Oak was not having a wonderful time. Between sittings for the Finchley twins, de Beauharnais’s sour mood, and Cam and Ash providing Vera an escort more days than not, Oak’s London sojourn was starting off on a decidedly not-wonderful foot.
“Are you having a wonderful time?” Oak asked as they reached Vera’s bedroom.
She paused, hand on the door latch, her smile mischievous. “I’m about to.”
“As am I.” Thank God, at long last. Though Cam and Ash would exact a price for taking the children to see the menagerie on the staff’s half day.
Vera continued into her sitting room. “Alexander adored Astley’s, and if Catherine ever runs away from home, I will find her in the Academy’s exhibition rooms. What of you? Is Town living up to your expectations?”
Oak closed and locked the door. “I’m settling in. I have a paying commission to work on, and that is a significant step.” Though the Finchley twins were difficult young women. Rather than regard their portrait as the indulgence of a loving parent, they seemed bored and resentful toward the whole undertaking.
As was—how could this be?—Oak himself.
“Come,” Vera said, holding out a hand to him. “Making love in the middle of the day feels naughty, and I haven’t felt naughty since we left Merlin Hall.”
Oak by contrast hadn’t felt right since leaving Merlin Hall. London in summer was hot and smelly, true, but it was still London. Still the thriving epicenter of British culture, and still where Oak needed to be.
He took Vera’s hand, followed her into the bedroom, and closed and locked that door too. “This is a lovely house.”
“You sound surprised.” Vera began untying his cravat. “Sycamore and Ash have two others. I gather they are slowly investing their profits in real estate, and Ash explained that your family also owns a shop that sells botanical remedies and fragrances.”
She draped his cravat over the clothes press and started on the buttons of his waistcoat.
“My father was a passionate amateur botanist, and Dorning Hall has many acres devoted to his specimens and experiments. My brother Hawthorne, ably overseen by Casriel and assisted by Valerian, is turning Papa’s passion into a business venture.”
Vera stepped behind him to take off his coat, then his waistcoat.
“Your family is very enterprising,” she said, laying his clothing over the back of the chair at the escritoire. “I admire that. My brothers will live and die on their acres. They will never see London and won’t care that they’ve missed it. Sleeve buttons.”
Oak held out one wrist then the other so she could undo his cuffs. “Vera, might I kiss you?” This whole business was going forth a little too predictably, even briskly.
She put his sleeve buttons on the blotter of the escritoire. “I was hoping you’d ask.” She approached him and stepped into his embrace. “I miss you.”
Some of the tension that had been hounding Oak since arriving in London eased. “I’ve missed you too. Sycamore took you to our shop, didn’t he?”
“Ash did. How can you tell?”
She’d abandoned her usual floral fragrance for one of the Dorning blends. A meadow-y, grassy scent with a hint of lemon.
“My sister-in-law Margaret is becoming something of a parfumier. You’re wearing one of her creations.” Vera was also wearing too many clothes. And Oak would do something about that, soon. “Holding you feels good,” he said. “Holding you…”
He kissed her cheek, and she kissed his mouth. “I have had such dreams of you, Oak Dorning. The nights in London are short, but also very long.” She emphasized the last word with a glancing caress to his falls, behind which nothing much had grown particularly long.
What the hell is wrong with me? He was in London, finally being paid to create fine art, enjoying an afternoon tryst with a woman he adored, and life was going swimmingly—wasn’t it?
“Boots off,” Vera said, stepping back. “We have only so much time, and I have plans for you, sir.”
Perhaps that was the problem, Oak mused, pulling off his boots. They had only so much time. They had hours for this encounter—time to make love, talk, nap, and make love again—but in the larger sense, their time was almost gone. Vera might still be in London on the staff’s next half day, but what about the week after that?
“I have plans for you as well,” Oak said. “May I see to your hooks?”
Vera turned and presented him with her nape. That she was eager to be intimate with him was lovely, but must they be so rushed about their intimacy? Could true intimacy be rushed?
He peeled her out of her clothing, and punctuated the disrobing with a kiss here and a caress there. Vera was soon down to her shift, and Oak wore only his breeches.
He did not want to remove them, which made no bedamned sense at all. “Let’s cuddle a bit,” he said. “My mind is still wandering off to my last sitting, and that is not where it should be.”
Vera treated him to a slow, thoughtful perusal. “I have realized something about my marriage.”
Not something happy. “Tell me.”
“Dirk was unfaithful to me.”
Oak gathered her in his arms. “I am sorry. You re-created yourself to be the wife he needed and wanted, and infidelity was no sort of recompense.”
“I don’t mean he slept with other women, though he well might have. I mean he put art before all else, even the children. The other woman was his art, and she was a jealous and demanding mistress. Do you know, Dirk never took me for an ice at Gunter’s?”
Oak hadn’t taken Vera for an ice at Gunter’s—not yet.
“We were in Town for months at a time,” she went on, “and my children have seen more of London’s sights in the past week than I saw in all the time Dirk and I lived here. He couldn’t be bothered to escort me sightseeing, not when we were attending this supper or that lecture night after night, and he was painting by day.”
She rested her cheek against Oak’s chest. “I was so lonely here.”
Oak was lonely, but he hadn’t put that label on his feelings. Homesick, unsettled, at sixes and sevens…. the honest term was lonely.
“Come to bed with me,” he said. “I have been lonely for you.”
The next kiss was different, slower, more honest, more of an admission of longing and desire. Oak scooped Vera into his arms and carried her to the bed.
“We’re not to christen the wall of your brother’s home?” Vera asked when Oak came down over her.
“Maybe next time. I am abruptly in a tearing hurry to be out of my breeches.” He sat up and dispatched with the last of his clothing. “Do you know why I am in such a hurry?”
“Because you’ve missed me.”
“That too.” He settled over Vera again, and now his flesh was as willing as his spirit. “I want to love you witless, then take you for an ice at Gunter’s.” He wanted to give her something Dirk had not, wanted to share with her an experience Dirk had denied her, however prosaic.
Vera still had on her chemise, but she scooted and wiggled and soon had it rucked up to her waist.
“I want to love you witless too, Oak Dorning.”
The sight of her—braced on her elbows, naked from the waist down, legs splayed, chemise bunched around her middle and barely covering her breasts—was a composition of such perfection that Oak took a moment simply to drink in the picture she created.
The pinks and whites and in-betweens, the afternoon sun creating mellow golden light and soft shadows, the attitude of frank erotic welcome and unsatisfied desire… If he painted for the next hundred years, he could never do this version of Vera justice on canvas.
So he would do justice to her on the bed. Oak settled into her embrace, joining them as slowly as he could bear to. Vera set a deliberate, demanding tempo, but soon pleasure threatened to swamp Oak’s control.
“Let go,” Vera whispered. “Please.”
He held out for another half-dozen slow, hard strokes, but his will was no match for her passion, a
nd they were soon thrashing their way to glory. When the pleasure had burned down to embers, Oak levered up enough to let cool air eddy between their bodies.
“When I make love with you,” Vera said, stroking his back, “I am thunderstruck, or lightning struck. I feel like that tree I saw as a girl at my grandmother’s. Consumed by a fire from within.”
“An apt analogy.” Oak did not want to move, did not want to leave Vera’s embrace. He eased away, used a handkerchief to keep the resulting mess from the sheets, and sat back. “Let me hold you.”
They arranged themselves spoon-fashion under the covers, Vera fitting against Oak like the familiar treasure she was. She was soon breathing in an easy, steady rhythm, but Oak could not manage to join her in slumber.
His mind was busy, full of the Finchley portrait and of Mrs. Finchley’s less than subtle attempts to inveigle him into her bedroom. Tolliver had accommodated the lady—his nickname was Jolly Tolly for a reason—and thank God the portrait was all but finished. Longacre had made no more mention of the other two subjects, and Oak had a sneaking suspicion those commissions had gone to other artists.
Then too, Mrs. Finchley hadn’t paid him. She’d asked for an invoice and said something about her husband having the final say on all expenditures.
London in reality was not quite the portrait Oak had painted of it in his mind.
“You mustn’t let me fall asleep,” Vera murmured, rolling over to face him. “Richard Longacre has asked me to pay a call. He says he has some painting or other that I’m apparently supposed to gush over. Are you free tomorrow afternoon?”
Oak would rather avoid Longacre until the Finchley painting was done and delivered. He’d packed up the unfinished work to complete in his garret rather than be under Mrs. Finchley’s roof without Tolliver’s escort.
“I must work tomorrow,” Oak said. “But I am free now. Shall we have that vanilla ice?”
“I would love to, but first, I fancy another treat, if you don’t mind?”
She arranged herself in such a manner that she could lick her treat to her heart’s content, while Oak fisted his hands in the sheets and prayed for self-restraint. By the time Vera had situated herself over him, he’d forgotten about Gunter’s, portraits, and anything but making love to the woman in his arms.
The pleasure was explosive, with Vera giving no quarter until Oak was a panting heap of happy male beneath her, and she was curled onto his chest, her chemise hors de combat at the foot of the bed.
As Oak drew a sketch of Merlin Hall on her back, thunder rumbled in the distance. The sun still shone through the window, though the curtains stirred on a sudden breeze.
“The children will be back soon,” Vera murmured, pushing up off Oak’s chest. “The bad weather will send them pelting home. Ah, well. I had my treat.” She stretched luxuriously, which presented her breasts to Oak in all their lovely perfection.
“I still want to share an ice with you,” he said as the curtains whipped about on a warm gust. “I truly do.”
Vera shifted off of him, and rather than come down beside him, she left the bed and closed the window.
“I’d like that, Oak, but today is apparently not the day for that outing.” She retrieved her chemise and dropped it over her head.
And that was wrong. They should not have to leap out of bed and dress in haste, should not have to forgo their ice because of the blighted weather. They should be making love at the end of a pretty summer day, talking quietly of domestic matters while Oak grumbled a little about how the cat in the Finchley painting still wasn’t quite right.
He shook himself free of that mental litany and climbed from the bed. Vera had disappeared behind the privacy screen, leaving Oak to dress himself. He borrowed her hairbrush to tidy up and was soon once again fully clothed.
Vera emerged from behind the privacy screen, dressed and needing only a few hooks done up before she was presentable.
Rain hit the window in a few hard spatters, then a steady downpour began.
“Stay until your brothers return with the children,” Vera said. “I don’t want you walking back to your rooms in this downpour.”
“I’d rather Cam and Ash not find me here,” Oak replied. “They will speculate about how you spent your afternoon, and they will interrogate me without mercy. If I’m elsewhere, they won’t know we’ve been trysting. Besides, I like a good ramble around old London town, and rain does interesting things to light.”
A hard rain turned London’s streets into sewers, and the stench in summer was not to be borne. He’d forgotten that about London.
Vera hugged him, and he hugged her back. “I wish you could stay.”
“I wish I could too.”
He kissed her again, wondering how many more times they’d exchange those words. Vera accompanied him to the front door, insisting he at least take an umbrella. He complied to oblige her, but a mere umbrella was pointless against a summer cloudburst.
“Give my regards to Longacre,” Oak said as Vera stood with him in the foyer. “I will call upon him soon myself.”
“And you will take me for a vanilla ice,” she said, kissing his cheek. “I will look forward to that, Oak. Very much.”
She smiled, he smiled, and then he was out in the frigid rain, wrecking his boots, missing the mud of the Hampshire countryside, and wondering why in the bloody hell he’d ever thought London was where all of his dreams would come true.
Yesterday’s lovemaking had been spectacular and harrowing, though Vera congratulated herself on having sent Oak on his way before she’d succumbed to tears. The fire of his passion had destroyed her from within, as lightning had destroyed her grandmother’s tree. Where a pleasant memory should have stood, Vera instead felt heartache, sorrow, and towering frustration.
Why in the name of everything dear must Oak be so determined to make his way in London? Why did she hate the place? For she still did. The noise and crowding were bearable, but the memories…
Vera nonetheless took herself off to call upon Richard Longacre, not quite sure why she dreaded the encounter. Richard had never been among those who’d offered insults to her face or her person, and he’d been a loyal correspondent since Dirk’s death.
He admitted her into an elegant parlor, one so lavishly adorned in gilt-framed art that Vera felt as if she were at an exhibition rather than in a private home. Stern men in dark clothing, pretty ladies in elaborate brocades, bucolic landscapes, and the occasional storm-tossed sloop covered the walls, each frame nearly touching the ones beside, above, and below it.
The furniture was fussy as only relics of the last century could be. The harpsichord looked to be of Italian extraction, with elaborate carving on the side panels. The underside of the raised lid depicted some goddess or other reclining on billowy clouds, while winged cherubs flitted above her, strumming gilt lyres.
The music was open to a Scarlatti sonata, the notes as dense on the page as the bric-a-brac was on Longacre’s sideboard and shelves. Snuffboxes, scent bottles, puzzle boxes, porcelain figurines, miniatures… a whole curiosity cabinet was devoted to porcelain pipes.
To a more educated eye, Longacre’s public parlor might be a jewel box in miniature.
Vera hated it for the ostentation alone. A single jeweled and enameled snuffbox was an elegant touch, a dozen was surely ridiculous.
“Shall I ring for tea?” Longacre asked, closing the parlor door. “I am overjoyed to see you in the capital at last, and I must say you are in great good looks.”
His perusal of her was a little too obvious for Vera’s liking, but then, Longacre was an artist, albeit retired, and they had not seen each other for several years.
“Thank you, and tea would be appreciated. You have quite a lot of art here.” She offered that observation, because clearly Longacre was proud of this collection.
“My little acquisitions give me great joy,” he said, tugging a bell-pull. “What do you suppose Dirk would make of these treasures?”
V
era had no idea what Dirk would have made of them. Oak would find the crowding alone appalling.
“Dirk never called upon you here?”
“Alas, no. Do you miss him?”
A friend might ask that question, though Longacre wasn’t quite a friend. “Of course. Time helps, but Dirk was my husband, and he was still very much in his prime. Your note mentioned a painting you wished to show me.” She injected a note of cheerful curiosity into her voice, though the change of subject was nearly rude.
Vera wished she’d waited until Oak could have joined her on this visit. Something about Longacre was off, just as his recommendations for staff for Vera’s nursery had proved to be off.
“Has London brought back old memories, Vera?” Longacre asked, rearranging his snuffboxes one by one.
“Not many. I am content with my life in Hampshire, and I am much concerned with raising my children and running Merlin Hall.” About that painting?
The tea tray arrived, and Longacre asked her to pour out. She obliged, though the point of the exercise was apparently to show off Longacre’s elaborately decorated antique Meissen service.
When the requisite two cups of a pedestrian gunpowder had been consumed, Longacre rose.
“And now, my dear, if you’d accompany me to the library, I have something to show you.” His tone was cordial, but something about the look in his eyes—assessing rather than inviting—made Vera’s skin prickle. This painting was apparently the point of the visit, and thus she allowed Longacre to escort her down the carpeted corridor to another elaborately decorated chamber.
The library’s oak wainscoting was carved with leaves and fruit worthy of a drunken apprentice of Grinling Gibbons; the ceiling sported an entire toga-clad pantheon apparently involved in a stag hunt. The manic quality of the composition suggested the artist had tried to imitate the great Antonio Verrio—tried and failed.
Perhaps Longacre had had a reason for not inviting Dirk to his home.
“Our masterpiece is this way,” Longacre said after he’d closed the door. “An exceptional work, exquisite really, and one I’m sure the artist was very proud of.”
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