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Richard exhaled deeply, hoping it would give him the confidence and conviction to do what was right.

Because this couldn’t continue, could it?

The idea had been an amusing one, to spend time sitting around for an artist. It had been Evelyn, not himself, who had insisted on the lack of information about who he was.

But he had kissed her now. Pulled her into his arms. Whispered such things to her…

“Good day, Evelyn. Remember what I said. I will possess you.”

No, he had gone too far now. Worse, he liked her. Cared about her. Telling her the truth of who he was, a viscount with no real prestige but a gentleman nonetheless, was something he had to do.

Would it change the connection they shared?

Hell, if he could act like such a plebian idiot in the middle of Green Park, in front of her own cousin, and she still wanted him here… perhaps their connection, whatever it was, could survive anything.

It was a heady thought. As Richard stepped toward the armchair that had been pulled to the center of the room, he almost swayed with the confidence that rushed through him.

“You must be freezing.”

Richard blinked in the act of removing his coat. “‘Freezing’?”

“I mean, you look soaked to the skin.” Evelyn had let her hair down, as she so frequently did when drawing. It was a small intimacy he greatly enjoyed. “I suppose it will be a relief to get those wet things off.”

His eyes bulged at her words. Off.

Surely, she did not mean—she could not have meant what that had sounded like, had she?

Apparently, she had. Evelyn glanced over vaguely and said, “Off with it all,” and who was he to disobey?

This is madness.

There is that voice of reason , Richard thought ruefully as he pulled off dripping waistcoat and soaking-wet shirt, both dropping to a pile that was surely going to leave a mark.

The voice of reason was not a voice he had spent a great amount of time listening to over the last few years.

It hadn’t gotten him anywhere when he had listened to it, after all.

“I was hoping to work on your calves today,” said Evelyn from behind the easel.

Richard almost staggered into the chair. “You were?”

His voice was far too high-pitched, but there was nothing he could do about it. This was complete lunacy! Here he was, locked in a music room alone with a daughter of the house, and he was taking off his clothes!

Oh, he knew the arguments. Models sat nude for their artists all the time.

But not like this. Oh, not like this.

“Are you quite well?” Evelyn asked, her head sticking out around the canvas.

Richard swallowed. Was he? His head was spinning and there was a most irregular patter of his heart disrupting all normal cognition. If he weren’t careful, he would do something truly reckless.

Like obey.

“Richard, I am not asking anything of you that another artist would not ask of any other model,” Evelyn said softly. “You must be cold in those wet trousers, and I need to work on my calves. But if you don’t want to—if you’re not ready—I quite understand.”

Perhaps unbeknownst to the beautiful woman who made Richard want to rip off all his clothes whenever he was in her presence, she had just said the few words that could almost guarantee that he would give into the temptation.

“If you’re not ready.”

He was ready. Ready for anything. Richard had never met a challenge he had not taken on and he was not going to stop now.

Even if this was so outrageous, it could never be spoken of again.

“Right,” he said briskly, as though he frequently took all his clothes off in front of fully clothed ladies. “Right.”

Evelyn did not appear from behind her easel. Richard found himself sadly disappointed.

Right .

Boots off first. That wasn’t so hard; his feet were perhaps the only dry part of him. Now the trousers…

It was strange. He had never consciously thought about how he took off his trousers. It was not something he’d frequently done before a lady—at least, most of the time, it was quicker and cleaner just to unbutton the front flap, have his way with her, then see her off.

But this was different. This was… sensual.

It should not have been. There was no music, no lace, no velvet. There was no gasping of breath or touching. But as Richard slowly unbuttoned his trousers and slid them down his hips, past his knees, to the floor, he felt vulnerable in a way he had not in a long time.

A very long time.

Richard lowered himself onto the chair, luxuriating in the comfort of the cushion behind him, and carefully ensuring that one, he did not think about flames licking around him, and two, he crossed his legs in what he hoped was an artful manner so that it would hide his manhood.

He was naked. Yes. But he was not an animal.

He cleared his throat. “I’m ready for you.”

Hell, even that was far more suggestive than he had intended—but to Richard’s great disappointment, when Evelyn peered around the canvas, she looked entirely disinterested.

“Good. Don’t move.”

“Don’t move” —was that it?

For the first few minutes, Richard did what he’d been told. He sat there, doing absolutely nothing but staring off into the distance. Most definitely not thinking about Evelyn, and what she would look like naked.

Hell’s bells, now he was.

That’s the trouble , Richard thought as the sense of being exposed grew in a tangling, twisting net of snakes in his stomach. And it wasn’t just the fact that he wasn’t wearing any clothes that felt exposing, either. No, somehow it was more than that.

Evelyn had absolutely no idea how seductive this was—how seductive she was. It was absolutely intoxicating. It was freeing in a way he had never expected.

He’d have to be careful, or he’d start to get accustomed to this.

“Thank you.”

The words were softly spoken, but with a great deal of strength behind them.

Richard tried to smile. “You asked nicely.”

“You could have said no .”

“You need to practice calves.”

Evelyn chuckled, still hidden by her artwork. “I do indeed, but I suppose I could have asked someone else.”

Jealousy flared within him. “Another cousin?”

“It’s usually a cousin who agrees to model for me, yes,” said Evelyn, her voice slightly vague, as though she were not entirely concentrating on their conversation.

“I have so many of them, it’s often easiest to find one.

Less scandalous, too. Though with family, I might have only asked them to roll up their pants. ”

Richard’s eyes widened. Surely, she didn’t mean—

“But you are my first model who has… Well.” Evelyn’s pink cheeks and wide eyes, flyaway curls cascading down past her breasts, appeared to the left of the easel. “Taken all his clothes off.”

A strange sort of triumph was sparking around the base of Richard’s skull. He was her first—her first naked model, at the very least. It felt glorious, to know that this was something she had never shared with someone else.

Bother. There was that pesky jealousy again…

“I am glad to be of assistance,” Richard said in a calm, measured tone that was entirely unlike how he was feeling. “Besides, as you say, it does happen. Artists paint naked models, I mean.”

“Yes, but they usually bed them, too.”

It was a good thing Richard was already seated, for he would have fallen—not just at the words, but the nonchalance with which Evelyn spoke them.

“Artists bed their models all the time; it appears to be a part of the tradition,” Evelyn continued, as though entirely unaware that she was making Richard’s brains melt out of his ears. “There is no expectation of commitment, no fanciful dreams of love. They just want something and… and take it.”

Calm down, man , Richard tried to warn himself. She wasn’t paying attention to her own words; this often happened when she was focused. She didn’t mean—she wasn’t offering…

Evelyn had disappeared back behind the easel again. The sound of several lines of pencil occurred before she said quietly, “I often wondered, if I had been able to sit with models when I was much younger, whether I would be able to paint so much better now.”

Richard swallowed. The conversation had moved on, and he could hardly ask her to return to… to that . “But you paint so well.”

“You’ve seen a few of my landscapes, yes,” came Evelyn’s dismissive voice. “But I do wonder if I shall ever master the human form.”

Suppressing the desire to tell her that she could master him any time that she wanted, Richard aimed for a hopeful, encouraging tone. “I am sure you are a fast learner.”

“Only when it comes to art. More’s the pity,” Evelyn said with a laugh. “My mother hoped numbers would be my forte, but sadly not.”

“‘Numbers’?”

“As I’ve said before, she is a very talented mathematician,” came her reply, each word spoken more slowly this time. Perhaps she was concentrating. “Very talented. A waste of a countess, my father always says.”

Richard could not help but smile at that. “Your parents are unusual.”

“Oh, the whole family’s a debacle, really,” said Evelyn cheerfully. “I don’t notice it half the time, I think, because I am a part of it. My sister is determined to radically alter the prison system and I would love to travel the world and paint.”

“‘Travel the world’?”

“I told you, I have had to paint most of my landscapes by looking at the works of others.” There was a true sadness in her tone now. “To actually see mountains, to stand by a lakeside and paint what I see, to revel in the new and the unexpected…”

Richard waited. The pencil scratchings increased in rapidity and he sat there, warmer now the wet clothing had been removed and still finding it utterly bizarre that he was sitting here naked.

Eventually, the pencil sounds slowed. “Art is… It is so much more than the finished result.”

“It is?” Richard wondered aloud. He wasn’t sure there was anything more to it at all.

“Oh, yes,” Evelyn said vehemently, as though they were discussing life and death.

Perhaps they were. “The process of creating a piece of art, that is the true challenge. It is the war within oneself, the battle one has with the materials. Desperately attempting to wrangle them into submission, to force the pencil or the charcoal or the paints to give up the right to claim their ownership. To make them create what is in one’s head or before you.

To know that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you work, you will never entirely win. ”

Richard’s jaw dropped.

This was a woman like no other. He had an eye for them, what gentleman did not—so how his eye could have missed this Chance before the past few weeks, he did not know.

She was spectacular. She was marvelous. She was unlike any other woman he had ever met.

And she was making him feel—

Richard hastily removed the cushion from behind him and placed it over his lap. Oh, hell…

“What have I told you about moving?” Evelyn said sternly, stepping out from the easel entirely and glaring.

He smiled weakly and wished to goodness that a riled-up Lady Evelyn Chance was not even more attractive than the sedate version. “I… uh… had a little problem. Well, a big problem, actually,” he added proudly.

Well, he hardly wanted to sell himself short, did he?

“‘A big problem’?” Evelyn repeated.

Only then did her gaze fall upon the cushion. Her cheeks pinked.

“Oh!”

And her surprise entirely disarmed him. How on earth did she do it, Richard wondered.

Here he was, having not apologized for the way that he had spoken to her or her cousin, turning up at her home soaking wet, and somehow, he was now seated before her, his manhood so rock solid, he could probably break apart stones, and she was… smiling?

“I shall take that as a compliment,” she said lightly.

“You should,” Richard said hoarsely.

“But if you don’t mind, I’m going to return to my drawing,” Evelyn replied with a beaming smile and not a small hint of mischief. “Do you think you can sit still there without moving for another hour?”

“Another hour ?”

Evelyn did not reply. Her pencil had returned to the canvas again and she was lost.

Richard swallowed. This woman was going to be the death of him.