Stroke of Genius (18 page)

Then her mistress resumed her circuit of the small room.

Beneath her broad skirt, Claudette felt a silent chuckle against the skin of her inner thigh, making her small hairs sway in the heat of his breath. She rapped the protruding bump that was Wyckeham’s head with her fan. He stopped his soundless laughter and began to demonstrate his tongue’s abilities in spades. Claudette forced an even tone. “How did . . . your sitting go?”

“Fine.”

“And your plan to investigate the way of a man’s hand on a woman’s breast, how did that go, mam’selle?”

“Less fine. He started to provide some raw data for my experiment, but we got sidetracked and I’m not sure why.”

“By which you mean Monsieur Hawke, he touched you again? Let us call things by their proper names. The man, he caressed you as you wished,
oui
?”

Wyckeham did a good bit of secret caressing of his own and Claudette’s eyes were in danger of rolling back in her head. Miss Makepeace sank onto the tufted chair in the corner.

“Oh, yes.” Her mistress’s tone was throaty and one hand drifted to her chest. “He caressed me and then he stopped abruptly and insisted we return to work.”

Wyckeham stopped too, and Claudette realized he was taking more interest in their conversation than he should. She remembered belatedly that she needed to protect Miss Makepeace’s privacy, but her own was being so sweetly invaded just now, she could hardly think straight.  

    “How inconsiderate of the beast!” Claudette said, giving the bump under her skirt a sound thump when Miss Makepeace looked away. “A gentleman should give his lady the pleasure of deciding when their liaison is over.”

Miss Makepeace sighed. “But Crispin Hawke is no gentleman.”

“And that is not such a bad thing in this case, mam’selle.”
Mon Dieu
! Monsieur Hawke’s gentleman’s gentleman was doing wicked things with that English tongue of his. “Was it wonderful before he stopped?”

Miss Makepeace actually groaned.

“That good?” 

“I had no idea it would be like that,” her mistress said. “I mean, it was strange and thrilling in the modiste’s shop, but this was entirely different. It was as if my body belonged to someone else, doing as it willed, not as I willed. And because it was so . . .” she waved a helpless hand, clearly at a loss to describe the sensations she’d experienced. “He made me want things. Wicked things.” She shifted uncomfortably on the chair. “Is it always like that?”

Wyckeham stopped, clearly interested in Claudette’s answer.

“No, mam’selle,” she said. “Sometimes it’s definitely better than others.”

“Hmmm. One’s body is the same, isn’t it? I supposed it depends on the skill of one’s partner.”

“
Oui
, on skill and . . .” Wyckeham’s hand drifted down to her stocking garters and toyed with the top of the lace. Shivers of pleasure and need coursed over her. “And on how a woman feels about the man himself.”

Wyckeham cupped her sex under the layers of silk and taffeta and she throbbed into his hand.

Non, I do not have feelings for this Wyckeham. He is merely an amusement until I decide I have teased Monsieur Allen long enough.

“Well, my feelings for Mr. Hawke do not bear repeating in polite company.” Miss Makepeace rose abruptly. “We need to go. Allen and Mr. Gustafson are probably waiting at the end of the lane for us.” She cocked her head and frowned. “Do you need help getting back into your own clothes?”

“Ah
non
, mam’selle, it would . . . not be—how you say?—appropriate for you to help me and I know I do not seem so, but I am shy. I wiggle into this gown. I shall wiggle out.”

Claudette gave her cork enhanced bottom a shake.

“Very well. I’ll wait for you in the atrium garden. Ten minutes, then or I’ll ask Mr. Hawke to send someone to help you.”

As soon as the door latched behind Miss Makepeace, Wyckeham rolled out from under Claudette’s skirt, laughing uncontrollably.

“What is so funny?” she demanded.

“You, shy?”

She flopped down on the floor beside him and tugged him close by his lapels.

“Let me show you how shy I am, Monsieur Wyckeham.” She rolled onto her back and pulled up her skirt.

“I will close
mes yeux
, but you may keep yours open,” she said as she let her eyelids flutter closed. “Your fingers are very nice. Your tongue is nicer still, but see if you can find something bigger this time.”

She peeped at him from beneath her lashes. To her amusement, he was shucking out of his trousers as if they were on fire.

As soon as he seated himself deep within her, she wrapped her legs around his lean hips. All thoughts of the dependable, well-favored Allen, whom she fully intended to marry someday, fled from her mind.

“We must hurry,
mon cher
.” She urged Wyckeham to a quicker rhythm. “My mistress, she is a factory man’s daughter,
non
? If she says ten minutes, she means nine.”

Chapter 19

The piece took shape before his eyes. Pygmalion couldn’t believe the work of his own hands.

Or the way it tugged at his own heart.

The day before her debut at Almack’s, Grace was back in Crispin’s studio, continuing her lessons on how to flirt. Politely, this time.

“Good posture is essential. How you carry yourself speaks volumes. Don’t slouch,” he ordered.

“You sound like my mother.”

“Good Lord, I hope not.”

“Of course, she follows that up with ‘But tip your head sideways so you don’t appear quite so frightfully tall, dear!’” Grace suited her action to the words and cocked her head to one side.

“Now that really did sound like your mother,” he said.

Grace’s imitation of her mother’s trilling tone was so pitch-perfect, Crispin chuckled and for once, the lines by his eyes looked pleased instead of pained.

“Does she know you can do that?”

“What? Practically lay my ear on my shoulder?” Grace asked with a self-deprecating shrug. “Oh, I hope not, or she’ll have me going about like that all the time.”

“No, the mimicry. It was splendid. You sounded just like her.” He circled her slowly, checking every detail of her posture. He put a finger to her cheek and lifted her head gently to the upright position. “Why, you could charge admission.”

“Wonderful,” Grace said with a grimace. “I can just hear the newsboys on the corner hawking that story. ‘The freakishly tall Bostonian heiress now does impressions.’ Line me up for a tour with the dog-faced boy.”

Crispin laughed again, but then his brows knit together in a frown. “Many a truth is spoken in jest. Do you really feel so terrible about your height?”

She started to answer flippantly about how handy she is when one needed something from the top shelf of the highboy, but she realized he was being serious. “It makes me different from other women.”

“Different is not bad.”

“But it’s not good either.” She knew she was slumping again but this time it had nothing to do with trying to make herself smaller. She had no control over her height. Sometimes the injustice of it bowed her down a bit. She glanced back at Crispin who was simply staring at her. “Being tall as a lamp post is not generally considered one of a woman’s finer points, but feel free to tell me otherwise.”

He shook his head. “It wouldn’t make any difference. Until you decide your height is beautiful, it won’t matter a bit if I tell you I think if makes you seem willowy and supple.”

He circled her again and ran his hand along her spine from her nape to below her waist, stopping just before his fingers grazed the top of her crevice. Pleasure sparked along her back and she wondered for a moment what that would have felt like had she not been wearing the thin lawn day dress and all her underthings.

He leaned toward her ear and his voice was the rumbling purr of a lion in his prime. “It doesn’t signify anything if I say I find the long line of you elegant and graceful.” 

Graceful.
That was a cruel joke. She’d been having a recurring nightmare in which she tumbled headlong when bobbing the first curtsey at her debut.

“You have to find yourself beautiful, Grace,” he said simply. “It doesn’t really matter if I do.”

She digested that a moment, while he made a few adjustments to the sketch he was working on half-heartedly between his instructions on flirting.

“But the top of all the other girls’ heads will be paddling around at the level of my chin and—” She suddenly realized he might have given her a compliment without a swipe. “You do?”

 “Do what?” he looked up sharply.

 “Find me beautiful?”

 He dropped his gaze and made a few cross-hatching lines on the sketch pad. “If I do, it doesn’t matter.”

 “It matters to me,” she said softly. “Do you?”

 He looked back up at her, his gray eyes going suddenly dark. “I do.”

 I do.
It had the ring of an oath. Grace’s belly did a quick flutter. Crispin Hawke was an artist, a master of form and proportion. And he declared her beautiful with a simple ‘I do.’

 Imagine that.

 “We’re wasting time,” he said gruffly. “Please tell me you already know how to use a fan.”

 She didn’t. Not in the sense he meant. Evidently English women could communicate a wealth of flirtatious intent with a few deft flicks of that accessory.

 So they worked on fan language for better than an hour. It was a befuddling lexicon of “come here—go away” gestures that she was certain to make a muddle of. Grace decided to leave her fan dangling from her wrist unless she was in extreme danger of being overcome by heat.

Then Crispin schooled her on making limited, but effective eye contact with gentlemen.

“Too direct and you’ll be considered overly bold,” he admonished. “Too furtive and you’ll be deemed hopelessly shy.”

How was she to find the middle ground?

“And you mustn’t encourage any fellow whom you wouldn’t seriously entertain as a suitor. Not only will a hanger-on be a bother, he’ll make more eligible men suspect your interest might be engaged.”

“What does a man consider encouragement?”

“Breathing,” he said straight faced.

She chuckled. “I am utterly without hope, then.”

“Actually, you’ll want to avoid doing what you’re doing right now if you intend to discourage someone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Smiling, laughing, accepting too many requests to dance.” He ticked her sins off on his long fingers.

 She wondered if after all this instruction in flirting, she was finally engaged in the actual practice of the art. “But you haven’t asked me to dance.”

He lifted his walking stick with a grin. “Alas, I have a permanent partner I dare not set aside for long.”

“But aren’t I going to Almack’s in order to smile and laugh and dance?”

“One must only enjoy oneself with the right people,” he said cynically, his smile fading.

“How do I discourage the wrong ones then?”

“I’ve watched this particular dance a thousand times. It’s done with ruthlessness and premeditation in all the best ballrooms. You have to give an ineligible fellow a direct cut,” Crispin told her. “Sounds cruel, I know, but a sharp wound heals cleanest, they say.”

“You mean I have to be rude and dismissive just because I don’t want a fellow to press his suit?” The whole notion grated against her sense of kindness. “But how will I know whether I want a particular gentleman to pursue me unless I speak with him?”

“According to all reports, you, my dear Grace, are after big game. An earl, a marquess, even a duke isn’t beyond the realm of possibility for someone whose father has such deep pockets.” Crispin’s voice held an edge of disdain. “It’s true they don’t stroll about with their titles affixed to their foreheads, but don’t worry about knowing whom you need to charm, Grace. I’ll be at your side, your faithful hunting hound ready to flush out only trophy bulls for you.”

She made a noise of frustration. “Why must you make it all seem so tawdry and calculating?”

“Because it is.” He canted toward her, his walking stick beating a relentless tattoo on the flagstone. “I know the old girls who guard the gate at Almack’s despise trade, but the marriage market is the most lucrative sort of commerce in the nation.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. Couldn’t he let her have a moment of romance? Or at least a bit of harmless excitement over her coming debut?

“How you can fail to see this as anything but a business dealing is beyond me. You are offering your father’s handsome dowry in exchange for title and prestige.”

“That’s absurd.” She fisted her hands at her waist. “I come with my dowry in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Ah, yes, you and your all important maidenhead.” Crispin might have said ‘your all important case of the pox’ with the exact same inflection. He stopped before her, close enough to make her look up to meet his gaze. “In a quest for the highest titles, money is of primary consideration, but purity runs a close second. Virginity is wealth in its own right.”

“Now you’re being crude for the sake of it.”

“No, I’m being practical.” His face was a mask of disgust. “It’s all about the bloodlines, you see, and we can’t have a bastard sneaking his way into a noble cradle. For the position of a duchess or a marchioness, only the young, chaste and fertile need apply.”