Passionate (7 page)

She set down her pencil and selected a brush. The moment her gaze left him he felt relieved, and oddly abandoned. The respite was short-lived—her attention returned to him almost immediately as she dipped and swirled paint on the palette. She held the paintbrush like a scepter. She was queen here, a queen of color and light, vibrant and passionate. And what would that passion taste like? What would she feel like in his arms? His bed?

He closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of her, and shifted on the stool.

“Are you still comfortable? We could take a break, if you’d like.”

“I’m fine.” He opened his eyes and tried to look more at ease.

“It’s going very well,” she said, then her eyebrows drew together. “Wait. You moved. Try turning to your left a bit more.” She watched him swivel and shook her head. “No, that’s not quite it. One moment.”

She stared hard at the sketch then moved to stand in front of him, their eyes at a level.

“I am used to more immobile subjects that I can place at will,” she said. “I think it would be easier if I just…” She reached out and set her hands on his shoulders.

The pressure of her fingers guided his body to the left. He turned in response, but his eyes remained fixed on her face. She was so close he could smell her fragrance—lavender and linseed oil. His pulse throbbed.

“Now, tilt your head up a bit…no, not quite so much.”

“Like this?”

“Here, let me.”

She lifted her hand to his chin and raised it with a gentle pressure—as if for a kiss. His gaze dropped to her lips, full, and open. If he leaned forward, just a few inches, he could brush them with his own.

Her eyes darted to his, and he saw realization seep into her as the artist gave way to the woman. She took a hasty step back, then retreated to her easel.

James cleared his throat. “Do I have the pose right?”

“Um. Yes. Well enough. We can break soon. You’ll be able to stand and walk about then.”

He rather doubted it—his response to her had been tangible and physical. He would require a large frond if he were asked to stand before his yearning had subsided.

James closed his eyes and summoned up images of the worst field conditions he had endured while serving in the Queen’s army. He would not dwell on the woman before him. He would not watch her eyes as they lingered on his body or recall the smooth touch of her fingertips.

At last she stepped away from her work. “You are free—for the moment.”

He stood, twisting at the waist to loosen his tight muscles.

“It is tiring to keep still,” she said.

“I ought to be used to it—in the army we were trained to stand immobile and at attention for hours. Though with the amount of starch in our dress uniforms, there really wasn’t much option.”

She smiled. “I shall have to instruct Richard’s valet to starch him thoroughly before I try painting him again. You are doing splendidly. Would you like some lemonade?” She lifted a carafe from the table beside her and poured two glasses.

James joined her, noticing how petite she actually was. It surprised him. She gave the impression of being taller, but her head only came up to his shoulder.

As she handed him the tumbler his fingers brushed against hers. The coolness of the glass contrasted with the warmth of her skin. Miss Strathmore’s eyes widened.

She took a hasty sip, then set her glass down with a bump on the crowded table. Several brushes rolled off the edge, tumbling to the bricks.

James went down on one knee to pick them up. He counted two heartbeats, three, before he straightened, offering her the bouquet of brushes.

“Thank you,” she said. “I seem intent on making an unfavorable impression, don’t I? I assure you, in most circumstances I am perfectly capable of setting down a glass of lemonade.”

“I do not think you make an unfavorable impression, Miss Strathmore. In fact, I find you extremely…interesting.”

“Interesting. Of course.” Her lips tightened. “How kind of you.”

Damn. He hadn’t meant it that way. “Let me say instead that you are talented and pretty. And your eyes are extraordinary.”

“I have never heard the word interesting defined in quite that way.” She became much occupied with placing the brushes back on the table, but he noted the color creeping into her cheeks.

James finished his lemonade and searched for a safer topic. “How long does this portrait process take?”

“Only a little more work today—the light is going.”

He let out a breath. It would not be so difficult, then.

“And I’ll need you tomorrow afternoon as well, when the light is better.”

“I see.” Yet as uncomfortable as it might be, he almost wished the painting would take longer—days, a week even. There was something deucedly compelling about this woman.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Of course.” He returned to the stool and tried to recapture his earlier pose. One would think that after sitting in the position for more than an hour he would remember how it felt, but Miss Strathmore did not even pick up her brush.

“More to the left, I think. Your shoulder was even with the edge of the frond.” She came to face him again. James tensed as she lifted her hand. Her touch brushed his skin, lingered against his cheek. Her eyes found his.

Without thought he caught her fingers and drew her hand to his lips. She gasped and he felt her shiver in response. He drew her forward, and she swayed into him and placed her palm against his chest. Heat burned into him from her touch.

“Mr. Huntington—”

He brought her closer and her hand slid up to grasp his shoulder. She was standing between his knees, the curve of her breasts brushing his shirt.

Mirroring her earlier touch, he set his fingers under her chin and lifted, tilting her face up. Her eyes were half-closed, her lips parted, as sensuous as the heady flowers blooming around them, as enticing and irresistible. With a sense of inevitability, he lowered his mouth to hers. Her lips were as kissable as he had thought—warm and soft. He deepened the kiss, pressing his mouth more firmly over hers to taste her sweetness.

She let out a sigh. He slipped his arm behind her, splaying his hand over the curve of her back, and she leaned further into his embrace, like a blossom seeking the light. Gods. Fire kindled in him at the press of her breasts against his chest, the speeding of her breath, the smoothness of her skin. He could feel the wild pounding of her heart as he moved his mouth over hers, devouring her with his lips as she had devoured him with her eyes. It was only fair that she be captive to his touch, his mouth, to the wild insistence that had gripped him the moment she had stepped into his arms.

His fingers tangled through her chestnut hair while he savored her, holding her close against him, warm and pliant. That same passion he had glimpsed while she painted now thrummed between them, alive and aware and full of desire. Her lips were nectar, and he could not drink enough of her.

The kiss was an eternal instant that lingered and flamed like a fire. Only the sound of Mrs. Hodges shifting on the cot sent them hurrying back into the containers of their bodies. James felt Lily pull away. She slipped out of his embrace and stood, eyes wide.

“No,” she said, but there was no sound, only her mouth forming the words. She took a step backwards, then without another word, turned and ran.

Lily slammed the door of her bedroom and leaned hard against it. Flashes of heat still pulsed through her and she let herself, just for a moment, relive the taste of his kiss. Her heart had nearly stopped beating when she stood between his knees and felt the delicious inevitability—the warmth of his breath, the first brush of his mouth against hers, the sweet fire of his kiss.

How could she have been so weak?

She pulled off her apron and wadded it into a ball, throwing it toward the bed. She knew where this path could lead—she had been there when she was Isabelle’s age.

It had started innocently enough. Her new art tutor was young, and handsome in a quiet fashion. His canvasses glowed with an inner light that was generating interest in society. How proud her mother had been to acquire him as a tutor. How taken Lily had been as they sat in the springtime garden sketching one another. He knew everything, and she was so hungry to learn.

It was not long before their mutual passion for art lead to passion of another sort. Their glances had progressed to shy touches, hand-holding, then a few gentle, stolen kisses. Her body had thrilled in response to his caresses. The first time he had stroked her breast through her gown she had thought she had become a firework, a blazing flower shot into the sky.

Lily had imagined herself desperately in love, but looking back, it seemed she had been in love with the heady feeling of discovering herself desirable. That first taste of a young woman’s power had been intoxicating.

And so it went, spring giving way to summer, until a stolen hour in the evening garden had turned heated. He had lifted her skirts and entered her, gasping apologies as he thrust wildly. She had barely understood what was happening until he gathered her into his arms and stroked her hair. They were both crying, and yet her body yearned for him, yearned for a kind of completion she did not understand.

He resigned his position the next morning. He would never forgive himself for robbing her of her innocence, he told her. Marriage was out of the question, their stations were too far apart, he could barely support himself, let alone a wife, and she would come to despise him for taking her away from her world of wealth and privilege. She took his words in, but they did little to shield her from the aching misery that followed. She had never again allowed herself to be so vulnerable.

Until today.

Lily paced to the window. Outside, the early spring drizzle had resumed. Another wagon of supplies trundled up the drive, the driver hunched under his wet cloak. Mr. Huntington must have sensed her weakness. She always lost herself when painting. He had felt her vulnerability and acted the rake. Hadn’t he checked to make sure Mrs. Hodges was asleep?

Yet somehow she could not bring herself to believe it. Perhaps it had been the look in his brown eyes as he had drawn her to him, perhaps the way he had tipped her chin up for their kiss. There was a tenderness in his touch that could not be a lie. He was not a wicked man—just a dangerous one, and his presence here was disturbing everything.

In five days her father’s coach would come up the drive to take her to London. There she would sit in a parlor and drink tea with her future mother-in-law. Marriage. Would Lord Buckley’s kiss inspire that flare of her senses, the feeling that she was truly alive in every corner of her being? She doubted it. He was her mother’s choice, after all.

Lily bent and picked up her crumpled apron. What was she going to do? She had encouraged Mr. Huntington. He had kissed her first, but she had kissed him back. What would he expect as they traveled together? She had lost her innocence, but in the years since she had gathered the tatters of her virtue about her. Her future husband deserved what little she could offer. She was a fallen woman, but not a loose one.

Or was she? She closed her eyes and she was back in the conservatory, enfolded in Mr. Huntington’s arms, his hand pressing against the small of her back, his lips drinking her in.

She must not let it happen again. She must not give him the opportunity to tempt her. Her only hope was to press on, pretend it had never happened. Lock the memory of his caress away with her secrets. She could manage—she had to. It was simply a matter of immersing herself in her work. She would signal to Mr. Huntington that she was not available, and if he asked, tell him directly that he would be allowed no further liberties.

And she was going to finish his portrait—it really was going very well despite the unfortunate distraction at the end. There was no reason to let personal disaster ruin good work. Sketching him had been effortless, and when she had begun to paint there had been a boundless power running through her—she could not put her brush wrong. It had been heady and wonderful. She had become transported and let her defenses down. It would not happen again.

Lily shook out her blue apron and carefully folded it.

It had only been a kiss, after all. Likely a trifle to him, a passing fancy. Anything more than a cordial acquaintance between them was unthinkable.

Chapter 6

James lay awake, staring up at the dim shadow of the canopy over his bed. He had been unable to find Lily that afternoon, and when she finally did appear at the dinner table she had hardly spoken to him except to say that she required him in the conservatory tomorrow afternoon.

He had not acted in a very gentlemanly fashion, kissing his host’s niece, but he could not be sorry for it. She had been so warm in his arms, so responsive. His body still burned with the memory of her.

Of course, it would not happen again. She was returning to London in a matter of days. A stroke of luck since he was not sure he could endure the temptation she presented for the days and weeks an expedition would last. It was madness to contemplate a dalliance. He knew the price if they were discovered, and he could not pay it. He had nothing to offer except the fool’s hope of recovering his grandfather’s journals. It was best to act the gentlemen for a short while longer, then circumstance would take care of the problem.

He tossed and tangled in his sheets before at last falling into a fitful slumber where past and present twined hazily together. The dream came again—half memory of his departure for India, half odd, disjointed collage.

He was standing at the ship’s rail looking down at the dock below. Lovers were embracing, wives and children waving tearful farewells, sailors and stevedores loading baggage into the ship. There was no one for James—his sister was in boarding school in York and he had not bothered to inform anyone else who might care to see him off.

In the dream, as in real life, the ship cast off and pulled away from the dock. A bell rang, and sailors climbed in the rigging, setting out canvas to catch the offshore breeze. Slowly the people on the docks, and then the docks themselves, shrank into the distance and disappeared. He stood gripping the rail until he was the only one left, staring blindly at the cliffs and hills of England.