Page 130 of The Ladies Least Likely

She met this plea with a short bark of laughter and turned to the sketches on her worktable. He thought he caught a flash of some other emotion in her eyes—triumph or remorse, he couldn’t tell—before she turned away.

“You need a countess you can be proud of, Ren. Someone worthy of you. I would only bring you gossip and shame, and besides, I already told you. I’m not the domestic sort.”

Cautiously he settled his hands about her waist, stroking his thumbs along her sides. She wasn’t wearing a corset. “Then be with me otherwise,” he said hoarsely. He’d take whatever she would give him. Scraps and crumbs. Stolen moments in shadow. Pride was the last thing on his mind.

“An affair?” She stilled as he nosed among the curls at the side of her neck. She quivered. He hated how she said the word so casually, as if she were accustomed to affairs. “Worse shame and gossip.”

But she tilted her head so he might kiss her neck, and he slid his hands upward to her lovely breasts.

He could scarcely comprehend where his assurance came from.

He’d never been so bold with a woman. But there was nothing of awkwardness when he was with Harriette.

Her form clasped in his arms was the most right and natural thing in the world.

“Do you care about gossip?” he whispered against her earlobe.

“You ought to.” She moved aside the lock of hair tickling his nose. “You’re the one to be married.”

He nudged his erection against that voluptuously soft bottom and she pressed back into him, accepting.

He rolled his hips against her, and she groaned.

Pleasure surged, and he stilled before he embarrassed himself, then stepped back and let his hands fall away.

She leaned on the table, steadying herself as he withdrew.

“Tell me when I can see you again.”

“You can come here tomorrow and wear the suit you wore last night. I was thinking to begin with a study in gouache, but it happens I found the perfect pigment to capture that suit, and your eyes. It’s called Prussian blue.” She sounded completely calm, but the tips of her ears were bright pink.

She didn’t want him otherwise, but she felt desire. He savored that for a moment. Joy threatened to burst his chest. He set all other concerns aside, the self-doubting inner voice, his unpromising history.

“I want to see you for passion. Not work.”

She turned back to face him, bracing her hands on the table and smiling easily. “Painting is my passion.”

“I’m thinking of pleasure we both can enjoy.” Now where had this seductive side come from? The Italian courtesan wouldn’t believe this was the same man she’d tried so hopelessly to tutor.

That enchanting pucker emerged at the corners of her lips. “Have you been to the Marylebone Pleasure Gardens? They’re my favorite. They often feature female singers, and there is a female chef. I’m very fond of her tarts.”

There would be lanes and paths for walking, where everyone could observe his staggering gait. There would be strangers to greet, sure to catch him out with a stammer. There would be female caterwauling of the kind he could not stomach, and he could already guess the tarts were overly sweet.

He would be with Harriette. “Tomorrow afternoon? I shall come for you in the coach.”

“Nothing so stately. I can borrow my aunt’s cabriolet.

” She held one of the sketches up to him, titled “The Lord At Ease.” It showed a debonair, aristocratic man lounging on his couch, one booted foot across a knee, his elegant coat draped next to him.

His shoulders looked broad, his chest powerful in the waistcoat and ruffled shirt, and there was something vaguely piratical in the chi-ro emblem hanging below his throat.

There was something piratical in his expression as well as he gazed off into the distance, as if he commanded all he saw.

She’d emphasized his jaw and high cheekbones while minimizing his nose, making him look contemplative without being dreamy.

The image was calm and self-assured, but with a hint of troubled feeling in the eyes, as if he reflected on difficulties.

The effect was arresting, more intriguing than the lazy insolence she’d given the Graf von Hardenburg.

Was this him? Was this how Harriette saw him? His heart thumped.

“I can’t see anyone paying a ha’penny for one of those.”

“If these sketches don’t become a sensation and make all the ladies of London regard you as a prime parti , I’ll pay whatever forfeit you choose,” she replied.

“Now go. Let yourself be seen in the coffee shops and clubs. Knock up some friends and stage a lark. Assure your mother that you are on the hunt for a bride and you aren’t caught in my dreadful snares. ”

“I am, though,” he said as he pulled on his silk morning coat.

He saw no reason to be coy with her. Harriette had seen him undressed and she had seen him aroused, simply by the way she was looking at him.

She had seen him as a ruined boy, sucking back snot and tears after his tutor had caned him yet again for being a stupid cripple.

She had seen him taunted by boys bigger than he, and she had seen the looks of horror on the faces of the lovely ladies in his drawing room last night as he limped over to meet them. No need to hide his heart from her.

“In your snares,” he added softly as she gave him a questioning look, her face uptilted, her brows dark and dramatic in her piquant face.

Her eyes shimmered with gold lights. “George Matheson. Earl of Renwick.” He startled at the name; only Amalie called him George. “You are going to make some woman a very happy countess.”

It was a polite way of setting him aside.

Ren nodded and withdrew, making his way down the steps with dignified leisure.

The tall butler opened the door for him and sent a boy to the mews for his horse.

Ren kept his air of calm aloofness, the armor he showed to the world.

He’d let none see that he was hurting. The woman he loved had sent him on his way and, moreover, wished him luck finding a countess, when he wished above all that his countess could be her.