Page 57 of The Masked Fae (Royal Fae of Rose Briar Woods 1)

BRAHM

“Ithought you were a painter,” I say as I stand near the light of a window in a seldomly used sitting room, already growing bored. It’s the third time we’ve met this week. “Don’t painters paint?”

Alice laughs as she sketches me. “There are steps, my lord. I like to thoroughly study my subjects before I begin.”

A smirk tugs at my lips as a roguish retort comes to mind, but I decide to hold my tongue.

Though standing for the portrait is tedious, watching Alice is not. I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t this.

She’s pulled up a large velvet armchair and planted herself in it, drawing her legs under her dress and resting her sketchpad in her lap. Her hair falls over her shoulders as she works, and she continually shoves it behind her ears. There are supplies scattered on the ground around her. She looks like a young girl pretending to be an artist.

Every few seconds, she looks up, studying me before she returns her attention to the charcoal in her fingers.

“When must you leave for your mother’s masquerade?” she asks, frowning at her work.

“The day after tomorrow.”

“And you’ll be back the following day?”

“The next morning,” I promise.

“Auvenridge must not be far from here.”

“It only takes me a few hours on horseback, but it’s double that by carriage,” I say, dreading it more than usual. I’m positive Ian said something to Mother about Alice, and I’m not sure how much trouble I will have to manage.

Thankfully, he was not a loyal lapdog when he was young, and he never met Eleanor. He has no reason to believe Alice is anything more than a human girl I have business with—which is unusual, certainly, but not forbidden.

“How will you return so quickly?” Alice asks, setting the sketch aside.

Glad she’s finished, I stretch my neck and cross the room to meet her. “I’ll ride back as soon as the masquerade is over.”

“At night?”

“I’m not human, Alice,” I say lightly. “I have little to fear from the residents of Faerie.”

She looks like she wants to argue, likely remembering the night I came to her covered in blood, but she keeps the thought to herself.

“Let me see,” I say, nodding toward the sketchbook.

“They’re just sketches,” she says, handing it to me, looking a little self-conscious. “They’re rough, so don’t expect a masterpiece.”

I pause as I flip through the pages, studying a dozen images of myself. She’s captured my expressions, sketched my frame from different angles. It’s like looking into a mirror.

It’s no wonder she found me out so quickly. Is it possible to hide one’s identity from an artist?

“I’m afraid you’re trying to flatter me with these,” I say, a little uncomfortable as I return the sketchbook to her.

“Hardly. Of all my subjects, you are easily the most handsome.”

The thought of her painting someone else feels too intimate. I don’t like the idea of her studying another man this carefully, watching him closely enough to learn his secrets.

“Perhaps that is an exaggeration,” I say.

“You’re like a work of art—your eyes, your nose, your…”

She lets the words trail off, laughing to herself nervously.

“My what?” I ask, intrigued by the way her cheeks turn pink.