“So I am.” He cleared his throat. “I admit, what I’d really like to know is if you’d had your Season in London, would you still wish to be a painter?”
“Would you ask the same question of a barrister or a barrel-maker?”
“If I was curious about the answer, I might.”
“Hm. Let’s just say, then, that this is another question I can’t answer, since I wish to put your image on canvas.”
He laughed, the sound surprising in its easy merriment. “That’s clear enough. I’ve seen that look in my sister’s eyes, though usually it’s followed by her attempting to box my ears.”
For the first time Caroline thought it might not have been so terrible to have a brother in the household—though at the same time she was forced to admit to herself that she did not look at Zachary Griffin in a brotherly manner. Not in the least.
According to Zachary’s brother Charlemagne, Miss Witfeld would be a bluestocking—or, rather, a damned bluestocking. Shay liked educated women, but Caroline’s intense focus probably would have disconcerted even him.
Zachary eyed her as she bent her head over her sketch pad and drew some part or other of him. A strand of her auburn hair fell forward into her eyes, and she absently blew it out of her way. He wanted to curl it back behind her ear with his fingers. No, she didn’t look like a bluestocking, or at least not what he would expect one to look like; she had a tall, slim figure and lively green eyes, and a wit that definitely kept him, a master of quips, on his toes.
But in other ways, her species was unmistakable. She spurned the idea of marriage and seemed to view the idea of having a London Season with nothing less than contempt. Most telling of all, Caroline Witfeld wished to have a career that would render her financially independent.
She glanced up, catching his gaze. Swiftly she returned to her sketch, but not before he glimpsed the amusement in her eyes. “There’s no reason you can’t move again today,” she said, erasing a line with the tip of one finger. “You’re going to strain your eyes, trying to look about like that.”
“Fine.” With a breath he sank back against the window seat. “I’m only trying to help.”
“Haven’t you been painted before? Beechey or Lawrence?”
“Apparently I sat for Joshua Reynolds when I was two years old. Sebastian says I piss—” He cleared his throat. “According to the tale I didn’t behave myself very well.”
“I see. Well, now you’re a bit older, and you may move about. I want to get a sense of movement from you, anyway. Muscle and bone.”
He flexed an arm beneath his jacket. “All I see is my clothes wrinkling.”
“I can also see the places where your clothes don’t wrinkle.”
Zachary began a quip, then closed his mouth. Still, he could push things a little—no one could be that oblivious to attraction. “You’ve seen your own bare arms, I assume. Does that help you in your paintings of women?”
“Yes, of course, but—”
Standing, he slid the snug-fitting jacket from his shoulders and dropped it onto the window seat.
“You can’t—I—put that back on!”
Keeping a solemn expression on his face, Zachary unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and began rolling up his sleeves. He couldn’t resist baiting her; with her serious mask and serious goals, she made it so damned easy. “Don’t worry; I won’t strip.” He grinned. “Unless you ask me to, of course.”
She stood, backing away. “I must insist, Lord Zachary. This is not appro…”
He pretended to ignore her protest, though he heard every syllable of it—and the changing tone of her voice. And he abruptly realized that he’d opened a very complicated basket of oranges. As he rolled his sleeves to his elbows and sat again, she set aside her sketch pad and approached.
By stripping his arms bare he was inviting her to view him as the model for male perfection. He didn’t consider himself a slouch by any means, and he’d never had any complaints from female acquaintances, but Caroline Witfeld was an artist. A talented one, from what he’d seen. She studied the human form more critically than the average chit.
And aside from that, he’d developed an odd and uncharacteristic attraction toward her, and he’d promised his aunt he would behave himself—which in his mind meant that Caroline would have to make the approach. He lowered his lashes and looked up at her.
“I’ve always wondered,” Caroline said, stopping in front of him, her gaze on his arms rather than his face, “why females are encouraged to show their arms and their throats, and men are expected to cover nearly every inch of themselves with cloth.”
“Honestly?” he returned, studying the open, interested expression in her pretty eyes. “Women are on display; men are doing the shopping and purchasing.”
Slowly she reached out to run a finger along the outside of his hand, past his wrist and up to his elbow. “I suppose you’re right,” she said, “but I’m discovering that there is something to be said for a revealed mystery over an overly exposed stretch of skin.”
He wasn’t so certain of that, but he wasn’t going to argue. Not when her light fingers across his skin sent his blood racing along the same course. For a brief moment he wondered who might be seducing whom, but one look at the absorbed expression on her face answered that. At the moment he was an arm: sinew and bone, as she’d said.
“So what do you think?” he finally asked.
Caroline blinked. “It’s…you…you have a nice arm,” she finally stammered, backing away.
Working to regain his ease, he lifted the appendage in question. “‘Nice’?” he repeated, twisting his arm this way and that. “Why not ‘handsome’ or ‘fit’ or ‘muscular’?”
She snorted. It was a small, absurdly delicate sound of ill-concealed humor that over the past few days he’d become extremely attuned to. “It is a handsome arm,” she amended. “And I suppose it’s muscular, though too many muscles in your forearm would just look silly. Muscles are supposed to be in a man’s shoulders, are they not? And the thighs, for riding?”
Zachary lifted an eyebrow. “So in your opinion my forearm is spindly.”
“No! I—”
“I can’t have you disparaging the rest of me,” he interrupted, going to work unbuttoning his waistcoat. Aside from amusement, this was beyond embarking on a seduction. This was about defending his manhood and virility.
“Good heavens! Don’t—”
“Don’t you wish to know if your assumptions are correct? What if my shoulders are in worse condition than my arms? No doubt you’d wish to find someone else to paint.”
“You’re teasing me, Zachary,” she stated, her color high. “Now sit still and let me sketch you.”
“But you told me I didn’t need to sit still. I’m only trying to help.” He dropped his waistcoat on his jacket and tugged at the intricate knot of his cravat.
Caroline glanced at the mantel clock. “Very well. In the name of art.”
He stopped, deeply surprised. “Really?”
“Unless you believe your shoulders won’t pass muster.”
Oh, that was enough of that. He was supposed to be doing the teasing. And whatever this was about now, he wasn’t backing down. “I’ve been told I’m quite fit, thank you very much. I box, and fence. And ride, of course.” He tugged on the knot at his throat again. Damn Reed. The man could find employment securing executioners’ nooses.
“Do you need help?” she asked, folding her arms.
Obviously he’d made some poor assumptions where Caroline Witfeld was concerned. She wasn’t a fainting violet, and if she was a bluestocking, she was not any sort he’d ever heard of. Most of those chits couldn’t converse with a man without arguing, and the idea of one stripping in front of them would have caused them to drop dead. Caroline didn’t look dead; not even close. Rather, she picked up her pencil and pad again and began sketching him as he yanked at his cravat.
A door closed down the hall, and he froze. “We’re not going to be inter
rupted, are we?” All he needed was for one of the household to barge in while he stood in the bow window with his shirt off. He’d be married by sunset.
Her glance took in the clock again. “No. Not for twenty minutes.”
“And how do you know that?”
Caroline cocked her head at him. “Are you nervous? This was your suggestion, my lord. Zachary.”
So now she was enjoying herself. And he was annoyed. With a last pull he freed himself from the cravat and tossed it onto the growing pile of his clothes. Then he tugged his shirttail free of his trousers and yanked it off over his head. “No, I’m not nervous,” he said, belatedly unrolling the tight left sleeve so he could get it off his arm. Dammit. “Are you?”
“No.”
For a long moment, Caroline simply looked at him. Oh, my goodness, she thought. She’d seen drawings of famous statues, of David and some of the Greek nudes. In theory she knew how a man was constructed, but seeing one literally in the flesh—the play of his shoulder muscles as he pulled the last bit of sleeve off his wrist, the definition of muscle down his abdomen and disappearing into his trousers—made her forget to breathe.
Dark gray eyes watched her, a mix of humor and even a dare in his gaze. Was he wondering whether she would faint? She had no intention of doing so. As much trouble as this could be, she was, after all, an artist. And she wasn’t going to miss the opportunity—probably her best opportunity—to view the male form.
“Spindly?” he asked.
“No. You’re beautiful. Or handsome, rather—as my sisters would insist.”
“As long as it’s a compliment, I’m not going to be missish about it,” he returned, chuckling.
Taking a breath, Caroline did a few quick pencil strokes of shoulder and chest, of lean, hard muscle. Her fingers shook a little—not with nerves but because she wanted to touch him. “Would you turn a circle?”
The smile touching his mouth deepened. Arms held away from his sides, he did a slow turn in the reflected sunlight. She flexed her fingers, clutching the pencil and trying to concentrate on form and movement rather than the man. Draw, Caroline, draw.
Propriety said that she should have run from the room the moment he shed his jacket. It also said they would be forced to marry if anyone happened into the room. She swallowed, nervous, and…and aroused. Alive. Tingling.
“What?” he asked, facing her again.
“What do you mean, ‘what?’” she asked, setting her pad on the window seat beside his shirt and jacket.
“You were frowning. I saw you reflected in the window glass.”
Wonderful. The only thing worse than forgetting oneself was being caught at it. “Oh. I was thinking of something else,” she managed.
“‘Something else’? Now? What, pray tell?”
Caroline cleared her throat. “Never mind. May I?”
“I told you I was at your disposal.”
Willing her fingers to stop trembling, she touched his left shoulder. Broad and muscled—velvet with iron beneath, she decided, stroking her palm along his shoulder blade. She’d thought he must wear padding to accent his shoulders, since that was very much the fashion, but obviously his form was all his own.
He stood very still and thankfully seemed to have decided not to comment on the situation. It was difficult enough to convince her mind to stay on the task at hand, and not swirl and dive toward the conclusion that if the bared portions of his body were so fine, the rest of him must be equally handsome.
Slowly she moved around him, feeling the solid warmth of his skin, the curve of the pectoral muscles across his breast. Magnificent. She ran a finger down his sternum, and he jumped a little. Abruptly he grabbed her hand and took a step backward.
“What is it?” she asked, looking at his face and trying to blink away the unexpectedly dazed sensation clouding her mind.
His breathing seemed a little harsh. “I thought I heard the stairs squeak.”
Caroline looked at the clock again. According to Anne’s schedule she still had nine minutes. And she wasn’t finished with touching him. “No, I think you’re mistaken, Zachary. Would you flex your arm?”
“No. I mean—That is, I truly think I heard something.”
He turned around, facing the windows and fumbling sideways to grab his shirt and yank it over his head. She watched him for a moment, trying to attribute the keen disappointment running through her to being denied a thorough look at her model rather than to the fact that she wasn’t finished running her fingers along his skin.
But if he’d actually heard someone approaching—of course he didn’t want to be trapped into marrying a country chit just because he’d been teased into doing her a favor. And neither did she wish to end up married to him—not under those circumstances. She shook herself as she retrieved her pad and paper. Not under any circumstances, because a wife, a Griffin wife, would never be allowed to have employment—especially employment where she would be taking orders from someone else and perhaps spending extended periods with gentlemen not her husband.
Then she heard the familiar creak at the top of the landing. “Oh, no,” she whispered. He was right, and his next appointment was early. She snatched up his jacket and tossed it at the back of his head. “Hurry up!”
“Stop trying to smother me,” he muttered, sending a glare over his shoulder at her. He put the jacket down again as he buttoned his waistcoat. “I’m going as quickly as I can.”
He managed to shrug on his coat just as the conservatory door burst open. “Your time is up, Caro,” Susan announced, otherwise ignoring her sister. She pranced up to Zachary and made a curtsy. “Would you care to take a turn about the garden with me, Lord Zachary?”
With barely a glance at Caroline, he offered his arm to Susan. “A bit of fresh air would be most welcome,” he said grandly.
Caroline watched them out the conservatory door, then plunked herself down on her stool again. Goodness. That had been perhaps the most unique and memorable sitting in her life. And while she’d been interested, she hadn’t expected to feel so…flushed. Hot. Flustered.
She took a deep breath, shaking herself. She hadn’t done much sketching, either. Damnation. If she didn’t stop this nonsense of being distracted, she would have no one to blame for her failure but herself.
With his form, his gaze, fresh in her mind, she began to draw feverishly. It was a picture she’d never share with anyone, but she needed to do it or she’d never be able to paint Zachary Griffin with his clothes on.
Zachary glanced up at the conservatory window as he and Susan passed beneath it, but he couldn’t tell if Caroline might be looking out at them or not. Probably not, since gazing outside at the world would take time away from her painting. But whether she was aware of more than paints or not, he certainly was. Good God. He’d nearly popped the fastenings of his trousers with her running her hands across him.
“I quite think this is the loveliest weather we’ve had all summer,” Susan said into the quiet of birdsong and distant cattle lowing.
He tried to pull his thoughts back to his current companion. “It’s very nice,” he agreed. “Might I ask, what did you mean a few moments ago when you told Miss Witfeld that her time was up?”
She waved a hand at him. “Oh, Caro only had until nine o’clock, and she knew it. But if I hadn’t gone to fetch you, she would have kept you up there with her silly sketching all morning.”
After another five minutes of muscle feeling, the sketching would have been finished with and they both would have been naked. “So you wanted to go walking with me at nine o’clock?”
“No, I wanted the time at noon so that we could have a picnic, but stupid Anne took that. It’s only because she made up the schedule and took the best times. And of course she gave almost every morning to Caro.”
This was beginning to make sense. “Who’s my next sister, then?”
Susan made a face. “Julia, at half past ten. She’ll probably want to go into town with you to purchase
more hats. She’s mad for hats.”
They’d decided to divide him up, then. He should have been angry that Witfeld Manor’s entire female population viewed him as a game bird to be captured, sliced into equally apportioned pieces, and devoured. Today, though, it was handy. He’d been wondering how in the world he would be able to separate the sisters long enough to get a word in edgewise. Best get started with Susan, then, if he only had ninety minutes with her this morning. “With all of you here at Witfeld,” he began, “I imagine your father has to beat your beaux off with a stick.”
“We do always dance at the assemblies,” she said, feathering a strand of butter-colored hair between her fingers, “but there aren’t so very many single gentlemen in this part of Wiltshire. There’s a regiment stationed just north of here, but Papa doesn’t like the idea of one of us marrying a soldier. Not even an officer.”
It sounded odd for a man with seven daughters to object to so broad a category of eligible bachelors—particularly officers. “But you’re permitted to dance with them?”
“If we didn’t, we’d never get to dance. The single men who do live here are so…dull. All the oldest sons don’t do anything but complain that their fathers won’t die, and the younger ones all want to be farmers or vicars or officers. And those—”
“Aren’t acceptable,” he finished, wondering what Mr. Witfeld’s private opinion of him must be. Face-to-face he’d been nothing but polite and interested. On the other hand, Zachary hadn’t yet purchased a commission, so perhaps he was still to be tolerated. But Mrs. Witfeld definitely and obviously had marriage between a Griffin and one of her daughters in mind. It didn’t make much sense, unless Edmund was so distracted by his inventions that he didn’t know what his wife might be plotting.
“Exactly,” Susan was agreeing. “And who wants to marry a farmer or a vicar?”
Zachary abruptly wanted to go somewhere very quiet and think. With Melbourne insisting that he stay away from the army, Susan had just described the choices left to him. As a duke’s son and a duke’s brother he certainly wasn’t going to become a street vendor or a shopkeeper or a butcher. That would wound his family’s standing at least as much as it would be intolerable to him.
An Invitation to Sin Page 10