Page 127 of The Ladies Least Likely
CHAPTER SEVEN
F inally .
That was all Harriette said in response to his declaration—his full-scale and unhesitant capitulation to whatever she wanted, whatever she planned to do with him. Never mind he had left his mother weeping into her morning coffee when she heard him leaving to call on the Countess of Calenberg.
“You won’t like what comes of associating with such people!” she’d cried when Ren made it clear he had no intention of cutting Harriette from his life and, if she was not welcome under his own roof, he would go to hers. “You’ll regret this!”
So far Ren regretted nothing. Not the dirty water that had splashed on him by a wagon passing his horse in the street, soiling his specially designed riding boot.
Not the excruciating scrutiny of the curious females in the countess’s dining parlor, who doubtless detected all his flaws and deformities.
Not whatever discomfort might ensue with having Harriette examine him closely, for an extended length of time.
Alone together.
He noticed little else but the sway of her skirts as she climbed the stairs ahead of him to the first floor. But as she pushed open the door to a large drawing room that looked in no way how a formal drawing room was supposed to look, he perceived he had committed himself to torture.
He would be alone with Harriette for an indefinite length of time, and with no foreign presence to restrain him, he would have to rely on his own gentlemanly restraint to keep his hands off her.
That incendiary kiss had sent him arsey varsey, as the younger Harriette would have said.
That kiss was the prime reason he had barreled out the door of Renwick House determined to find her.
He was a green schoolboy again, on fire with physical sensations that drowned out the voice of sense.
Being near Harriette made sense. Nothing else did.
She had told him they must say goodbye, told him not to seek her out, and he had immediately disregarded her wishes. The thought made him stumble into the room.
She had also given him a kiss that had left him aching all night, the memory of her lips and her scent and her delicious warm softness finding him on the edge of dreams. How could she kiss him like that and then abandon him?
He had come to find out if he could change her mind.
He had come, in truth, hoping he could kiss her again. And again and again and again, until she melted in his arms, until she wanted him, until she chose to stay with him forever, come what may.
The thought drenched him in a sudden hot sweat. Forever. How had his mind leapt ahead to that conclusion? He was far too given to fantasy, as his tutor had impressed on him time and again. He must guard against that.
“Welcome to our studio. Well, my and Darci’s studio. Melike likes to work in the library, which is downstairs.”
She held out her arms and turned about. The long room was papered in a lovely sky-blue silk, with patterned moldings and gilt-touched carvings on a high ceiling that turned the place into a graceful cavern.
Tall windows let in light that shone on the waxed wooden floor.
Instead of the customary seating arrangements, one end of the room held several clay sculptures in various stages of completion, a large block of polished marble, and a table full of tools he couldn’t identify.
The rest of the room was a painter’s haven, with large canvases lining the walls, some bare and many more painted upon, propped against others draped in fabric.
One corner was arranged to look like an Oriental boudoir, with a long couch, a Turkish rug, a painted screen, and a lamp with dragon’s feet stationed near it.
Next to an easel standing atop a cloth arranged on the floor was a tall stool and a long table filled with brushes, jars and bottles of a dizzying array of colors, and bowls and other assorted implements.
It was a peek into Harriette’s mind and soul, and he moved toward the canvases, mesmerized.
One portrait held a finished central figure though the background was not yet complete. A mature woman stared back at him, the secrets and wisdom of her life written on her face, a gleam of mischief and sharp intelligence in her eyes.
“The Countess of Calenberg,” he said. “It is her to the life, Rhette.”
“Mmm, that one turned out well. She hasn’t decided if she wants to be standing before the ruins of Pompeii or the sack of Rome, so I will finish the background once she has chosen.”
There were smaller canvases of the one they called Princess in various seductive poses, all of them showing a great deal of skin that looked soft enough to touch.
He wondered at the woman’s age, though she was older than Harriette; the visage in the portrait held cleverness, mockery, and a hint of wistfulness.
“Her expression is so beguiling,” he remarked. “These are very good.”
“You sound surprised,” she said with amusement, coming to stand beside him.
He smelled again that blend of turpentine and chalk, her painterly preparations.
Something more complex and earthy beneath that called to him.
The scent of her body, warm and luscious.
She wore a loose morning gown, a heap of wispy fabric that clung to her waist and those delicious, shapely breasts.
“I knew you liked to draw, but this—this takes a great deal of skill.”
She walked with him along a line of pastel portraits of the Russian woman she had called Natalya, in a variety of poses and levels of light.
“The year you left Shepton Mallet, my aunt—my great-aunt, properly, that’s the Countess of Calenberg—she contacted my mother and said she had found a girl’s school that would board me, and she would pay for everything.
My mother agreed, and so I went to Miss Gregoire’s Academy in Bath.
My drawing mistress introduced me to watercolors, and from there to oils and pastels, and I was in heaven. That’s her, Miss Gregoire.”
She moved aside some other portraits to show Ren a lovely, fine-boned woman with a cloud of blonde curls, a simple ruffled gown, and an expression that combined knowing, humor, sadness, and mystery.
Ren stared, sensing he looked not just upon a likeness but the inner character of the woman, brought to life on the canvas.
“These are astonishing. These are good enough for exhibition, Rhette.”
“Someday, I hope to.” She nodded. “I take lessons from Angelica Kauffman, and she wants me to do a portrait I can exhibit at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. She is one of only two female members, but she wants there to be more of us. I’ve been attempting my mother,” Harriette went on, moving past two versions of a darkly lit, brooding figure Ren recognized as Mrs. Smythe.
“But you, Ren.” She tossed her arms into the air with a dramatic flourish. “You could be my masterpiece.”
He snorted. “A tongue-tied cripple.” He peeked at her table and saw papers scattered across it, all bearing a very familiar face. “I see you’ve already begun.”
“Yes, I didn’t sleep well last night, so I made some initial sketches. I’ll do much better now that I have you in person. Give me a moment to prepare.”
She went to the sitter’s corner and with a few whisks and tugs she rolled up the Turkish carpet, draped a large linen sheet over the couch, and replaced the claw-footed ornament with a tall bronze stand with hanging lamps in antique style.
She laid down a woven mat patterned with a geometrical mosaic and tossed a tasseled pillow upon the couch, and suddenly the corner was transformed into the boudoir of a Roman emperor.
“I’ll decide later if I want you standing or sitting. For now, come here, and stop calling yourself a cripple.” Her eyes moved down his body as he started toward her, and his blood heated. “You were wonderful last night. Very commanding.”
When he thought hard about it, he could move easily, or with something passing for a measured gait.
He’d been taken off guard last night. “I nearly fell on my face. And you heard me stammer. It was awful, Rhette, after you left. The looks of pity and all the stares—” His throat closed, his tongue swelling. “Don’t leave me like that again.”
“Did you talk to that very interesting girl in the corner? She was watching me as if she knew me. I want to find out who she is.”
She guided him as he sat, studied his posture, and then her hands were on him again, pushing at a shoulder, pulling a thigh forward, rearranging his neckcloth.
Heat coursed through him from every place her hands touched.
He couldn’t help but respond to her nearness, to the whisper of fabric, to the sight of her dusty-red curls falling against her sleek neck.
She smoothed his hair, tightening the strip of fabric he’d used to tie it back, which brought her bosom directly before his face, close enough to kiss.
Ren stifled a groan and hoped she wouldn’t notice his cockstand.
He didn’t want her pity, either. He was the sodding fool who wanted a woman who didn’t want him back, not in that way.
Her touch held nothing coy or loverlike, and her expression held the calculation of a professional as she went to the window and adjusted the curtain until the light fell exactly as she wanted.
The light also outlined the shape of her through the white fabric of her gown, and she was more perfect than he’d imagined.
Ren adjusted his seat slightly so the fabric of his breeches didn’t pull quite so tightly across the straining volume in his crotch.
“Everyone wanted to know more about you,” he said. “The ones who didn’t talk to me out of sheer pity were quizzing me for information on you.”
“There’s little to know about me.” She went to her table and sorted through the papers until she found her sketchbook. “Harriet Smythe, painter to the Earl of Renwick. I’ll make you so appealing that young ladies will be forming a queue.”