruination was complete.

"And a coat?" she added as he whistled for a cab.

"Now that you need. The one you have is ragged."

He handed her up the steps of the old four-wheeled growler, his manners as impeccable as any son of noble blood. Merry had noticed this poise of his before. Had he been coached to do these things?

Perhaps he'd hired a tutor. Perhaps, as an artist, the extra polish helped him attract a more affluent clientele.

He settled opposite her in the forward seat and stretched his long, lean legs to the other side. "If you

feel awkward about accepting these garments, you could leave them behind when the job is through.

Of course"—he grinned like a boy with his finger in the jampot—"you're so tiny no one else would

ever fit them."

An unexpected warmth blossomed in Merry's chest. Why, he's worried about me, she thought. And doesn't want me to feel I'm taking charity. How sweet it was! And how comically unnecessary. Her

father could buy a hundred velvet gowns and never miss a shilling.

She pressed her glove to her mouth to keep her laugh inside. "Thank you," she said, obliged to turn her twitching face to the window. "You're very kind."

It was beyond foolish, of course, but she found herself wondering just how long she could draw her employment out.

Five

Their days settled into a pattern the return of the servants did not break, since the staff never bothered Nic unless he called them. A motley lot, their presence spoke volumes about his openness of mind.

Merry doubted her mother would have hired even one of them. The butler, whom she'd met, was too rough in appearance for so visible a position. The cook had the interesting habit of preparing what she thought Nic ought to eat rather than what he asked for. The maid was pert, the elderly gardener could barely hobble around, and the newest member of the staff, a gangly teenaged boy, hid his face with a succession of ugly scarves—like a monster from a tale by LeFanu.

Happily, Merry's room was swept and her linens washed without her having to ask. She'd surmised her position was similar to a governess, but hadn't known what protocol required. Either the servants knew

or had gotten their instructions from Nic. He ruled them like a genial if absentminded king. She could

tell they were proud to serve him, as if his standing in society enhanced their own. Certainly, they

viewed the facilitation of his art as their foremost responsibility.

The center of this eccentric little empire, Nic would rap on her door each dawn to catch the light, grumpier than she, even after his morning coffee. She'd pose until darkness fell or his hand grew too

stiff to hold the brush. He spent most of his time doing studies.
Esquisse
, he called them, after the French. She gathered they were a sort of practice painting in which he worked out color and composition for the real painting to follow. He did them either on canvas or heavy paper coated with white size, depending on how many canvasses he'd prepared the night before. His supply didn't last long, so quick was he to discard some in disgust, often scraping a painting down mere minutes after beginning it. Each time he did, the back of Merry's neck would tighten as if she'd done something wrong.

He didn't like to converse while he worked, but finally she couldn't keep silent anymore. "Why must you destroy these pictures?" she demanded. "Why not save them and choose the best when you're done?"

He raised his brows as if she were simple, but he answered. "I'm not like the old-style painters who start with a dark ground and work toward white. I begin with white and lay progressively darker shades on

top. Because of this, I cannot rework as much as they do. My initial composition must be right."

That may have been true, but Merry knew a half-mad perfectionist when she saw one.

His mood turned increasingly inward as the days progressed, leaving her so stultified with boredom she barely noticed when he had her pose without her drawers. For an active young woman, the job was torture. The only advantage to the monotony was that sometimes she could trick him into answering her questions. Not often, though. Most of the time, his distraction made him curt.

"Where did you grow up?" she'd ask.

"North," would be his surly answer.

"Who sent you that letter this morning?"

"No one," he'd snap, then stride over to adjust her chin.

He kissed her sometimes when he did this, a brusque smack on her lips that left her humming from

head to toe.

She was miffed to discover she could be silenced by a kiss, especially a kiss like that, but at least she knew she wasn't invisible.

"Must I entertain you?" he moaned, one unusually restless day. He was frowning at the canvas, an expression she'd learned might mean anything at all.

"I only wanted to know how old you were when you saw your first naked woman."

"Twelve," he said and drew a stroke that seemed to ease his glare.

Merry held her breath and struggled not to move. His answer, brief as it was, hinted at a story she

wished to hear. She watched him nod in satisfaction at what he'd done. Now, she thought, ask him.

"Who was she?"

"Housemaid. She was washing up in her room."

"Is that when you decided you wanted to be a painter?"

To her surprise, he lowered his brush and laughed. "You think I do this because I'm depraved."

"Of course I don't!"

"You do." His grin was utterly infectious. "Finally found a job where I could ogle naked females. But you're the one who gets hot and bothered when she takes off all her clothes."

"I am not!"

"Aren't you?" He set down his palette and walked around the folding easel. He was a messy painter, his shirt stiff with old stains, his arms and fingers every color of the rainbow. Without a care for mussing

her, he lifted her off the posing saddle and slid her down his front.

Merry was too startled to struggle or perhaps, if she were honest, too interested in seeing what he would do.

His body was warm and hard, his thigh easing between her legs until she straddled its muscled length. If she'd ever forgotten she was naked, she remembered it when she felt that smooth black wool against her most private parts. The sensation of vulnerability was mysteriously appealing. His hand curved over her bottom, sticky with paint. He smelled of turps and linseed oil, a scent she knew she'd forever associate with him. As he pulled her closer, his sex began to stir.

"You're wet," he said softly.

The truth of the words brought a blaze of color to her face.

"You're hard," she shot back, rather than cede the point.

His head bowed toward her ear. "Not yet, Duchess. But I'm getting there."

The feel of him changing sent a shiver down her spine. He was stretching inside his trousers, against

her hip, growing longer, growing thick. She heard him growl and then his teeth sank lightly into her

neck. His hand, the one that wasn't wrapped around her bottom, skimmed her ribs and slipped beneath her hair. Her breasts were trembling with her heartbeat, with the intensity of all he made her feel. When he molded one in his palm, she couldn't suppress a whimper. His hand was larger than her breast, a stark reminder of his masculine advantage.

"You're hard, too," he whispered and feathered her nipple with his thumb.

Her back arched. His touch inspired more pleasure than she could bear—plucking her, playing her, stroking round and round while she struggled to be still. His thigh flexed between her legs and she went liquid deep inside. She hitched against him, once, but it did not help. She wanted his mouth on her, wanted him to lay her down and drive inside. In that moment, she wouldn't have had the strength to stop him.

But he was not a man to rush these matters. He brushed her hair aside with gentle fingers.

"How lovely you are," he mused. "Your nipples match your rosy-golden curls."

Without warning, tears stung the corners of her eyes. For years she'd been known as the plainest deb in
London
. She'd made a joke of it herself. But hard as she tried not to care, it wasn't easy knowing that no one, not even her parents, thought her pretty. "Ragamuffin" was the kindest term her father had ever used. And now this man, this artiste, spoke as if
she
were a work of art. The effect it had on her was extraordinary, as if he'd looked into her heart and fed it the meal it most desired, the meal it had been starving for all her life. She couldn't stifle a pang of regret when he set her on her feet and stroked her hair back down her breasts.

Smiling faintly, he lifted a sticky vermilion lock. "I've gotten paint on you," he said. "Perhaps you'd

better wash."

Only pride enabled her to retreat. "Yes," she said, ignoring her body's protest. "I'd better."

Her earlier conversation with Isabel could not have been clearer in her mind.
Likes them panting after him, I'll bet,
she'd said. Merry hadn't met her employer then, but she'd guessed more truly than she'd known. Worse, if she didn't guard herself better, she'd end up panting as pathetically as the rest.

*  *  *

Lavinia Vance and her youngest son were sharing a silent breakfast, her sole attempt at conversation having met with a muffled grunt. For once, she wished she were more in the habit of talking with her children. At least then she'd have a distraction from her worries. But Peter seemed to have worries of

his own. His mind plainly elsewhere, he glowered at the tablecloth while she pushed her eggs around

her plate and wondered if the letter Merry had sent from
Wales
would suffice to keep the elder Althorp off her back. Her daughter's tone had been softer than she'd expected, expressing regret for harsh words and a certain nostalgia for times she'd spent with Ernest when they were young.

Surely Merry wouldn't mention him if she weren't rethinking her position.

Her second son wandered in as she tried to convince herself this was true.

"That's some frown," he said, loading a plate at the parlor sideboard. "You keep thinking that hard,

you'll hurt your brain."

For one astonished moment, Lavinia thought James was addressing her, but then Peter shot a rude gesture at his brother from beneath the table, where he must have thought it would be concealed. Her pang of resentment took her by surprise. My children don't even see me, she thought.

But that was just as well, wasn't it, considering the secrets she had to hide?