by Lynn Messina
“I love you,” he said simply. “I love you wholly and completely and with a ferocity I had not thought possible. I loved you yesterday when I kissed you in this room, perhaps in this very spot, but it seemed wrong to declare myself while the situation with Townshend remained unresolved. But it is resolved now and I love you still. Indeed, I love you more. Please marry me.”
Agatha’s expression did not change, although she grasped her hands together so tightly her knuckles turned as white as her cheeks. “I cannot.”
If she had given any other discouraging answer, if she had just said no or apologized for not returning his regard, he might have taken a pet, bowed stiffly and clambered over the windowsill, all wounded ego and hurt pride. But she hadn’t. She had said I cannot, as if the matter were somehow beyond her control.
“You cannot?” he asked quietly.
She tightened the grip on her fingers. “Must not.”
Addleson found this abrupt response even more baffling than the one it sought to clarify. “I know you are very proud of your reputation as Lady Agony and under any other circumstance I would respect a woman’s desire to remain quiet, but I must insist you offer a more thorough explanation of why you must not marry a man who loves you quite dreadfully. Does something compel you to refuse?”
Standing before him silently, her face bereft of all color, she seemed almost to be a ghost, and he stared into her dark, fathomless eyes, fearful she might disappear before giving him an answer.
“My conscience compels me,” she said, her voice as stiff as her shoulders. “Recent events, including those of this afternoon, have convinced me to pursue my painting in earnest. I will no longer hide my skill or proclivity or try to pretend either is of questionable value to me. To that end, I have decided to apply to the Royal Academy of Arts, which, as I’m sure you know, doesn’t accept women as students. I shall make a great cake of myself, and I don’t care. But I will not make a cake of you by association. I know what it is like to be perpetually embarrassed by one’s family and it has a wearying effect on the soul. As the former Mr. Holyroodhouse, I also know how easy it is to ridicule anything that is different or unusual, how to turn someone’s strength against them. I will not expose you to that, and I will not give up my commitment to my art. Therefore, we must not marry. I’m sorry for hurting you, but I’m sure, given your temperament, you will be able to recover from this disappointment quickly.”
Addleson decided not to be insulted. It required some effort, for it hurt to hear with what little constancy the woman to whom he had just declared everlasting devotion credited him. She was the human being with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life, not a waistcoat with an stubborn claret stain. Rather than take offense, he strove to understand her reasoning and to respect her choice to behave honorably. Her reservations, he knew, sprung from a lifelong struggle to get her parents to accept her for who she was, and having undergone a similar battle in his youth, he could not blame her for fearing a husband would do the same.
Addressing her concern with the seriousness with which it had been expressed, he said, “Your honesty means a great deal to me, and I give you honesty in return when I tell you I would be honored to assist you in your endeavor to attend the Royal Academy of Arts. I would suffer no embarrassment.”
“You believe that now, but your opinion will change once the novelty wears off,” she said with conviction. “Then you will grow to resent it.”
The idea that he would grow to resent her or her art or anything she chose to do was so preposterous, Addleson had to stop himself from smiling. He did not want her to think he was treating her deeply rooted fears with triviality. “I wouldn’t, no, not even if I lived to be one hundred and twenty years old. I am in awe of your talent and would do nothing to squander it. You must trust me on this, my dear, for I love you far too much to make you unhappy,” he explained, noting that the rigidity of her body gave her beauty an unexpected fragility, as if she were a porcelain vase that would crack under the slightest pressure.
“Then I would do it to myself out of concern for you,” she said, her tone curiously calm despite the agitation of her hands, which she clenched with frightening vigor. “I would sacrifice myself to spare your dignity and would end up resenting you.”
How coolly she made it, Addleson thought, her declaration of love that didn’t use the word but embodied the act. The fear that his cause was futile melted like snow in the warm sun. “Do you love me?”
Her eyes, obsidian orbs seething against the pale skin of her face, seared into him and he thought her hard-won control would snap. But she held fast, answering his question with the same calm reserve with which she had conducted the entire conversation. “I do love you, yes, an extraordinary amount, but that is not the point.”
Addleson felt the chaos in his heart finally settle into peace. “You have the right to your own opinion, but I most respectfully and most fervently disagree,” he said before striding to the door and opening it. He stuck his head into the hallway and called to a footman who had just exited the scullery. The servant was so shocked to see a man in Lady Agatha’s studio, he stared in confusion, then looked behind him to make sure the viscount was not addressing someone else. “Yes, you, my dear fellow. Please be so good as to inform Lord Bolingbroke his presence is required in Lady Agatha’s studio. Thank you.”
He closed the door and turned to confront Agatha’s horrified gaze.
“What have you done?” she shrieked, clearly agitated by the prospect of discovery. A clever woman—although even the dullest schoolgirl would immediately grasp the implications—she knew exactly what it would mean for both of them, and she frantically tried to push, then drag, him to the window to remove the evidence before it was too late.
Amused by her energetic and ultimately ineffective attempts to eject him from her studio, he sat down at her table, found a fresh sheet of paper and picked up a quill. “I am a perverse creature and want my humiliation ensured in writing,” he explained as he started to prepare a binding contract for the two of them to sign.
Agatha grabbed the sheet from the table, causing him to make a large black mark down its center, and tore it into a dozen pieces, despite the fact that it had only two words written on it. “Are you insane?”
Calmly, he pulled another white sheet from her sketch pad and began the document again. “At the risk of giving offense, I think I am the only sane person in the room.”
Growling with frustration, she tried to seize the fresh piece of paper, but Addleson was prepared for a renewed attack and held on with both hands. They were still wrangling over it a few minutes later when the door opened and her father walked in.
“Beddows must have gotten into the cooking sherry again because he said there’s a strange man in your—” Lord Bolingbroke broke off abruptly when he spotted the viscount in a tussle with his daughter. For a moment, he was so confused by the sight of their struggle, he didn’t say anything at all. Then the intimacy of the scene struck him, for surely he couldn’t help noticing Addleson’s untucked shirt and Agatha’s general disarray, and he yelled, “What in thunder is going on?”
The flush Agatha had gained from recent exertions immediately left her face, and she released her hold on the paper as she stared at her father. “You don’t understand. It’s not what you think,” she said, talking fast and thinking faster. “Lord Addleson and I were having a disagreement about the necessity of quality paper in maintaining one’s correspondence. I think good-quality stock is indicative of one’s regard, while the viscount believes it’s the sentiment expressed on the paper that matters more.” Her eyes darting around the room, for she seemed distinctly uninclined to look her father in the face, she walked over to him with a forced smile. “It’s a good thing you’re here to provide a decisive opinion.”
If Addleson had not already been top over tails in love with Lady Agatha, her desperate and yet oddly coherent performance would have won him over entirely. “We are drawing up a mar
riage contract and will need you to stand as witness to the document,” he explained.
Dumbstruck, Bolingbroke looked from Addleson to his daughter and then back again, as if unsure which one to believe. Both stories were equally implausible.
While his lordship bobbed his head back and forth in confusion, Agatha stared at the viscount in stunned silence, her expressive face half hidden by the shadow of the dimly lit room. It disconcerted him not to know exactly what she was thinking, but a man proposing marriage was supposed to be unsure.
Accepting the uncertainty, he picked up the pen and began to write. “Lady Agatha is afraid her love for me will undermine her commitment to developing her skill as a painter. Therefore, I am putting into the contract that she must pursue her art with as much dedication and single-mindedness as she would if she were not saddled with a husband.”
Although Bolingbroke’s bewildered look indicated he still didn’t comprehend what was happening, his understanding extended to grasping certain basic facts. “Naturally, as a wife and mother, she would put aside her hobby.”
Addleson shook his head with pronounced disappointment as he looked at Agatha, who had yet to step out of the shadow. “I see now where your reluctance comes from.” Then, to her father, he said, “I must remind you, Bolingbroke, that you are here as an official witness to the document. Your input is not being sought. Now, what else do we need to address? Ah, yes, your concern that I might feel embarrassed by your ardent pursuit of painting. Let’s add a paragraph stating that under no circumstance shall I feel a single, solitary moment of mortification at my wife’s chosen vocation. I will go one step further and mandate the particular amount of satisfaction and pleasure I must feel at her remarkable accomplishments. For good measure, I will insert here an addendum limiting the number of minutes in total I’m allowed to boast about her at a given social event, lest I become insufferable in my pride.”
The viscount wrote furiously as he spoke, ignoring Bolingbroke’s sputtered offense and looking at Agatha intermittently to observe her response. Her posture had not changed. Indeed, she was as unmoving as a statue in a garden.
Determined to provoke a reaction, for it was unbearable not to know what she was thinking, he added what he considered to be his masterstroke. “Furthermore, I am introducing a clause that specifies the size and location of your studio, which will go on the top floor of my town house on the south side of the building to ensure maximum exposure to the sun. And now I’m including a passage that stipulates the installation of a studio in every one of my homes, including the hunting box in Devonshire, which I’ve visited on fewer than a dozen occasions. Lastly, I’m adding a section requiring the inclusion of a comfortable chair for my personal usage should you deign to let me keep you—”
But he got no further, for suddenly she was there, near him, next to him, dropping to her knees and taking his face into her hands. She peered deeply into his eyes, her own velvety black ones shining with unexpected force and she smiled sweetly. Then she laid one gentle, precious kiss on his lips and said with ardent tenderness, “I deign.”
Deeply touched, Addleson pulled her into his arms for another kiss, this one considerably less gentle than the first. Although he knew it was not at all the thing to ravish a girl with her papa a mere two feet away, he could not stop himself from exulting in the feel of her lips and the press of her body and the joy that had pervaded every inch of his own.
Agatha seemed insensible of the faux pas as well, for her ardor was as ferocious as his own, and she pulled back only when she heard the triumphant tones of her mother cooing, “Now that that’s all settled, my loves, let’s talk about the wedding.”
While Agatha blushed and Addleson, unwilling to break all contact, sought his fiancé’s hand, Bolingbroke huffed and grumbled, “I have yet to hear anyone ask my permission.”
His wife smiled at him with female condescension, “Of course you did, my dear Bolly, you just weren’t listening. Now, I suggest we adjourn to the drawing room to have a proper discussion about your marriage. This paint-splattered closet is not at all suitable.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying for years,” Agatha muttered to Addleson’s delight.
“Don’t be absurd,” her mother scoffed. “No gentleman wants to climb up a tree and risk disaster to court the woman he loves. Trust me, there is nothing less romantic than a broken leg. Your father had a sprained ankle on our honeymoon, and it was very unpleasant.”
“I say, Judith, it was a stubbed toe,” Bolingbroke objected, “and a very minor inconvenience at that.”
Addleson laughed. “I appreciate your consideration, Lady Bolingbroke, although I am confident I could have managed several stories without incident.”
Deeply suspicious, Agatha looked at her mother through narrowed eyes. “You cannot expect me to believe that you meant for a gentleman to sneak into my studio through the window.”
Her ladyship dismissed this outlandish notion with a wave of her hand. “I’m a mother, darling, not a soothsayer. I simply saw no reason out to rule the possibility. Now, given your status as a newly engaged couple, I will permit you five minutes alone to cement the arrangement. Gregson will be positioned at the door with a watch and will knock at the five-minute mark and then open the door thirty seconds later. Is that clear?” she asked.
Agatha blushed again and assured her mother it was crystal clear. Having witnessed the earlier display of newly engaged behavior, Bolingbroke was less eager to leave his daughter alone with the viscount, and it required cajoling and then outright bullying from her ladyship to get him through the door. Even then, he insisted that it not be closed, and Addleson watched in amusement while Bolingbroke and his wife negotiated the precise number of inches the door was to remain open. The figure that satisfied both parties, though Lady Bolingbroke more so than her husband, was six.
As soon as they were gone, Addleson turned to Agatha intending to make a comment about Lord and Lady Bolingbroke’s antics, but as soon as he saw the glow in her black eyes, he realized their time was too fleeting to waste in discussion of her parents. He took her hands in his and tugged her toward him. “You won’t regret it,” he said seriously, brushing a tendril that had fallen on her forehead.
“No, I don’t think I will,” she said with equal gravity. “I want your body far too much, my lord.”
Surprised by the bluntness—very surprised, yes, that the Bolingbroke chit would announce her desire so plainly—he straightened his shoulders and raised his head.
Agatha laughed giddily at his reaction. “I have been hampered by convention and denied access to the actual male form. Every attempt I’ve made to study it has been thwarted. One of the stable hands kindly agreed to pose for me and, I assure you, Pryor has a very fine form, even if he is on the short side, but Gregson decided it would be beneath his dignity—Gregson’s, mind you, not Pryor’s. Pryor is something of a peacock and was looking forward to exhibiting his plumage.”
Although Addleson felt he should take at least some umbrage at his bride-to-be’s explicit discussion of another male’s very fine form, he was too charmed to make the effort. She was wholly outrageous and utterly inappropriate and entirely his. He was not worried about footmen, peacocking ones or otherwise. Nevertheless, he asked, “Will access to my body whenever you desire it stop you from observing the form of the servants?”
Her grin—wide and playful and unrepentant—made his heart stop. “No, but I promise to limit observations to three times a week. Shall we put that in the document as well?” she asked, her beautiful eyes full of mischief as she reached for the pen.
Although Addleson thought a few additional ground rules would not go amiss, lest his clever wife take shameless advantage of him, now was not the time to add them and he pulled her into his arms for another kiss. Knowing himself to be on the verge of more inappropriate behavior, he walked to the door and smoothly erased the painstakingly negotiated six inches. Then he took her hands in his own and kissed her pa
lms. “Given the extent of your sacrifice, we must make sure you are fully satisfied with what you are getting,” he murmured softly before slipping her hands under his untucked shirt and pressing them against his hot flesh. “I do not want you to feel that you are making a poor bargain.”
Now it was she who was startled by the boldness, and her eyes flew to his. But even as she looked at him in slight bemusement, her fingers knew what to do, for they began caressing his chest with such slow, measured strokes, he found it difficult to breathe and impossible not to moan. Coherent thought was becoming a challenge.
“We have only four minutes left and there’s a lot of territory to cover,” she said, her voice husky in his ear as she leisurely glided her hands over the corded muscles of his stomach. “I’m not sure we have enough time for full satisfaction, my lord.”
As his fingers danced over—and then under—the edge of her dress, he assured her she had no cause to worry about the brevity of their allotted interval. He felt her heart leap when he brushed her nipples with his hands and then his tongue. “You are skilled in your chosen art, and I am skilled in mine,” he explained huskily before capturing her lips in a kiss full of sweetness and desire and joy. He had not expected such unfettered sensuality, such unselfconscious pleasure, from Lady Agony, and although he was surprised by its existence, he was certainly not disconcerted by its fervor. As he had boasted only moments before, he was a master of this particular art, and by the time Gregson swung open the door a few minutes later, they were both well satisfied with their bargain.
