Page 136 of The Ladies Least Likely

“And she never told you?” Surprise made the words slip out without a catch.

“She wanted me to have what freedom I could, for as long as I could. So she says,” Harriette answered.

She’d fallen into sketching mode, her eyes moving from him to her paper, bringing him to life with lines and shadows.

“But she also ensured I had the best education. One befitting a duchess, which my mother could not provide.”

“Don’t blame her, Hari,” Princess said in a quiet voice.

“I don’t.” Harriette sketched in shadow with quick strokes, but she didn’t seem angry, only intense. “I understand why she did. She thought if she raised me for my future, she’d stifle me. I would become what I thought someone else wanted, instead of myself.”

Princess sipped her tea and Ren reduced his scone to crumbs, then licked his finger and collected the crumbs in an action that would never be accepted at a genteel table. Harriette sketched, then spoke.

“’Tis a cruel gift, do you consider it,” she said softly. “To allow a young woman to live to please herself, and then tell her, quite suddenly, her destiny is no longer hers to command, but she must now do the bidding of others.”

“You’ll have a great many comforts to make up for it,” Princess said, sharpness entering her tone.

“And a high name to be your shield and guard and entrée everywhere. Besides.” She stretched into a reclining pose.

“It might be a great deal of fun. You couldn’t believe what goes on at some of those courts.

Austrian, Italian, Russian. The Prussians may be a bit more buttoned up, and a great number of the Germans, but if you saw what those Polish nobles—that is, we Polish nobles…

” She shrugged. “They make English scandals look like schoolboy pranks.”

“My mother will be delighted to call herself duchess and have everyone bow and curtsey to her,” Harriette said. “I sent her a copy of the letter directly. No doubt Mrs. Demant will go into transports. She’ll be repaid for keeping my mother all this time and being put to such trouble over me.”

A short silence ensued. “At least my mother can be restored to her home and her position. That is the one great reason to go through with this. That, and it might lower some of the British noses turned up at my aunt, do they know she’s nearly royal in her own land.”

“Why didn’t your aunt stay in Silesia?” Ren asked.

“Her husband was count of his own province, so she left upon her marriage. But when he lost his lands in the War of the Austrian Succession, he came to Britain, which was then Austria’s ally, to try to gather influence and win back his realm.”

“Where is Calenberg now?” Ren asked.

“It no longer exists,” Harriette said shortly.

“But the usurpers at the least gave my aunt her widow’s portion of the inheritance, which is mainly what we live on.

It’s not enough, as our household expands, which is why I came to you.

So you could help me gain commissions, the kind which Gainsborough and Reynolds and Angelica Kauffman can command.

While, in the meantime, I scrape by with racy portraits. ”

Princess’s eyes widened. “Are you making another sketch of his lordship? The first are selling like griddlecakes at a market fair, Mrs. Darly says.”

Harriette shook the loose chalk off her last sketch and laid the sheet of paper on her table. Her eyes lit on Ren with a glow in their depths that instantly called up an answering heat within him.

“I oughtn’t,” she said, but the twitch at the corners of her lips belied her prim tone.

“But I’ve a sudden notion to be completely scandalous.

I want to show the world what I see.” Her voice dropped in pitch, to a husky croon that made his groin stir.

“I want women to look at those prints and feel what I was feeling before her highness clomped in here and forced us apart.”

“What do you have in m-m-mind?” Ren’s throat went dry. A long sip of tea did nothing to soothe the ache.

Harriette’s eyes turned to molten gold, her voice pure wickedness and seduction. “Take off your coat and your waistcoat. And your neckcloth. I’m going to draw you in just your shirt.”

“What, undressed!” Princess sat up at attention. “I see I will enjoy this business of chaperoning more than I thought.”

Ren tried not to melt, or let his erection show, as Harriette neared him and started unbuttoning his morning coat. Neither effort was successful.

“Is this what you want, Rhette?” he whispered as she bent to work the large silver buttons lining his coat. Her loose hair brushed his cheek. He closed his eyes in a pleasure that bordered on agony.

“Not nearly,” she said. “But it will have to do for now.”

“How can I help?” He met her eyes. She held nothing back with him.

She never had. He saw her hurt, her desire, her frustration, and her need to be connected to him, to touch him.

The same intensity moved them both. He wanted to howl and weep at the thought that, under different circumstances, he could have claimed her.

If she weren’t a duchess. If she weren’t already promised. If he could be the whole, steady, admirable kind of man she deserved, instead of a green, incomplete, malformed one.

“Be my friend,” she whispered. “Let me paint you. And let me have this time with you for as long as I can.”

He closed his eyes as her hands freed him from his coat and started on his neckcloth, her warm, clever fingers brushing his throat. She was going to kill him. He was going to physically expire from the pain of wanting this woman so much. It would swell him up like an abscess until he burst.

At least he would die happy.