Stroke of Genius (24 page)

“I assume there’s more,” she finally said in hushed tones.

He raised his head and nipped her breast. “Are you trying to kill me?”

He removed his hand from between her legs and she shuddered once more in involuntary joy when his fingertip grazed her just right.

“No, Crispin. I didn’t mean . . . that was wonderful. Extraordinary.” She propped herself up on both elbows, artlessly unaware how fetching the pose rendered her and looked pointedly at the bulge in his trousers. “I meant for you.”

He sat up, needing to put a little distance between them now. If he was going to keep her trust, he had to remove himself from temptation.

“Yes, Grace, there’s a good deal more. For both of us.” He rolled off the bed and found his discarded shoes.

“Really? Can you show me?”

She drew her knees under her and sat up on them. For a moment, Crispin imagined rubbing his cock between her breasts. An image of her head dipping down made his vision waver. She could take him in her mouth. 

His balls tensed for release. He’d dreamed it so many times. But the Grace in his dreams had blood-red lips and a knowing glint in her eyes.

The Grace before him was still an innocent in so many ways. Besides, he’d never be able to keep from growling his pleasure to the moon if she actually did it. And her parents were only a thin wall away.

Her brows tented on her forehead. “Don’t you want to?”  

More than he wanted to keep breathing. And it might come to that if he woke Mr. Makepeace.

He leaned down and kissed her forehead. He didn’t dare anything else.

“Yes, Grace. I want . . .” He wanted to spread her wide and bury himself in her sweet flesh. He wanted to flip her over and ride her till they were both spent. He wanted to tangle himself with her so thoroughly they’d never be able to separate. “But not here, not now.”

She nodded. She climbed out of bed and draped herself on him. He held her, running a hand down the smooth length of her spine and staying to dally with the indentations above her buttocks.

Dimples on both sets of cheeks.
Just as he’d hoped.

“Grace,” he murmured into her neck.

“Hmm?” she said as she pressed her soft body against his. They fit together with such rightness.

“You have to put your wrapper on or I’ll never be able to leave.” She smelled of scented soap and musk and satisfied warm woman. He wanted to capture her essence and carry it with him. To put her in his pocket and keep her next to his heart.

“Perhaps I want you to stay.”

“If you’re prepared not to marry a title, I just might.”

Where the hell had that come from? A woman might mistake that for a ham-handed proposal.

Instead, it seemed to remind Grace that she was a virgin who needed to remain one and galvanized her into action. She stooped to retrieve her wrapper and slipped it on.

“You’re right. Good night, Crispin.” She stood tiptoe and pecked his cheek.

He ought to feel relieved. He’d thought her such a sensible female that first day in his studio when she decided to ignore that initial ill-considered kiss.

Had she decided to ignore the pleasure she’d just experienced?

He frowned down at her. Did this night mean nothing to her?

“Crispin,” she whispered.

“What?” How long had he been staring at her?

“I’m wearing my wrapper and you’re not leaving.”

It was a dismissal.

His chest ached. His cock ceased its clamoring. The muscle in his thigh that hadn’t throbbed in the last hour sent an urgent message of pain to his brain. He hurried out the window and made his hitching way along the ledge without a mishap with the geraniums.

As he dropped from the ledge to the stone wall and then to the garden courtyard, he seemed to hear her voice in his head again.

There’s no one like you.   

Apparently there was no one like the Marquess of Dorset either.

Chapter 25

Pygmalion finally settled on a name for his beautiful creation. Galatea

Her smile was his undoing, her milky white skin, his torment.

The next week passed in a blur. Grace and her parents accepted invitations to soirees and private dinners, theatricals and gallery showings. Lord Dorset was a ubiquitous presence, not exactly proprietary, but definitely declaring his interest in Grace with special marks of favor like seeing that her punch cup stayed full. Hostesses took note and began seating them together.

Not that the marquess had much to say to Grace. He conversed admirably about the weather, but never inquired whether she had any interest in the subject. Whenever she tried to introduce meatier topics like politics or philosophy or the arts, he stared at her for a moment as if she’d suddenly sprouted a second head and then excused himself.

Politely, of course. 

She was beginning to dread the house party as if it were a coming plague.

And she hadn’t seen Crispin once since he climbed out her bedchamber window. Her heart ached at the way he threw the fact that she was still set to marry a title at her. It had made her feel small and mercenary. And once he scuttled out her window, she felt more than a little used.

Crispin was just playing another game.

He hadn’t finished the casting. She’d gone round for a sitting, but was told by Mr. Wyckeham that the artist was not at home.

Even from the threshold, Grace could hear the determined tap of his hammer on the chisel and the splintering of stone reverberating through the central atrium.

Now she was packed and waiting for Lord Dorset’s promised carriage to arrive for their outing to his country estate. Her mother didn’t notice or didn’t care that Grace was less than enthusiastic when the topic of Crispin joining them came up. 

“Well, of course, he’ll ride with us in the marquess’s equipage,” Grace’s mother interrupted her musings. “One wouldn’t expect Mr. Hawke to ride a horse all the way to
Clairmont
. Not with his . . . well, the man does use a cane, after all.”

“He prefers to call it a walking stick,” Grace replied absently.
Crispin in the same carriage.
Her mind raced after this new development, zigging and zagging like a terrier on the heels of a rabbit. 

That night
played over and over in her head.

She didn’t know what else to call their tryst. There was no word in the English language for it, was there? Her soul had taken a leap and he’d been there to catch her. How did one reduce what she’d experienced to mere sounds? It was too carnal, too spiritual, too lovely, too filthy for words.

She wanted to see Crispin, if for no other reason than to prove to herself that their midnight meeting had actually occurred.

But how on earth would she manage traveling in the same enclosed carriage with both her mother and the man who’d seen her naked?

And not just naked in body. Naked in her emotions. Naked in her spirit.         

Perhaps
she
should ride a horse all the way to Lord Dorset’s estate.

She was relieved, and only a little surprised, when Crispin arrived at the Makepeace townhouse behind Lord Dorset’s elegant, crested brougham, astride a deep-chested black Thoroughbred. He was even leading a bay mare for her father.  

“Thought you might enjoy a riding at least part of the way, sir,” Crispin said, studiously not looking at her.

Her father had accepted with pleasure.

Grace and her mother climbed into the beautifully appointed carriage Lord Dorset had sent to collect them. The party set off over the cobbled streets that soon deteriorated to dirt tracks leading out of the sprawling city.

“Aren’t you excited, Grace?” her mother said as the world turned green and rolling around them. “Just think! By Christmas, you could be a marchioness.”

“Mother, Lord Dorset hasn’t even called me by my Christian name yet,” Grace said, her ears perked to Crispin’s conversation with her father. The pair of them loped along as outriders, sometimes trailing the carriage, sometimes flanking it. She only caught one or two words from time to time, but they laughed together, loudly and often. “I think you are overestimating his lordship’s regard for me.”

“Nonsense, dear.” Minerva removed her straw hat and fanned herself with the broad bill. “Everyone in London could see how he positively dotes on you.” 

“I suppose that’s why he just sent his carriage instead of coming himself. Honestly, Mother, I feel like parcel being picked up for delivery. If Lord Dorset dotes on anything about me, it’s probably my dowry.” Grace leaned her cheek on her palm. “Did you know they’re betting on the size of it at White’s?”

The brougham slowed as they climbed a hill and Crispin and her father came even with her window for a moment. Then they both dug their heels into their horse’s flanks and raced ahead of the equipage to wait at the crest of the slope.

At least someone was having a good time of it.

“Money is not something a woman should concern herself with. Just because the gentlemen at White’s engage in such speculation, there’s no need for you to be vulgar, dear,” her mother said with a tightening of her lips. “Besides, even your father and I haven’t settled on a figure yet. It depends on a number of things.”

Grace could tick them off for her. What title the gentleman would bestow upon her or what his prospects were, how glittering his place in society compared to her father’s plump pockets, whether she was judged to be sound breeding stock—Grace felt like punching her fist through the isinglass. 

“At any rate, now you’ll be able to see Lord Dorset’s home and what’s more, he’ll see
you
in his home.” Her mother beamed. “Oh, this is progressing far better than I ever dreamed.”

Make that three of us who are having a good time.

“How was it for you and Father?” Grace asked as the coach came even with the equestrians again. “When you were courting, I mean.”

“Oh, it wasn’t anything like this. Neither of us came from money, you see.”

Evidently, it was only vulgar when Grace mentioned financial considerations.

A smile played about Minerva’s lips. “Though I must say, my family enjoyed a certain status on account of the titles in our past, but things were much simpler for your father and me.”

Simpler.
Like the bliss of Crispin’s hand on her. Like the elemental fire of his kiss.

She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and tried to blot out the image of his damnably handsome face. The way he’d watched her with such intensity while she lost control of her limbs and fought to keep from crying out at the moment of her release. He was like a hawk eyeing a titmouse. Crispin would gobble her up if she let him.

“I remember one time . . .”

Something in her mother’s voice made Grace drop her hands. Minerva was gazing out the window at her husband, oblivious to Grace’s distress.

“It was just before Christmas and your father arrived at my parent’s home in a sleigh pulled by a wicked-looking beast. That horse Mr. Hawke’s riding puts me in the mind of it. In any case, Homer wanted to take me for a drive.” Minerva’s voice drifted away.

Grace waited.

“Of course, my father wouldn’t allow me to go by myself with Homer.” Her glance darted to Grace. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but your father was quite the rapscallion in his day.”

That didn’t surprise Grace a bit. “So what happened then?”

“Oh, never mind.” Minerva shook her hands as if to wave away the half-finished story.

“Mother, you cannot tell me my father was quite the rapscallion and not finish the tale.”

“Very well, but you must bear in mind, it’s really a cautionary tale.” Minerva scooted forward on her seat till her knees were touching Grace’s. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that I sneaked out of the house and went sleighing with him all the same.”

“How desperately wicked of you,” Grace said wryly. Measured against allowing a man to creep into her bedchamber, her mother’s misdeed was slight.

“Oh, I know I shouldn’t have, but that Homer!” She sighed. “If you could have seen him then. He was such an exciting fellow. I simply had to do it.”

“What’s cautionary about this tale?”

“Oh, I’m getting to it, dear. Well, your father was quite an accomplished horseman, but a bit of a daredevil when he drove. He whipped the nag into a full gallop, never mind the icy lanes, and we went careening along, doing sharp turns and driving the runners up on the snow banks so the sleigh would tip.”

Her voice sank to a whisper. “He admitted later he was trying to get me to sit closer to him.”

“How desperately wicked of him, too,” Grace said with a grin.            

“You know, I actually think he wanted to see if he could make me squeal,” Minerva confided, “but I kept my lips clamped tight.”

If Grace’s parents hadn’t been down the hall on
that night
, Grace would have squealed. And pleaded. And wept aloud for pure joy while Crispin played his sinful games with her flesh.

“Then what happened?” Grace asked because her mother’s attention had drifted back to the window where her father and Crispin were riding at a leisurely pace beside the carriage now. Grace tried to imagine her father as a madman behind the reins.