An Invitation to Sin

by Suzanne Enoch

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t laugh—or, worse yet, refuse. “I’d like you to pose out by the ruins.”

  “The ruins?”

  “Thanks to my father’s pronouncement, my sisters won’t be able to interfere, and you…suit out there. An adventurer in his natural habitat.”

  Zachary smiled briefly. “It’s been several years since I went adventuring.” Gazing out the window, he pulled his coat off again and slung it over one arm. “But I like the idea. What should I carry?”

  “Oh. You…you don’t need to help. I’ll manage.”

  “Mm hm. Caroline, I did you a disservice yesterday. I won’t be repeating my error. And if I could accept what you said yesterday, I doubt anything else you might say would injure me. Relax, my dear.”

  Caroline drew a deep breath. “I was too harsh.”

  “No, you weren’t. A friend once told my brother that if you feel strongly enough about something to take action, for God’s sake have the…strength of character not to apologize for it later.”

  She swallowed. “Very well.”

  Stopping very close to her, he slowly reached forward past her shoulder and picked up the canvas and tripod. She had the distinct sensation that he was smelling her hair, and goose bumps raised on her arms as he backed away again, tucking the monstrosity under his arm. “Lead the way,” he said.

  Whatever they’d said to one another yesterday, something had changed between them. It made her uneasy—because she liked the version of him that had appeared last night and again this morning. Very much.

  “Like this?” Zachary asked, standing one foot up on the overturned faux Greek pillar.

  “Perfect. Just turn your head a little more toward the pond…Yes. Like that.”

  “You’re certain I don’t look like some conqueror or something? Alexander the Great of Wiltshire?”

  She gave her delicate, amused snort. He’d been waiting for the sound, and he smiled. According to his pride and his lineage, he should never have forgiven her for yesterday, should never have given leaving a second thought, should have been in Bath playing cards and drinking in a club right now.

  And the Zachary that Melbourne knew would have fobbed Harold off on the first passerby he met. Instead, he’d spent three late hours demonstrating a patience he hadn’t realized he owned, teaching Harold to sit on command. In the grand scheme of things it was undoubtedly trivial, but it meant something significant to him.

  He’d thrice now deliberately gone out of his way to make clear to Caroline that he carried no grudge against her. And he knew precisely why. She’d not only said some rather sharp and insightful things but she’d also been right. Not just a little right—exactly, precisely, absolutely right.

  His brothers called him a blockhead and joked about his aversion to responsibility, but they’d never called him useless. They wouldn’t, he supposed; as far as family went, he wasn’t useless to them. Melbourne kept his family close around him like so many precious gems, and he was part of the set. But for the rest of the world, and to himself, the outlook was considerably more grim. And he didn’t like that one damned bit.

  “You’re frowning,” she said, eyeing him critically. “Could you relax your face a little?”

  “Apologies.” He pasted the half-smile back on his face. “Are you sketching with pencil first?”

  “I go back and forth. Even though I only have one complete drawing, thankfully I’ve sketched you enough now to be familiar with your features. Now I’m using pencil mostly for starting guidelines, since the light will be changing through the morning, and since I imagine you’ll want to shift a little after a while.”

  “I shall remain a rock for as long as you require.”

  Her lips curved. “Yes, but this may take two days.”

  Which meant that if he hadn’t been an idiot yesterday, she could be finishing up with his part of the posing today. “You’ll still have enough time?”

  “Yes.”

  He understood her expression, especially after her father’s speech about how tight finances were in the Witfeld household. “I’ll pay to help expedite delivery.”

  “That’s not—”

  “You’re wasting daylight, Miss Witfeld. Paint me.”

  She worked in silence for a few moments, while he felt his mouth tightening again and worked to ease the expression. It wouldn’t do her any good if she painted him looking like a madman, whether he actually resembled one or not.

  “So you’ve seen the Mona Lisa and never been to Vienna,” Caroline said as she glanced up at him in between pencil strokes. “Tell me more of your travels.”

  It was one thing for him to feel ill at ease, he decided. It was quite another for him to appear that way. Zachary took a breath. “Food or art?” he returned. “According to my family I’m an expert in one and have no eye for the other.”

  “I find that difficult to believe of anyone who could appreciate the Mona Lisa enough to stand gazing at her for an hour. You journeyed to Greece, did you not?”

  “I did. Saw both the Parthenon and the Erechtheion. The sense of age there is both uplifting and almost…oppressive.”

  She paused for a bare moment. “Why oppressive?”

  “Perhaps that’s the wrong word. Heavy.” He began to shake his head, then stilled again. She was so easy to talk to. “I can’t really explain it,” he continued. “I know they’re symbols of knowledge and culture, and yet for me, anyway, they left me feeling…small. Insignificant.”

  “A small bump on the road of mankind?”

  This time he did turn his head to face her. “Are you insulting me again?”

  Caroline blushed. “Heavens, no. It’s just that when reading Aristotle and Plato and even Shakespeare, that’s occasionally how I feel. I greatly appreciate their knowledge and their skill, but it forces me to look inward. I sometimes wonder what’s inside me that could possibly equal any of that greatness.”

  He gazed at her for a long moment, until she motioned at him to move his head again. “That’s it. Precisely. I tried to explain Greece to Shay, and he said I must have eaten some spoiled cheese.”

  “How hard did you try to explain it to him? Really?”

  “Not very. Shay doesn’t appreciate my affinity for art. He appreciates that I know where in London to find the best roast pheasant.”

  “There’s no reason you can’t demonstrate both, is there?”

  Christ, she sounded like Melbourne during one of the duke’s attempts to convince him to choose a goal and pursue it. Obviously she’d taken his admonishment about standing behind one’s beliefs to mean that she should feel free to continue criticizing him. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve never actually tried that.”

  Her mouth quirked. “I think you have. After all, I know about your opinion of the Parthenon and your knowledge of pheasant dinners.”

  And now a compliment. “Thank you for that, but it’s not necessary.”

  During the conversation she set down the pencil and picked up a paintbrush. Zachary badly wanted to see what she was doing, but he had no intention of causing more delays. His leg, the one bearing most of his weight, began to ache from being held so rigidly, but he ignored it.

  “You may take a turn about the clearing if you want to stretch,” she finally said. “I can place you back in position.”

  Thank Lucifer. He rolled his shoulders and lowered his left foot to the ground. “May I take a look?”

  She nodded. “There’s not much to see yet, but if you’d like.”

  Caroline hadn’t blushed at the idea of someone else looking over her shoulder, but he didn’t expect her to; she was a professional, and rightly proud of her skills. Stretching, he strolled over behind her.

  And there he stood, a pale outline of himself, one leg bent and resting on a pencil line, right hand on his thigh and the left in his pocket. He didn’t have much of a head, though the general shape was there, and rough ovals where his eyes would be. His
hair was painted, though, black with a gold tint of sunlight above his temple, and a swath of color marked the line of his shoulder and his straight leg.

  Ruins stretched around him, with the edge of the pond in the background to his left, and a herd of pencil cattle over his right shoulder. “It looks like I’m the master of my domain,” he commented. “Or your father’s domain, rather.”

  “That’s what I wanted. You have that air about you, of confidence and ease. Aristocracy.”

  Now he hoped he wasn’t blushing. Interesting that Caroline saw his faults probably more clearly than he did, and yet the compliments she gave: They rather stunned him, as did the fact that she’d found something she admired about him at all, and the fact that she’d said it aloud. Zachary cleared his throat, turning his gaze on the pond and cattle background. One cow in particular caught his attention. “That’s your father’s special cow, isn’t it? The one you named Dimidius.”

  “Yes. I thought Papa would appreciate me putting her in the portrait.”

  “Does she really give twice the milk a standard breed does?”

  Caroline shrugged. “She seems to. A good quality, too. Fine cream and butter. I’ve never measured the exact quantity. She’s good-natured, and likes apples.” She turned to look at him, then set down her brush, reached up, and tugged a little at his cravat.

  He looked down at her fingers curled against his chest. “I can summon my valet if you’d prefer a different knot.”

  “No. It’s fine. I just want the ruffle to show a little more.” She continued to smooth at his chest.

  “Caroline?”

  She looked up, meeting his gaze. “Hm?”

  “There’s something else about yesterday.”

  “What?”

  “You caught my attention.”

  Zachary cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. Her lips tasted like sweet strawberries. Across the clearing the maid napped, and with a sigh he deepened the kiss. Caroline leaned into him, sliding her hands up his shoulders and tousling his hair. Desire and arousal ran hot just under his skin—and for probably the first time in his life, he didn’t give in to the sensation.

  Instead he slowly and regretfully broke the embrace. “That was very sweet,” he whispered.

  “I’d like another anatomy lesson, Zachary,” she breathed back.

  Christ. He kissed her again, harder. “And I’d like to give you one. After.”

  “After?”

  “After you’ve finished the portrait and you don’t have a reason to be kind or grateful to me.”

  Her cheeks colored. “That’s very gentlemanly of you, Zachary,” she said shakily, lowering her hand from his hair.

  “No, it’s not. But it is fair warning.” He caught her hand before she could back away. “Don’t get me wrong, Caroline. Unless you change your mind, I fully intend to take advantage of you. But I won’t be blamed for more delays.” Zachary smiled grimly, meaning it. “Besides, isn’t there some saying about anticipation sweetening the taste of something or other?”

  Caroline chuckled a little breathlessly. “I have no idea. It sounds logical.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him again, her hunger as tangible as his own. “Would you please go back to the column again?”

  He hoped the portrait wouldn’t show the ruined line of his trousers. As he returned to his position he concentrated on images of ugly chits and rotten vegetables. Standing still for the next session was going to be difficult enough without making her aware of just how much she aroused him.

  Amazing, that twenty-four hours earlier he’d been ready to strangle her, and now he wanted nothing more than to hear her moan with pleasure. She might have a focus, but now he did as well—she drew him both literally and figuratively. No one had spoken to him as she had, and he was either going to prove her wrong or possess her. Or both.

  Stop thinking about it, he ordered himself. He just needed to turn his attention to something else. He’d been thinking about something else right before she’d touched him and begun requesting anatomy lessons. What the devil had it been?

  “Cows,” he muttered.

  “Beg pardon?”

  Zachary cleared his throat. “Dimidius. How organized is your father’s breeding program?”

  Her fine cheek twitched. “It’s actually quite…limited. We were only able to acquire two Guernsey cows and one mixed-blood South Devon bull. That’s why it took so long to produce a cow. And then we could only breed one offspring, and that was with a South Devon bull belonging to an old army comrade of his. Papa didn’t want any inbreeding.”

  Finances again. “So Dimidius’s offspring might not possess the same milk-giving productivity as her dam.”

  “Correct. We won’t know that for another year.”

  “What about the other local farmers? The sale of high-quality butter and cream alone could make the animals indispensable to the aristocracy. Aren’t some of your neighbors willing to invest in cattle that might end up being so profitable? And their participation would certainly give a boost to the breeding population.”

  She shrugged as she dipped her brush in gray paint and swirled it into a touch of brown. “To be honest, Papa is known about Trowbridge as something of an…eccentric. Especially after he blew off the top of that windmill.”

  “The wind—” Intriguing, but beside the point. Zachary had probably fixated on the cow to distract himself from Caroline, but at the same time this was genuinely interesting. He’d bred horses, or at least advised on it, on and off for some time, and one of his progeny had won the Derby last year. Everyone, though, bred horses.

  “May I ask you a question?” Caroline added some yellow to her mix and began applying it to the canvas.

  “Certainly.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the dozing maid. “A moment ago we were discussing your taking advantage of me, and then you began talking about cows. Am I supposed to interpret something from this?”

  Zachary laughed. Thank God for honest, witty chits. And for this one in particular. “Good God, no.”

  “Oh, thank heavens. Because I would very much like to be taken advantage of.”

  Ugly chits, ugly chits. “I just happened to think that Dimidius could be a wasted opportunity.”

  “It takes a great deal of patience to breed cattle, Zachary. And Papa has a great many interests.”

  He understood. Edmund would undoubtedly do the best he could, but without finances and the then inevitable diluting of the new bloodline, Dimidius would be the best and possibly only representative of her kind. Melbourne would never let such an opportunity fall by the wayside—not if he thought it could be turned profitable. And twice the milk—rich, high-quality milk, at that—produced from each cow in a herd could be turned extremely profitable.

  The epiphany struck him like a bolt of lightning. Profitability, which would please Melbourne, and breeding, which interested him, and a fair share of patience and responsibility if he could manage to start up a successful breeding program. And an increased income for Witfeld, which would certainly help the family and its plethora of females.

  He wanted to stride back to the house and find Edmund. Every muscle itched to set him into motion. Who would have thought that he would find his salvation in a damned cow?

  Caroline stood twenty feet from him, painting and absorbed once again in her project. His own plans would mean spending even more time with her and her family, and he found that the idea—despite the chaos—appealed to him. Her auburn hair showed glints of red in the mottled sunlight, her green eyes lit to polished emerald by the excitement of what she was doing. He wanted her. Badly.

  “What would you think, Caroline,” he said slowly, “if I offered to assist your father with the Dimidius project?”

  She lifted her head again. “I thought you were joining the army.”

  He shrugged. “Plans change.”

  Her eyes lowered from his, and with a slight nod she returned to her work.

  He understood
that look, though; he’d seen it before, mostly from his siblings. “What?” he demanded.

  “Nothing. I don’t want to make you angry again.”

  Zachary scowled. At her impatient breath, he wiped the expression from his face. “I told you that I’m not going anywhere until your painting is finished. So what were you thinking?”

  “Fine. I was thinking that your plans change a great deal. I’d hate for you to get Papa’s hopes up about something and then dash them again when something else more interesting catches your attention.”

  She did know him frighteningly well, considering their short acquaintance. Or rather, she knew the man he had been. A day—short in minutes, but long on time to think and see and understand—had altered him in a way he never would have expected, and it had made him aware of a Zachary Howard Griffin he never wanted to be again.

  And just as clearly as he remembered his conversation with Caroline, he remembered the one with her father. In some ways, that had troubled him even more than her harsh words. No more mistakes—not ones born of boredom or impatience, anyway. It was time for him to choose a future and shape it into what he wanted and needed. “I won’t change my plans this time.” He meant it, and the clarity with which he felt that surprised—and pleased—him to his bones.

  “Zachary, I hope that you’re not changing your plans because of something I said.”

  “Of course I am.” He faced her directly, ignoring her responding frown as he moved out of position. “For years my family’s teased me about my aversion to responsibility. Right before I came here I think Melbourne tried to tell me what you succeeded in saying yesterday, but he was either too generous, or I just wasn’t ready to hear it. Some things are going to change. And I thank you for pointing my faults out to me.”

  She set down the brush with a distinct thud. “Zachary, please do not put all of this on my head. For heaven’s s—”

  Zachary grinned. At least he wasn’t the only troubled one. “I’m putting it all on your head, my dear. Now paint.”