sample the joys of panting for release.
He shifted on the pillow and closed his eyes, but his mind would not behave. He could feel the skin of
her neck beneath his lips, the cool, electric crackle of her hair. Despite his resolution, he hoped he wouldn't be waiting long.
* * *
Merry wanted to see the sketches, but Nic was being vexing. He held them above his head and made
her jump like her brothers used to when she was small.
"Bastard," she fumed while he laughed at her. He wasn't quite as tall as her siblings but he was quicker.
"Tut-tut," he said, switching hands. "You'll never pass for a lady with that filthy mouth."
When Merry ran the other way, he dodged behind a fake Egyptian chair.
"You can't have known many ladies," she panted, "if you think they never curse."
"Now, now, Duchess. I've known a few more ladies than you."
The nickname startled her. She hid her reaction with a huff. "Just give me the pictures, Nic. I know they're only sketches. I promise I won't use them to cast aspersions on your genius."
"My genius?" His eyes danced with laughter. "Oh, I like the sound of that. Almost as much as I like having you chase me around my studio."
She called him another dirty name. He grinned and wagged the pages just out of reach. "What will you give me for them, Mary?"
That stopped her. Merry liked to bargain. She put her hands on her hips. "What do you want for them?"
He tilted his head and raked her with a gaze of lascivious speculation. If chasing him around hadn't warmed her, this look certainly would have. A fresh prickle of perspiration heated the shallow valley between her breasts. He'd loaned her another shirt today and she knew it did little to hide her reaction. His eyes darkened, then lifted reluctantly to her face.
"I should demand a kiss," he said, "a slow, wet, steal-your-breath-till-sunset sort of kiss."
He licked his upper lip and Merry clenched her fists against a shudder of arousal. She'd be damned if she'd let him see how well she could imagine what he described. Her efforts were futile. Nic grinned as smugly as if she'd moaned.
"Alas," he continued, "a kiss might be considered a violation of our agreement. So I'll simply suggest
that you pose nude."
"Nude!" she exclaimed, forgetting this was what she'd been hired for. For that matter, it was what she'd counted on having to do.
Nic examined his nails. The sky outside still glowered, but the fog had cleared and the studio windows cast a silvery aura around his form. He cut an elegant silhouette, his hair glossy, his profile sharp and fine. His dress might be Bohemian, but no one could fault its make. The slashing hollows of his cheeks gave him an air of tragedy. Here was a figure for a portrait, a Hamlet perhaps, or an ancient elven king.
His words, however, were anything but tragic.
"I could throw in a veil," he offered slyly.
"I'll give up the shirt," she countered. "And
I
get to arrange my hair."
"Done," he agreed and held out his hand to seal the deal.
Rather than shake it, Merry snatched the pile of sketches from his hold. Considering how quickly he'd done them, their detail quite amazed.
"Hm," she said, studying them. In some of the images, a few swift lines had caught the shape of her shoulder or her hand. In others, interlocking smudges of black and gray brought her features into the round. All the drawings were magical, and all were unmistakably almost her. This was more than the
self she saw in the mirror; this was the self Nic saw: slightly foreign, plainer in a way but much more interesting. His simplest scribble had a mysterious vitality. She touched a glimmering profile, half expecting the girl in the sketch to wink.
He's brilliant, she thought, but what she said was: "Does my nose really look like that?"
He came to stand behind her. "Precisely like that."
She looked up at him in surprise.
"I never lie," he said. "Soften perhaps, but not lie."
She narrowed her eyes. "Not with the tools of your trade, you mean."
"Not with anything." He pressed his hand to his well-formed chest. "I am an honest Casanova."
"Hmpf," she said, because she didn't know what to make of this curious claim. Could an honest man succeed as a seducer?
He touched the tip of her nose with something like affection. "Don't let it worry you, Duchess. Just strip off that shirt and we'll get to the business of the day."
He laughed when she slipped behind the changing screen, but Merry would not disrobe in front of him. Even with the concealment, her fingers shook as she opened his baggy shirt. She'd never bared her breasts for a man, not even on a dare. She hadn't expected to feel so vulnerable. For once in her life, she was grateful for her horrible hair. As thick as it was, she had no trouble covering most of her front behind its curls.
"You still there?" he called, as she huddled behind the screen.
She squeaked in alarm when his chin appeared over the top.
His smile was as kind as she'd ever seen it. "If you're not ready to do this, it can wait for another day.
I know you've never modeled without your clothes."
"I can do it," she said and tried to square her shoulders. Despite her best efforts, they remained where they were, hunched protectively into her hair. Her eyes sent him a plea she didn't mean to make. Nic
read it as easily as he did her fear.
"You know," he said, "I've seen plenty of naked women."
She nodded and blinked hard. "Hundreds," she agreed. "Maybe thousands."
"And you know I won't attack you just because you've taken off your shirt."
She nodded at that as well.
"Nor will I say insulting things. Or even think insulting things. For one thing, you're my model. For another, I like women. And for a third, you're very pretty. Neat as a pin," he added when she grimaced with disbelief. "Like a greyhound or a well-bred filly." His teeth flashed in a brilliant grin. "What do the Americans call those spotted horses?"
"Appaloosas," she said.
"Yes," he mused. "You're a pretty Appaloosa, and I'd be honored if you'd let me capture you in paint."
This comparison, at least, she could swallow.
"Oh, all right," she muttered, and stumped gracelessly around the screen.
Nic made no comment on her appearance, merely directed her to climb onto the sawhorse he'd erected
in the middle of the stage. A rug draped the crossbar with a man's jumping saddle slung over that. Merry clutched her hair to her bosom as she clambered on. Silly, she knew—her breasts weren't anything to go barmy over—but she couldn't help herself. Though the stirrups were too long, she refused to bend over
to adjust them.
"Your horse is too skinny," she said, unimpressed with his substitute, "and if you paint me astride,
you're going to scandalize your critics."
Too late, she remembered that a scandal was to her benefit.
Nic looked up from squeezing blobs of paint onto his palette. She wished he ground his own colors. She would have liked to watch. But she supposed a modern artist didn't bother with romantic fancies, not when he could buy those convenient collapsible tubes. Besides which, Nic was romantic enough. Any more romantic and she might slither out of this saddle in a heap.
His eyes gleamed as if he knew the tenor of her thoughts.
"Are you certain Lady Godiva didn't ride astride? And on a skinny horse?"
"A horse would have to be dead to be this skinny." She cocked her head at him, belatedly registering
what he'd said. "I'm supposed to be Lady Godiva?"
Her skepticism fed his amusement. "You have to admit you've got the hair for it."
"The hair maybe, but—"
"Hush," he said, one Prussian blue finger to his lips. "I'm the genius here."
Some genius. Even she knew Lady Godiva was supposed to be a siren. Made a bargain with her husband, as she recalled. He'd lower local taxes if she'd ride naked through the street. He thought she'd never dare but he was wrong. The townspeople were so grateful they all closed their shutters while she rode, except for a tailor who became the original Peeping Tom, for which impudence he was blinded. Merry had a hard time imagining her body blinding anyone, but she did feel daring, dressed in nothing but her hair and a pair of lacy drawers. And who knew? Maybe the real Godiva had been plain. Maybe the painters made her pretty.
She shifted in the saddle, uncomfortably conscious of her presence inside her skin. Her hair lay thick and warm across her breasts, brushing their tightened tips with every breath. Her thighs began to sweat where they gripped the saddle. Could Nic see? Could he possibly guess how oddly arousing she found her own display?
He didn't seem to. He was mixing colors now, squinting at her, then at the paint. She knew from the
night before that, to him, she nearly ceased to be a person as soon as he started work. His concentration fascinated her, and also soothed her nerves. How could one be embarrassed, after all, when one's breast or thigh was merely another object to depict?
"Wait!" she said, as he lifted his laden brush. His brows rose in inquiry but she couldn't let him do this. "You have to get a sidesaddle. Lady Godiva was a noblewoman. And a real horse wouldn't hurt, either."
"Stickler for accuracy, are we?" Nic's tone was droll. "Don't worry, Duchess. This is just a study. To
see if my concept works. If it does, I'll buy you a sidesaddle. And a horse—though God knows where we'd pose you."
"A white horse," she insisted, her memory of the legend clear.
"Brat," he teased and tossed his beautiful hair back with a laugh.
* * *
Come Monday. Nic took her to a dressmaker on
and clucked. She reminded her so eerily of her mother's dresser she was afraid to open her mouth for
fear the two women might be acquainted.
While this was going on, Nic waited in a tiny parlor by himself. Entirely a gentleman, he did not suggest he watch her being fitted, nor give instructions beyond a vague encouragement to "give her what she needs."
This presented a problem. Though Merry knew, despite her disinterest, precisely what the duke of Monmouth's daughter needed in her wardrobe, she had no idea what a maid turned artist's model might require.
Reduced to hazarding a guess, she ordered three plain warm dresses, an assortment of underthings, and two pairs of silk hose. These were not perhaps necessary, but even Merry could not bring herself to clothe her legs in scratchy wool.
Once she'd made her selections, everything was brought out for Nic's approval. The procedure made Merry feel peculiar, like a mistress instead of an employee. She didn't enjoy the feeling, but she
supposed the old lady's assumption was understandable.
Nic showed no such discomfort. As if he vetted women's dresses every day, he examined the patterns and fabric. Merry tensed as his brows drew together above his nose. She wondered if, in her ignorance, she'd ordered too much, but he simply rubbed his jaw and nodded. Then he lifted his gaze to the bent