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T his was ridiculous. Why on earth was he nervous ?

Because what he was about to do was ridiculous?

Perhaps. But as Richard walked up the steps to the house he had visited only yesterday, his heart was thumping most unaccountably fast.

It was just sitting in a different chair than normal, he reminded himself. Besides, sitting in front of a beautiful woman had to be better than sitting at home, waiting around for nothing to happen.

Perhaps it was the letters that were doing it. He had not expected to hear from one of the other men with whom he had liaised in France—he had left that life behind, or so he had thought.

Instead, it was lingering, letters full of desperate requests for assistance, of veiled threats if he did not comply, warnings that Richard would be a dead man if he did not once again serve his country.

But he had to put it aside. Today, he was not a spy for Her Majesty’s Government. He was a model.

God help him.

He knocked. The door opened, a footman’s hand on the handle. The butler appeared and raised an eyebrow.

“Good morning,” said Richard brightly.

“I’m sure it is,” said the thin-faced man sternly. “Here for Lady Evelyn?”

“I am,” said Richard, his chest swelling at being able to say such a thing.

Well, it wasn’t as though he were calling on her as an equal—she did not even know he was a viscount. He wasn’t courting her, nor was he respected by her in that sort of way… but he was here for her. Bizarre, how even that was something intriguing.

But his whole experience with her yesterday had been intriguing. He’d entered the room and she had not been alone, but then she had practically forced the other young lady—a sister, he’d gathered—out the door.

Then the two of them had sat together. Spoken. As equals. No fretting mama or clucking, old chaperone in sight.

She had an artist’s soul, perhaps. One that contravened convention.

He didn’t find that disagreeable in the least.

“Side door,” grunted the senior servant, and the footman moved to close the front door in Richard’s face.

Richard stuck a boot in the door. It hurt. “I’ll have you know, I am—”

“Sitting for Lady Evelyn, yes, I know,” said the butler with a glower. “Side door.”

Richard’s mouth fell open. He had never been treated in such a way as long as he could remember! How dare the man…

But of course, if Lady Evelyn did not know that he was not just Richard, but Viscount Sempill, then neither would her servants.

He almost laughed. Well, he had wondered what it would be like to grow up without the tiring burden of being a viscount. Perhaps today he could find out.

“My apologies,” he said, bowing to the butler and stepping back. The man seemed to have expected more of a fight, as he blinked quite rapidly. “This way, is it?”

The butler nodded before gesturing at the footman, who shut the door, this time slamming it.

The side door, then. An experience in and of itself.

Gingerly stepping around the building and discovering, much to his surprise, that the elegance and splendor of the front of the house swiftly melted away as one stepped to the side of the building, where only the servants and the workmen would ever go, Richard found himself standing by a side door.

Judging by the delicious smells wafting under it, it was the door to the kitchen.

Well, this couldn’t have been right… could it?

“There you are!”

Turning on his heels and suddenly remarkably conscious about where he was putting his hands—had they always just… hung about here, by his sides?—Richard tried to smile.

Instead, his jaw opened.

It was definitely her. Lady Evelyn Chance. The woman who had gone about that song and dance with him, interviewing him as though it were an important job and telling him that she didn’t want to know anything about him.

“I wish to keep you as a blank canvas—a blank slate, if you will. The less I know about you, the better.”

But she was different. Yesterday, she had been wearing one of those stylish gowns many of the young ladies this spring were wearing, all corsetry and a neckline up to her… well, neck. There had been an imperious look in her green eye, but a softness around her upturned mouth.

Now her attire had changed—and for the better. Richard tried not to stare at the ruffled shirt that dipped low toward her décolletage. Perhaps past it.

Her dark-chestnut hair was different too. Richard swallowed. Not different —down. Instead of being pinned up carefully as all women wore it, Lady Evelyn had it down, unrestrained and untamed, gentle waves curling around her shoulders as it fell past her breasts.

Richard swallowed again and discovered much to his surprise that the action made no difference to his rapidly beating heart.

Lady Evelyn was also wearing an apron. In the front pocket were two large paintbrushes. She had her hands on her hips.

“I expected you ten minutes ago,” she said firmly. “I am afraid I can only afford to pay you for the time you actually spend sitting for me.”

Richard opened his mouth, realized he had no clue what to say to a magnificent woman such as this, and closed it again.

A hesitation. A moment of uncertainty—and one he evidently shared with his hostess.

Lady Evelyn stepped forward across the terrace, a frown puckering her brows. “You… You have not had a change of heart, have you?”

“Change of heart”?

No, not a change of heart. A change of stiffening manhood, perhaps.

Forcing aside the thought of just how attractive the woman was, and how disgraceful it was that he was seeing her in what was essentially a state of undress— don’t think about it, don’t think about it— Richard compelled himself to smile.

“No, not a change of heart,” he said brightly. “I was a little turned around by the directions of your butler, that is all.”

“‘Turned around’?” Lady Evelyn repeated. Then she glanced at the door he was standing beside. “Oh, you mean the kitchen. No, I don’t paint in there.”

“I thought not,” said Richard, trying to keep his voice level.

Did she have any idea how beautiful she was? Perhaps not. Now he examined her more closely, he could see hints of charcoal on her fingers, and on her forehead where she had obviously had an itch while drawing.

He suppressed a smile.

“No, I paint in my studio in the garden,” Lady Evelyn said blithely, turning her back on him and presenting him with a delicious view of waist and buttocks that Richard would have to spend a great deal of time not thinking about before bed. “Come on.”

There was little else he could do but follow, like a lost lamb.

In truth, it was pleasant to do so—and it meant that she did not see his astonished look as they stepped into ‘her studio.’ It was…

Well. Some great lords had follies in their gardens, Richard knew, and others had false ruins. A few, mostly dukes, had actual ruins. Some followed the trend for temples. He’d run into an earl once who actually had a hermit living in his garden.

But this…

The studio was impressive in both its scale and its design.

An octagon, each of its eight sides had a window, large panes of glass welcoming in as much light as possible.

The walls were painted different pastel colors, four pairs of them on opposite sides.

One rather felt as though one were stepping into a kaleidoscope.

There were easels everywhere. Canvas, notebooks, pots of paint all over the floor and pots of water alongside them, holding paintbrushes.

Pencils were scattered underfoot and there were drawings and sketches and paintings pinned up all over the walls with no conception of order.

There was a pile of what appeared to be furs or rugs or blankets or something all in one corner and there was paint splattered on all of them.

It was overpowering. It was overwhelming. It was…

Perfect.

“It’s just a small space my father had built for me,” said Lady Evelyn casually, evidently not realizing just how spectacular and unusual the place was. “There you go.”

She was gesturing as she closed the door behind him, again no chaperone in sight, and Richard turned to see what she was pointing at.

Ah. All the splendor of the room, the wild mess, and he had not noticed perhaps the most important part. In the center…

A chair.

“This is where I will be sitting, I take it?” Richard asked, stepping across the space and being careful not to tip over any water pots or, God forbid, paint.

He was not as careful as he should have been.

Granted, he had been momentarily distracted by the way Lady Evelyn had sauntered past him without, it seemed, a care in the world, stepping so close to him that he inhaled the deep, rich scent of her body and a sharpness of what he later realized had to have been turpentine, but still.

That did not excuse the way his boot tipped over a small pot of red paint that immediately knocked into two others—green and a light blue—all three of which then poured their delicate treasure across the floor.

“Hell’s bells,” Richard muttered, lunging forward in an attempt to rescue what little paint there was left.

He gained a sort of purple thumb for his trouble, and little else.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Lady Evelyn said breezily, settling herself behind a large canvas upon which she had pinned several pieces of paper. “I do that all the time.”

And she must do, Richard realized, for now he came to look at the floor—usually the least interesting part of any room—he spotted the patches of color scattered across almost every few feet.

A pink patch there, a small yellow pool there. Near that window was a green line down the wall and more on the floor, as though someone had been balancing a pot on the windowsill then knocked it over.

“Still, your green—”

“Emerald.”

Richard blinked. He had seen no jewels. “I beg your pardon?”

“Emerald,” repeated the goddess. “It’s a green I am working on. I think I’ve got the tone just right.”