“Or possibly desire coursing. I did not quite get it down. I was concerned with covetous at the time.”
“Very well, then.” He clenched his jaw, firmly thrust aside all desirous thoughts of Fiona, covetous or otherwise, and forced himself to concentrate on the desires of Winter as regards whatever nymph he had in his sights. “What nymph is this again?”
She shuffled through the papers on the table. “April, I think.”
“April.” He thought for a moment. “No knowledge of his covetous gaze upon the warmth of her skin…”
He glanced at Fiona.
She smiled down at the paper in an annoyingly satisfied manner. He continued. “No knowledge of the desire coursing through his veins. Surging in his blood. Grasping him—no—gripping him with a fire that demanded quenching. He could…take her. Yes, that’s good.”
Very good, in fact. Far better thancovetous . “Or rather, should take her. Now. As was his due, without—”
“Wait!” Fiona wrote frantically. “You are going entirely too fast.”
“Sorry.”
“What came after surging through his blood?”
“Gripping him with a fire that demanded quenching.”
“Gripping him with a fire,” she repeated as she wrote, “that demanded quenching.”
“He should take her now as was his due—Good Lord, Miss Fairchild!” He stared at her. “Don’t you find this difficult?”
“Not if you slow down,” she muttered
“I didn’t mean the dictation.” He huffed. “I meant the topic. Don’t you find this embarrassing?”
“Not at all, my lord.” She glanced up at him. “Do you?”
“Well, yes, somewhat.”
“Why?”
“Because I am not used to discussing topics of this nature with properly bred young women.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. Why, he sounded as stuffy as his father.
“Really?” She sat back in her chair. “Who do you discuss topics of this nature with?”
“What?”
“You said you were not used to discussing such topics with properly bred young women. Who do you discuss such things with?”
“Why…” he sputtered. “I don’t!”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that, then, before we began this project,” she said primly. “I believe it was your idea.”
He glared at her. “This doesn’t bother you at all, does it?”
“What, my lord?” She blew an exasperated breath, set her pen down and looked up at him. “The words we are using or the fact that you are wasting a great deal of our time being uncomfortable at their use?”
He gritted his teeth. “The first.”
“No, of course not. They are simply words, after all. I am an artist and you are a writer. You tell your stories with words, I tell mine with pen and charcoal.” She shrugged. “The words you use have no more effect on me than the subjects of my drawings.”
He raised a brow. “Naked men?”
“And women.” She studied him for a moment. “You are more shocked than you originally let on about my work, aren’t you?”
“Not at all,” he said staunchly, then paused. “Admittedly, I might be more surprised the better I get to know you—”
She laughed. “I do not seem like the type of woman who would draw nude figures?”
“In many ways, Miss Fairchild, you seem like the type of woman who would do almost anything that struck her fancy,” he said wryly. “But I also think you have certain boundaries of behavior you will not breach.”
“Oh?”
“For example, I am fairly certain you will not trick a man into marriage, nor will you force a man to wed who does not wish to.”
“I wouldn’t wager on that.” A warning sounded in her voice.
“I would.” He grinned. “Shall we say a hundred pounds?”
“Don’t be absurd.” She scoffed. “If you lost, you would lose far more than money, you would lose your freedom.”
“Very well, then. I’ll wager my freedom. And if I won, what would I win?”
She laughed. “But you could never win. You are betting on my behavior. On something that I would or would not do. Something that I have full control over. It is a fool’s wager.”
“I have been called a fool on more than one occasion.” He wagged his brows wickedly. “What do you have to wager that would be comparable to my freedom?”
“My virtue,” she said without pause.
“Yes, well…” He tried and failed to keep the surprise from his voice. “That is comparable.”
She laughed. “Now I have truly shocked you.” She leaned toward him. “Is it because of what I am willing to bet in a wager that I cannot lose? Or is it simply because I have said the wordvirtue aloud?”
“You have saidnaked aloud.” His tone was dry. “Not to mentioncoursing desire and”—he shook his head in a mournful manner—“covetous.”
She heaved an overly dramatic sigh. “Oh, dear, I am shocking.”
“Yes, you are, and I find it quite charming.” He grinned. “But you’re right, such a wager as we’ve discussed would be nothing short of stupid on my part. And I agree, only a fool would engage in such a gamble knowing he cannot possibly win.”
“And you are no fool.”
“I try not to be.” He studied her for a moment. “Miss Fairchild.” Jonathon pulled up a chair and sat down beside her. “Would you like to be friends?”
She narrowed her eyes in obvious suspicion. “What do you mean,friends ?”
“I mean friends. Comrades. Something more than acquaintances and less than…Well, you know what friends are.”
“Certainly, but—”
“We are going to be spending a great deal of time together. Given our conversation yesterday regarding any potential feelings you could develop toward me”—Jonathon winced to himself; this was most awkward not only because of the possibility that she might feel something for him, but because of his confusion toward her—“and my own…reluctance regarding marriage, it seems that friendship would be the safest course for us both. You have informed me in no uncertain terms that you do not wish for any sort of flirtation on my part, and I must tell you it’s damnably hard to avoid.”
“Imagine that,” she murmured.
“You’re quite lovely, Miss Fairchild, and clever and amusing, and I find I enjoy your company, but…”
He blew a long breath. “I feel things are most unsettled between us. I hope that if we can at least be friends—”
“Agreed.”
“—then perhaps our work together would not—”
“I said I agree.”
He drew his brows together. “You agree?”
“On friendship between us.” She nodded. “I think it’s an excellent idea.”
“You do?”
“Even I am aware that your efforts to suppress your obviously natural inclination toward flirtation are most difficult for you. Indeed, today you have seemed like a thread stretched to the breaking point.”
“I have?”
She lowered her voice in a confidential manner. “And it’s apparent the subject matter we are dealing with is not helping.”
“You could say that,” he said under his breath.
“Therefore, in the interest of friendship and your well-being, I propose we divide our time.” She thought for a moment. “We could write a bit, finish a few pages—as much as you can bear—”
“See here, Miss Fairchild.” Indignation rang in his voice. “I daresay I can hold up—”
“—then we’ll stop,” she continued without pause, “and spend some time getting to know one another. Perhaps we could each ask the other a question about something we are curious about.” She glanced at him. “Nothing too personal, of course.”
“However, some personal questions are allowed. Among friends, that is,” he added quickly.
“I suppose. I daresay we can decide on a question-by-question basis.”
“Excellent.” He sat back and beamed at her. “Would you like to go first? With a question, that is?”
“I think I prefer that you go first,” she said slowly. “I cannot think of a question at the moment and I do hate to squander the opportunity.”
“Very well.” He waved at the drawings strewn across the table. “How did all this come about? You said you went from pears to people. Surely there was more to it than that?”
“It was”—she thought for a moment—“a natural progression, I would say. I began my studies with Mrs. Kincaid years ago. Eleanora Kincaid is a wonderful artist, although I daresay no one has ever heard of her and probably never will. She left England as a young woman and supplements the commissions she receives for portraits and murals and the like with art lessons. At first we drew still lifes and landscapes and that sort of thing. Then we started going to museums and galleries to study works of the great masters. She encouraged us to draw what we saw there including ancient Roman and Greek sculptures.”
She glanced at him. “You realize most of them are not clothed?”
“I do realize that, although they are also made of stone and cool to the touch.”
“Quite, and therefore not much of a challenge, really.” She nodded. “We studied anatomy from books as well as statues, but eventually it wasn’t enough and we needed to draw from life, from living, breathing people.” She leaned toward him. “It’s quite a different thing, you know, to copy what you see in a book or render an inanimate figure made of marble to drawing a living being.” She grinned. “They have a tendency to move. It’s most awkward.”
“No doubt.”
“At any rate, a few years ago, Mrs. Kincaid decided, for purposes of improvement and challenge, that it was time to move on to something more demanding and she hired models to pose for us.”
“Female and male models?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Just women at first. I believe it’s rather difficult to find men to pose naked in front of a group of young women.”
“I can well imagine,” he murmured. “I would certainly find it embarrassing, to say the least.”
“Really? But it was simply a task for which they were well compensated. There was nothing at all personal about it. On their side or on ours.”
“Nonetheless, I would never…” He shook his head. “I can’t even envision…”
“Can’t you?” She looked at him as if assessing his qualifications to pose nude. “What a shame.”
He huffed. “Miss Fairchild, if you think I am the type of man to shed my clothes in the name of art—”
She laughed. “I didn’t think that at all. However, as a writer, I would think you would well be able to imagine how a man in that position, surrounded by young women, all staring dispassionately at him as if he were nothing more than an object, might feel. Or how he might respond.”
At once the image of her gazing dispassionately at his nude body popped into his head. He wasn’t at all sure he liked the idea of her—or any woman, for that matter, but her in particular—gazing at his naked form in adispassionate manner. If Fiona were ever to look upon him when he was unclothed, he did hope that she would have some sort of passionate response. Lord knows he would, if the situation were reversed.
Without warning the image changed to include her in a similar state of undress.
“Well?”
“I do have a rather vivid imagination,” he muttered.
“I thought as much.” She chuckled. “As I was saying, it is difficult to find male models. However, Mrs. Kincaid was never long without male companionship—”
“Miss Fairchild!”
“Have I shocked you again?” She stared at him in disbelief. “I had no idea you were so easily shocked.”
“I’m not.” He paused. “Usually.”
“Are you shocked at what I know or what I say?”
“Both.” He sighed. “Neither. My apologies, do continue.”
“There’s really not much more to say.” She shrugged. “Mrs. Kincaid convinced her…companionto pose. After they were no longer”—she flashed him a quick teasing look—“companions,she persuaded her new companion to do so as well.”
“Were you not embarrassed by all these”—he grimaced—“companions? Thesenaked companions.”
“No,” she said blithely. “After all, they weren’t my companions.”
He tried and failed to stifle a gasp.
“I am sorry.” She laughed. “I couldn’t resist that. You are great fun to shock.”
“I am glad you’re enjoying it.”
“Oh, I am.” She grinned, then her expression sobered. “I do admit it was a bit uncomfortable in the beginning, but eventually one looks at a naked body very much as one looks at a vase or a piece of fruit. The work itself becomes more…alive, I think, than the subject.” Her brows drew together thoughtfully.
“You should understand, this was a very small group of students. Seven of us altogether and not one under the age of twenty. We were all great friends and the subject of this aspect of our work was our secret. Some of us were more talented than others, some better with charcoal, others with paint, but we each took what we did quite seriously. Although none of us expected ever to have to earn our own living.” She smiled wryly. “My friends would be as shocked as you to learn of this project.”
“They won’t. No one will. Ever,” he said staunchly ignoring the fact that just today he had told Judith, but Judith was an expert at the keeping of secrets. “Anonymity is crucial. Besides”—he grinned—“if seven women can keep the subject of their work secret for years, we can surely do no less.”