Domenico clenched his jaw in irritation, then jerked his head toward the door and ordered Jacopo, “Go.”
With a sudden tension flaring inside the studio, the apprentice was more than happy to leave.
From the dark look that Domenico gave her, perhaps she should have gone with him. Then nearly did anyway when Domenico pushed himself away from the table and stalked toward her.
“If anyone asks about me,” he informed her quietly, “you’re to tell them that Jacopo is Vincenzo. That he’s the artist who works in this studio.” His dark eyes were piercing. “Understand?”
She didn’t understand a thing. “Why would I—”
“Understand?” he repeated, brooking no argument.
Not at all. Yet she nodded.
He raked paint-stained fingers through his hair as he turned away. “Then today we’ll—”
“But if he’s Vincenzo, then who are you?”
He froze at her question. Only for a heartbeat, but she noticed.
“A tortured soul in hell,” he muttered. Before she could press further, he gestured toward the screen in the corner. “Undress. We’re starting the sketch for the underpainting.”
“Even though it’s raining?”
“The lack of light won’t matter. We’re not working with colors today.”
Nodding, she hurried behind the screen, grateful to have a moment’s privacy to collect herself.
What on earth was wrong with him? He was entitled to have bad days, granted. But this was completely unlike him.
Taking a deep breath, she reached up to unbutton her dress. A plain, simple frock that she’d bought from a rag man’s market stall. After all, she was supposed to have been an actress with limited funds, one who could never have afforded the muslin day dresses she normally wore or the maid whose help she needed to put them on and off. Just like the costumes he insisted she wear when she—
She froze, her fingers stilling at her bodice.
There was no costume behind the screen.
“Maestro?” she called out. Like Jacopo, she’d taken to calling him that. It didn’t come naturally, but calling him Vincenzo didn’t seem to fit either. As for Domenico…well, Constance had called him that, with a familiarity that would never belong to her.
“Yes?”
“The costume isn’t here.” She reached her hand over the screen. “Can you hand it to me, please?”
“You’re not working in costume today.”
Her heart skipped, as if it knew what her mind was afraid to contemplate. “But you said you wanted to do the initial sketch today.”
“I do. I’m sketching out your form on the canvas so I can consider colors, textures…” His voice drifted away as he moved around the studio, preparing for their session. “There’s a dressing gown on the wall hook if you’re afraid you’ll get cold.”
She swallowed. Hard. Knowing the answer before she asked, she forced out, “Why would I get cold?”
“Because you’re going to be nude today.”
At that, her heart stopped entirely. When it lurched back to life, the jarring thud was so painful that she winced. Her hand flew to her belly. Oh, she was going to be sick!
She could never be naked in front of him. Or in front of anyone. Ever. Even when she contemplated her future wedding night, she pictured darkness so black that she and her husband might as well be blind.
To think that she would be lying naked in front of Domenico in one of those alluring poses in which he’d sketched her before…
Never. Simply never.
She dragged in a deep breath. She knew this day was coming, but she also knew that she’d never be able to go that far in this secret adventure. She’d expected to be warned in advance, and then she would have simply stopped coming to the studio and disappeared.
But why, oh why, did this day have to come so quickly? Her time here had been exactly what she needed to feel alive. Until now, she’d loved every minute of being in the studio. She’d loved simply being with him.
Now it all had to end.
She stepped slowly out from behind the screen, still fully clothed.
“What’s the matter?” he asked irritably when he saw her. “Why aren’t you undressed?”
She folded her arms across her chest, although she’d undone only half the buttons on her bodice. “I can’t undress.”
He gestured for her to approach. “Then come here and I’ll help you.”
“That’s not what I mean.” She explained softly, “I can’t be undressed…in front of you.”
He blinked at that, as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “You can’t be…” Then he repeated angrily as her meaning became clear, “You can’t?”
She dropped her gaze to the floor.
“We’re painting a reclining nude.” He said as he walked toward her, “A nude. That means you have to take off your clothes.”
“I know what it means,” she replied in a whisper. Her voice became quieter as his grew in intensity. “But I thought…I thought…”
“You thought what?” He stopped in front of her. “That I’d be able to magically paint your naked flesh with you fully dressed?”
She winced at his sarcasm. She deserved his anger, yet knowing that didn’t lessen the sting.
“You knew what this painting was going to be. I showed you the book, told you what I’d planned—” He cut himself off, once again raking his fingers through his hair. “For God’s sake, why do you think Eads found you in that theatre? You’re an actress, a woman used to having men stare at her.”
She couldn’t lift her gaze from the floor at that lie.
He’d never come right out and asked her, but she’d not corrected his assumption, either. She let him believe that she was a woman who made her living strutting the boards, one who had been willing to pose for him in order to earn extra blunt and to let thousands of other strangers stare at her once the painting was finished. Was this how he thought of her, even now, after so many days spent talking intimately about art, the world, science, philosophy—as only a body to be painted?
“That canvas has to be finished in time for the next exhibition. As of last night, that is my primary focus.” The resolve in his deep voice was so fierce that she shuddered from it. “So if you won’t remove your clothes, then I need to find another model who will.”
His words pierced her. She’d expected him to be angry—or at least she’d hoped he’d be, because that would prove he’d not been lying when he’d said how special she was, how beautiful. But she never expected this, or that she would have to face the full brunt of his anger. That he would make her feel so…so much like a doll to be played with. Or an object to be used.
“My apologies,” she choked out in a trembling breath. “I didn’t realize that I’m nothing more to you than a fruit bowl.”
He bit down a curse. “That isn’t it, and you damn well know it.”
“Do I?” With that challenge hanging between them, she swept past him to fetch her coat and move toward the door. Heavens, how she shook! She could barely make her trembling hand lift it from its hook. But she refused to break into sobs. Never. Never in front of him.
His angry gaze followed her as he watched her leave, his arms folded arrogantly across his chest in a stance so imperious that he could have learned it from the king himself.
“You were hired to be a model,” he called out to her. The aggravation in his voice was cutting. “How did you think you were going to be treated if not as an object to be painted?”
She paused in the open doorway and lifted her head with all the pride she could still muster. “Because I thought—”
That I could feel alive, push down the pain, and forget for a few precious hours every day…That you would understand the fear…
Instead, she choked out, “Because I thought you were different. But it turns out that the joke was on me, because you’re no different after all. You’re just like all the rest.” Desolation pierced her. Oh, what a f
ool she was! Why did she think he would understand, or even care? “Just another man who thinks he has a right to use women for his own gain.”
Stunned at her unexpected accusation, he stared back speechlessly, but she knew she’d startled him from the way his arms fell to his sides.
In the silent stillness that froze both of them as they stared across the studio at each other, her heart pounded brutally. How did he not hear it? How could he simply stand there, not saying anything, when her world was shattering around her?
Dear God…unbearable!
Without flipping up her hood, unable to tolerate even a few seconds’ delay, she rushed out into the rain.
“Eve!”
She ran, not bothering to dodge the puddles filling the cobblestone alley, not caring that her unbuttoned coat and half-fastened bodice did nothing to stop the rain from soaking her clothes and drenching her hair as the drizzle changed into an icy shower. Every breath of cold air burned her lungs. With each step that took her further away, she felt a thousand pinpricks into her skin.
She was grieving, as hard as when her mother died. The darkness raced toward her again, to devour her—
“Eve, wait!” He grabbed her arm.
She whirled around with a pained cry and steeled herself for a new attack—
“Don’t go.”
Regret pulsed from him, stunning her so much that she stepped backward and smacked against the bricks behind her.
He closed the distance between them, placing his hands on the wall on either side of her, as if afraid she might run away again. “I’m sorry.”
Her breath caught in surprise.
“You told me that you’d never posed before, and I should have been more understanding. I upset you, and for that I apologize.” His shoulders sagged beneath a long, hard breath. “I was angry with someone else, and I placed that anger on you.”
Her heart thumped painfully, and she whispered, “Yes, you did.”
With a twist of his lips at that, he stroked his knuckles over her rain-streaked cheek and repeated ruefully, “Yes, I did. And I am very sorry for it.”
She lowered her face so that he wouldn’t see the pain there. Even after all the hours they’d spent together, he still hadn’t understood what coming to the studio meant to her.
“I treated you like a stage prop. It’s what artists do with models, I’m afraid.” His eyes were just as keen as before as they studied her, searching for understanding. “In that, I am no different from others who have treated you badly.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” She forced down the icy shivers that shuddered through her. Thank God for the rain! It fell onto her face and hid all traces of tears.
He rubbed away a raindrop from her cheek, only for a half dozen more to immediately replace it as the rain grew harder around them. “Then what did you mean?”
“That I…needed to be here…with you.”
He frowned. “Are you in trouble?”
Shaking her head, she blinked rapidly, but not to chase away the raindrops. “I need to be here because I need to feel…” Alive, electric—to simply feel anything.
“Special,” he guessed when she couldn’t put her anguish into words.
She nodded. He wasn’t wrong. Those times when she felt most alive occurred when he made her feel exactly like that.
Rainwater dripped down the planes of his face, but his expression softened into one of relief. “And I made you feel as if you weren’t special at all.”
Another nod, and this time, she couldn’t bear the expression on his face and had to look away.
“Be assured, Eve, that you are special.” His warm words began to melt away the icy numbness that had gripped her only moments before. “Beautiful and bright, so very warm and strong.”
She shook her head, and her hot tears mixed anew with the cold raindrops falling onto her face, even though he did the best he could to shield her from the rain with his body. She desperately wanted him to understand her fear and the darkness that pressed in upon her, but he didn’t, not completely. He didn’t feel the same urgency to catch hold of life and not let go, didn’t feel the same terror that a ticking clock shivered through her.
She had to make him understand.
So she placed her hand on his chest, right over his heart.
“And you?” Her lips trembled from the cold and from the way his pulse spiked beneath her fingertips. “Why didn’t you let me leave? I’ve caused nothing but problems for you since the start. Why are you so determined to paint me?”
“Because I need to paint to live,” he confessed, not directly answering her question yet shocking her with his answer. He dropped his gaze to her mouth, to stare at her as if he were starving for a taste of her. “The same way I need air to breathe. If I can’t paint, it’s death.”
She let out a ragged sigh and couldn’t stop the faint smile of relief pulling at her lips, or how she clenched at his waistcoat, not wanting to let him go.
He did understand, and the happiness that poured through her at finally having an ally against the darkness shook her all the way down to her core.
“Eve.” Her name was a benediction as he traced his thumb over her bottom lip. Then he lowered his mouth toward hers.
Chapter 6
Dom jerked his head back, just before his lips touched hers.
Christ. What was he doing?
He stared down at her. Her eyes were softly closed, her long lashes wet with raindrops. She held her lips parted in delicate invitation, knowing he wanted to kiss her and granting permission. She even held her breath in anticipation, patiently waiting…
He bit back a groan, wanting nothing more than to give her that kiss.
And with that, destroy the masterpiece he’d begun to glimpse in her.
He would never allow that to happen. Not when he was so close to finally being able to claim his art as his own. Not when doing just that was the only thing that could stop Constance’s threats to expose him. He’d not been more honest in his life than when he told her that he needed his art the way he needed to breathe.
Just as he knew that once he had a taste of her, he wouldn’t be able to stop at only a kiss.
He moved his hands to her shoulders and put her at arms’ length to keep himself safely away. Yet his chest tightened with deep yearning when her eyes fluttered open and she gazed up at him, with longing and bewilderment warring in their amber depths.
He dodged the question in her eyes. “I’m sorry for being angry with you. What I’m going through…”
He couldn’t finish. Some secrets still needed to be kept from the light of day.
“Hell?” she prompted in a whisper, throwing his earlier words back at him.
“You have no idea.” With chagrin, he glanced over his shoulder at the carriage house. “Come back inside, and we’ll talk.” He held out his hand. She didn’t accept, staring at it as if she expected him to slap her. “Please.”
“But I’m not—” She hesitated, her face impossibly pale in the cold rain. “I’m not who you think I am.”
“I know.” Self-recrimination ate at his gut. “You’re not a model. I promise not to forget that again.” He forced a half-grin. “And you can remind me with a book over my head if I do.”
“I’m not an actress,” she whispered softly, yet something sparked deep inside her at her words—relief that she was no longer keeping secrets?
“It doesn’t matter who you are.” If he were ever to convince her to walk back to the studio, he’d have to assure her completely on this point—who she was and the life she led when she wasn’t posing made no difference whatsoever to him. What shined in her was the person she was beneath, and her past, no matter how harsh or troubled, wouldn’t change that. “What matters is finishing the painting in time for the exhibition.”
“So you said before.” Her watery eyes stared warily at him.
“Not for the reason you think.” He raked his fingers through his wet hair, tamping dow
n his frustration. “I’ve made mistakes that can now put me into a lot of trouble. That painting might just be the most important piece I’ll ever create. And it needs you to bring it to life. You, Eve. I can’t do it without you.” He held out his hand again to her. “Come back to the studio with me.”
“It’s truly that important to you?” she asked, yet she didn’t reach to take his hand.
“It’s everything.” He looked at her grimly, not attempting to hide the seriousness of his situation. “If this painting goes as planned, it will be more than a masterpiece. It will be my salvation.”
A long sigh eased from her as she made her decision. “All right. But only because of the painting.” Her lips twisted into a grimace of grudging agreement. “It has nothing to do with you.”
“Of course not,” he agreed wryly. He deserved that prick. And more.
Slowly, she slipped her hand into his and let him lead her back into the studio.
Thank God.
He closed the door behind them, shutting out the pouring rain.
“You should change out of your dress and into that robe,” he ordered gently. When her gaze snapped to his, he held up his hands in a sign of innocence. “Before you catch cold. You’re soaked through.”
She looked down at herself, as if she hadn’t noticed. But he certainly had, right down to the way her wet dress molded to her breasts and hips. “All right.”
She shed her coat, then slipped behind the screen as she’d done before.
Fate was giving him a chance to redo their conversation. This time, he hoped for a different outcome.
While she undressed, he went upstairs into the two bedrooms that comprised the old grooms’ quarters. His and hers, right down to shaving implements in one and a tortoise shell hairbrush set in the other.
But it was the armoire he was after—more specifically, any clothing that might have been left behind from previous guests who had stayed here. Most of them, though, had only been for one night, and he’d been more concerned about removing their clothes than finding ones for them to put on.
Just another example of how his world was being inverted. In no small part by Eve herself.
What A Lord Wants Page 7
