The Beautiful One (6 page)

“I think you will have to be the one who makes the effort to establish a connection,” Anna said, though she wasn't confident it would make any difference, because he was only tolerating Lizzie out of duty and guilt.

“If it doesn't work, you have to convince him to send me to Malta, or…”—Lizzie's brow drew together fiercely—“or I'll make him want to send me a lot farther away than the next girls' school.”

“Oh, Lizzie, don't be foolish.” Anna caught her eyes and made certain she was really listening. “You do realize that you won't be able to make him do anything he doesn't want to do? You may be clever, but Lord Grandville isn't the kind of man to be manipulated.”

The mutinous expression in the girl's eyes did nothing to reassure her. “Lizzie?” she prompted.

“I understand,” she said in a dull voice. She bent down and gathered the sketchbook and pencil she'd put down when she'd found the owl.

Anna accompanied her as they made their way to their rooms, wondering how wrong it would be to finish the painting on the wall of her bedchamber herself and tell the viscount that Lizzie had done it. But what difference would it make anyway, in how he felt about his ward? Her scheme, which had initially seemed sensible, now looked like the clutching-at-straws idea it had always been.

* * *

“The chit's flown. Miss Bristol's decamped I tell you, Rawlins,” the Marquess of Henshaw said to the burly young man standing in his study, where the gloom of a rainy evening was being kept at bay by a substantial fire. “I gave her a month to make her decision, and when I came for her yesterday, the girl was gone. What a minx!”

Henshaw had been thwarted, Jasper Rawlins knew. But there was also an unmistakable note of glee in his voice, as if a gauntlet had been thrown down for him. Jasper would have laughed at the idea of Anna Bristol being a minx if this hadn't all been so important.

When he'd sold
The
Beautiful
One
to the marquess, he'd known his fortunes as an artist were finally on the rise. It had taken Jasper two months of moments stolen from his work as Dr. Bristol's apprentice to create the drawings. He'd known the pictures were special, had seen his talent coming to fruition as he'd captured her hidden beauty.

It was a beauty only he had had the vision to see—even her own father hardly noticed her. There was something different and fresh about her, and it started with those clear, sherry-brown eyes that would have suited one of those rare birds she loved so much. And her body…

Her sharp wit had doubtless chased off any suitors who might have noticed the gem hidden beneath her careless clothes and coiffures. Just as well for him, or she wouldn't have been such a find.

“Yes, a minx,” Jasper agreed. It didn't behoove him to disagree with his new patron, though he wondered if it had been such a good idea after all, telling Henshaw Anna's name. He was just on the verge of suggesting another model for the painting—he had a pretty farmer's daughter in mind—when the marquess cried out exuberantly.

“By Jove, but I love a hunt.”

“A hunt, my lord?”

“Yes, man. She's run off, and now the chase is on.” The marquess rubbed his hands with glee as Jasper swallowed heavily.

“You want to pursue Miss Bristol?”

“Of course! We can leave first thing tomorrow.”

“But…my lord…”

The marquess's face turned dark at his guest's unenthusiastic tone. “You'll help me find her, of course,” Henshaw said. “The painting's no good to me without her.”

He cast a shrewd look at Jasper. Henshaw was a ruddy-faced man of perhaps thirty with pale blond hair and taller than Jasper, though Jasper was burly while the marquess was softly corpulent. “I won't pay for a half-finished painting.”

“Of course not.”

Damn
.

“I've shown
The
Beautiful
One
to all my friends, and they're panting to know who she is. But no one's to know her name until I reveal it—and the painting—at my house party next month. I've already boasted about how lifelike she's going to look as Aphrodite. Good enough to eat, ha-ha!”

God, what an oaf
, Jasper thought. He was an artist, but he couldn't afford to care if Henshaw had ignorant reasons for liking his work. He needed the money from the painting, and he needed the exposure Henshaw would provide, the entrée into a world of wealthy patrons.

“Right,” Jasper muttered.

“I want that painting finished, and I won't be made a fool of—she has to be in it. We'll simply find her and pay her. Everyone has a price.”

Jasper was fairly certain that Anna Bristol did not, in fact, have a price. From what he could tell, she didn't give a fig about things like jewels and fine furnishings.

He burned with familiar frustration. His father had pushed him into studying medicine, but what he wanted was to create art. First, though, apparently, he was going to have to hunt down Anna Bristol, the little fool.

It was well before dawn, but Anna was awake. It was spring, after all, and at home, one of her chief pleasures in the springtime was to rise early and sit in the cottage garden as the sun rose and listen to the dawn chorus.

There was something special about those dark morning hours when no one else was about and she could hear the thrushes and blackbirds chirp energetically as they tried to attract a mate. She liked to stay until the sun was up and watch them.

She'd missed her spring bird-watching in the last month. At Rosewood, there had been too many people around to do such a thing, and for the seamstress to be found sitting idle in the garden would have attracted comment.

But now she dressed quietly and tiptoed through the still-sleeping house. There was a door to the terrace outside the ballroom, and she moved through that grand, silent room and out to the freshness of the morning. The beautiful cacophony of birdsong, which had been muted inside by the heavy stone walls of the manor, greeted her as she stepped outside.

It was chilly and still dark, and she pulled her shawl snugly around her shoulders and moved to stand near the edge of the terrace and listen. She picked out the bold notes of a wren and smiled. Wrens were small but mighty, and she'd always admired their pluck.

Long minutes of contentment passed, restoring something in her, so that when she became aware of the sound of footsteps announcing someone coming out to the terrace, she was disappointed. But she could see nothing in the dark beyond a smudgy shadow moving closer.

“Who's there?” she said.

“Grandville.” He drew near. The whites of his eyes showed faintly, as did the flash of his teeth when he spoke, but she couldn't see his expression.

“What are you doing out here?” she said.

A brief silence met her ridiculous words.

“I meant,” she corrected herself, “that I didn't expect anyone else would be about. It's quite early after all.”

“I might say the same. What are
you
doing out here at this hour?”

She weighed her thoughts, a reflex developed over the last month, but didn't see any reason to hide her purpose. “I like to listen to the birds.”

“You got out of a comfortable bed to
listen
to
birds
?”

“Yes. They're quite glorious this morning, the wrens especially. And I think I may have heard a tawny owl.”

“Oh, well, if you've heard a tawny owl,” he said dryly, and she smiled, glad they couldn't see each other. “But can't you hear tawny owls from your room with the window open?”

“It's not the same. There's something about being outside at a time when you know you will be alone.”

A brief, rusty chuckle met her words, the first sound of mirth she'd heard from him. “And here I've spoiled your solitude. Do forgive me.”

Was he teasing her? She couldn't tell from his tone. “Well, obviously it's your estate. I might ask your pardon for spoiling the solitude of
your
morning.”

Another silence. He must have expected and wanted solitude at this early hour, with no one to want anything from a man responsible for so much. He was the viscount, thus the eldest living male in his family, and however much he might want to isolate himself, he would always have demands on his time.

“Perhaps I will allow it this once.”

Was he teasing her again? The impossibility of either of them seeing the other's expression gave their meeting an unusual, outside-of-time quality.

“How did you come by this powerful love of birds?” he asked.

Her father had published those two books on birds, and he'd treated the viscount's family. But there was no reason he should connect Anna Black with Dr. Matthew Bristol, physician and naturalist.

“I had a…friend who was something of a naturalist. He loved to study birds.”

“A suitor?”

She almost laughed, not just at the idea of her father being her suitor, but at the idea of her having a suitor at all. Suitors had simply never pursued Dr. Bristol's unfashionable daughter, with her too-sharp wits and her skin that was often tan from chasing after birds. As she'd grown up, Anna had decided, despite the occasional pangs of loneliness, that she didn't care.

Why should she want a man, she'd reminded herself, who might tell her what to do and what to wear, and who would have power over her? She'd grown up as free and unchecked as the birds she loved, and if that meant she'd also grown up without having cultivated all the graces that attracted gentlemen, so be it. She'd had her students and her own art to pursue, and her dream of the drawing school to sustain her.

“No. An older gentleman, just an acquaintance.” It wasn't even hard to say such a thing about her father—he'd so tenaciously kept to himself. And yet, she'd loved him, and she disliked speaking of him this way. She needed to change the subject.

“What do you do at those cottages all day?”

“They are unfinished and I prefer to be involved in the work.”

“Perhaps Lizzie might come with you? I'm certain she would be very happy for you to show them to her, and delighted if she might be allowed to help in any way.”

“I don't need any help.” Any warmth had fled from his voice. “If you'll excuse me, I've things to see to. And I wouldn't wish to keep you from your morning's pleasure.”

He wanted to go off by himself. She'd often been happy alone, but the solitude this man was seeking wasn't bringing him pleasure. It was a retreat from life.

“Wait. Please.”

She could feel that he hadn't moved away yet. She'd had an idea, prompted by the way she'd felt when he'd fixed her ribbons the first night, how the kindness in his gesture had loosened something in her that had felt so bound up.

Even his begrudging hospitality had kindness in it; it hadn't been the sort of cold, unwelcoming accommodations and sour treatment she would have expected from the unhappy servants of a hard, angry master. No, she'd been given a nice guest chamber with a good fire and delicious food.

And that painting in her room—there was a playfulness in it that hinted at some past mood of joy. Stillwell might have a spartan, underfurnished look, but it was cheerfully tidy, and the grounds appeared well kept. His staff had been nothing but kind toward her and Lizzie, and that told her something: they were well treated and they liked their master.

As the viscount, he was doubtless accustomed to being the one to see to others' needs. He was clearly getting no pleasure, however, from other people. She guessed that his wife's death had made him want to retreat inwardly.

But Lizzie needed him. Anna told herself that was the only reason behind the offer she was about to make.

“Can I…offer you an embrace?”

She could feel him absorbing her words. He moved closer, and she caught the sound of his breathing.

* * *

Will thought he must have misheard her. She couldn't possibly have said what he thought she had, but already his pulse had quickened. He stepped closer still, close enough to catch a whiff of interesting, pleasing scents. “I beg your pardon?”

“I know it's an odd thing to say,” she said in that straightforward voice. There was nothing flirtatious about Miss Anna Black, though neither was she sharp. She was calm and smart and persistent, and she also clearly thought nothing of doing unusual things like climbing trees to achieve her purposes.

“But it's just that, after my father's funeral,” she continued, “our vicar embraced me, and in that moment I knew, truly, a small release of sorrow from his kindness. And I've lately come to think there must be something healing in the touch of our fellow creatures.”

She sounded like a doctor suggesting a prescription.
Take
the
waters
for
your
health. Clear broth after a fever. An embrace when despairing
.

He couldn't imagine any other woman he knew making such an offer and not appearing as though it were some sort of seduction. But she seemed to operate without any concern for being either beguiling or deferential, as sufficient unto herself as the birds she liked so much. In fact, she reminded him of a bird on the wing, soaring in the sky for purposes no mortal could guess.

He couldn't understand why she was offering him an embrace, but he didn't think she had any motive other than what she'd stated. Here was the woman who'd returned an owlet to its nest; perhaps she simply saw him as another living creature in need of the appropriate attention.

He should say no. But he didn't want to listen to his better nature just then.

“Yes,” he said, and pulled her into his arms.

She did not feel like a vicar.

Her frame was slender within the circle of his arms, her ribs and shoulders and everything about her on a smaller scale than his own, that woman-scale he'd forgotten about. She embraced him back firmly—she meant to be purposeful, with her arms wrapped across the sides of his chest and meeting snugly against his back.

Her hand rubbed his back twice with some vigor, consolingly. He almost groaned; her sweet, earnest embrace was achingly erotic. Her small breasts, crushed between them, made a fascinating cushion across his chest that he longed to explore. She smelled intoxicatingly of simple things: honeysuckle and pencil lead and warm skin. He closed his eyes as her scent filled him, and he brushed his cheek against her temple.

Dear God, she felt so good. He wanted to keep her there, in his arms. He wanted to explore her body as he'd yearned to do from the moment she'd said the first impudent word to him. He
liked
this woman. He admired her spirit, and he was drawn to her careless beauty.

His head dipped lower to move his cheek against hers, and longing rushed through him forcefully.

“Anna,” he whispered. She was making him so hot, burning him with exquisite pain, like heat applied to a frost-nipped body.

He turned his head and his lips were just about to meet the softness of her neck when she gently released her arms and stepped back, as if that had been the right amount of embracing for the purposes of consoling. Or perhaps she'd sensed that she'd unleashed something in him.

He let his arms fall, aware that he was aroused as he hadn't been in a year.

She'd meant to do something of simple human kindness, to behave as though they were only people and not a man and a woman, as though their bodies merely needed a sort of physical communication. That kind of communication
had
passed between them. But it had brought other feelings too, and strong desires.

He couldn't allow them.

Her arrival at Stillwell had jolted him, and her presence in his home was distracting him. But none of that really mattered. All the burning aside, his heart was a frozen lump. He hadn't cared about anything or anyone for the past year because he was unable to do so. He didn't have anything to give anyone else. Nor, he was certain, had this woman been offering anything else.

“Um…” she breathed, and her unaccustomed hesitation told him their embrace had not left her unaffected either.

“Well,” he said softly, “shall I say thank you?”

Dawn was beginning to lighten the dark, and he could just see her looking at him steadily. He felt like a wolf being watched from on high by a sparrow.

“Don't,” she said. “Don't be sarcastic about this. The man I met the first day—that's not who you are.”

He was weak. She brought out his weakness, and he must resist.

“Don't you believe it. Good day, Miss Black.”

He made for the sanctuary of the cottages.

* * *

Anna had been startled by the experience of being in Lord Grandville's arms. She saw now that it had been naive of her to think she could embrace him as though he were a cousin or an uncle or some grieving man from her church congregation. Men were not interchangeable with each other.
This
man was not.

The thing was, aside from that one occasion with the vicar, she'd never embraced a man to whom she wasn't related, and even then, she'd hardly ever embraced her father, aloof as he was. It wasn't as though she didn't know men and women could have sparks between them.

But she'd never felt such sparks, not before those moments when Lord Grandville had been untying her ribbons that first night, and maybe in some unacknowledged part of her, she'd wanted to feel the sparks again, to see if they'd really been there. To find out if his nearness and his touch really were as intoxicating as her memory had told her they'd been.

They were. The sparks were there, and she'd felt them the minute she'd stepped closer to him. Just absorbing the warmth given off by his body had given her an excited thrill, and then he'd pulled her into his arms.

He was strong, and his chest was hard, and she'd loved the feel of it against her. She'd had to force herself to remain calm, to pat his back consolingly even though she'd longed to explore the breadth of his back and let her hands wander everywhere. He'd smelled very, very good, like fresh water and some kind of man's soap.

She'd discovered something else while standing in his arms: she liked this man. Despite what had happened the first night, she felt he was trustworthy. She had a sense that he'd insisted Lizzie leave because he wanted to protect her from the effects of his bitterness.

She wondered if their embrace had had any good effect on him, whether it had relieved any of his grief, softened any of the hardness. For Lizzie's sake, she hoped so. She certainly couldn't do any such thing again.

* * *

Over the following days, Anna watched in dismay as Lizzie fruitlessly stalked Lord Grandville with the attentiveness of a hunting dog after a fox, listening for footsteps that never came and staring out the back windows.