Page 133 of The Ladies Least Likely

CHAPTER NINE

T here was no group of ruffled and silk-clad women in the dining parlor at the house on Charles Street this morning, no alarming perfumed flock of exotic creatures appraising him as the butler showed him in.

Ren was glad for it. He couldn’t remember a single name outside of the Countess of Calenberg.

Harriette pushed every other person out of his sight when she was in a room, just as she pushed every other subject out of his thoughts when he was away from her.

He climbed the stairs to the first-floor studio in a giddy tide of anticipation.

The two days apart had been agony, and though he sent her notes saying why he couldn’t come, the excuses were demands he wouldn’t have let keep him from Harriette if he had his choice.

His man of business needed to acquaint him with the state of his finances and the many properties, investments, and debts under his control, now that he had reached his majority.

Things had not been swimming happily along in his absence; there were signs of poor oversight with some of the properties and investments, and at Bolton Abbey, the ancestral seat of the Matheson family, he saw indications of sheer neglect.

His mother inundated him with friends she insisted he meet, all from families of notable wealth and influence, with marriageable daughters. Fellows from his school days and time abroad called in a steady stream once they learned he was in town.

But the happiest distraction was the post chaise that had rolled up before Renwick House yesterday, unloading his sister, her maid, and enough luggage to suggest she meant to stay a while.

It was a joy to hear her sweet, quiet voice about the house, though it was strange to have his family under the same roof.

He and Amalie had grown up at Bolton Abbey, but the earl and countess had spent most of their time in London or circulating through their country estates.

Ren hadn’t lived with Amalie since the summer their father died.

The curtains in Harriette’s studio were pulled back to flood the studio with light, the western stretches of London not being as subject to the constant smoke of coal fires as the City and eastern portions.

Harriette stood before her work table, fiddling with brushes.

She wore the same loose morning gown, but with a filmy neckerchief tucked into the bodice.

Adorning her pinned-up coils of hair were a small orange flower and the brass cylinder that held her porte crayon.

He tossed hesitancy aside and crossed the room to her, not caring if she heard his uneven gait, the heavy thump of his modified boot.

Harriette took him as he was. Seeing her, the delicate curve of her shoulder beneath the white gown, the straight line of her back standing among the works of art she had created, it didn’t matter that she had scoffed at his impulsive offer of marriage.

It didn’t matter that his mother insisted Harriette was far beneath their class and had listed, in elaborate detail, all the reasons he ought not associate with her.

All that mattered was that he could slide his hands around the delicious, slender warmth of her and press his lips against the soft side of her neck, inhaling traces of hair powder and chalk, soap and woman.

“Ren.” Her soft gasp went straight to his groin.

Boldly he swept a hand up her rib cage to her bosom.

She wore no stays, and the warm globe of a breast fell into his palm, the nipple hardening beneath his fingers.

His erection rose against her bottom, also not padded, and he froze.

Overeager, as always. Would she laugh at him?

She moved away. “We mustn’t,” she said, and her voice shook.

“We’re alone. Aren’t we?” At last he thought to look around. The moment he entered the room, he saw only her.

“We are, but we cannot—indulge.” She replaced the brushes she was holding into a ceramic vase and reached for a small jar.

“You wish to paint first. Business before pleasure.” He breathed in the scent of whatever the jar held, some pungent binding agent. It was as intoxicating as she was.

“That, and—we cannot.”

Cold horror rooted him to the floor. She didn’t need to show him her face. He could guess at her expression. “I repulse you.”

He ought to have known. He ought to have expected this. It was the reaction women always had to him, wasn’t it? He’d been too primed, too eager, pawing her like a drooling puppy. He had no right. She hadn’t invited his touch. He’d only assumed?—

“I’m sorry,” he grated out.

“That’s not it.” She whirled to face him.

Her eyes were green as moss, the tight lines at their corners showing she held back some tempestuous feeling.

The kissable indentations at the corners of her lips drooped.

“You are—so very—I am desperate to paint you,” she choked out.

He couldn’t read the emotion bridled in her voice.

Her hands cradled his cheeks, soft and yet firm, with the slightest of calluses on her fingers.

He closed his eyes, bracing himself for the explanations that would follow.

You’re a good man. But I— She would make it about her preferences, not his flaws.

But it would only end one way: It’s best we remain friends.

As if his feelings for her had ever been friendship, when she had been the one person in his entire life who protected him, avenged him, tended his wounds, and didn’t shy when she had seen his deformed foot.

It would kill him to be merely her friend, and he would die without having her in his life in any fashion in which she would take him.

“Look at me, Ren.” She spoke softly, her husky voice coaxing his ears, her soft breath fanning his cheek. He dragged his eyes open.

“I desire you.” Her lower lip trembled at the admission, and a flare of blinding hope catapulted through him. “You are—look at you. And you’re Ren, my?—”

She didn’t complete the thought because he swooped in and pressed his mouth against hers, hauling her against his body.

If she wanted him, then he was taking advantage, right now.

He would persuade her past her reservations.

He would show her that whatever her considerations, they didn’t matter more than this intense pleasure.

He would do anything for her. He was abjectly, entirely hers and couldn’t even pretend otherwise.

He would throw himself at her feet, he would promise her anything, and more importantly he would never stop kissing her, this senseless plunder, this relentless demand.

She melted against him, the crevice between her legs fitting neatly against his erection, her tongue plunging into his mouth and meeting his.

Her fingers dug into his scalp as if she meant never to let him go.

But when she shifted her leg so that his cock slid between her thighs, he felt the surge of wild, almost painful bliss that meant he was about to lose control and spend too early.

He froze again, some helpless sound escaping his throat, and Harriette came to her senses.

Damn him. He was incapable even of this, of seducing a woman who wanted him past her scruples.

“Good God, how I want you,” she breathed, prying her fingers out of his hair as if the movement took great effort. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining gold. “If I thought for a moment I could get away with it, that we wouldn’t be found out…”

She took a deep breath that fluttered the kerchief tucked into her neckline, and he quelled a savage urge to rip it from her and clamp his mouth to her tender breasts.

His poor rejected cock bobbed at the thought, eager for completion, eager for Harriette.

He took a step away from her, but it did nothing to steady him.

“But we can’t ,” she whispered, and turned back to her table. He could have sworn he saw moisture in the corner of her eyes, save that he had never seen Harriette cry, not under the greatest duress.

“Tell me why. I deserve that much.” Callous of him to insist on his needs, he realized. Why was he being a brute with the one woman who had ever been kind to him? He didn’t like this in himself. Perhaps he was going mad with lust.

“Go stand over there.” She pointed toward the nook before a set of tall windows where she had set a half-sized sculpted pillar, not marble but painted to look as such. A rug with deep pile covered the floor, and the couch had been pushed to one side.

“You’re still going to paint me?”

“Standing, with a neoclassical background. Lean one elbow against the pillar and look thoughtfully toward the fireplace.”

Hours in her presence. Days. The most exquisite of torments, watching her without being allowed to touch, and collecting impressions that would haunt him into his life without her and into sweaty, throbbing dreams. He must have been truly evil in a former life to have been so cursed in this one.

He stood where she indicated, and she moved around him and wrestled with the draperies at the window until the light fell as she wished.

Then she came to him in a cloud of delicious scent and adjusted his posture.

He gritted his teeth and bit back the urge to snap her away.

Her hands on him in a professional capacity were better than nothing at all, though truly, this torture must erase at least a hundred years in purgatory.

“But only painting. Nothing more,” he said with bitterness.

“To begin, a sketch of that posture, and some of the details of your attire.” She sat on her stool, flipped open her sketchbook, and pulled the porte crayon from her hair.

She sat down to watch him, study him, learn him inside and out, the way he wanted to know her.

The thought scraped his insides into a raw ache.