“Adequate. Proper,” Nicholas muttered. “This tidy new governess sounds deadly dull. If the woman won’t stop to admire the marvel of a leaf that’s lost its chlorophyll and be ten minutes late to lunch, I don’t want to hire her. And you’ve ranked kindness smack in the middle. It seems to me kindness is the most important quality.”
“Well, of course it is! It goes without saying.”
“Does it? Didn’t you say the Hurst children had some horrible old crone before you came?”
Miss Bemelman. Eliza had worked hard to extricate that woman from the children’s dreams. “Yes, sir.”
“Well then. I assume she was qualified and organized and clean, and look what happened.”
Eliza swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
“Stop with the sir-ing. We are on too intimate terms for such nonsense.”
Eliza felt her face grow hot. “We are not on intimate terms, Mr. Raeburn!”
“Everyone else thinks we are, according to the gossip rags. You may as well acknowledge that.”
“At least they haven’t printed my name!” A miracle, that.
And bound not to last.
Nicholas—Mr. Raeburn—was still busy scribbling. “What are you doing?” Eliza asked. “You aren’t recording our argument in Pitman shorthand, are you?”
“Good heavens, no. That would be your area of expertise. If you must know, I’m sketching you again. I need one more large painting for the exhibit Tubby is sponsoring, and I doubt I’ll get any more models here until this Maisie business blows over. You don’t mind, do you?”
Mind? Of course she minded! He was drawing her without permission and would expose her to the world! “I forbid it!”
“Oh dear, Miss Lawrence. I’m afraid I never had a governess beat my stubbornness out of me. When an idea takes root, it grows unfettered.”
“I’ll—I’ll fetter you!” Eliza said, having no idea if she was making any sense. Was fetter even a verb? Nicholas Raeburn seemed to have that effect on her.
“Don’t worry. I won’t paint your face in, though it’s a shame. You are very attractive, as you must know. I’m envisioning a life study, though you’ll be wearing a hat.”
Eliza was now speechless. A life study. Didn’t that mean nude? She managed to summon a breath. “As I said to you from the very first day, I am not removing my clothes for you!”
“Yes, yes,” Nicholas said dismissively. “There’s no need of that. It’s the language of your body I’m looking for, how you hold yourself. The primness. The surety. You are so very rigid. The nudity will make for a nice contrast. Reveal the tension and duality of your nature.”
Eliza clasped her hands so she would not pick up the bronze statue of Pan that rested on the table next to her, along with about eight other small objects, all of which would make satisfactory missiles. Pan’s sharp hooves looked especially deadly if they were to sink into soft human flesh. “You did not really ask me here to discuss the interviews, then.”
Nicholas looked up at her, his face deceptively innocent. “Of course I did, and I value your opinion. I just don’t agree with it. I’m beginning to think that the constraints expected in London will not be suitable for Sunny. She needs more freedom to decide who she’s going to be.
“It’s funny, you know—I couldn’t wait to escape Scotland as a lad and become a free man and out from under my brothers’ thumbs and every other digit. But now I wonder if it would not be better for Sunny to be raised at Raeburn Court. No one would bother us there. I could still come down to London to flog my work a couple of times a year. Maybe I’ll take you out to lunch when I do.”
Eliza opened her mouth to refuse, then thought the better of it. Nicholas Raeburn was simply mad, and she was not having lunch with him. Ever.
“That’s it! It’s too bad I can’t capture the expression on your face. It’s perfect.”
Perfect for what? An illustration of a murderess? Eliza rose.
“The candidates will arrive at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. I, for one, have had a long day.” A long, horrible day, filled with scurrilous newspaper stories her mother had read. Eliza had tried to explain on the telephone, but the connection was not all it could have been. Eliza had taken the precaution of sending Dr. Samuelson to make sure her mother was all right.
She squelched the urge to snatch the pad from Nicholas’s long-fingered hands. “Good night, sir.” Her emphasis on the last word left no doubt of her displeasure.
“I don’t suppose I could impose on you for a few minutes longer. These sketches will be very helpful.”
Eliza was uninterested in being helpful. She had tried to give the man good, sensible advice, and he’d rejected it out of hand. “No. Sir.”
Instead of being rebuffed, he threw back his head and laughed. “Really, Eliza. Are you sure you’re not a governess at heart? You are so very . . . stringent.”
“Whether I’m a governess or a typewriter girl, I am a virtuous woman.”
Nicholas clucked. “No one is asking to deflower you, at least not at present. I wouldn’t say no to another kiss, mind you, but I just want to catch the set of your shoulders. Give me another few minutes.”
Deflower! Kiss! He had colossal nerve, but it was as if he were speaking of the weather.
“You—you—” She was at a loss for words.
“I, I,” he agreed. He was so damned equable.
She wanted to run, but for some reason her feet stuck to the carpet.
“I think I’ll paint you defending your virtue, holding a sword. Allegorical pictures are all the rage with a certain type of collectors. Not my usual style, but it might be an amusing exercise. Could you raise your right arm? Or are you left-handed?”
Eliza raised her chin instead, her arms remaining at her sides. “No.” Skipping the sir was an indication he had finally gone too far.
“Even better! What a fanatical gleam you possess, Miss Lawrence. Magnificent. It’s a pity you won’t pose for me formally.” The pages fluttered by as he did who knows what with his little pencil.
She could sneak into his room later and steal the notebook. That would show him, the wretch.
Now where had that idea come from? Thoughts of murder and theft were generally absent in Eliza’s world. A few days with Nicholas Raeburn, and she was ready to join a gang.
“I am going to bed,” Eliza said.
Nicholas hopped up, tucking the notebook inside his jacket. “All right. I think I’ve got what I need. I say, Miss Lawrence, I’m feeling so very much better. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll make the climb up to my studio.”
“We have the interviews,” she reminded him.
“But not until ten, correct? There’s a lot of morning light before that. Don’t worry, I’ll be there with bells on.”
“Don’t forget to take your sleeping draught. Dr. Samuelson says it’s safe now.” When the doctor had visited today, he’d prescribed the medicine to help with the pain of the stab wound. Even as Nicholas had been sketching, he’d stopped to rub his thigh.
If he was properly unconscious, it would be the simplest thing to sneak in and take the notebook, and the larger one he’d used the other day, too, if she could find it. He would have nothing to work from, which would suit Eliza to the ground. She had no intention of being immortalized like Contessa Barbara Whosis.
“You’re probably right. I may have overdone it a little today. Allow me to accompany you up the stairs.” He held out an elbow, and it would have been rude to reject it.
Was he supporting her or was she supporting him? They managed to make it up the flight of stairs in tandem, Eliza willing herself not to trip. The sconces cast a dim light in the hallway between the two bedrooms, and she was anxious to get into her room without waking Sunny.
It was not an ideal situation for a governess, to share a bed with one’s charge. Eliza would suggest N
icholas get a trundle for his daughter in order to sweeten the deal with her replacement.
But then if he planned to leave this house, it wouldn’t matter. She had seen photographs of Raeburn Court, and likely Sunny would have to follow a bread crumb trail to find the breakfast room. The place was enormous, nearly the size of the Forsyth Palace Hotel, and in such a beautiful part of the world. The new governess and little girl would have plenty of room to roam.
But Nicholas Raeburn had only just arrived in London. How could he contemplate moving again? The newspaper notoriety would eventually die down, wouldn’t it? A worldly man like Nicholas Raeburn would be bored to death in the country.
He disentangled her arm from his. “Good night, then, Miss Lawrence. Thank you for steadying me up the steps.”
“You-you’re welcome.” He still stood so close. Too close.
In an instant she knew what he was about to do, but wasn’t in time to stop him. Nicholas cupped her cheek, his fingers light as angels’ wings against her skin. He did not close his eyes, nor could she. She saw the raised welt on his face from the shameful alarm clock assault, all the discoloration around his eye, the black knots of thread over his brow. Somehow none of his injuries made him any less compelling.
She touched his jaw, smoother now than it had been earlier in the day. They stood facing each other, barely touching, the air charged around them.
“I’m going to kiss you good night now. With your permission, of course.”
Eliza wished he wouldn’t ask. Or say anything at all. If he just acted, she wouldn’t be complicit and she could harden her heart against him.
But no—that traitorous muscle was beating fast, and her face lifted a fraction to his.
“I take it that’s a yes?”
She shut her eyes. He would steal his kiss. But she was going to steal from him tonight, and didn’t want him suspecting.
Fool. Fool. Fool. Tomorrow she’d be gone and put this odd series of incidents behind her. What was the harm? It was only a kiss, and the first had been quite lovely until her embarrassment set in. It was ridiculous to be twenty-four years old and been kissed only once. She couldn’t count little Jonathan Hurst’s sloppy kisses as he tearfully bade her good-bye.
Eliza wanted to be a modern woman—not so modern that she behaved like a trollop and betrayed her principles. But surely a second kiss with an attractive man wasn’t so very sinful? She wasn’t going to make a habit out of it. This was more or less an experiment—an educational experience, as it were.
She nodded.
She would lull him into comfort, then take his notebooks. She might even do so now, slip her hand onto his broad chest, so very near that inner pocket, scrabble at the silk lining but lose her nerve.
Eliza could feel his heart beating, too. So she wasn’t the only one affected by . . . whatever this was. He may have kissed one hundred women—or a thousand—but he was not unmoved.
His mouth brushed hers, as gentle as the fingers on her cheek. This was not a kiss of possession. If anything, it was somewhat tentative. Delicate, as if she might break or change her mind at any second.
Or punch him, as she did before. But Eliza wasn’t surprised this time, or ashamed of her wanton response to him. She would use this interval in the hallway, file it away like Oliver filed his news clippings, place it in the scrapbook of her heart.
She did have one, thwarted though it had been by circumstances and duty. It wasn’t easy to stop herself from yearning for what would never be, but she’d disciplined herself to accept her lot in life. She’d mooned over Richard Hurst much too long for a sensible young woman.
But, quite frankly, Eliza was a little tired of being sensible, and was certain Nicholas Raeburn didn’t have a sensible bone underneath his linen shirt and silk waistcoat. She would not think what was under his striped trousers, though she had seen with her very own eyes what she should not have seen.
Oh, she had to get away before it was too late. Tomorrow could not come soon enough. Nicholas Raeburn confused her, aggravated her, made her feel addled. In his presence, she struggled for self-control, and longed for the simplicity of a balance sheet or a row of well-memorized ivory typewriter keys. His buttons were almost the same size as those keys, but felt vastly different. The raised filigree tickled her fingers and made her want to slip them through their threading.
Evidently Nicholas had the same idea, for the hand that was not cupping her cheek was fumbling with the tiny hooks and eyes on her shirtwaist collar. She would have much better luck than he.
It was quite thrilling to do several things at once—tongue dancing and sliding, fingers nimbly exploring, remembering to breathe. Standing upright was becoming a touch difficult, but Eliza would not fall prostrate in Nicholas’s arms even if the idea was appealing.
He nibbled at her lower lip and somehow it felt different from when she worried it herself. Her mother was always after her to stop that bad habit.
Best not to think of her mother right now. She would not approve of the sudden breeze at Eliza’s neck as her collar drifted down, or Nicholas’s touch as he skimmed her throat with rough fingertips. She shivered and blazed simultaneously. How very odd.
“Eliza,” he sighed into her mouth. She’d never loved her name more.
Her fingers had been busy, too, and her hands now lay flat against his bare skin. He was hot, but not feverish, and the sparse auburn curls on his chest felt silky.
Good Lord. She had exposed his chest. She was undressing the first male who was not little Jonathan Hurst, who would, as she recalled, squirm at standing still for it. Nicholas Raeburn was absolutely still except for his tongue—even his fingers had stopped their exploration at her brazen touch.
What was she doing?
What did it matter? Tomorrow she would be gone.
Chapter 17
By the gods. Nick was kissing Eliza Lawrence.
No, that wasn’t quite right. She was kissing him. And fondling his bare chest with clever fingers that had unbuttoned him without any awkwardness, while his leaden hand was useless with her damned hooks. Her blouse seemed to fasten down the neck and over one shoulder, but it was all he could do to work at the lace-banded collar. It must pull over her head, but he hardly thought she’d allow him to do that in the hallway.
In fact, she should not be allowing any of this at all. Nick was wise to the ways of women, and he was fairly certain Eliza Lawrence did not hold him in high regard. Just a few minutes ago she’d been angry at him, and he was not so convinced of his own prowess with the fairer sex that he’d made her love him as they climbed the stairs.
What was she doing?
What did it matter? Tomorrow she’d be gone.
But they still had tonight, and if Eliza was wondering over the wisdom of her continued virginity, Nick was happy to help her examine the issue.
No—he wouldn’t go so far. She’d really hate him tomorrow. But what was the harm in a little play and pleasure? He might get to see those elusive breasts that brushed against his chest as her hands stroked the column of his throat.
Nick dearly hoped she wasn’t about to strangle him.
She’d said she wouldn’t disrobe for him, but maybe she was changing her mind. He’d settle for a glimpse of thigh or calf or ankle if he had to, all in the name of art. The vision forming for his newest painting thrilled him, and the more smooth skin he was able to see would be very helpful.
Yes, this extraordinary moment was an artistic exercise. Research. Like a good governess, he’d go on a field trip and leave no stone unturned, no golden leaf unexamined, no sensual path unexplored.
How far would Eliza let him travel before she coshed him on the head? There was only one way to find out.
His legs weren’t particularly steady, but he managed to maneuver them to the elaborate molding surrounding his bedroom door. Surely she could feel the ri
dges and grooves against her spine and realize where she was. Her backward step over the threshold would answer his question and grant him time to formulate a suitable plan.
Nick didn’t want to scare her. He just wanted to kiss her. And kiss her. And kiss her.
Everywhere.
Or at least where she would let him. He wondered if a girl like Eliza Lawrence knew where her tastiest morsel was, and how delicious it would be for both of them if she permitted its discovery.
He was robbed of breath as she nipped the corner of his mouth. He opened his eyes to see her lashes flutter against her cheeks, a tiny V of confusion between her brows, as if she wasn’t absolutely sure she knew what she was doing.
Perfect.
Nick didn’t know, either. It was not his style to take advantage of the help . . . except for that maid so long ago, and she’d taken advantage of him, really.
Eliza was pressed against him now, her hand on his erratic heart, her navy skirts against his burgeoning erection. It wouldn’t do to take her against the doorway, tempting though that was. He wasn’t going to take her at all, just teach her a lesson that would inform them both.
But first, he’d have to get her to dance backward into his bedroom.
Nick deepened the kiss until he felt the pulse jump at her throat, his other hand moving from her shoulder to her waist. He could feel the bones of her corset beneath the layers of fabric, a cage keeping her erect when he wanted her relaxed. His hands were shaking so badly he wondered if he could untie the vicious laces when the time came, as surely it must.
This was no ordinary kiss—or else he’d been too long without a bed partner and was making more of it than he should. Nick was a realist and not a romantic, yet this encounter threatened to take over his senses and his good sense, just as it appeared to be doing to Miss Eliza Lawrence, professional prude.
He wouldn’t question her change of heart. Lapse in judgment. Whatever it was.
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