ColorMeBad

Olivia
Waite

John Rushmore has all but given up
on his talents as a painter, unable to recapture the passion of earlier days.
He is pleased to have his boredom lightened by the appearance of a redheaded
thief—and even more delighted to be introduced to her the following night in an
elegant Society ballroom. Miss Hecuba Jones is in pursuit of the paintings that
make up her rightful inheritance. She is prickly and suspicious and absolutely
irresistible. She’s also an inspiration. Before long, John finds himself
working deep into the night to try to capture the feverish, erotic visions she
provokes.

Soon they reach an agreement. John
will trade the four paintings she attempted to steal for four portraits of
Hecuba herself. Intimate nights and candlelight soon transform artistic
pleasures into physical ecstasy—until old family secrets and a blossoming
scandal threaten to shatter their fragile liaison.

A
Romantica®
historical erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

The first thing went wrong before she even got in the door.

Hecuba Jones had learned to pick locks on the old tumbler
locks on the doors of her family’s home. Her father had eventually installed a
Barron double acting and it had taken months for Hecuba to find the right
amount of pressure to use on the pick—too little and the lock stayed locked,
too much and it relocked itself. It had been nearly ten years since she’d tried
something that complicated.

The Earl of Underwood was apparently quite mindful of his
security, since the lock on the tradesman’s entrance to his home was the very
latest model—a Chubb detector lock.

Which was, to the full extent of Hecuba’s knowledge,
unpickable. By anyone, much less an amateur thief a decade out of practice.

She raised the pick and hook to the edge of the lock and
took a deep breath, willing her hands to remain steady. The Chubb’s main
feature was that it could only be unlocked by one specific key. Using a copy—or
lifting one of its inner levers the slightest bit too high with a pick—would
jam the lock entirely. Then, when the owner came home with the right key, the
lock would only open if the key was turned the opposite way—so the lock’s owner
would know that someone had attempted an entry.

Hecuba’s palms grew damp and she scrubbed them against the
material of her black trousers. There was no
time
for this, damn it all.

She gritted her teeth and leaned closer.

And paused.

A thought occurred.

She transferred pick and hook to her left hand and reached
out with her right.

Slowly she wrapped her hand around the door handle and
turned it.

The door opened with demure, well-oiled silence.

Hecuba didn’t know whether to curse or sing with joy.
Instead of doing either, she moved quickly across the threshold and pulled the
door quietly shut behind her.

It was a strange thing indeed to move through the darkness
of an unfamiliar house. She paused for a long while, just listening, until she was
finally convinced that even the most disciplined and devoted servants had long
ago sought their beds. Her baggy men’s trousers and high-collared coat were
deep black and well-worn enough not to rustle or catch the light as she padded
along the corridor of the first story. Five minutes and two wrong doors later
brought her to the Earl of Underwood’s study.

Twin shafts of moonlight slipped in through the two tall and
imperfectly curtained windows in the far wall. On the right, a pair of
paintings hung above a broad old desk bristling with scars. Two more paintings
flanked an ancient, cracked mantelpiece on the room’s left-hand side. A few
weathered armchairs stood about the room like battered veterans of some ancient
upholstery war. One would have expected the earl to be more particular about
the state of his décor, but the room was undeniably cozy, in an old-fashioned,
masculine kind of way.

She reminded herself not to relax. Despite the room’s
welcoming air, disaster would result if she were caught here.

Hecuba stepped forward in her soft leather shoes and raised
the darkened lantern. The flick of a wrist set free one slender beam of light,
just bright enough for her to see a few telltale colors of the room’s four
paintings.

Relief bubbled up in her heart. Yes, these were the four
she’d been looking for.

She set the lantern on the desk and took down the left-hand
painting from that wall, grasping its carven frame with great care. Night
obscured most of the painting’s details, but she knew it as well as she knew
her own face, and her memory filled in the gaps. This painting showed a
twilight scene in the back garden of a country cottage—serenely drooping
blossoms, rustic white walls, the merest hint of a dusky blue horizon in the
distance. On the balcony of the second story, a tall figure dressed all in
black with a black mask over his face pressed his back against that white wall,
focused on the tempting open window to his right.

It was titled
The Thief
.

And there was the signature in the lower right-hand corner—
C.
F. Jones.

The painting had caused a scandal and a sensation when it
had been offered for auction after the artist’s demise. Rumor had it that the
masked figure was the culprit behind several highly talked-over burglaries of
the previous generation and that the artist had received payment for his work
in the form of priceless, purloined jewels.

Nobody knew
The Thief
’s true identity.

Nobody, that is, except Hecuba Jones.

Hecuba turned the painting facedown and snicked open the
blade of her knife.

From behind her, a large hand moved into view on her left
and snapped the lantern shut.

Hecuba was plunged into darkness.

While she stood frozen in shock, her right hand—with the
knife still clutched in it—was pressed gently yet firmly to the rough wood of
the desk. A man spoke, so close that his breath stirred the hair by her right
ear. “It seems we both have found ourselves a thief,” he murmured.

In the dark, with her eyesight not yet readjusted to the
moonlight, Hecuba struggled to form a picture of her opponent. Tall, certainly,
and neither very old nor very young. The grip of his hand was firm but not
painful, and it took a certain confidence to sneak up on a thief in one’s own
home.

Dear God, he wasn’t the earl, was he?

Hecuba’s palms grew damp and her mind began to race. Her
pulse sped up to match. “Congratulations,” she said, with a calmness she only
pretended to own. “You’ve caught me. What do you plan to do now?”

Amusement laced his voice. “It seems an appropriate time to
summon the authorities, wouldn’t you agree?”

“No, I would not.” Hecuba’s second knife was in her other
hand now. She pressed the point of it easily against whichever part of his
anatomy was behind her and slightly to the left. He sucked in a startled
breath. “In fact,” she went on, “if you don’t release me, I’m going to have to
take drastic measures.”

There was a thoughtful pause. “Oh, my dear, you are already
in enough trouble without staining your hands with the blood of a peer.”

She felt him shift and knew he was reaching for the lantern.
She pressed the knife slightly more insistently against his body and ordered,
“Don’t.”

He chuckled against her ear. His breath was warm, his laugh
was low, and Hecuba cursed silently. Damn it, she should not be getting aroused
by the smoky, brandy-laden voice of a man she’d never seen and whose paintings
she was here to steal. She could have sworn he’d moved closer, the breadth of
his chest a mere inch away from her back. The hair on the back of her neck
lifted in awareness. His hand curled more firmly around her wrist and she
definitely shouldn’t have enjoyed that either. She gripped the knife in her
left hand more firmly to balance things out.

“I have to wonder,” said the man, “what is so important
about this painting from a financial perspective. It has a certain artistic
value, but forgive me if I doubt that’s what brought you here tonight.” He
smiled. She knew he smiled—she could practically feel the movement of his lips
in the dark.

Stall him. Get him talking.
Hecuba swallowed against
the kick of her heart. “You’ll certainly have a hard time convincing the
authorities that someone came in here to steal it,” she said. “Especially if
you don’t have a good description of the thief.”

His voice grew a shade warmer. “Just under six feet tall,
moderately slender, a husky voice and hair the purest shade of red I’ve ever
seen.”

Damn! He’d seen enough, then, before he’d shut that lantern.
She’d known she ought to wear a wig or a hat or blackened her hair with soot.
But she hadn’t a wig, soot took forever to wash out and all the hats she owned
were delicate bonnets that would have been much more useful on a visit for
afternoon tea—except for the fact that they were all at least three years out
of date.

Why was she thinking about hats at a time like this?
Focus,
Hecuba
, she told herself.
You’re better than this.
All at once she
realized her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. Had his?

It was time to act. “You have until the count of three to
release me, my lord,” she said.

“No earls here, I’m afraid,” he replied equably. “You’ve
been apprehended by the younger son, a mere honorable sir.”

She kept the relief from her voice. “That is too bad for you
but it doesn’t change my intentions in the slightest.”

He laughed again and the sound seemed to ripple along every
nerve Hecuba possessed. “And to think I had thought tonight was going to be
disappointing,” he drawled.

“One,” Hecuba counted.

The earl’s brother went on as though she hadn’t spoken. “I
come home early, bored with London’s usual mode of dissipated entertainment,
and discover that tonight the entertainment has come to me.”

“Two.” Hecuba subtly shifted her weight from one foot to the
other.

His breath teased her ear again when he spoke next. “What
else might you intend to steal from me?” he whispered. His lips brushed the
tender skin of her earlobe.

Hecuba skipped three. She dropped the knife in her left hand
and spun around with an elbow cocked and ready. It slammed into his chest and
dropped him to the floor, where he curled up and gasped for his lost breath.

Meanwhile Hecuba was busy slashing the painting free of its
frame with the knife in her right hand. Quickly she rolled the canvas into a
cylinder, the painted side inward and protected. Before her captor could even
lift himself from the floor enough to open the lantern, she was out the nearest
window and disappearing fast into the London night.

* * * * *

One night later

The Heatherton ball was a complete crush. Hecuba was more
than happy to fetch refreshments for her cousins, if only to get away from the
ballroom for a minute or two.

It was only when she was returning with a glass of sticky
lemonade in each hand that she realized they’d had an ulterior motive for
sending her away.

For there were the Misses Pym, Anne and Evangeline, dimpling
as hard as they could as their host introduced them to two tall and
well-dressed gentlemen. There were giggles and the twinkling of eyes. There
were compliments and the blushes they provoked. Flirtation was clearly afoot.

Hecuba sighed and hoped at least one of the gentlemen had
half a brain, or else the night would be interminable.

Her cousins managed not to look too disappointed at her
reappearance. “Oh, there you are Hecuba,” said Anne, the taller of the pair.
She quickly looked back at the men with a smile. “My lord, may I introduce my
cousin, Miss Jones? Hecuba, this is the Earl of Underwood—and his brother, the
Honorable John Rushmore.”

Hecuba went white. Would it be too scandalous to throw both
glasses of lemonade on the man and bolt for the door?

But her cousins were already relieving her of their drinks
and Hecuba could do nothing but sink into a slow curtsey with her head bowed.
“My lord,” she murmured.

“A pleasure, Miss Jones,” said the earl—but Hecuba’s
attention was fixed on the other man.

John Rushmore was as tall as she’d thought with brown hair
and eyes. Every line of him was strong and angular, though he didn’t look
nearly as hawkish and intense as his brother. He looked…clean, streamlined, as
though everything unnecessary had been left out or cut away. This was the man
who’d stood behind her in the dark one night ago, smelling of brandy and spice,
whispering threats into her ear while his hand clasped her wrist at the point
where her pulse throbbed.

And he was grinning shamelessly at her.

Dear God, he’d recognized her.

“Miss Jones,” he said, bowing over her hand. His satisfied
tone could have been mistaken for romantic interest, but Hecuba knew better and
she very nearly jerked her arm back out of his grasp. Unfortunately they were
in view of a hundred interested people—and her cousins were watching quite
closely, along with Lord Heatherton—so she merely held still while he kissed
her hand. She could feel the pressure of his lips on her skin and his fingers
on her palm even after he released her. “A pleasure, Miss Jones,” Mr. Rushmore
said.

He was enjoying her discomfiture. Hecuba’s shock sharpened
into irritation now that it had a mark. “A platitude, Mr. Rushmore,” she
replied.

“You’re quite right, Miss Jones,” he said.

Hecuba regarded this affability with suspicion.

“We have barely exchanged names, after all. We cannot
possibly know anything about each other,” he added.

“Nothing, in fact,” Hecuba agreed.

Mr. Rushmore leaned forward, his smile crooked and
challenging. “But of course, there is a pleasure in mystery, isn’t there, Miss
Jones?”

“That pleasure vanishes when the mystery is solved.” Hecuba
gave him the most brilliant false smile she could muster. “Therefore, sir, in
the interest of furthering your pleasure, you may not want to further your
acquaintance with me.”

Anne blanched while Evangeline glanced from Hecuba to her
sister in confusion. The earl blinked and looked suddenly intrigued, while Lord
Heatherton sputtered into his moustache.

The Honorable John Rushmore merely laughed…and there was no
reason that sound should warm her or make her heart flutter. It did both, to
Hecuba’s silent fury.

Anne stepped forward and put her hand on her cousin’s arm
before she could say anything else. “Hecuba is a little unused to society, Mr.
Rushmore,” she said. “She has lived most of her life in the country, with
parents who were rather…eccentric.”

Hecuba had long since stopped being surprised when Anne
threw these little social daggers her way. In truth, she mostly encouraged
it—she had no desire to prance around before a passel of bluebloods who would
analyze her hips and her teeth as though those parts of her body foretold what
kind of mother she would be to the requisite heir. She had no desire for a
wedding or a husband as Anne did. She also knew that her common background and
vivid, unfashionable hair were often considered flaws by the type of gentlemen
Anne tried so hard to attract.