How To Distract a Duchess

by Mia Marlowe

  “You haven’t asked how I want you,” he reminded her, his voice husky.

  She looked up at him, realizing that he’d be the first man to see her in the nude. Her late husband’s pitiful poking exploration of her flesh had been done in total darkness. Funny that this stranger should know her in a way the man whose name she bore never had.

  “How do you want me?” she asked in a small voice.

  His lips moved as if he started to say something, then thought better of it. “Turn around, facing away from me,” he finally said with gentleness. “It’ll be easier.”

  She obeyed, her heart beating a furious tattoo on her ribcage. She forced herself to take a deep breath.

  “Now, let the robe fall slowly from one shoulder. That’s good. A little more.”

  The velvet brushed over her skin, followed by a breath of air as she bared her back to him. Down her spine, past the curve of her waist, the robe cut a diagonal across her figure as it fell to her wrist on the left side.

  “Let the robe drop to your elbow on the right. Bend that arm and lift it slightly,” he suggested, his voice strangely tight.

  He was draping her, she realized, as elegantly as any painter might arrange his subject, using the folds of fabric to create opposing lines and textures. Thomas Doverspike might claim not to be an artist, but he certainly had fine instincts for it.

  The fabric dipped to expose her buttocks. Was that his sharp intake of breath she heard? Heat lightning raced over her skin, leaving her feeling warm and rosy. The top of her crevice tingled as she imagined his gaze exploring her derriere.

  “Can you make a quarter turn?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

  “Like this?” she pivoted slightly, realizing he’d now see one of her breasts from that angle. The knowledge made her nipples pucker.

  “Perfect,” he said with reverence.

  Even though she knew he didn’t mean anything by it, Artemisia was inordinately pleased by his choice of the word. Perfect. She’d been called lewd and feckless and outrageous by people who didn’t understand her dedication to her art. No one had ever called her perfect. Her insides did a jig.

  She turned her head to look over her shoulder at him.

  “Yes, that’s it! Don’t move,” he said with excitement. His dark head bent over the sketchbook and the chalk scritched over the page. “You’re beautiful, Larla.”

  Artemisia’s breath caught in her throat. She didn’t even mind his casual use of her milk name. It felt right. He found her beautiful.

  She relaxed into his unabashed approval, enjoying the warmth radiating from her belly each time he looked up at her. The admiration in his gaze set her skin dancing as he followed the curve of her spine from her nape downward. When he focused on her bottom, she imagined the pale mounds must be pinking under his regard. Her nipples were drawn so tight, if she hadn’t been ordered to stand still she might have pressed her own palms against them to ease the ache.

  So this is what it feels like, to be admired, to be accepted, to be beautiful and perfect in someone else’s eyes. To be a work of art.

  Artemisia’s spirit soared. As she bared her body, she exposed her soul as well. She closed her eyes for a moment and felt herself fly free.

  Suddenly she realized this was no longer about art. Perhaps it had never been about art. She wished she’d been brave enough to drop her robe for him head on. She wanted him to see her—all of her—to have his dark gaze search out all her secrets and pronounce them perfect and beautiful.

  And not just his gaze. She wanted his touch. She could almost feel his hand, the way he’d slid it from her cheek when he kissed her, down her neck to the tops of her breasts. When his square capable fingers had brushed her nipples, she thought she’d burst out of her skin. What if that hand continued trekking south, over her belly and into the patch of dark curls? Would he find her fair?

  And his kiss. Her lips tingled to feel his mouth on them again. What if his lips wandered to other places?

  She felt a growing moistness between her legs and scented a whiff of her own arousal, musky and sweet at the same time. Surely he must smell it as well. She gathered her courage and cleared her throat.

  “When we are finished with the painting, I have another position in mind for you,” she said, surprised at the raggedness of her own voice. She opened her eyes and met his direct gaze.

  “Really? What might that be? Something for Mr. Beddington perhaps?”

  Bother his fixation with Beddington!

  “No, this is something for me,” she said evenly.

  “What do you need, Your Grace?”

  She took a deep breath and jumped into the void. “I find I require a lover.”

  Chapter 9

  Mr. Doverspike laid his chalk down and rose to his feet. “Don’t tempt a man wearing nothing but a robe, Your Grace.”

  “It’s no temptation,” Artemisia said, still turned slightly away, watching him over her shoulder. “I mean it.”

  He walked toward her, sinuous and slow, like a tiger stalking a roe. She wanted to face him squarely, but sudden apprehension rooted her to the floor. She hadn’t meant she wanted him to make love to her right now. There was so much to be done on the painting and it might color her perceptions of him to change their relationship in such a profound way. And yet, she couldn’t find her voice long enough to call a halt to his advance. She knew she should pull the robe back up around her, but it seemed she’d misplaced the will to move.

  Thomas—she thought of him as Thomas now—stopped behind her, his breath warm on the back of her neck. His hands rested lightly on her shoulders, then smoothed their way down her arms. He lowered his mouth to her neck, first kissing, then suckling her flesh. She’d never felt such a delicious sensation. Her whole being throbbed as he consumed her.

  “Mmm. So sweet,” he murmured before nuzzling her ear and taking a tender lobe between his teeth.

  Artemisia leaned into him and felt his body, hard and strong, against her softness. As he planted a string of baby kisses on her nape, his hands slipped around to tease the underside of her breasts. Feather-light, his fingers moved with maddening slowness. She longed for him to claim her breasts with his palms, to heft their weight and, please God, to soothe the ache in her nipples with a rough touch.

  She thought she knew what desire was. She’d wake from time to time with a yawning emptiness, a vague discontent that left her adjusting her knickers in frustration. She never imagined this torrent of sensation, this unassailable urge toward something dark and forbidden. Now she simply wanted, unable to name her desire. Sharper than hunger, the relentless throb between her legs threatened to drive reason from her mind.

  A small whimper escaped her lips when he covered her breasts with his blessed hands.

  “Shh,” he urged. “It will be all right. I’ll make it all right.”

  One set of her body’s demands was assuaged, but a new group queued up, clamoring for his attention. Her skin shivered under his touch, tendrils of pleasure shooting up and down her limbs. When his fingertips traced the curve of her ribs, the small muscles barely beneath the surface contracted with joy.

  He turned her to face him and claimed her lips, pulling her against his body. She could lose herself in his kiss.

  But she knew she mustn’t. With Herculean effort, she pulled herself from his embrace.

  “No, please,” she said, even though her body rebelled against her will. “This isn’t the time or place.”

  “Don’t you remember what your father said? If we haven’t time, we haven’t anything. Here and now is all any man or woman can lay claim to,” he countered, placing his hands on the narrow expanse of her waist and tugging her close.

  “No, Thomas.” She gathered up her robe to cinch it around her rioting body. “We must wait until the painting’s finished.”

  “Why?” He parted her robe, clearly disinterested in her answer, and slid his hands in to caress her breasts. She couldn’t find the will to cover hersel
f again, not when he tormented her with his thumb circling a pink areola. Then he dipped his head to claim a nipple with his mouth.

  “Oh!” A jolt of desire streaked from her breast to her womb. She had to explain something to him, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember what. His tongue twirled circles around her sensitive nipple, robbing her of rational thought. When he switched to her other breast, she grabbed a slice of sanity and held on.

  “We must wait. Once the painting is finished, then I can set you up in a nice little townhouse, someplace in Mayfair, I think,” she said breathlessly. She buried her fingers in his dark hair. Her legs were trembling so, it was a wonder she was still upright. “Close enough to be convenient and far enough to be discreet.”

  “Set me up?” He straightened to his full height.

  “Of course.” Artemisia craned her neck to look up at him. Her nipples demanded his mouth once more, but he hadn’t reduced her to begging. Not yet. “Isn’t that how these things are done?”

  “What do you mean by ‘these things’?” His eyes narrowed.

  “Just as I told you. I intend to take a lover. I wish that lover to be you.” She pulled her robe closed, gathering her shredded dignity with it. How could he run so hot and then so cold in mere seconds? “I would agree to a generous stipend, of course.”

  “A stipend,” he repeated.

  “That way you wouldn’t have to continue working for the counting house.”

  “So I’d be available whenever you need me,” he said flatly. “To perform for your pleasure when you wish.”

  “Exactly, clever boy.” She wished he didn’t sound so doubtful about it. She could already imagine furnishing a little love bower, a place apart from the rest of the world where she and Thomas could plumb the depths of delight without fear of interruption or discovery. “We could even draw up a contract, if you like. Some men do when they take a mistress, I’ve heard tell.”

  “I see.” He ran his hand through his hair, but one lock fell back down on his forehead. She reached up to push it away, but he grasped her hand and held it tightly.

  Too tightly.

  “So I’m to be available to rut you on command?”

  “There’s no need to be vulgar.” She tried to pull her hand away, but his grip was firm.

  “What if we agree on a good roll thrice a week and maybe a quick swive or two as needed?” he suggested, his face hard as English oak. “I’m pretty good with my hands, I’m told. Perhaps we should write a diddling now and then into the damned contract, too.”

  “Why are you so angry?”

  “Because, madam, I am unable to enter into a service contract of that nature with you,” he said coldly.

  “You don’t find me attractive?”

  “That is beside the point.”

  “Then what is the point? Men enter into this type of arrangement with women every day of the week.” She finally worked her hand free. He’d left her knuckles red and aching. “Why are you making everything so difficult?”

  “Because, Your Grace, you are not a man and I am not a woman. I cannot be your kept mistress.”

  “Semantics, Mr. Doverspike.”

  “Reality, madam.” He knotted the sash at his waist. A muscle in his jaw worked furiously. “And now, if you would please clothe yourself, I will assist you with your corset. Then I find I must absent myself from this house before I do something I will later regret.”

  His dark eyes glinted dangerously. Then he turned and waved a hand toward the tall windows where the sun was reaching its zenith and disappearing over the manor house’s steep gables.

  “As you can see, Your Grace, we have already lost the light.”

  Chapter 10

  “The manifest of the Valiant, the disposition of her cargo and the final tally of profit from the latest voyage—I believe you’ll find everything as you hoped, Your Grace.” James Shipwash slid the thick file across the desk to Artemisia.

  She was meeting him in the small suite of offices she kept near the wharves instead of in her study. Mr. Beddington had to keep up appearances and a business address was one of them.

  It was a tidy collection of spaces, an anteroom where Mr. Shipwash did his work, Mr. Beddington’s inner sanctum where they held their weekly conference, and a storeroom to house the records the business generated. During day-to-day operations, James Shipwash ran interference when occasionally someone tried to call on Artemisia’s nom de guerre. It was simple enough for Shipwash to tell a visitor Beddington was unavailable or had just stepped out.

  Mr. Shipwash pushed his spectacles up on the bridge of his nose. “Even with the week’s delay on account of squalls off Bermuda, the Valiant has produced more profit than we projected. If I may be so bold as to say, taking on that coffee shipment was a stroke of genius, madam.”

  Artemisia leafed through the ledgers of neatly totaled columns and sighed. Once the world of business had excited her almost as much as her art. Perhaps it was the clandestine foray into a man’s world under the guise of Mr. Beddington that gave the enterprise its spice. She certainly had a knack for it, a definite gift for predicting which cargo would bring the most coin once it was brought successfully to market. But lately, the facts and figures of trade failed to stir much enthusiasm in her.

  Perhaps because Mr. Doverspike had shown her that there were some masculine realms into which she could not enter, no matter how well-moneyed or well-intentioned she was. A woman could not keep a man as a man might keep a mistress.

  At least, not that man.

  But why should it matter who paid the rent on a love-nest if both the birds were content to flock there together?

  Evidently, it did matter. It mattered a great deal. Thomas Doverspike had not returned the following morning for his sitting, or any morning since. The canvas of Mars remained in shrouded seclusion.

  And the painting would have been good, she thought with bitterness. Strong and controversial in theme, her Mars was just the sort of work that would catapult her to the pinnacle of the art world’s attention.

  But now it would never see the light of day.

  Why did Thomas Doverspike insist on being so difficult?

  She shifted her attention back to the ledgers. At least, numbers were easier to understand than men.

  “This looks fine, Mr. Shipwash.” She turned her gaze to the window where a spiky forest of naked masts bobbed in the Thames. “Be good enough to draw up a list of exportable items for the return trip to the Caribbean and the Americas by Thursday next and I’ll make my decisions then.”

  “Very well.” He gathered up the report and filed it in one of the polished mahogany cabinets. “Now as to the other matter you asked me to investigate . . .”

  “The other matter?”

  “The gentlemen, madam,” he said. “Here is a dossier on each. As you can see, Lord Shrewsbury’s son has debts in excess of ten thousand pounds to proprietors of various gaming hells.”

  Artemisia waved that away. It was the bargaining chip her mother was counting on to arrange the match between the viscount’s son and her sister Delia. Ready coin was the surest way for a moneyed commoner to marry into a title.

  “Shrewsbury the younger is fond of drink, mad for foxhunts and absents himself from Parliament as often as he can.”

  “In short, he’s a model British peer,” Artemisia said cynically.

  “There is nothing to urge against his suit of your sister,” Mr. Shipwash admitted.

  “On the contrary, my sister is the one pursuing him. And if I know my mother, she’ll see the match made if for no other reason than to repay Viscountess Shrewsbury for snubbing her at the theatre,” Artemisia said. “And what of Trevelyn Deveridge?”

  Mr. Shipwash frowned. “He’s a bit of a chancer, madam. Second son and all. Served admirably enough in the military, but resigned his commission under unspecified circumstances. He seems not to have any visible means of support other than the miserly pittance his father, the earl, doles out. Yet
he lives well. No unusual vices, other than what might be expected in a healthy young man.”

  Artemisia took the cryptic remark to mean Mr. Deveridge fancied light women. She knew her mother would not consider that a detriment as long as the gentleman hadn’t contracted the French pox. “He’s young?”

  “Nearly thirty, I’d say,” Mr. Shipwash said. “It’s noised about that Lord Warre is not terribly pleased with his youngest offspring.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m thirty years of age myself, Your Grace,” Mr. Shipwash said. “My place in the world is established. I have a wife and child and meaningful work which engages me thoroughly. Trevelyn Deveridge is a man who might have been an earl but for an older twin. Now, he’s a ship without a rudder.”

  “Well, if that’s all he lacks, Constance Dalrymple will supply him with direction in short order once he marries Florinda,” Artemisia said with a rueful chuckle. She could almost pity the faceless Mr. Deveridge. “Thank you, Mr. Shipwash. I will present these reports to my mother.”

  “I must apologize, Your Grace, for my failure on the other matter.” When she frowned quizzically at him, he continued. “Thomas Doverspike. The man is a vapor. I consulted the constabulary, but he has no history of arrest. None of the counting houses in London has heard of him. I found no trace of him for good or ill.”

  “Did you check the parish records in Wiltshire as I instructed?”

  “Yes, madam. We only found one Doverspike in the shire,” he said. “Ezekiel Doverspike of Amesbury.”

  “He wasn’t able to tell you about Thomas Doverspike?”

  “Since he’s been dead for nearly eighty years, he was rather unhelpful,” James Shipwash said with drollness.

  Artemisia swallowed her disappointment. The man she knew as Thomas Doverspike was gone. For some reason, he must have lied about his name. Whoever he really was, she would never find him now unless he wished to be found. After their last parting, she held out little hope of that.