The Art of Sinning (6 page)

Six

Jeremy arrived in the schoolroom an hour before the appointed time. He had to set his scene, arrange the tools of his trade . . . prepare himself for work with a woman who intoxicated him more with every passing moment.

He must gain control of himself. In the drawing room he'd made the mistake of showing how deep his attraction to Lady Yvette ran, and she'd registered it. He'd seen that in her eyes.

Maybe she even shared it, but it didn't matter. It could go no further.

Especially with some Englishwoman of high rank. Lady Yvette might collect slang and speak of charity work and show kindness to his apprentice, but she needed a certain kind of husband.

Not the kind who would trudge through the Alps to find a scenic view worth painting. Or the kind who was the subject of gossip about his sojourns in the brothels, where he went to search for whores to
serve as models. Not the kind who was so incapable of love that he'd left his own wife to be—

No. He was perfectly capable of lust, but love was beyond him, as his short-lived marriage had proved. And a marital union without love on both sides was destined to end in a stultifying existence that crippled creativity. Or in heartbreak and suffering and death.

Silencing his memories, he concentrated on the task at hand—preparing the setting. First he had to stoke up the fire and light plenty of candles and lanterns. Unlike some artists, he didn't mind working at night if it suited the image he sought to create. The colors wouldn't be quite true—he'd have to review them by day to make sure he wasn't going awry—but this particular painting would benefit from some shrouding.

There was a bit of a moon and normally he could have used that, too, but not in this case. Regretfully, he closed the heavy curtains to keep anyone outside from noticing that they were working up here.

Then he peered at the curtain fabric—damask, in a pattern that could pass for wallpaper. He stretched out one panel until it formed a straight surface. With the frieze above it and the wooden table in front of it, it looked remarkably like bank décor. Better yet, it provided a lush backdrop that would make his subject's “sacrifice” more poignant.

Art, innocent and fresh and full of promise, being ravaged by the cold knife of Commerce. Yes. Excellent.

Next came the covering for the “altar.” He'd figured out how to have his cake and eat it, too. Bank
tables were sometimes littered with papers, so he'd had Damber working all evening on covering sheets of foolscap with inked words. Now he tossed those randomly across the oak surface. Yvette would lie upon them, and he could paint blood pouring over the white paper. He might even throw in some banknotes for good effect.

Growing more excited by the moment, he moved the chairs from around the table to a spot across the room. Then he put some cushions atop the papers for her to recline on. They would enable him to place her how he wanted. If he posed her right, the cushions wouldn't show.

With the scene set, he turned to erecting his easel, centering the sketch pad, and laying out his charcoals. Tonight he'd only be sketching.

Finally he opened the box he'd carried up the two flights of stairs. He drew out the floor-length Grecian chiton of white linen that he'd appropriated from Zoe's store of masquerade attire and shook it out. Silver clasps held the fabric at the shoulders, leaving the arms bare. He tried not to think of how provocative his Juno would look in it.

“Is that it?” came a voice from the doorway. “My costume?”

He tensed. She was here. “Yes.” He glanced up at her, and his heart slammed to a halt.

Her hair was undone, frothing over her shoulders like a fine dark ale, and she wore what looked like a linen shift or nightdress with a muslin wrapper over it. She'd swaddled both in a voluminous brown shawl that was edged with a paisley design and finished with gold fringe.

The effect was stunning—like cream wrapped in a pastry shell and dotted with golden specks. He wanted to take a bite. He wanted to drink the ale and lick the cream. He wanted to peel away the layers—

God, at this rate he'd never survive the night. “You're early,” he managed. “And more . . . er . . . informally dressed than I expected.”

Her cheeks shone pink. “I had to allow my maid to undress me or she would have been suspicious.” Lady Yvette stepped warily into the room, and the shawl's gold fringe sparkled about her in the lantern light. “Fortunately, everyone is generally abed by eleven here in the country.”

“Then tomorrow we'll meet at eleven,” he said. “I'll have little enough time to paint you as it is.”

“At least you won't need to rise early. I sleep late most days, so Edwin won't find that the least bit suspicious. I've never been one to jump out of bed at dawn.” Hugging her arms, she approached to look at the costume. “Shall I put this on?”

“Certainly.”

“I suppose you want me to remove my nightdress underneath.”

Yes. Oh hell, yes.
“It would be best. I want the arms showing, and your nightdress is too fussy a design for a classical look.”

Her cheeks were bright red now. “And my . . . other undergarments?”

“You can leave those on. I'll have you take off your stockings when I get to the feet, but that won't be anytime soon.”

“All right.” A few moments passed. When he sim
ply stood there, she said, “Well? Are you going to turn around so I can change?”

“Sorry,” he muttered as he put his back to her. “I'm not used to having a respectable female pose for me. Most of my models are . . . not the sort of women who care if I see them naked.”

“Well, I
am
that sort,” she said testily from behind him. “I'm afraid you'll have to get used to it.”

The rustling of fabric that followed made him clench his hands. He wanted to watch. He wanted to touch. He wanted to run his fingers over that smooth, porcelain skin until she lost her stiffness and melted in his arms.

“All right,” she said. “Where do you want me?”

In my bed.

Without looking at her, for fear he might combust, he stalked to the table. “Here. I need you to lie upon these papers.”

She came up beside him. “The ink will ruin the costume.”

“It doesn't matter. Zoe said she didn't need the chiton back. She has another she likes better, and in her present condition she can't wear it anyway.”

Only then did he venture a look at her ladyship. The chiton was too short for her and showed a generous portion of her neat ankles and well-shaped calves. He skimmed his gaze up to where the silver thread rope belt cinched her waist, accentuating not only her lush hips but her ample bosom. To where her nipples, hard from the chill in the room, were imprinted on the linen.

His mouth went dry.

She must have noticed the direction of his gaze,
for she crossed her arms over her breasts self-­consciously. “How am I to get up on there without dislodging the papers?”

Without a word, he scooped her up and laid her atop them. “Like this.”

He stared down into her startled face, at the crescents of her dark brows, at her elegant nose . . . at her sweetly bowed lips. The urge to kiss her assailed him so powerfully that it was all he could do to let go of her.

Unfortunately, even releasing her did not relax her. She lay like a piece of furniture, stiff and unmoving, not at all like the symbol of Art that he'd envisioned.

“Not like that,” he said tersely. “A bit more on your side. Use the cushions to support you if you must.”

“Like this?” She shifted position, and so did her breasts.

“Yes,” he gritted out, and jerked his gaze from them.

This was insanity. He'd sketched and painted naked women hundreds of times without really
seeing
them, and certainly without lusting after them. So, why, by all that was holy, must he really see and lust after
her
?

“Now,” he went on, “cover your face with your arm as if to shield it.”

“Like this?” She stared up at the ceiling with her arm fully over her face.

“No, looking forward.”

“I thought you said my face would be in profile.”

“I changed my mind. If you look toward me and
cover half your features with your arm, no one will recognize you. Especially if you angle it so your face is in shadow.” Though he would leave her lips in the light. He had to capture that expressive mouth in full, which he couldn't do in profile.

She shifted so she was staring at him from beneath her arm. “More like this?”

“Better. Now pretend that I am above and behind you, coming down at you with a knife. You're taken by surprise.”

She did as he ordered, but her stance was still awkward.

“Turn a bit more onto your side and crook one leg.”

Once again she cooperated, but the entire tableau seemed posed and forced. Impatiently, he tugged at her limbs, trying to get a more relaxed look.

Then he let out an oath. “You look uncomfortable.”

“And I will continue to do so, as long as you keep putting your hands all over me,” she muttered, blushing furiously.

He lifted his gaze heavenward. “Very well, but you must at least attempt to look natural. Will it help if I rearrange the cushions?”

“I'm fine.”

“Are you sure? We've got a few hours ahead of us, during which you'll have to hold that pose.”

A note of panic flickered in her eyes before she masked it behind a wooden look once more. “Go start your painting. I'm perfectly comfortable.”

No, she wasn't, but he was beginning to think it wasn't because of the pose. No doubt she was self-
conscious about being so lightly garbed, but he couldn't help that. He wanted her to be Art personified, taken off guard and looking betrayed by Commerce's attack.

Had he been mad to think that a fine lady would make a good artist's model?

No. Lady Yvette was capable of being what he wanted. He'd seen it earlier, when she'd asserted her rights in the drawing room. He simply needed to bring out the real her. To take her out of herself, so she forgot who she was and how she was dressed.

“Now,” he said as he walked back to his easel, “look tragic.”

To his satisfaction, she lifted her imperious brow. “How does one ‘look tragic'?”

“You tell me.” He began to sketch.

“I'm sure I wouldn't know.”

“Have you never experienced tragedy?”

The way she withdrew into her stony pose again told him that she had.

He followed his instincts and said the first thing that popped into his head. “Does it have something to do with this room?”

That startled her. “What makes you say that?”

“Because being in it clearly bothers you. Why?”

For a moment he'd thought he'd erred again, for she froze in place, a veritable ice sculpture. Then she muttered a curse. “Can't you just leave it be?”

“No. Unfortunately, although I've found the pose and setting I need, you aren't going to be comfortable with it until you are comfortable
here
. In this room.”

“I
can't
be comfortable here.”

He stared at her. “Why not?”

It took her a moment to answer. “This was where I spent all my time while Mama was . . . dying. It will forever be associated with her death for me.”

The naked agony in her features was profound and genuine, and what he needed for his painting. But it also tugged at his heart. Because he knew what it was like to refuse to return to the scene of a tragic death.

That sort of connection between him and his subject rarely happened, and it made him feel almost guilty about rousing her pain.

Almost.

Ignoring his odd twinge of conscience, he sketched the play of emotion on her face while he had it. But she was already retreating into her safe, stiff cocoon, damn her. “How did your mother die?”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

He fixed her with a hard look. “Then I will pack up my paints and return to London, and you won't get your trip to the brothel.” When an expression of heartbreaking vulnerability crossed her features, he swore under his breath. “I'm sorry. That was cruel. But what I seek to show in my art is the depth of people's feelings. So if you can't—or won't—show them to me, I can't do my work.”

Her throat moved convulsively. Then she gazed past him and sighed. “She . . . had consumption. It was awful. She lingered for months.”

He'd never had to endure that—the wasting away of someone he cared about. It seemed somehow worse than Hannah's brutal but quick demise. “How old were you?” he asked as he resumed sketching.

“Ten. After Papa left, I helped care for her for a while. I didn't think she should lack for family to comfort her.”

The thought of Lady Yvette feeling responsible for comforting her consumptive mother at ten chilled his soul. “Your father
left
? Where the hell did he go?”

Bitterness twisted her lips. “Oh, Papa was hardly ever here when I was growing up. He preferred the city. Mama was the one who ran the place. Even after the doctor said she had consumption, Papa hired a nurse for her and took himself off to London to sit Parliament. He said it was his duty.” She glared past Jeremy. “Apparently being at his wife's side during her final months was
not
his duty.”

Thunderation. Her father had been almost as much an ass as his.

“When Edwin heard of it,” she went on, “he abandoned his studies at Oxford to ensconce himself here at Stoke Towers with me.”

“Thank God someone in the family had sense. Though I'm surprised that your father allowed your brother to leave school.”

“They had a mighty row about it when Papa briefly returned so he could order Edwin back to Oxford. I heard most of the argument before my governess caught me eavesdropping and took me away.”