Temptation and the Artist, page 2
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Then, on that understanding, we shall proceed. You may take me where you will.”
*
“You may take me where you will.” It was, of course, a stupid thing to say, but around Dornan, she always seemed to have an irresistible urge to shock. Or just to make him notice her. Today, such tactics were quite unnecessary, for he suddenly had noticed her—and above the bevy of beauties surrounding him earlier in the rose garden.
And in any case, he only offered his arm in his usual polite, patient manner and led her to the staircase. He was a man comfortable with saying nothing, and she refused to fill the silence with questions or small talk that might make her appear more nervous than she was. Not that she feared Stephen Dornan.
He led her along the second-floor passage and around the corner to where four steps led to the doors to the staff staircase. To the right of the four steps, was another door which Aline imagined led to a cupboard. But it was to this door he applied his key and ushered her inside.
On the threshold she paused. “Well, I did say take me where you will. Somehow, I never imagined it would be to your bedchamber.”
“Look on it as my studio,” he said. “If you don’t mind. Perhaps, if your own rooms include a sitting room, you might be more comfortable there.”
“They don’t.” She lied from instinct because it intrigued her to be here. She walked in, gazing around her.
The room was at the back of the hotel, in a column that jutted out from the main structure of the building, so that it had windows on three sides. Apart from the furniture—bed, bedside cabinet, dressing table and wardrobe, a small desk, chair, sofa, table—a trunk full of paints, canvases, brushes, and other accoutrements sat open under one window. Several easels were piled in the corner.
“You chose it for the light,” she guessed. “Even though you planned to be painting in the gardens.”
“I am always working on something.”
“I noticed that at Dearham Abbey.”
His quick glance seemed to denote surprise. Why? That she had noticed him? She almost laughed.
“Make yourself comfortable,” he invited. “Shall I fetch us tea? A glass of wine?”
“Wine would be pleasant,” she said boldly. “Although I have to point out that if you pull that bell beside you, a hotel servant will take your order.”
“And bring it. I thought you might prefer not to be seen here.”
“Mr. Discretion,” she mocked, but he was already gone, leaving her to take off her gloves, bonnet, and light pelisse. Since there was an empty hook on the door, she hung them there, then wandered around the room.
It seemed he had just arrived, for an open bag of clothing lay on the bed. She itched to shake them out and put them away in his wardrobe. Since it was hardly her place, she refrained, although she did sit on the bed and with a spurt of amused guilt, bent and sniffed the black coat at the top of the bag. She smiled because it smelled very faintly of him. Not paint, but soap, she thought, pleasantly earthy and overall warm and masculine. Enough to encourage the butterflies which had grown quiet in his absence.
She rose quickly and wandered to the window near the desk. His sketchbook lay there, tempting her. He had been drawing in it when she had entered the hotel. Had he been sketching a likeness of her? After all, he had waited to approach her, after abandoning all his eager beauties in the garden.
She snatched back her reaching hand. It felt too much like spying, and she wanted Stephen Dornan to be her friend. Pathetically enough. So, she admired the view from the window instead. The meadow outside the hotel grounds, where she had recently watched a bizarre fencing tournament, led to a wood and open country, and the road to the left brought the London-bound travelers.
She moved to the middle window and sat on the cushioned seat to gaze out and calm her silly nerves. It was a long time since any man who was not an immediate threat to her or Basil had affected her nerves. And this effect of Dornan’s had never been unpleasant, simply incomprehensible.
Chapter Two
He re-entered the room quite suddenly, a bottle and glasses clanking together as he negotiated the door. As her head jerked around, he paused.
“Don’t move,” he instructed and whirled into action. He all but dropped the glasses on the table, splashing wine into each, then set one glass beside her on the window seat, the other on the little desk, from which he whipped up his sketchbook and pen. He yanked up the heavy chair with one hand and set it where he wanted it before dropping into it, flipping open his book, and beginning to sketch.
“It’s the way the sun is shining on your hair and your face,” he said apologetically. “A sketch won’t replicate the luminous texture of your skin, but I might catch enough to remind me…”
It was slightly disconcerting to have all that attention on her. His dark eyes pinned her in place as though seeing into her soul, then dropped, and rose again as soon as she began to breathe.
A smile flickered across his lips. “You needn’t look so frightened. Have a taste of the wine. I’m told it’s quite good.”
“You told me not to move,” she pointed out. “And I am not remotely frightened, merely unused to holding one position for so long.”
“A whole half-minute,” he said with sympathy she knew was false, and, indeed, when he raised his eyes, a beguiling laugh hung behind the focus.
“You are making fun of me, Mr. Dornan,” she said, picking up her glass.
“What is sauce for the goose…”
She sipped her wine. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
“That you frequently make fun of me, so it is only civil of you to allow a little retaliation occasionally.”
To her surprise, a faint heat rose into her face. “You did not appear to notice.”
“As an artist, I tend to notice everything about the people or the scenes I want to paint.”
“Come, Mr. Dornan. You had no desire whatever to paint me before today, and we spent several weeks in each other’s company at Christmas.”
He smiled faintly, but said only, “I was glad to hear that whatever danger you faced then no longer hangs over you.”
She paused, the glass halfway to her lips once more. “Johnny told you that?”
“With no details, of course. But then, I never asked for any.”
“As I said, you had no interest, Mr. Dornan. What changed for you today?”
“Courage, perhaps. Inspired by artistic vision, of course.”
“Now you are mocking yourself.”
“You deserve a rest.”
Surprised laughter broke from her and his pencil, held between those long, capable fingers, flew over the page, while his steady gaze rose and fell continuously.
He changed the subject. “Why come all the way to Renwick’s Hotel for a card party?”
She shrugged. “It suited my plans.”
“Will you tell me what they are?”
“Would you believe, avoiding family?”
“God, yes,” he said with fervor, which was interesting. “Was that your only aim?”
“No. I was helping a friend who had a great idea but lacked the means to carry it through.”
“What sort of idea?”
She considered. “I don’t think I can tell you that or my reputation for discretion would fall apart. But you will be glad to know it worked and was fun besides.”
He worked in silence for a few moments. “Why do you feel the need to avoid your family?”
“They are Basil’s family. He stayed with them in France during my troubles that you referred to at Christmas. I fetched him away—we may have omitted to say goodbye—and now they want him back.”
“Do they have a right?”
She shrugged. “In law. He is heir to the estate they live off.”
“But you don’t trust them?”
“I trust them to feed Basil, educate him, and look to his safety. I don’t trust them to love him.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because they won’t have me living there with him.”
He paused long enough to reach for his wine glass, take a drink, and set it back down on the table. “That is unkind. How old is he?”
“Eight. There is no need to tell me English boys are often sent away to school younger than that. It does not make it right.”
“No,” Dornan agreed. “It doesn’t. But aren’t you just putting off the fight by coming to Renwick’s? If they traveled to England, they are unlikely to give up and go tamely back to France just because you are not at home for a day or so.”
“No, but I don’t have to make it easy for them, do I?”
Ne nodded thoughtfully, continuing to work.
After a while, she said, “Why do you avoid your family?”
“I don’t like them. The feeling is mutual, so to be fair, there is not much avoiding to be done these days. Do you like the wine?”
“It is light and pleasing, quite appropriate for a decadent afternoon’s quaffing.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You find the proceedings decadent?”
“Not so far. To be honest, Mr. Dornan, I find you something of an enigma.”
“How so?”
“A puritanical man who spends so much time with such cordial beauties as I met you with today, that he is quite at home with them. But then, I suppose you would have to be puritanical to withstand temptation and get any work done.”
He was examining the sketches on his pad with some concentration, but now his dark gaze lifted slowly to her face, and her heart gave a funny little flip.
“Whatever makes you imagine,” he said, “that I am puritanical?”
The air rushed from her lungs, for indeed there was nothing remotely pure about the heat in his eyes. And for once in her life, she could think of nothing to say.
As if nothing had passed between them, his gaze returned to his sketch, and the pencil was again busy. She didn’t know how long passed before he set down the sketchbook and picked up his glass, taking a sizeable drink, though the glass still remained almost half full.
“When does Basil stop his lessons?”
“When Mr. Flowers feels he has done enough.”
“Shall I fetch him?”
On the strength of that heated look, she had half-expected an attempt at seduction. Her every nerve seemed to tingle. But his question appeared to be genuine, leaving her even more confused.
“If Mr. Flowers will release him. But, perhaps I should—”
“No, allow me. Where are they?”
Chivalry, she thought with amusement, while she told him the location of their room. He was reducing the risk of her being seen leaving or entering his room. And then, he was gone, leaving her utterly bemused. Though one rather charming thought gradually emerged from her tumult.
He was not indifferent to her.
Unable to be still, she jumped up and again began pacing the room. With anyone else, including her husbands and Johnny Winter, whom she had come very close to loving, she had always known exactly what to do about mutual attraction. With Stephen Dornan, she had no idea, for either he had hidden it before or it was very sudden. Or for some reason, he was pretending.
Passing the chair he had just vacated, she paused and picked up his open sketchbook. Her eyes widened, for there was not just one sketch. Both facing pages were covered in her head in various sizes and details, in beams of light and occasionally in shadow when she had moved. One even showed her wine glass. All captured her different expressions, and she wasn’t quite sure she liked that. He saw exactly when she was teasing him or provoking him, when she was amused, or interested, or even anxious as when she had told him about the Monteignes and Basil…
He worked at extraordinary speed, to have done all of those.
She replaced the book on his chair and prowled around the room once more. She would not allow this situation to get away from her. Dornan was unusual, fascinating for a man, but she was merely passing the time. Basil was her prime concern.
*
In the passage, Stephen paused, his back to the wall, his eyes closed. He’d had to leave to recover his focus. Letting her see his desire had been deliberate, to catch her expression in response. But it was his body, not his pencil, which had reacted the most, for in that instant he had seen behind her surprise to a longing, a passion that had acted on his ardor like tinder. Deliberately or otherwise, she had turned the tables.
But dear God, Aline Hagerin would be the most amazing lover… If she ever stopped laughing at him for long enough.
Pushing himself off the wall, he made himself stroll along the passage and upstairs, nodding amiably at fellow guests he met on the way. When he knocked on the door of the room Aline described, it was opened by the large tutor, who looked surprised to see him.
“I bear a message from the princess, who would like her son to join her when his lessons are finished.”
The tutor looked unimpressed. “Would she?”
“May I go now, sir?” came Basil’s eager voice, just ahead of his equally eager little person, which tried to catapult out of the door.
The tutor’s hand descended on the boy’s shoulder, pinning him to the floor. “Coat,” he said mildly.
Basil spun around, trotted back to the little desk set up in what appeared to be his bedchamber, and yanked his coat off the back of the chair. “Is Mama outside in the gardens?”
“No, she’s waiting to take tea with you in my studio. I’ll show you.” Stephen turned to go as the tutor followed the boy out and locked the door. “You will join us for tea?” he added politely as the tutor somehow inserted himself between Stephen and Basil as they walked along the passage.
“Not unless the princess requires. But I’ll escort Basil nonetheless.”
Stephen regarded the tutor’s large hand, hanging at his side. It curled into a fist. The man moved easily, without any of the slowness of many big men.
“You look like a useful man in a fight,” Stephen observed.
“I’ve had to be with a name like Flowers.”
Stephen laughed, and for an instant, the tutor’s lips quirked in response. When they reached Stephen’s “studio,” Mr. Flowers entered very close to Basil and stood in the doorway for a moment before walking in the rest of the way.
Basil went immediately to his mother, boasting about his Latin declensions and the new wonders of mathematics he had grasped.
“I’ll order tea,” Stephen murmured. “Mr. Flowers, will you join us?”
“I will,” the big man replied. “Thank you.”
Stephen inclined his head and departed, but he was not fooled. He knew why Flowers had changed his mind—because his employer was taking tea in a man’s bedchamber and it was hardly proper. The man protected the princess as well as her son. With a twinge of jealousy, Stephen wondered if there was more to their relationship.
The suspicion unraveled during tea, which might have been a tense affair without Basil, at least in the beginning. But while the boy ate cake and his mother drank tea, and Mr. Flowers provided a unique form of chaperonage, Stephen recovered his focus and quickly lost himself in trying to capture the relationship of mother and son in drawings. The nature of the woman was further revealed, not just by her clear love of the boy, but by his regard for her. Beyond the tie of mother and son, they liked each other, teased and laughed together.
Artistic excitement overtook Stephen’s baser urges, while his tea remained untouched and his pencil flew across the pages. Only when he realized Flowers was peering over his shoulder did he snap the book shut.
“I don’t care to be overlooked,” he said shortly. “If it’s good enough, you’ll see the finished article.”
“You have talent,” the tutor allowed. He sounded surprised. Straightening, he regarded the princess. “Shall I take Basil, madam?”
“No, enjoy some leisure time, Mr. Flowers. We will entertain each other.” But she had risen, too, and Stephen knew his time with her was over for the day. While the tutor departed, she turned her gaze on Stephen.
“So, what happens next, with regard to the portraits?”
“Painting them. Would you object to joining me in the rose garden at first light? Weather permitting, of course.”
“Not at all. After this morning, it will feel like a lazy start to the day.”
“Am I allowed to ask what happened this morning?”
“I’m sure it will be all about town by now. Lord Darblay and his friends held a hilarious fencing tournament at dawn in the meadow just over there.” She pointed out of the window. “It caused a lot of interest—and disappointment for those who had expected a duel.”
“Maida does not appear to be short of excitement,” he observed.
“It does not.
“I missed the fencing,” Basil said, scowling. Then he smiled. “But Mr. Flowers is going to teach me. Can you fence, Mr. Dornan?”
“I’ve dabbled now and again, but I’m no master of the art.” A curious panic surged upward as the princess led her son inexorably toward the door. He would see her again tomorrow morning, and yet… “Would you dine with me this evening, Princess?”
The words had fallen from his mouth without permission. He was probably more surprised than the princess, who merely turned toward him with one brow raised. Not condemning but considering.
“I mean in the dining room, of course,” he added swiftly. “But naturally, I understand if you do not care to dine in public.”
“It has never bothered me in the slightest,” she said, apparently amused. “Thank you, Mr. Dornan, I will be happy to join you. Shall we say seven of the clock?”
He inclined his head. “Until seven.”
She swept out of the room. When he had closed the door behind them, he leaned on it. His mild obsession with her was blending dangerously with the bond he often felt with his sitters as he got to know them. And in this case, the bond was growing too tight, too quickly.
But more than anything, he wanted to paint her. And he wanted those paintings to be the best he had ever done. Not just for his own pride, but to do her justice.
Pushing himself off the door, he began moving the furniture that would be in his way. Then he rummaged in his trunk for the dust sheets he used to protect the floors of other people’s houses when he took commissions, and spread them over the whole area from the double window, almost to the door. He set up his easels and canvases, fetched paints and pallets, and set up a small canvas for practice. He was humming to himself by the time he mixed his paints.
