Page 120 of The Ladies Least Likely

CHAPTER FOUR

H e’d been right: she was after something. The flicker that chased through her expressive eyes told him he’d guessed true. She wasn’t the same open book he’d known, with every thought written on her gamine face. She was a woman now, with a woman’s ploys and secrets.

But she was still Harriette. She crossed her arms over her chest and scowled. He tore his eyes from the inviting swell of décolletage and the cleft between her collarbone that dared him to press his lips there, and fastened his gaze to her face.

“How did you know I wanted something?”

Her candor made him smile as it always had.

“I am the Earl of Renwick. I’m wealthy and unmarried. I’m of age and in full control of my fortune, and when Parliament opens in the fall, I’ll take my seat in the House of Lords. Ev-everyone wants something from me,” he ended bitterly.

She leaned a hip on a heavy wooden chair and shrugged, completely at ease, and the move disarmed him.

It was so much like she’d been that golden, lost summer.

Her eyes traveled slowly down his form, tracing the wide lapels of his tailed coat, the fall of his neckcloth, the embroidery on his waistcoat, and the march of silver buttons down his chest and belly.

She studied the line of his thigh showing through the blue breeches, down the white stockings to his buckled slippers, and she looked thoughtful, as if she could see the clever construction of the shoe that helped turn his misshapen foot to its intended form.

He was still reeling from the sensuousness in her bold, thoughtful assessment when her eyes slid back up, and the path of her gaze left a print as hot as if she’d swept her hand along him. He shifted to ease the sudden reaction of his body.

Harriette Smythe walked into his chamber—back into his life—and every fantasy he’d harbored about her in eleven long years roared to the surface.

The reality of her didn’t cast all his memories and fancies into dust, as it ought to have.

She was the face and body of his unspoken longings, as if his deepest urges had taken shape before his eyes, fed by his need for her to be real.

The devil always came to offer a deal, offering the thing his victim most wanted. He knew the old stories. The devil went straight to one’s weakness, and he always exacted a painful price.

“I want to paint you,” she said.

Her breathless tone caught him first, and his eyes snagged on those carmine lips, slightly parted and moist. Lips begging to be kissed, just as the rest of her begged for him to draw her into his arms and?—

“Paint me,” he echoed. He ought to have been surprised, but he’d spent long months in the company of Harriette Smythe.

He knew anything was possible with her. He still knew her, after all this time, despite how much she’d changed, and that awareness burned him more deeply than her leisurely study had done.

She nodded. “I’m a painter. I require commissions. You’re the exciting Earl of Renwick, fresh and new on the London scene, and nobody’s done your portrait yet.” She frowned. “Have they?”

She straightened and turned suddenly, her skirts flaring about her, and despite the elaborate shaping of the gown Ren saw that beneath all the layers of fabric she was still slender and strong, the Harriette who could tramp from dawn to dusk over the Somerset hills sketching everything that captured her interest.

A painter, was she? How she would have loved what he’d seen in his years abroad, the exquisite Dutch masters and the Italian Renaissance greats, the limpid Botticellis and the riveting portraits of Velazquez, the royal art collection at the Louvre palace and the Borgia Apartments of the Vatican.

He wondered if she was any good, then pushed the thought away as disloyal.

“You’ve been all over Italy.” She began to pace the room as he had been doing moments before.

“Greece, too. And there are some very fine artists in France—I suppose you’ve sat for dozens of sketches.

Had a portrait done in every country, by every sort of hand.

” She turned on him accusingly. “Have you?”

She looked like an outraged mistress who guessed he had trifled with another on the side. Ren tamped down a smile. He’d let her paint him if she did nothing more than slop some gobs of color on a canvas and call it a likeness.

It wasn’t fair, that. All Harriette Smythe had to do was stroll back into his life and he was willing to grant her anything.

“Did you climb the tree?” he asked, wondering how she had appeared in his dressing room so suddenly, and before the window to the balcony, of all things.

She waved a hand in the air. “You’ll want to see to that, I imagine,” she said. “It’s very easy to access a window, and housebreakers could—never mind. You haven’t answered my question. Can I paint you?”

His Harriette to the core, but in this delectable shape and with the face of a fallen angel.

He was lost. Ren spread his arms wide, reveling for the moment in his good fortune.

After all he’d experienced, all he’d endured, wasn’t it right that he would suddenly be granted this most magnificent and unexpected gift?

“My dear Rhette,” he said, “you may do anything you like with me.”

She snorted, which was precisely what the Harriette of old would have done. So this new Harriette, with this dangerously shapely body and distractingly soft skin and mind-blankingly lissome manner, was still his Harriette after all. The knowledge gave him a thrill of delight.

Then her eyes narrowed, the outraged mistress again. “How many other artists have painted you?”

He pretended to consider this and began counting on his fingers. “In total? None.”

Her eyes widened with disbelief. The green lines in her eyes, usually dormant, were starting to stand out. Something was moving her deeply. “Impossible.”

“I’m to sit for hours with some stranger staring at me, scrutinizing my every flaw? No, thank you.”

She stepped close, her eyes investigating every line of his face. His skin felt tight and hot.

“You must have been asked,” she said, and her voice dropped to a lower tone that made the hair on the back of his neck lift in arousal.

“Why do you say that?”

“Ren. Look at you.” She drew a hand through the air, shaping his outlines. “You’ve turned out splendid.”

“D’you think so?” His voice, too, dropped an octave. His chest rumbled as she stepped closer still. Lifted her hand as if she meant to touch him. He held his breath.

“Ren wick !”

The high, acidic voice from the other side of the door broke the spell between them. Harriette reared back, startled.

“You can’t stay in there forever,” the voice called. “Come down and greet your guests.”

“C-c-c-coming, M-m-m-mother,” Ren answered. “I need a m-m-moment of p-p-peace.”

He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see Harriette’s face change.

She’d called him splendid. She’d looked at him with interest. She hadn’t remarked on the special shaping of his shoe that made his leg and foot look like any other man’s.

His stutter never seemed to come out around her, not since their first meeting.

But she’d heard it now. She’d know he hadn’t changed, not really.

He was still the same afflicted, misshapen, pitiful boy she’d rescued back in Shepton Mallet.

There was nothing she could admire about that.

Suddenly a warm, soft, scented form burrowed into him, nearly knocking him off balance.

Ren’s eyes flew open. Harriette pressed herself against his chest as if she meant to hide behind him.

When his eyes widened, questioning, she laid her gloved hands on his upper arms and shook him.

Her face was full of panic, but not revulsion.

She was touching him again.

“Is that your mother? She can’t find me here!” she hissed. “Ren, you must hide me. Quickly!”

Renwick had never betrayed her, not in all their time together.

Not when they were found in a scrape or caught committing a mischief, or merely seen traipsing across a farmer’s field or pasture, swatting the sheep.

Not when he was blamed for lobbing stones at the village boys while Harriette stood next to him with the slingshot in her hand.

But he betrayed her now. Instead of shoving her into a wardrobe or behind a curtain, which would have been the logical move, he slid an arm about her and turned toward the door.

“On the con-contrary, I think it’s high time for my mother to ma-meet you,” he said, and then raised his voice. “Come in.”

Harriette’s heart paused, then leapt erratically. The whole purpose in leaving her card with the butler had been to let Ren know she was in town. She had never met his mother, and never wished to.

The door flew open, and Harriette got her first look at the Countess of Renwick.

She was tiny and terrifying. An open robe of shimmering coral silk was pinned to a stomacher glittering with gems, matched by the enormous coral necklace spanning her chest. A petticoat cascading with ivory ruffles peeked through the skirts heaped over panniers broader than the doorway.

The powered wig towered at least a foot above her head, with some confection perched upon it that Harriette didn’t have time to study.

Disapproval filled her face from the frown on her white brow to the pinched line of her lips.

Harriette had chosen her best gown for the task of seducing Ren, but the experienced eye would see that the crimson silk had faded and a line of pinpricks showed where it had been converted to the popular nightgown style.

Harriette’s hair powder was a dull grey that failed to disguise her natural muddy red color, and she wore no jewelry but a thin gold chain her mother had given her when she left Shepton Mallet for school.

She may have matured into a woman since Ren had seen her last, evidenced by the bosom pushed up by the low bodice of her gown and the tiny waist enhanced by her corset, but to the Countess of Renwick she would never be more than a brawling, nameless country orphan who could not afford to patch her shoes.

Including her current ones, which, having been borrowed from Princess, who had larger feet, were clinging to Harriette’s only through a combination of will and luck.

And she had been found in Ren’s dressing room, alone with him. Were she of higher birth, or of known virtue, it was obvious what the consequences would be.

“Renwick,” the countess said with a cold glare, “if you’re going to smuggle harlots into this house, have the taste to choose from a better class.”

Harriette drew back her lips in a feral grin. What had she expected—that the countess would recognize and welcome her? Of course not.

Ren stiffened. “Rhette,” he said, quite against protocol, “may I introduce the Countess of W-W-Renwick. Mother, this is my v-very good friend—” He paused to concentrate, and Harriette squeezed his arm lightly. “Miss Harriette Smythe.”

His mother’s eyes narrowed. Ren had not endeared Harriette to her by choosing to introduce the woman of higher rank to the lower. “A name not, to my recollection, among the invitations I sent out,” the countess said.

“An oversight I have c-c-c-orrected,” Ren said. “I shall be de—” He paused and took a breath. “I shall be delighted to introduce Harriette to your guests.”

If possible, his mother’s countenance grew even more contemptuous. “ Your guests, Renwick,” the countess hissed through her teeth, “are quality. Among them are several marriageable young ladies of rank and station. You will not make me notorious by bringing this—this trollop into my house.”

Harriette’s heart dropped into her too-large slippers. So the countess had heard of her, even if Ren hadn’t yet gleaned the gossip. This had been a terrible idea after all. Princess was right.

“Now, send her off through the back door and come down to the party, Renwick,” the countess said.

She glanced around the room as if Ren might be hiding other women among the hangings and heavy chairs.

It was a dark room with outmoded furnishings, not at all to Ren’s style, and Harriette suspected it had belonged to the previous earl.

Of course, much about the Countess of Calenberg’s house was also outmoded, so Harriette was in no position to scoff.

But this new Ren, with his quiet dignity and understated elegance, suited this room as well as a bear at tea.

Harriette wondered what other molds his mother was attempting to force Ren into, despite his inclination.

“I wish Harriette to stay, M-m-mother. You did tell me I m-might invite who I wi-liked,” Ren said.

His mother’s eyes widened with shock, and Harriette gathered that Ren did not often gainsay her. She saw the countess gathering her forces to flatten him, and indignation reared up, warring with her wiser instinct to flee.

“Perhaps I can help Ren meet a marriageable young lady,” Harriette suggested.

Milady’s penciled brows rose ludicrously high. “Ren wick ,” she said, enunciating each syllable, “could not possibly benefit from any information you could offer.”

“I b-beg to differ, Mother,” Ren said, shifting his weight to lean toward her. “Haow—Rhette has been in town much longer than I have. She knows the young way-ladies well.”

It was fortunate Harriette had nothing in her mouth or she would have spit it across the room at this outrageous bouncer. The countess gritted her teeth as Ren turned and presented Harriette his arm. “Shall we?”

She knew to go with him would be utter folly, and she knew with equal surety that she could deny him nothing. His eyes held appeal and wariness and doubt and resignation, as if he fully expected her to reject him.

But there was something else in his gaze as well, a deep flare of interest that made some sleepy, heavy serpent in her stomach stir and lift its head.

Harriette would fit among the wealthy, well-bred acquaintances downstairs about as well as Ren fit his father’s dark house, furniture, and legacy.

But she also knew she would accompany this Ren to the edge of the wilderness if he wanted her to.

She shouldn’t. She’d let a man lure her into folly before and regretted it ever after. But this was Ren. He needed her.

She slid her hand around his arm, enjoying the luscious slide of silk beneath her glove and the press of warm, firm muscle beneath. A giddy sensation bubbled through her belly. She was on the arm of an earl. Her Ren, still, but so different. She wanted to learn him all over again.

She gave him a smile full of impish glee. “By all means, Ren wick ,” she cooed as his mother hissed again and flounced from the room. “Let us find you a bride, and then you can commission me to do a portrait of you both.”