Page 23 of The Art of Sinning

Look at him now, so intent on drawing her that he couldn’t even make polite conversation. It was somewhat lowering that he saw her only as some object to sketch. If this was how he always worked, though, she would have nothing to worry about.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take my place here?” She was determined to getsomereaction from the man. “I’m no match for Edwin at chess.”

He didn’t answer. Edwin exchanged a glance with her.

“Mr. Keane?” she said sharply. “Would you like to play the next game with my brother?”

“Hmm?” The same vague expression he’d worn this afternoon crossed his face before it cleared. “Oh, sorry, no.” He tore off a sheet, balled it up, and made as if to throw it into the fire.

“Don’t!” She leapt up to take the paper from him. “Let me see.”

“It’s horrible,” he said, though he let her have it.

She smoothed out the sketch, then gasped. With a minimal number of strokes he’d perfectly rendered her face in profile. “It’s not horrible in the least. You made me pretty.”

“Youarepretty,” Edwin interjected.

Mr. Keane ignored him. “I made you like every other chit in England.” With a frown, he went to work again on his sketch pad. “You’re better than that.”

She didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. “I would settle for pretty,” she told him as she reverently slid the crumpled sketch into her nearby writing desk.

“Never settle for less than you deserve,” he said. “It’s always a bad idea.”

The knife’s edge of pain in his voice caught her attention as she came back to where he sat slashing and shading with the pencil. “You sound as if you speak from experience.”

Mr. Keane glanced up and blinked. Then his gaze shuttered before he pointed to her chair. “Go back there and stop moving about. I want to do more sketches. I have to figure out exactly how to pose you tomorrow, and for that I need studies.”

She thrust out her chin. “Don’t I get a say in the pose for my own portrait?”

“I should be the one with a say.” Edwin hunched over the chessboard. “I’m the one paying for it.”

This time they both ignored him. Mr. Keane settled back in his chair, his eyes roving her as if memorizing curves and lines. “Would you like a say? You didn’t seem that enthusiastic about the portrait yesterday.”

That was before she’d realized he could make her look pretty but still herself. “I’m not averse to it. And yes, I prefer to choose the pose.”

He smiled faintly. “You don’t choose the pose, my lady. It chooses you.”

“Must you always speak in enigmas?”

“At least I don’t speak in street cant.” Crossing his arms over his chest, he broadened his smile. “Why do you, anyway?”

“I don’t speak in it. I collect it for my dictionary.”

“But why would a lady of the realm with any number of more appropriate pastimes open to her choose to ‘collect’ street cant?”

“Think of it as a scholarly pursuit.”

He raked his gaze down her in a thorough assessment that made her cheeks burn and her stomach flip over. “You don’t strike me as the scholarly type,” he said huskily.

She glanced over to Edwin, then released a breath to see her brother still concentrating on deciding his next chess move. “You hardly know me well enough to determine that.”

“True. So why don’t you remedy that situation? Tell me why you collect vulgar slang instead of, say, butterflies.”

“Samuel got her into it, the scoundrel,” Edwin snapped.

Her heart faltered. She mustn’t let Mr. Keane guess that her proposed bawdy house visit was connected to Samuel. She wasn’t sure if she could trust the artist, and if he got even an inkling that Samuel was involved he might go to Edwin, who would quash everything. “But a long time ago, before Papa banished him from the family.”

Mr. Keane glanced from her to Edwin in confusion. “Then why are you still gathering cant for your dictionary?”