The Artist’s Secret

by Sonya Heaney

  She tensed very slightly when he began on the fastenings of her dress, but didn’t pull away.

  ‘This is where you’ve been coming, those times you ventured out and—’ she stopped abruptly.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I saw you, that first night you were here, when you went wandering in the dark, and I wondered. I hadn’t any clue how to ask what you were up to without sounding like I was accusing you of something shady.’

  The fire sizzled again, and when she looked across at it her long hair, now completely free of its pins, brushed against him, dripping on his hands. Peter watched a droplet trickle along his skin and then well in the space between his forefinger and his thumb.

  His hand slipped and he nearly ripped a button right off its stitches.

  ‘Sorry. It’s a little hard to undo these when they’re wet.’ It was a convenient excuse.

  She grabbed a hunk of her hair and pulled it over her shoulder. ‘Better?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you very much.’

  He wasn’t the slightest bit surprised when she giggled. He sounded ludicrously formal.

  ‘I saw you, too, that first time I went searching,’ he told her, voice lowering, and she rounded on him, astonished and guilty all at once.

  ‘You did?’

  ‘How could I not? I couldn’t approach you, of course, when you were … not dressed to be greeted. And I didn’t want to embarrass you by mentioning it. I didn’t want to embarrass myself, for that matter. It’s a little ironic, considering where we are now.’

  Elizabeth thought about that as she turned back to let him finish unfastening her gown. ‘Evidently I would make a terrible spy.’

  The last of the buttons came loose and she pressed a hand against her chest a moment, holding the garment where it was before she found the courage to wriggle free.

  ‘There.’ It felt very much like they’d crossed a hurdle so high they could never scramble back.

  ***

  Her pendant was gone. Where Elizabeth should have felt a chain at her throat, there was nothing.

  Edward!

  She’d not noticed earlier. In amongst everything else that had happened, she hadn’t even thought to notice. It could be anywhere by now. If she’d lost it in the river it was surely gone forever.

  ‘Thank you,’ she told Peter as evenly as she could manage, and reminded herself she’d not wanted the blasted jewellery in the first place. It didn’t matter anymore, it truly didn’t …

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  Now that he’d committed to the situation Peter was awfully helpful, leaving her standing in layers unmarried men were not supposed to see as he shifted his waistcoat aside and went about draping the gown across the back of the chair. There was something reassuring about his sudden ease with the situation.

  If he could be sensible about it, so could she.

  While she watched him add another log to the fire she touched her throat again. There was no chance of finding Edward’s final gift. Not any chance whatsoever. Tamping down the gnawing ache, she focused on the man she was with now, the one who was alive and close and twisting to study her in a way she’d been unaware a man ever would.

  ‘Do you think that now we are going to … do … this?’ She’d no words for what this was.

  He rose and came to her, taking a lock of her hair between his thumb and his forefinger, straightening it over her shoulder, and down her front. The touch was light, something she could barely feel, and it caused her to arch forwards, hungry for more.

  ‘If you’re certain.’

  ‘And afterwards?’

  What would happen? Would he be honourable, or would they both pretend it had never occurred? There were always consequences for actions, and just being together as they were then would be enough to start rumours.

  Would he back away for her to find someone more appropriate? She didn’t want the guilt without the fun of committing the crime.

  ‘And afterwards, God help you, we’ll be—’

  Naturally, that was when the stack of old books and papers by the door crashed to the ground, and he broke off, twisting to find whatever new danger planned on striking them that day.

  ‘Blasted hoarders,’ she heard him mumble, and even though she could have suggested he leave them where they were, she was grateful for the minute’s reprieve it gave her as he set about returning everything to order.

  Elizabeth thought she should have offered to help, but this was all very new to her, and even though she was determined she was also acutely aware of how she was—or wasn’t—dressed. And so she stood there, feeling rude and terrified and exhilarated and more than mildly embarrassed as Peter hefted a hunk of papers in his hands and used the surface of the table to tap them into alignment before adding them back to the pile.

  ‘That’s very fastidious of you,’ she told him, mightily surprised how steady she sounded. Lady Audley, she knew for certain, never found herself caught in such preposterous situations. Not even the time she was committed to an institution in Belgium.

  Peter was done then, and prowling back in her direction. He looked like a man still wrestling with his conscience, and she felt an urge to shake him for it.

  ‘Elizabeth …’ He again fussed with her hair as he looked beyond her, and then directly into her eyes before his own drifted away again.

  ‘Just tell me.’ She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it, but it had to be voiced all the same.

  He let go and met her gaze. ‘Elizabeth, in a town where everyone is so closely aligned, I’m a huge oddity.’

  Not so huge, she wanted to tell him, but there were some things a man had to come to terms with on his own. She knew he was reaching for any excuse, but also knew he hadn’t moved away from her. She looked at the pounding pulse at his throat, and then at the way his free hand clenched at his side.

  ‘You want me to reject you.’

  ‘Think of what you told me of Miss Hall just now. You know I do.’

  ‘Well, then,’ she eyed the clothing draped across the chair pointedly, ‘perhaps you ought not to have removed me from my clothes. It’s a little too late for propriety now.’

  He didn’t want to be amused by her, but she didn’t miss that barely concealed gleam in his eyes. She’d crossed her arms, and—goodness. Now he was looking at her chest, and for far too long beyond any casual glance.

  ‘And,’ she continued needing to distract him, ‘you should probably have left me back at the river. Your grandfather was willing to take me with him.’

  He grimaced at the mention of the man, and she didn’t blame him. Mr Towner was one of the last men alive she wished to think of while barely dressed.

  ‘You’d have contracted some sort of chill or fever travelling all that way to get home,’ he protested weakly. ‘And I don’t trust you around rivers. Not at the moment, at any rate.’

  ‘Nonsense. I wouldn’t dare do something so pitiful as catch a fever because of a bit of water.’

  ‘I think,’ he told her, swiftly earnest, ‘that I might need a few more months before I’m able to joke about that.’

  ‘It honestly wasn’t that bad. I’m here now, and I’m sure my skirts kept me afloat. I was never in that much danger.’

  He spluttered a bit and seemed ready for another quarrel, and Elizabeth thought it a good time to deftly change the direction of their conversation.

  ‘Mr Rowe … Do you think that sometime soon you might kiss me?’

  ‘I shouldn’t,’ he muttered, and then scooped an arm around her back, raising her to the tips of her toes, and did just that.

  Chapter 21

  Kissing wasn’t new to Elizabeth, but she was hardly accustomed to it, either. And never, ever before had it come close to being such an overwhelming experience.

  Peter’s bristly cheek brushed lightly against her own, raising bumps on her arms. He made her shiver when he ducked his face to her neck, kissing her there and then pausing to inhale deeply against her skin.

  �
��I’m sure I stink,’ she told him matter-of-factly. There was no point denying it.

  His kiss became a smile, and he clasped her to him tightly for a long moment.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ he murmured when he pulled back a fraction, searching her eyes for something that she knew he wouldn’t find. She didn’t want or need him to be honourable anymore.

  She was resolute now. Determined. And she didn’t know if it terrified or comforted her that she’d never been more aware of his height and his strength than right then. If he wanted her to change her mind he should have tried being a little less handsome.

  ‘Peter,’ she countered, and clasped at his damp shirt, tugging a little, knowing what she wished for even while the infuriating man insisted on a last attempt at chivalry. He relented and tugged his shirt over his head, and she was treated to the sight of his bare, broad shoulders, shoulders she’d noticed that first day on the carriage drive and many times since.

  She tried not to laugh as he rushed over to the fire and made a great show of laying his shirt neatly alongside the waistcoat, but her chest hurt with the effort. When he’d finished that silly little task and returned his attention to her, the laughter disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

  Edward’s pendant was best gone, she decided, and then cast all thoughts of her first love far away, well past the wobbly old walls of the cottage.

  She was aware—so very, very aware—of each touch, each press of the lips and movement of the tongue, and of each sigh and sound. There was precious little between them, and minutes later even less, and she’d not ever been so close to a man before.

  Peter walked her backwards to that alcove, to that bed, and again showed infuriating consideration, breaking their kiss to check the mattress, mumbling various frustrated things about insects and mould that were hardly conducive to romance.

  And then he was there again, encouraging her to lay across the bed, and then checking the infernal fire again, and then denting the mattress as he finally came down beside her. She felt him against her, from their intertwined legs to their chests pressed tightly together, and to the places in between that she was still too shy to acknowledge, even as she felt him—all of him.

  And then, despite her best intentions since that afternoon in September, she broke out in romantical shivers after all.

  She hadn’t known … She simply hadn’t known.

  He placed a hand on her thigh, and it felt like a brand. She startled a little as his fingers curled around it and tugged it up around his own.

  It wasn’t fear she felt, not as she’d felt in the swirling torrent of the Murrumbidgee, but the anticipation. The implication of what they were about to do had her turn shaky and trembly as she snaked one of them up under the last of his clothing, feeling the muscle of his belly and the comforting warmth of his skin.

  When he moved a hand to the hem of her chemise, she let him. And when he reached her drawers and paused, a question in his eyes, she nodded her permission and he drew them from her body.

  She was nearly bare to him then, and somewhere a distant knowledge warned her she ought to be ashamed, or embarrassed, but there was no room for that. She was too full of the moment, of him.

  He rose then, fingers trailing down her leg and eliciting shivers as he moved away just enough to remove the rest of his own clothes. She watched in fascination, in interest, and—yes, she had to admit—in a little bit of fear as the reality of what was happening settled around her.

  He returned to her, drawing her close again, and kissed her breast over the fabric of her chemise.

  She could not stop sneaking glances down … there. Because— goodness. What on earth was supposed to happen with that—that … oh she hadn’t the words for any of it.

  ‘How much do you know about this?’ The words sounded forced from him, and—strangely—she liked that he seemed to be struggling. It meant she was not alone in her predicament.

  ‘This?’ It was difficult to focus on the question when there were so many other distractions.

  The hot flush in her face was as much unease now as need. He toyed with the damp, crumpled fabric of her chemise. She was vaguely aware it hid next to nothing from his sight, but then she was doing plenty looking of her own. He was rather large down there—not that she had any comparisons, but surely he was.

  ‘About this, what we’re about to do.’

  ‘Well, it’s not generally something included in a girl’s education. I’ve learnt drawing and embroidery and a little bit of French—I’m terrible at it, so please don’t ever ask for a translation.’

  She took a breath. He was looking at her oddly, and she could hardly blame him, but she kept going.

  ‘And thanks to you I now know a thing or two about noble rot, which isn’t typical for a woman, I’m sure, but it’s only a recent—’

  She broke off again, knowing she was chattering like a parrot, and then took a bigger breath.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll muddle through it.’

  Even though the strain on his face was plain to see, his teeth flashed at her, and just for a second he drew her very close, holding her hard.

  ‘That’s awfully brave of you, if not particularly romantic.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure I am romantic.’ It seemed an important thing to share with him, all things considered.

  He rolled onto his back and encouraged her to sit up beside him. She came to him awkwardly, unsure of how such things were done, misjudged the movement in her uncertainty, and found herself falling half across him before regaining her balance. She did not miss his wince.

  Grace and beauty, indeed.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ she said quickly, feeling that primness hovering around her, seeking a chance to reclaim her. ‘I hope I didn’t injure your … your …’ she waved a hand when she couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

  ‘My bollocks?’ he asked softly. An involuntary giggle escaped her, and suddenly everything was all right.

  Peter’s hand began searching all over her; there wasn’t a place he’d not claim now she’d ordered to be claimed, it seemed.

  ‘Come here,’ he said, a demand in his voice she was loath to deny.

  He touched her in places that ached badly, providing one sort of relief at the same time as making her much more desperate. The last rational part of her was almost shocked—and very surprised—that anybody had ever thought to touch a woman where he did, between her legs, in a place that was definitely too private to be mentioned in conversation, but once she overcame her shyness she was very glad they had.

  She clung to his head as he kissed her, curling her fingers into his thick hair. The beating of the rain on the rooftop hypnotised her. And then, long minutes later, he drew her over him, and—oh, apparently there were many ways to do such things—he compelled her to lower herself onto him in. Surprising her, astonishing her.

  Later on she’d decide whether or not to be embarrassed—there was so much more intimacy to the entire thing than she could ever have prepared herself for.

  ‘This really is all quite unusual, isn’t it?’ she commented after several minutes. It felt like a time that something ought to be said.

  He huffed out a laugh and tightened his grip on her thigh, and then he turned them around again and she learnt another lesson in those secrets that had been kept from her for twenty-six years.

  ***

  Peter came back to himself with the knowledge things had changed in ways that could not be undone.

  ‘Merde,’ he said, and the pattern Elizabeth had been tracing along his upper arm came to an abrupt stop. She sat up quickly, the chaos of her hair falling across her shoulders and down the front of her chemise. The fabric clung to her and hid so little from him it was essentially useless, but it was the expression on her face that gave Peter a fission of unease. He had the sudden—belated—good sense to assume he was in a bit of trouble.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Never mind, it was nothing.’

&n
bsp; ‘Merde,’ she repeated. ‘I hope that wasn’t an assessment of what we’ve just done. I might not be an expert on such things, but it’s not the nicest description.’

  Oh dear. ‘You weren’t supposed to understand me.’

  ‘Remember I told you I learnt French?’

  ‘Well, yes, but I thought you probably weren’t taught all the words.’

  She was definitely laughing at him.

  ‘Of course not. I’m too delicate for that. Mr Stanford, on the other hand … Boys like to be shocking. And John shocked me as often as he liked, as a brother would. More than a brother would, in my case.’

  As much as Peter loathed hearing Stanford’s name under the circumstances, he chose then to believe him about Elizabeth. She’s almost as much my sister as my real sisters are.

  He ran a firm hand down her arm and brought it to rest on top of her own, stroking her skin.

  ‘I’ll keep my French polite from now on.’

  She nodded like they were having a perfectly normal conversation.

  ‘Swear in Spanish next time, if you like. I don’t know a word of it. Or Walgalu, perhaps … Do you speak it?’

  He touched a fingertip to her lips.

  ‘No. No, I don’t.’

  He encouraged her to relax back down against him, and warmed inside when she did immediately, without resistance.

  There’s nothing wrong with unconventional matches. He, of all people, should believe that.

  Again he tangled and then untangled his fingers from her drying hair, and then sifted them through it, combing, stroking. Her hand tightened where it rested around his side, but she said nothing. The rain still fell, he realised then. It had eased a little, though there was a constant dripping sound somewhere nearby. He hoped it was from the awning on the outside of the hut, because he was in no state of mind to fix yet another leaking roof.

  Shifting slightly, he angled his head to look down at Elizabeth’s face. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes half closed.

  ‘By the way, you weren’t supposed to mention that ever again.’ Her voice, when she eventually spoke, had regained a great deal of England in its tone, and even more primness. And he hadn’t a clue what she was talking about.