River Of Fire (23 page)

He swept her up in his arms and carried her across the room. She clung to him, licking his throat and the line of his jaw, loving the taste and feel of him.

Then he dumped her onto the sofa and stepped back, panting. "Ginger, you're a menace."

For a moment she lay still, numbed by the shock of separation. Then she grinned up at him, feeling blessedly, wickedly alive. "A menace. I rather like that. It's time I started enjoying the fact that I'm ruined."

He smiled ruefully. "Driving me mad may be enjoyable for you, but I don't want to add seducing my employer's daughter to the list of my sins."

Rebecca swung her legs to the floor and sat up, moving with provocative slowness. Though she might not be a beauty, she could see in his eyes how much he wanted her. The thought was intoxicating. "But you weren't seducing me. Quite the contrary. Since that's settled, shall we continue?"

"No!" He ran a hand through his dark hair again and turned away. "If you only knew…"

"So we're back to secrets again," she said, her levity fading. "It's hard to imagine what mischief a man so doggedly honorable might be up to."

"Then let's not imagine," he said with sudden vehemence. "God willing, what I fear will never come to pass."

She watched the smooth power of his movements as he paced the length of the studio. He was feral as a jungle cat, a warrior with an artist's soul. Dear Lord, but she wanted to capture those qualities on canvas. She certainly wasn't having much luck with capturing him physically.

"If you took the position with my father temporarily while you wait for the verdict on your estate, you won't be here long," she said with regret. "I'd better get busy with my painting."

She went to her easel, absently tying a knot in her hair to get it out of the way. Interrupted passion burned in her veins, sharpening her vision and making her impatient to begin. "Whenever you are ready, Lord Kimball."

He walked to the sofa, stripping off his coat and cravat and unbuttoning his shirt as he went. "My name is still Kenneth."

But he was also a viscount. An obvious solution to his financial problems occurred to her. Wondering how he would react, she said, "If you wish to preserve Sutterton, marry an heiress. You have a title, and"—she surveyed him with frank appreciation—"you're presentable. There must be plenty of rich merchants who would be willing to hand over their well-dowered daughters in order to acquire a viscount for a son-in-law."

He stared at her, his expression genuinely appalled. "Believe it or not, I never thought of that. Probably because it's such a revolting idea."

"Such marriages are a time-hallowed tradition."

"And they say that men are cold-blooded," he muttered. "Go back to your painting, Ginger."

She was beginning to like the nickname; there was something intimate and playful about it. Her gaze went to her canvas. So far, the picture was only rough shapes that she had blocked in at the first session. The proportions of mass and space worked well. Today she would firm up the areas of light and dark, and perhaps start to stroke in some detail. She daubed her brush on the palette and laid a swam of shadow along the side of his face. She was adding another shadow when she recognized the logical corollary to the semi-serious suggestion she had made.

She was an heiress herself. Not only was she her father's sole heir, but she had received a sizable fortune from her mother, and she controlled the money herself.

Kenneth obviously hated the idea of marrying a stranger for a fortune. Might he be more willing to marry her? If he were interested, would
she
be willing? The prospect produced a giddy mixture of excitement and alarm. She truly didn't want to give up her freedom, but she hated to think of Kenneth being reduced to penury because of a feckless father and greedy stepmother.

"Is something wrong?" Kenneth asked.

She realized that she had lowered her palette and was staring holes in him. Glad he couldn't read her mind, she bent her gaze to her canvas again. "Just evaluating the light," she said gruffly.

She would have to do some serious thinking about Kenneth, marriage, and what she wanted for herself. But not now.

Now it was time to paint.

The stillness of posing helped Kenneth garner the frayed threads of his composure. Rebecca's uncanny ability to read him was harrowing. Luckily she seemed to have accepted his carefully worded statement that he had vowed never to injure the innocent. He just hoped to God that Sir Anthony
was
innocent.

Her unabashed sensuality was as unnerving as her razor-sharp perception. She was a captivating blend of shyness and audacity, and he deserved a damned medal for stopping when he did.

He thought about her suggestion that he marry an heiress. It was hard to explain his deep-seated revulsion to what was a common enough occurrence. Obviously he'd rather act as a spy than become a fortune hunter.

The minutes passed and peace became boredom. He amused himself by watching the knot in Rebecca's silky hair slip slowly downward. Whenever she turned her head, he could see how the knot had dropped a fraction of an inch. Finally it reached the ends of her hair and dissolved, releasing her shimmering tresses into a waist-length mantle that would have done a princess proud.

Not long after, he got to his feet with a groan. "Enough, Ginger. It's almost time for dinner. You have no mercy."

She blinked as his words snapped her from her creative haze. "You are allowed to take breaks, you know." She set down her palette and stretched like a cat. "Was the gentleman you met downstairs an army friend? He had the look of a military man."

"Michael was the officer who recommended me for a commission. He truly didn't care about my background, so he was the only one to whom I told me truth." Kenneth chuckled. "As an old Etonian, Michael took a dim view of the fact that I went to Harrow, but he was willing to overlook even that."

"He seemed equally tolerant of the fact that you are now working as a mere secretary." She knotted her hair again. "Who is the Amy they mentioned?"

Though her manner was casual, he was amused to hear a hint of of jealousy in her voice. "Catherine's thirteen-year-old daughter. I used to give her drawing lessons."

He crossed the room and helped himself to one of the almond cakes on the tea table. His gaze returned to Rebecca. "Since the cat is out of the bag about my title, we might as well take advantage of it."

"In what way?" she asked warily.

"To reestablish your reputation. Michael Kenyon is a war hero, the brother of a duke, and has impeccable social standing. I'm sure he and Catherine would be happy to receive you themselves, and sponsor you with their friends. You'd be respectable again in no time."

She bit her lip, not looking pleased at the prospect. "Why would they be willing to receive a stranger of bad reputation?"

"They would do it the first time because I ask it." He finished his cake. "And after they've met you, they will accept you for your own sake. You'll like them both, I think."

She dropped her eyes and began wiping excess paint from her brushes with a rag. "How could any woman possibly like a female as beautiful as Catherine Kenyon?"

"Because she is the warmest, most generous woman you will ever meet," he said mildly. "In the army, she was known as Saint Catherine for her battlefield nursing."

"A paragon." Scowling, Rebecca plopped her brushes bristle first into a jar of turpentine. "She would despise me on sight."

"Will it help if I say that she shamelessly wore breeches when it was convenient, or that she adopted the most peculiar, low-slung dog and named him Louis the Lazy?"

"She does sound rather interesting," Rebecca agreed with a reluctant smile. "But I don't know if I
want
to be reestablished. Social life is usually a flat bore."

"True." He took another almond cake. "But being an outcast must be rather tedious as well. Think of the pleasure you'll feel if you meet one of your dreadful schoolmates when you're an honored guest of Lord and Lady Michael Kenyon."

"You're trying to appeal to my lower nature."

"You're the one who's the expert at appealing to lower nature," he said with dry humor.

She blushed and looked down at her clean-up rag. "I'll think about what you've suggested."

He hoped she would agree. She needed friends, and helping her find them would ease his conscience a little.

But not enough. Not enough.

Rebecca started the next day with a tray in her room. She didn't want to face Kenneth over breakfast again. Her will was weak in the morning and she might be tempted to take a bite or two out of him.

Later, after she knew her father would have finished his morning business session with his secretary, she descended to his studio. She had learned early that if she wanted to talk, she must catch her father before he started working.

He was studying his Wellington picture when she arrived. Glancing up at her entrance, he said, "What do you think?"

She examined the canvas critically. "I can almost smell the smoke and hear the thunder of the guns. The duke looks like a man who has been tempered in the fires of hell and emerged an invincible leader of men."

"Kenneth's advice made all the difference. Before, the picture was good. Now it is great." Sir Anthony regarded the painting with pride. "My Waterloo series will be the sensation of this year's academy exhibition."

"Without question," Rebecca said with a smile. Sometimes her father was like a child in his artless arrogance. "By the way, Kenneth turns out to be a viscount."

"Oh?" At first her father barely registered the statement. Then he frowned. "Wilding. Is he Viscount Kimball?"

She nodded. "You did a portrait of his stepmother."

"I remember," Sir Anthony said dryly. "Wonderful bones, and a truly stunning degree of self-absorption."

Deciding it was time to mention the real purpose of her visit, Rebecca said, "Kenneth has suggested using his connections to reestablish me socially. What do you think?"

Her father looked a little blank. "Is that necessary?"

"I was ruined, remember? I haven't been welcome in respectable drawing rooms since I was eighteen."

Her father opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again as color slowly rose to his face. "Are you saying that you haven't mingled with society because you couldn't?"