‘‘For his sake.’’ Revealing the truth would doubtless destroy the kind old earl, not to mention infuriate Hamilton and jeopardize Deirdre’s divorce. ‘‘I wish not to embarrass the poor man by disagreeing with him in the company of his friends.’’
‘‘I understand that you prefer the privacy that anonymity affords you, Mr. Hamilton. But as the real Mr. Delaney said in the museum, you are much too self-effacing. You’ll grow accustomed to being famous, and it is long past time you met your adoring admirers.’’
He considered stepping on her feet on purpose. ‘‘They wouldn’t adore me if they knew the truth.’’
‘‘Of course they would. You’re a fortunate man, Mr. Hamilton. They all love Lord Lincolnshire and will transfer that affection to you. In fact, they already have. I was squeezed right out of the earl’s circle by all the ladies who want to marry you.’’
So she hadn’t heard he was married. Or rather, that Hamilton was married. Well, he wasn’t going to inform her. That would only serve to reinforce her conviction that he was Hamilton.
‘‘Lincolnshire
is
well loved,’’ he muttered instead in disgust. Had the earl been the blackguard Hamilton had described, he’d not have been welcome at this ball. And Corinna would never have introduced Sean as his
famous nephew
. ‘‘Everyone seems absolutely devastated that he is dying.’’
‘‘Of course we are,’’ she said, pulling his hand back to keep him from ramming into someone. ‘‘Throughout his life, Lord Lincolnshire has given generously to charity and done countless good deeds for various members of the
ton
and their children.’’
‘‘Everyone says they’ll do anything for him.’’
‘‘Anything but the one thing we cannot, which is to save his life,’’ she said mournfully.
‘‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’’ He stumbled again, and her hand gripped his shoulder harder. ‘‘When he told you I was Sean, not John, you disagreed with him. Loudly.’’
The look she gave him said he was a complete idiot. ‘‘The dear man does enjoy his games. And Sean is the same name as John in Ireland anyway, is it not? You sound like you come from Ireland.’’
That he couldn’t deny. Not without appearing to be the idiot she already considered him. Luckily for him, the musicians stopped playing. The dance had come to an end. Corinna curtsied, thanked him politely, and walked off.
He’d survived his first waltz. But as her sweet, paint-tinged scent wafted away, he found himself wishing it had lasted longer.
And wasn’t that absurd? He was lucky he had come out alive.
Chapter Eleven
Shortly after noon on Monday, Sean paced outside the gate in front of Lincolnshire House, planning his day as he waited for his curricle to be brought around. Thanks to a long breakfast with Lincolnshire, he was getting a very late start. He needed to stop by his main offices and make sure everything had gone well in his absence. Two contracts should be waiting for him to sign, he had three pending transactions to review, and he hoped to open negotiations for a factory he wished to sell. In addition, he expected barrels of wine he’d imported to arrive, he had a hotel to inspect in the center of London, and he wanted to talk to Deirdre—which meant a drive out to Hampstead and back.
Across the street, Berkeley Square hummed with activity. From his vantage point at the north end, he watched people traipse in and out of the fenced, grassy park in the middle. In the row of houses along the west side, a blue door opened, catching his eye. Two footmen emerged, burdened with boxes and an easel. As they headed across the street toward the park, a young woman came out and followed, her lithe figure clad in a pale blue gown with a white apron tied over it. Her dark hair, worn unfashionably loose, shone in the midday sun.
As his curricle pulled up, he blinked, suddenly recognizing Corinna.
‘‘Wait here,’’ he told the stableman before dashing out into the square.
By the time he reached her, the servants had positioned her easel beneath a giant plane tree and were setting a canvas upon it—one covered with blotches of gray and white. She riffled through a box filled with little pots of paint, her gaze focused, her plump bottom lip caught between her teeth.
‘‘Good day to you, Lady Corinna.’’
Startled, she looked up, narrowing her eyes. Impossibly gorgeous blue eyes.
To Sean, most everyone’s eyes—including his own— appeared brown. Green, hazel, brown . . . they all looked brown. Only shades of blue looked truly colorful, and Corinna’s eyes seemed the most brilliant blue he’d had the pleasure to see.
A man could lose himself in those eyes.
‘‘Have you decided to let me sketch you?’’ she asked.
‘‘No,’’ he said, not lost after all. ‘‘I was waiting there for my carriage’’—he gestured toward Lincolnshire House—‘‘when I noticed you entering the square. I came over to tell you I’m not Hamilton. I’m not Lincolnshire’s nephew.’’
She lifted a dull knife. ‘‘So you keep saying.’’ Using it to scoop brown—or maybe red or green—paint onto a palette, she slanted him a glance. ‘‘Yet you’re living in Lincolnshire House.’’
‘‘I am. I can explain. Hamilton is my brother-in-law, and—’’
‘‘You said that in the museum.’’
‘‘Because it’s true.’’
She seemed to stare at his mouth for a moment before she wiped the knife on her splotched apron and used it to add a smidge of a lighter color. ‘‘I don’t believe you,’’ she said, apparently as blunt as she was beautiful. ‘‘I understand that you’ve enjoyed your anonymity in the past, but your secret is out now. You’re going to have to get used to the fact that everyone knows you’re John Hamilton.’’
She was staring at his mouth again, almost as though she wanted to kiss him. He certainly wanted to kiss her. Or throttle her. ‘‘But I’m
not
John Hamilton.’’
‘‘And I’m not here in Berkeley Square.’’ With a saucy smile, she picked up a brush and turned to her canvas. ‘‘I expect you should get to your own painting, Mr. Hamilton. I wish you a successful day.’’
Clearly he was dismissed. He strode back to his curricle, bunching his fists—as much to keep from throttling her as to keep from touching her this time. If he didn’t manage to convince her of the truth soon, his hands were going to be permanently clenched.
With Griffin gone, Corinna had been looking forward to a few peaceful days to work on her portrait, but she wandered the drawing room Tuesday, still pondering whom to paint.
She’d decided her picture would be set outdoors. She was an accomplished landscape artist, after all, and it was important that her backdrop be as impressive as her central subject. She wanted the play of light and shadow, the varied greens of grass and trees, the bright hues of blooming flowers. She’d started painting all of that yesterday in the square, and she was happy enough with how it was coming along. But she couldn’t make up her mind whom she wanted in the foreground and what, exactly, he or she should be doing.
She didn’t care for formal portraits where the sitter just stared at the viewer. She preferred to see subjects in context. Conversation portraits, they were called. Quite popular in the previous century, they often featured whole families or groups of friends posed casually, as though caught in some everyday action. Although it wasn’t common to do the same with a single subject, she wanted to give it a try. She hoped it would make her painting a little different—and therefore more noteworthy.
If the painting turned out well, it would not only be the first work she submitted to the Summer Exhibition, but also the first portrait she put on public view. She wanted to choose someone who would be memorable. Someone whose personality would shine from the canvas. Someone she knew well enough to portray in such a manner that the viewer would feel he or she was a close, personal friend.
That was why she’d painted family members over and over.
She stopped and scanned all the many old Chase family portraits on the wall, settling on one dated 1670. The gentleman wore a long surcoat and a lace-trimmed cravat, the lady a full, heavy brocade gown with an old-fashioned stomacher fronting the bodice. A small engraved metal plate on the frame read:
JASON AND CAITHREN
8
TH
MARQUESS AND MARCHIONESS OF CAINEWOOD
She’d never known this couple, of course. They’d both died long before she was born. But unlike the ancient, more sober portraits, which invariably featured stern, unsmiling subjects, this husband and wife looked happy. They looked like they had been in love.
And they looked very much like Corinna’s present family.
Juliana resembled Caithren, sharing her ancestor’s warm hazel eyes and straight, streaky blond tresses. Griffin had inherited Jason’s dark hair and square jaw, and both men had deep green eyes.
Not as startling a green as the eyes belonging to the man Corinna really wanted to paint. She couldn’t keep her mind off him. The way he kept lying to her was infuriating, but now whenever she picked up a Minerva Press novel she pictured him as the hero. No matter if the author described the hero as having fair hair and blue eyes; in her head his hair was dark, his eyes that startling green. When the dark-haired, green-eyed hero touched the heroine, a pleasurable shiver ran through her. And whenever the hero and heroine kissed, she imagined Mr. Hamilton kissing her, and her lips tingled.
But he’d refused even to let her sketch him, so painting him was out of the question. She was as likely to paint him as she was to kiss him.
Neither was going to happen.
And no, she decided, she didn’t want to update the family portrait collection by continuing to paint new pictures of people who looked eerily similar to the ones already on the walls. She’d been doing that for nearly a year, and none of her efforts had turned out well enough to hang on the walls, anyway.
Sighing, she collected her art supplies and summoned two footmen to accompany her into the square. Until she decided on a subject, she would continue working on her setting. Carrying her box of paints, she followed the servants out the door and across the street.
Or at least she tried to cross the street. Rounding the curve from Lincolnshire House, a curricle drew to a halt in her path. The driver looked down from his high perch.
‘‘I’m not Hamilton,’’ he said coldly.
She shrugged, thoroughly vexed. Apparently he hated her. And since he wasn’t going to let her sketch him—let alone paint him—she wished he’d just leave her alone. If he’d cease popping into her life, perhaps she’d be able to concentrate on finding someone else to kiss.
To
paint
, she mentally amended. She didn’t want to kiss him; she only wanted to paint him.
Holy Hannah, she was a liar.
And was there anything worse than lying to oneself?
‘‘Fine,’’ she snapped. ‘‘You’re not Hamilton. Now will you please drive on so that I can paint?’’
A hoot of laughter burst from his throat. Or maybe it was a snort of frustration. Whichever, he flicked his reins and drove off, leaving her to think about painting him and kissing him . . . and very little else.
At the rate she was making progress, she’d be lucky to finish a new portrait before
next
year’s Summer Exhibition.
Chapter Twelve
‘‘Nephew?’’
‘‘Hmm?’’
‘‘I wish to see your studio today.’’
Sean looked up from reading the
Morning Chronicle
at the breakfast table, thinking it was way too late for breakfast. By this hour on a normal morning, he’d generally have risen, eaten, and driven all the way into town to his offices. On a normal morning, he’d have already gone through the day’s mail, sat in on several meetings, dispatched employees to see to his interests. On a normal morning, he’d be elbow-deep in business by now, expanding his empire, increasing his fortune. On a normal morning . . .
This wasn’t a normal morning.
No morning had been normal since he’d agreed to this damned scheme. Lincolnshire had trouble falling asleep and, in consequence, stayed abed late. And then he wanted his ‘‘dear nephew Sean’’ to keep him company at breakfast. He ate very little and very slowly, and in consequence it all took very long.
Sean folded and set aside the newspaper. ‘‘My studio is private,’’ he said carefully.
‘‘From me?’’ The earl looked hurt. ‘‘I’m your uncle. You’re my heir.’’
‘‘I have work to do—’’
‘‘I know. Work that makes me mighty proud, work that rivals the very best.’’ He gestured to all the old masters on his dining room walls. ‘‘I want to see where you work. I shall sit and watch quietly; I promise. It’s not as though I could move around much even if I wanted to,’’ he added with his usual good humor.
But Sean’s smile was regretful, not amused. ‘‘I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t be able to concentrate—’’
‘‘You won’t even know I’m there.’’
He
did
want to make the old man happy. But he couldn’t—he just couldn’t—allow Lincolnshire to see Hamilton’s studio.