Highlander Undone (18 page)

“No, no. I would never dream of robbing Lady Curtis of your company just because I am feeling homesick. I would never forgive myself.”

The officers fell into an unhappy silence. Zephrina turned back to Jack. “It’s settled then.”

“Splendid.”

“Shall we say two o’clock? Most unfashionable, I know.”

“You, Miss Drouhin, are the sort of young lady who sets fashion,” Jack said admiringly.

“You’ve outdone yourself, Cameron,” Ted said in disgust. “You’re positively unctuous.”

“Ted,” Addie said, “didn’t you have something you wanted Jack to move? I believe you mentioned slabs of marble. Lots of slabs of marble.”

“Yes. Many, many slabs.” He tapped Jack, still smiling in that nauseatingly moony manner at Zephrina, on the shoulder.

“Come along, Jackie, me lad. You’ve work to do if you’re to play this afternoon. And, believe me, you’ll want to allow time to bathe afterward.”

T
hough they tried to hide it, the shopgirls and models at Mssr. Drexhall’s store regarded Addie’s plain gown and severe hairstyle with much the same pitying expression as had Zephrina Drouhin.

Addie took a deep breath. “Scintillation,” she announced in answer to the head modiste’s query.

The master couturier—Mssr. Drexhall, who’d been lolling indolently in a brocade armchair—turned at this.

“What was that?”

“Madame asked what I would like my new wardrobe to inspire and I told her.”

Her words had an unexpected effect. Mssr. Drexhall, well aware of his reputation as London’s most exclusive couturier, narrowed his eyes. Clearly, he was reassessing the drab woman who’d entered demanding a new ball gown by week’s end and an entire wardrobe soon thereafter, price being no object.

Money alone was not enough to spur the interest of an artist of Mssr. Drexhall’s reputation. He’d studied for years under Worth. And while he wasn’t about to turn away a small fortune, he obviously was having trouble working up enthusiasm for the project of outfitting a woman just coming out of mourning.

“Scintillating,” he murmured, rising from his chair and approaching. He took her hand and lifted her arm, his gaze traveling with detached consideration over her figure. He walked around her, stepped back, and cupped his elbow in one hand, drumming his fingers against his prominent chin with the other. His satin, tasseled cap slipped back on his round head, exposing a balding dome.

“You are sure you do not mean, say, ‘attractive’? ‘Very pleasing’?”

“Quite sure. I did not pick the word out of a dictionary. I know what I mean. I know what I want.”

She wanted Jack Cameron. She wanted him to look at her like he had the tiny American. Intent. Rapt.

Artistic fervor replaced the suspicion that had darkened the master’s features. “Yes,” he said as if to himself. “Yes. Scintillating I can do.”

Addie relaxed.

“But—” He held up a warning finger, causing her to hold her breath. “But, you must put yourself entirely in my hands. Entirely. I will brook no interference from you. None.”

“M
onsieur,
I—”

“No. I will show these foolish Americans who leapfrog over themselves to buy Worth’s facsimiles. I will show society the genius I am capable of when given a free hand. And a free hand I must have. I can promise you a gown that will burn the eyes of any man, but you must trust me implicitly. Do you agree?”

Did she? “Yes.”

Rather than looking pleased, a huge scowl deepened the lines on Mssr. Drexhall’s swarthy face. He flopped down in a chair, steepling his fingers in front of his lips and glowering at her fully five minutes before barking, “Louis XIV’s embroidered jacket. The drake-green silk. Now! The silver paillettes, too!”

The attendants broke like partridges from a covey, scattering about the workroom on their various urgent missions.

“Now, Madame, I warn you. You will suffer for my art.”

And she did. She spent the rest of the morning being pulled, twisted, and stuck with pins. But she did so with grim resolve. Jack Cameron would see her as a woman. Not a widow, not a friend, not a sympathetic sister but a woman. A scintillating, irresistible woman.

By the time she had finished her fitting and returned to her townhouse, her head had begun to ache, but it did not overshadow her satisfaction. Even the realization that the dratted new furnace had once again gone defective and was pumping ungodly heat into the rooms couldn’t dampen her delight. She mopped away the sweat beading on her forehead. It was swelteringly hot.

“Greer!” she called for the housekeeper. No answer.

What little staff she employed had apparently found “errands” to get them out of the oppressively hot townhouse. Either that or they were off looking for someone to fix it. Since the system had been installed she hadn’t seen anything of Foster’s Domestic Heating Services besides their outrageous bill.

She cursed, barely noticing she was doing so. As the youngest child in the loose society of a house peopled by lax-mannered artists, bohemians, and rambunctious older brothers, she’d been exposed to an extensive vocabulary of epitaphs.

She’d been doing a lot of cursing lately. Ever since Jack had disappeared from the studio with Miss Zephrina Drouhin two days ago. Since then the timorous affection she had been nursing for Jack had disappeared, shredded by the realization that she was in love with Jack Cameron.

Not like, not fond. There was nothing tentative or sedate about the feelings Jack had roused in her slumbering heart. She loved him; his wit, his kindness, his genial nature. But it was more than companionable accord that fevered her dreams and wrecked her peace of mind.

Their one kiss had pricked her with frustrated longing. She wondered what it would be like to have his mouth open over hers, to feel his chest naked against her, to have those strong, clever hands caress her . . . not worshipfully, not reverently, but masterfully, passionately, ardently.

She supposed that she at least owed the American girl thanks for that. She might have gone on for months, perhaps even years, subsisting on milquetoast emotions if it had not been for Zephrina Drouhin. With her abrupt awakening from her self-imposed numbness, she had come to another certainty: if she wanted Jack Cameron, she had damn well better do something about it.

She raked the damp, curling tendrils back from her forehead. She was accustomed to being the center of Jack’s gentle attentions. But there hadn’t been anything gentle about the expression he bent on the pretty girl.

Her scowl deepened and she pulled out the hairpins that had vexed her all morning. Her hair tumbled free. She wanted Jack to look at her like that, not like she was some fragile, purposeless curio he was afraid to touch.

A sudden loud bang and clatter ringing from the floorboards, followed by a sinister hiss from the radiators, interrupted her thoughts. The dratted things sounded like they were about to explode. She’d best see if Ted could wrestle the beast into behaving.

She climbed the stairs to his studio. Inside, it was not quite as hot as below stairs. She looked up and saw that the skylights had been propped open with empty paint cans, allowing a single eddy of cool air in.

“Ted?” she called. No answer. She looked around. There was no sign of her brother. He was probably waiting out the sauna experience in a nearby pub.

She angled her head sideways to look at Ted’s most recently finished painting where it stood propped on an easel. Another officer in the Black Dragoons. Her gaze went stony with distaste.

Ted was so much better than that. So much better than a mere society portraitist. He had a real gift for composition, for the juxtaposition of texture and color.

She wandered over to the far end of the studio where Ted worked on his noncommissioned paintings. For months now he’d been working on an outsized Odalisque. Carefully, she peeled back the velvet drapery that hung over it. She stepped back and sighed with pleasure when she saw the progress he’d made.

The harem woman reclined in the classic Odalisque position, supine on sumptuous red velvet pillows. Her ankles were crossed discreetly, the brass glint of her ankle bracelets a stunning contrast to the satiny sheen of her pampered flesh. Ted had chosen not to do his harem girl as a traditional nude, but instead had clothed her in harem garb. The effect was more erotic than mere skin would have been.

About her torso she wore open an abbreviated red satin vest, heavy with thick gold embroidery and encrusted with thousands of winking glass pearls. Between her partially covered breasts, a shadowed valley was a mauve-stained mystery. The sheerest of gossamer silk harem pants revealed rather than concealed her long legs. A girdle of hammered gold and ruby red stones lay against the naked jut of her hipbone.

In an outfit like that any woman would be scintillating.

A twinkle caught her eye and she stepped behind the painting to the dais upon which the model posed. A low-slung divan stood squarely in the middle, covered with pillows and draperies. The harem costume lay in an untidy pile on top of the plush cushions.

Curious, Addie reached out and picked it up. She smiled. Though fashioned of nothing more than paste and glass, cheap wire and stained satin, Ted had made it look opulent and expensive in the painting. Just as he’d transformed the model, whom Addie knew had a Cockney accent and a missing front tooth, into a sultry harem girl.

She was about to leave when she caught sight of herself reflected in one of the windows. She stared at her image until a sudden, cheeky grin was reflected back at her.

Why not? Wasn’t scintillation to be her new byword? An innocent bit of role-playing would put her in the proper frame of mind. Besides, no one was about and since Ted was gone, no one was expected. The studio’s entrance was locked. She’d seen that on her way up the stairs. And if her servants returned, well, they weren’t allowed to come up to the studio even when Ted was here.

Why not, indeed?

Her grin broadening, she kicked off her slippers. Reaching behind her, she undid the buttons on the back of her dress, dropping it to the ground. Then she untied her single petticoat and unlaced the modest corset she wore, kicking those, too, free. With a tiny thrill of delicious wickedness, she peeled off her combinations and stockings and finally stood stark naked in the studio.

She stepped into a pool of sunlight coming from the overhead skylights. The warm air bathed her exposed skin and dazzled her eyes and she shivered in delight. She had never stood naked in sunlight. It was wanton. It was wonderful.

For long minutes she just stood, relishing the unaccustomed sensations, gazing at her image in the window with surprised pleasure, reacquainting herself with the look of her body, the size of her breasts, the length of her legs. It had been so long since she’d taken any conscious delight in her femininity.

Then, like a schoolgirl playing dress-up from the attic trunks, she slipped into the harem pants and linked the metal girdle low on her hip. She undid the last of the pins striving unsuccessfully to confine her hair and shook the thick waves out, luxuriating in the silky feel of it spilling over her naked shoulders, down her back and breasts. Almost regretfully she slid her arms into the short jacket. The model was much better endowed than she, and the jacket gaped loosely, barely covering her.

She turned and regarded her image once more.

A smoky-hued seductress stared back at her. Her long tip-tilted eyes seemed mysterious. Her cheekbones appeared exotically high and the rich red brocade of her jacket accented the deep plum color of her full lips. Her hair looked almost black in the window reflection, coiling sinuously around her neck and shoulders.

She looked knowing and enticing and confident.

She stretched her arms above her head, enjoying the pretense. With what she hoped was a come-hither toss of her hair, she mounted the dais, the sensation of her unbound breasts jostling as she moved an odd and unexpectedly erotic one.

She sank to her knees on the warm, dense velvet pile of cushions and with a purr of pleasure, lay down, sliding against the soft fabric. She closed her eyes and rolled onto her back, a harem woman well versed in pleasure and pleasuring: bold, haughty, absolute in her sexual confidence.

She arched her back, ready to receive her lover’s caress, his body’s adulation, to offer the perfection of her throat to his lips, her breasts to his mouth and—

—heard a man’s strangled oath.

Her eyes snapped open.

Jack Cameron stood in the doorway balancing a heavy rolled-up carpet on his shoulders. His unbuttoned white shirt hung open and her breath caught in her throat as she saw for the first time how truly well formed he was. His chest was lean and sleekly muscled, a fine matting of reddish gold hair traversing its hard planes. His belly was flat, corrugated, and glistening with sweat.

Beneath the strain of supporting the carpet, his arms quivered. He didn’t seem to notice. His blue eyes gleamed with indigo darkness.

“What the hell are you doing?” The words came out in a harsh roar. He heaved the carpet from his shoulders and dropped it, then strode across the room to where she lay. He looked about wildly. Spying the velvet cloth that had draped the Odalisque, he snatched it up, hurling it at her. “Mother of mercy, cover up.”