It was several long minutes before he trusted himself enough to speak, his breath coming in long, ragged bursts, and he withdrew as gently as he could, rolling over without relinquishing her to cover himself with her body, praying that she was unbruised.
“Well …” Josiah closed his eyes. “I am … ready for my … lecture now, Miss Beckett. What were the rules again? Besides not laughing, of course, which by the way, I think you did at one point, but I won’t hold it against you.”
She laughed again, and he savored the delight he heard there.
“I have but one question, Mr. Hastings.”
He warily opened one eye. “And what is that?”
“As to etiquette—how soon can a person reasonably request you to do that again?”
It was his turn to laugh before he kissed her, a gentle, reverent gesture that reignited and renewed the bonds between them. “Give me a few minutes to rest my eyes, and I’ll see if I can’t demonstrate a satisfactory answer, Miss Beckett.”
It was a revelation—this lazy spiral of indolent pleasure that kept her in place afterward. Here was something she hadn’t anticipated. That the ecstasy of his touch would banish all shame. She was reborn and all the fears that had metered every decision she’d made were gone. Naked and warm, Eleanor stretched against him, pressing herself along his body to absorb more of his strength.
She surveyed him as he slept, noting that in her haze of happiness, she couldn’t tell where her own flesh ended and his began in the sweet tangle they’d created together. He looked vulnerable as he dreamt and Eleanor sighed as she closed her eyes. The even cadence of his breathing soothed her as she savored a thousand new sensations.
She’d given herself to him, completely and without hesitation.
Twice.
Here is freedom. Here is more than I thought possible—for such a man to hold me in his arms! I’ve never felt so cherished. …
He awoke and looked up at her, a man content until his brow furrowed. “Did I fall asleep?” He sat up to run a hand through his unruly brown hair. “I’m sorry for that.” Josiah reluctantly began to retrieve their clothes. “We should restore ourselves before poor Escher comes up to make a fuss about needing a tray.”
“The day is gone.” She sighed.
“It is. But don’t worry. We’ll have you back to the Grove before the dinner dishes are cleared and Mrs. Clay won’t lift an eyebrow, I promise.”
“Yes, of course.” Eleanor closed her eyes, fighting an awkward unhappiness that he’d been so quick to think of her reputation and a return to the inn. Not that she wouldn’t have insisted on a necessary retreat, but …
It stung to be released so readily.
“What is that face? Are you—displeased to go?”
She shook her head. “No. Embarrassed that I wasn’t thinking of poor Mrs. Clay and how disappointed she would be. I was—lost in this a little.”
“Eleanor.” He shifted to pull her back underneath him, capturing her with the heat of his body and the strength of the unique cage of muscle and bone that held her still. “I would keep you if I could.”
“Would you?” she asked softly.
He nodded then kissed the tip of her nose. “Mine. Say that you are mine, Eleanor. Until it’s done. Give me that much.”
“Yours, until it’s done. I shall be completely yours until the painting is finished.” She kissed the pulse at his throat. “I could ask for nothing more.”
“Mine and make no mistake.”
“And what is that?”
“You’ll never have to ask again for a kiss, my dear Miss Beckett. Never.” He leaned over to trail hot kisses against the silken curves of her throat until she sighed and moaned against his touch, arching up against him in an unspoken bid for more.
“Then we shall make the most of the days, Mr. Hastings.”
Chapter
17
True to her word, in the following days, she was his completely in a glorious freefall of painting and lovemaking that allowed Josiah to forget the press of the hours. He sent the carriage each morning as early as he could, and then locked them in the studio for privacy as he worked until teatime. They would eat odd formal little picnics on the dais and make love for the rest of the day for an afternoon of pleasure and conversation.
The Eschers instinctively knew to stay clear of the studio, and Josiah was grateful for their discretion. The lovers were left to their own during magical days of creative freedom and erotic discovery.
But Josiah’s enjoyment was edged in melancholy. Her every departure was like a rehearsal for letting her go. With every kiss, he had to battle himself and the growing attachment he felt for this fiery woman who privately transformed daily in his presence from an untouchable, proper lady to his own beloved nymph.
As this day unfolded, just four days after her initial surrender, Josiah was struggling to stay in front of the easel. His eyes had been plaguing him unmercifully and he’d finally been forced to forfeit the rest of the morning in the studio to take her downstairs for what he realized would be the first time.
Oddly enough, getting Miss Eleanor Beckett into his bedroom, even after all the intimacies they’d shared, hadn’t been a foregone conclusion. After a debate on the improprieties of entering a man’s bedroom in which Josiah had cheerfully allowed her the upper hand, he’d trumped her reluctance with a delicious nod to the one trait all women possessed and could never deny: curiosity.
“Do you not wish to see my most private sanctuary and hiding place, Miss Beckett? Are you not … curious, at all?” he’d asked—and won the day.
With the curtains drawn, the room was dimly lit with tapers and gave the lovers the illusion of timelessness. The artwork in this room was special, as each piece had been chosen for sentimental reasons and to remind him of better days. He stepped back to let her explore, enjoying the sight of her in his inner sanctum. But Eleanor’s curiosity about his “sanctuary” was only piqued as she looked askance at a strange little shrine set on a small table in one corner.
She walked over to inspect it more closely, lifting one of the hothouse roses he’d cut and floated in a small porcelain bowl in front of a bronze figurine. The Hindu goddess was dancing with one leg upraised and her hands spread wide, demonstrating a balance and grace that Eleanor had never imagined. An oil lamp etched with flowers was unlit next to it, and Eleanor bent over to peer into the exotic face and admire it.
“Are you a heathen, Josiah?” she asked, looking at him through her lashes. “I mean, is that—do you pray to this figurine, with the oils and flowers at her feet?”
He smiled. “I meditate sometimes and kneel there on those cushions in front of her. But I cannot claim to worship her in the strict sense of the word. I don’t own her. She isn’t my goddess. I’m not reformed enough to deserve her, I think. We have a unique relationship, Lakshmi and I, and if I ask her for anything, it’s with the understanding that she has other and better petitioners to bother with than my British self. All I can say for certain is that I find comfort in the Hindu customs. There is little to contradict my Christian upbringing in them and …”
“And?” Eleanor reached out to touch his hand.
“There aren’t a lot of rules.” He savored the whisper-light trails her fingers were making on his skin. “Just truths for each man to pursue. And since you know how I hate rules, you can see the appeal. Besides”—he lifted her hand to his lips to kiss the firm, warm well of her palm—“I don’t like to leave the house for my spiritual nourishment, and the Church of England refused to install a vicar in my bedroom.”
She laughed, playfully pinching him on the shoulder with her free hand; but she didn’t pull away from him as he began to unlace the back of her gown and free her from its confines. “You are a wicked man!”
“See? There’s a truth!” Josiah leaned over to kiss the curve of her shoulder, mirroring her blow with a more sensual one of his own. “But to answer you directly, no, Miss Eleanor Beckett, I am not a
heathen.”
“Mr. Hastings?” she asked, her head tipping to one side as she let the dress slide farther down her shoulders.
“Yes, Miss Beckett?” he replied, enjoying the delicious cool formality of her, even as the brush of red velvet against him warmed his blood.
“How is it that you are not married?”
He stood up a little straighter. “Here’s a subject!”
She blushed. “Well?”
“How is that you are not married?” he countered. Josiah hated how defensive he sounded, but he wasn’t sure if one confession wouldn’t lead to a dozen others that he wasn’t ready to make.
“Me? The only daughter of an eccentric chemist?” She laughed. “If there was a line of suitors, I missed them, and by the time I thought to look … well, Fate intervened, didn’t it?”
“In this case, I’m grateful to Providence for any path that brought you here, Eleanor.” Josiah wrested the gown from her, lifting her out of it so that he could set his chemise- and petticoat-clad beauty down on the side of his bed. “Extremely grateful.”
“You never speak of your past without me having to pry it out of you, Mr. Hastings, and even then, I wonder at what you choose not to say.” She stretched out her arms to ease the ache of inactivity from posing. “Are you deliberately being mysterious to pique my interest? Or have you some dark secrets that you’re keeping?”
“This criticism from a woman who has said as little as she can of her life before she stepped into my carriage?” he countered.
Eleanor sighed. “Only because my life before I stepped into that carriage no longer exists. What is to be gained from a tragic account of happier days, or parents reunited in heaven, or a pitiable portrayal of my skills as a seamstress?”
“What of the man that swindled your father? Do you ever think of taking up your father’s lawsuit and restoring his name?”
She became very still for a moment, and Josiah’s attention was arrested by the strange look on her face. Regret flooded through him. “I shouldn’t have asked, Eleanor. I never meant to cause you any pain.”
“No. It’s not pain I was experiencing.” She reached up to press her fingers against her cheek, as if to cool the flush that blossomed there. “It was a guilty conscience. For I once walked past his mansion one evening and …”
“And?” he prompted.
“It was too much. Just the luxury of light spilling out from those windows made me feel so cold and alone—and worthless.” Eleanor’s hand dropped back to smooth out the sheet across her thighs. “I wanted to throw a rock through Mr. Thomas Keller’s parlor window, Mr. Hastings. Or just scream my father’s name loud enough to shake them from their peaceful perches.”
“And did you?” Josiah pressed her gently.
“Of course not!” Eleanor answered in shock. “What is to be gained from that? I’d have been hauled off to Bedlam and my father and mother would still be gone.”
“Justice can be a balm to soothe your pain. Perhaps righting things would—”
She shook her head firmly. “No. I may daydream about kicking the man in his shins or pouring a glass of lemonade on his head, but I don’t wish to give more of myself to it than that. Crusades are notoriously wasteful and pointless, Mr. Hastings. My father taught me that much.”
“So your entire confession consists of you once walking past the man’s house?” Josiah couldn’t help but think of his friend, Galen, and his difficult lesson on that same subject. Unlike Miss Beckett, Galen Hawke had learned about revenge by embracing it—and had nearly lost everything he currently held dear. “You’re a wise woman, Eleanor.”
“I’m stubborn, Josiah. There is a vast difference.”
“Stubborn?”
“I’ll not give any more of my life over to that villain. Keller has already taken too much of me, of my happiness and my future. Why would I give him more of my present mind or spoil the days that I have found joy here with you?”
“Then I won’t mention him again.” He reached out to trace the ivory lines of her shoulder, indolently pushing the little capped sleeve of her chemise downward. “Ask me something else, Eleanor.”
“Tell me why you stopped painting women.”
“You don’t want to know. It’s not a very good story, Eleanor. Ask me something else.”
“Not every story has to entertain, Josiah. I would know all your stories, sir, if it meant that I could know more of you.”
“Very well.” He sighed, lying back on the bed next to her to look up at the ceiling, the memory replaying in his mind’s eye. “Though I can’t see how this isn’t going to make you think less of me and cheat me of an afternoon’s pleasures.”
“Now you have to tell me!” She pinched his shoulder playfully.
“Ouch! What a bully you’ve become. …” He kissed her on the nose.
“Confess, Hastings.”
“Come, then.” He rose from the bed and wrapped her in his robe, and before she could ask, he swept her from the bed, carrying her from the room cradled against his chest.
“Where are we going?”
“Shhh! Remember you asked.” He knew his way about the rooms without lighting a single candle, every dimension memorized and every step counted and recounted so often he had no fear of stumbling with his priceless armload. He carried her easily, enjoying her weight in his arms and the heat of her body to his with her arms encircling his neck. He pushed the door open to a small, rarely used study with his bare foot and went inside to set her carefully down on a soft chair. It was a windowless room, dark even in the early afternoon. He found the matches in the top drawer and lit a small lamp on the desk. “I can’t recall the last time I was in this room.”
Instantly, he knew the portrait on the wall would have come to life, and Eleanor’s gasp confirmed it. He barely glanced in its direction, the charms of its subject long faded for him.
Eleanor, on the other hand, was just now experiencing them. “Oh my! She’s beautiful!”
Posing as some obscure Greek goddess carelessly holding a bunch of grapes, here was a dark-haired woman, lush and lively, happily wearing little more than a scandalous drape of cloth that bared far more of her curves than it covered. Her features were pert and playful, with wide, lovely eyes the color of brandy and a heart-shaped bow of a mouth that was a ripe wine red that begged for kisses.
“Daisy was.”
“I’m almost afraid to hear this story now.”
“No need to fear her.” Josiah closed his eyes. “I grew up in the country, my father being a member of the country gentry, as I told you. The family holdings were ideal, I think, for a young boy, and my brothers and I would often roam wild to escape my sisters. My father swore we had too much freedom, but I, to this day, don’t even know what that meant. How can there be too much freedom for a boy?”
Nostalgia gave the memories a softer glow, and he relaxed into a subject he hadn’t spoken of since he’d been chained in the dark of a dungeon with Rowan. “There was a girl in the village, and I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love her. It was ridiculous, but Daisy always seemed so worldly and wonderful to me. She left for London at sixteen, fostered out to a rich aunt who’d requested her company, and I yearned for her.”
“That’s sweet.”
“It wasn’t sweet! It was miserable, and I can’t believe the hours I wasted pining away for her. Especially since absence does make the heart grow fonder. We secretly corresponded for quite some time until I was tossed out by my father and headed to London to make my own fortunes. I was poor but proud, and when I met her again years and years later, I was completely smitten—all over again. She had grown into a gloriously groomed creature, and there wasn’t a perfume-scented ribbon out of place. Daisy had gained polish and I was dazzled.”
“What man wouldn’t have been?” Eleanor sighed, envious of the woman’s place in his heart.
“I begged her to sit for me and I fell in love with her all over again. I imbued her with all the qualitie
s I’d credited her with over the years. I thought she was natural, not shameless. I thought she was innocent and spoiled, not conniving and greedy. I thought I’d found my muse and my future wife. But when I announced as much, she laughed in my face. I was a diversion, a rather wicked diversion, but she had no intentions of shackling herself to a starving artist without the benefit of fortune or family. She’d found a rich patron and was already enjoying his gifts and his bed. She was going to inherit her aunt’s house and money and live the jolly carefree life of a courtesan. She said I was welcome to paint her or pleasure her as I saw fit, but that was all she wanted of me.”
“Oh my!” Eleanor’s fingers covered her lips. “How could she?”
“I threw her out half naked while she was cursing and spitting like a cat coming out of a rain barrel. I made a vow then and there about painting women. I didn’t ever want to look at something so false and give that lie to the world.” Josiah did his best to look at the portrait, but it was just a gray outline of a figure on a colorless wall. “Not that I proved to be any great moral example myself, but heartbreak does lead to some interesting choices. After gadding about London like a fool for several years, playing the rake to prove that she hadn’t hurt me, I left for India and was painting there and playing the fool when the rebellion simmered over and caught us all off guard.”
He waited while Eleanor silently looked at the painting, absorbing the story behind Daisy’s sultry looks. After all, here was exactly the sort of portrait she’d been expecting on that first day—
“Why keep her on your wall, then? Why force yourself to look at her every day?”
“It was supposed to be a bit of masculine bravado. I think I said something about wanting a reminder of the lesson so that I wouldn’t forget it. But I’ve kept it up for another reason entirely.”
“Is she—still in London? Do you see her sometimes?” Eleanor asked quietly.
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