A Counterfeit Heart

by K. C. Bateman

  It was all right for Raven. He had a wife to assuage his lust whenever he felt like it. The fact that the wife in question was his own little sister, Heloise, was not something he ever wanted to contemplate in great detail. Some things were better left unimagined.

  Raven rose and straightened his jacket, apparently satisfied with his meddling. “I take it we’re still on for our usual training session?”

  Richard bared his teeth in a feral smile. Maybe beating the stuffing out of Raven would take the edge off his current state of seething lust.

  “Absolutely. I’ll see you there.”

  Chapter 26

  Sabine jumped when the hidden door to her room opened and Hampden strolled in, as if he had every right to visit her chambers uninvited. She dropped the book she was reading and yanked the edges of her heavy velvet dressing gown together.

  “Do you mind?” she snapped.

  He grinned. “Not in the slightest.”

  His gaze traveled over her unbound hair, which she’d left loose, and her skin, which was undoubtedly still an unbecoming pink from the bath.

  Sabine glanced pointedly at the clock. It was relatively early by ton standards, only ten o’clock. She hadn’t expected him back before midnight. He couldn’t have spent much time with his mistress.

  He prowled closer and her heart contracted. He smelled of a subtle mix of cologne and brandy—with no overlaying hint of any feminine perfume. Sabine frowned. Maybe he preferred his women unperfumed?

  His dark coat created a stark contrast to his white shirt, the dramatic effect like a canvas by Caravaggio. She belatedly noticed that he was holding a wooden box, about the same size as a writing slope. He offered it forward.

  “I brought you a present.”

  “Your own attempt at bribery?”

  He shot her a chiding look. “Stop being so cynical. It’s a ‘thank you’ for your work with Skelton. A reward for a job well done. Accept it with grace, without questioning.”

  It was a handsome new box of artist’s materials. The mahogany case had inset brass corners and the paper label inside the lid read T Reeves & Sons, 150 Cheapside. It contained a series of watercolor pigment squares and indented ceramic trays. The drawer below held numerous tubes of oil paints.

  Sabine bit her lip. “Thank you.”

  Was he trying to buy her cooperation? This was far more personal than cold, hard cash. Was it a tentative peace offering? A gesture of friendship?

  Unwilling to look at him, she inspected the thin sticks of red, white, and black chalk for sketching and highlighting. There were pencils, brushes, little screw-top bottles of linseed oil and turpentine. It was perfect. Exactly what she would have chosen for herself. And far more expensive than she could ever have afforded.

  “I was assured by the shopkeeper that it contains everything a serious artist might require,” he ventured.

  Sabine blinked. The idea that he’d chosen it himself, instead of simply sending a servant to purchase it, made her even more uneasy.

  “Do you really use all those colors?” he asked.

  Sabine nodded, inexplicably unsettled. “You’d be amazed at the number you need to recreate human skin. Not merely pink and white, but also ochre, vermilion, umber.”

  She glanced up. He was watching her finger slide over the paints.

  “Umber comes from the Latin word umbra, meaning ‘shadow’ or ‘shade.’ ” She trailed her finger slowly along the line, allowing it to dip into the little grooves between the blocks. She imagined she was trailing it over his skin, over the ridges of his chest, his stomach. “Dragon’s blood. Vermilion.” The names rolled off her tongue, seductive in their very exoticness. She moistened her lips. “Alizarin crimson.” The color of fresh-spilled blood.

  Was that really her voice? That breathy, sultry whisper? She suddenly felt as if she were reciting an incantation, summoning some fearsome alchemy that could bind him to her with nothing but words. “Venetian red.” The color of love.

  Sabine lifted her hand and broke the impromptu spell.

  Hampden cleared his throat and blinked as if coming out of a trance. “You like it, then.”

  She smiled. “I love it. Thank you.”

  “So. Will you draw me?”

  She glanced up in surprise. There was something intensely personal about a portrait. Looking at someone with such close scrutiny forged a link between artist and sitter that was not easily broken.

  He saw her hesitation and a twinkle entered his eye. “I’ll pay you.”

  Curse him. He dangled the hint of money in front of her like a carrot in front of a donkey. Sabine gave an inward sigh. She couldn’t turn down the offer of more cash. “I’m very expensive.”

  His mouth quirked. “I know. Pricier than a roomful of whores at the Palais Royale,” he said sardonically. “I can afford it.”

  Of course he could afford it, Sabine thought waspishly. He could furnish every tart in London with diamonds and silk underwear if he wanted to.

  He must have sensed her silent acceptance. “Where do you want me? On the bed? The chair? The floor?” His eyes gleamed with teasing merriment at his deliberate double entendres. “Feel free to arrange me however you like. I’m completely at your mercy. Any position you choose will be perfectly acceptable.”

  Sabine sent him a quelling look. “Not the bed.”

  The last thing she wanted was an image of Richard Hampden lounging like some well-fed lion on her pillows. Or the scent of him on her sheets to drive her to distraction. She already dreamed about him far too often.

  He shot her a knowing glance and she busied herself in finding a clean sheet of paper from the bureau. When she looked up, he’d already removed his jacket and was sliding his cravat from around his neck. The gesture made her pulse quicken.

  “I’ll keep the rest of my clothes on, shall I?” he teased.

  She shot him a glare. “Please do. I don’t do nudes.” She pointed to the wing armchair near the fire. “There will do fine.”

  He settled himself in it with a contented sigh.

  Sabine repositioned a lamp to give herself better light, selected a pencil, and began to draw, determined to ignore the cozy intimacy of the scene. She’d work fast. Get this over and done with as quickly as possible.

  For a while the only sound was the faint scratch of the charcoal over the paper. She made a few initial, sketchy outlines, light strokes to define his overall shape, the planes and intersections of his face.

  “You’re used to studying things with great precision,” he said quietly. “What do you see?”

  “I see an annoying, autocratic, overbearing—”

  “Never mind,” he chuckled. “Just draw.”

  It was strange to have the excuse to look at him full on, not sneaking sideways glances when she thought he wasn’t looking. Sabine studied him the same way she would have studied a drawing by Leonardo or Raphael. He had a face that would not have looked out of place on a Renaissance prince or an Italian mercenary: clever, shrewd, brilliant. Except the line of his nose was irritatingly perfect. A mercenary would have had it broken a time or two.

  She noted the texture of his jaw, the fine, clear grain of his skin. The gradation of highlights and shadow in his shirt, his hair. The tiny lines at the corners of his eyes, the bones in his wrist where he rested his hands lightly on the arm of the chair. Her pencil flowed over the paper.

  She could be an impartial, objective observer. Like a physician. Yes, he was a good-looking man. Obviously, if one were susceptible to broad shoulders and a narrow waist and big hands and generally splendid proportions—which, drat it all, she was—

  She bit her lip. No. She could remain perfectly composed. She’d drawn from life. Never a male nude, certainly, but her anatomical studies had given her a decent understanding of the way the muscles in the body worked. It was only lines and angles. Bone and sinew. Nothing to get all hot and bothered about.

  Except studying all those marble statues had furnished her wi
th a graphic idea of what those elegant breeches and that superfine shirt concealed. She’d glimpsed it under his wet shirt in the carriage—sleek muscular perfection.

  Her pencil faltered as she sketched in his collarbone—just a glimpse of the jut and hollow where it met at the base of his throat. If only he’d remove his shirt. She imagined him as a boxer, stripped to the waist, chest bare, fists bound by leather strips like some ancient gladiatorial combatant.

  Her throat went dry. She was far too aware of him lounging at ease, the even tenor of his breathing in the quiet room. He seemed to be stealing all the air. His jaw was slightly stubbled. What would it be like to touch it?

  She clutched the pencil tighter, a weapon against temptation. She was not Pygmalion, to fall in love with her own creation. She had more sense than that. But her pencil slowed as she sketched in the bow of his upper lip, the dip of his philtrum, the smooth line of his fuller lower lip. Her own lips tingled in response.

  She cleared her throat and gestured at the box of paints. “Most of those colors come from less than romantic sources, you know. Shellac, for instance,” she pointed to a little pot, “is a resin secreted from an insect.” The ground flakes were mixed with an alcohol and used as a varnish. “And this brown color comes from the ink of the cuttlefish, a relative of the octopus.”

  Hampden’s slow smile told her he knew just how much he affected her. And how much he enjoyed it.

  “You are a woman of surprising knowledge and talent.”

  Her hand trembled slightly as she shaded in his thick, diabolic eyebrows. She bit her lip. How best to draw his eyes? Pencil couldn’t hope to capture their color, that warm-honey, burnt-caramel brown.

  It bothered her more than it ought that she couldn’t define the exact color of them. They were changeable, dependent on his mood and the lighting and the color of his clothes. When she stared very closely she could see a wicked warmth: sherry, not quite golden brown, nor yet burnt orange.

  And really, what grown man should have a dimple? He didn’t even have one on each cheek, to balance out the austere perfection of his face, just the one, on the left-hand side. It should have been a disruption, but when he smiled that rare and sudden smile it was like the sun emerging from behind a cloud. It made those in the vicinity want to bask in its warm glow.

  Sabine closed her eyes and prayed for strength. She wasn’t allowed to bask. This man was her enemy. She couldn’t forget it.

  Chapter 27

  Having Sabine draw him was a ridiculously erotic experience.

  Richard fought the urge to fidget in his chair. He’d only suggested it on a devilish whim, a means of spending more time with her, of gaining her trust.

  He felt her scrutiny keenly, almost like a caress. She alternated her attention between his face and the paper, and every time her eyes fell on some part of him he became acutely aware of that particular area, as if she were actually touching him there.

  He, in his turn, took the opportunity to study her. The long, dark sweep of eyelashes that shadowed her eyes. The way she bit her lip in concentration made him squirm. Her hands were small, delicate yet strong, and he allowed himself the indulgence of sinful imagination. Those hands on him, those lips. What if he were nude? Would she be as detached and analytical then?

  She pushed back a wisp of hair with an impatient, absentminded swipe, leaving a smudge of chalk on her cheek. Richard imagined wiping it off. Then he imagined stripping her, covering her in the paints. Not the weak, insipid watercolors, but the slippery, color-intense oils. Perfect.

  In his mind he dipped his forefinger in the paint and smeared a semicircle of bright blue over the top swell of her breast. He dipped his thumb and used the pad to describe a sweep of yellow over her nipple. No. Mistake. If he did that he couldn’t put his tongue there. He erased the mental image and amended it to his satisfaction, leaving her nipple free for his mouth.

  He closed his eyes and allowed himself to sink into the fantasy. His hands would leave a trail of color wherever they went. He’d mark every inch of her skin. The jut of her collarbones, the ridges of her ribs, the curve of her waist, the smooth line of her belly, the inside of her thighs. He took a deep breath, lost in the erotic reverie. Hands sliding up, up—

  Sabine dropped her pencil.

  Richard opened his eyes and adjusted his pose while she retrieved it from the floor, relieving the aching evidence of his lurid fantasies. He transferred his hands to his lap and forced his mind into less dangerous territory.

  He cleared his throat, but his voice still came out lower than he’d have liked. “Don’t you think it’s ironic that it took a war to reveal the extent of your skills?” he managed.

  She tilted her head. “Sometimes I wonder who I might have been if circumstances hadn’t made me a criminal.” She gave a dainty shrug. “We’ll never know. I am what I am. A forger. A traitor. A thief.” She met his gaze, challenging him to dispute that, and the intensity of her navy eyes sent a jolt through him. “I’ve been Philippe Lacorte for so long, I’ve forgotten what Sabine de la Tour was like.” She returned her attention to the drawing.

  “Why did you come here?” he asked softly.

  She didn’t look at him. “I always wanted to see London. The land of my mother. I have a hankering to visit the opera.”

  “No. Not to London. Why did you come here, to me?”

  —

  Ah, what a question that was, Sabine thought ruefully. Perhaps she should tell him the truth: that she’d been frightened, and bored, and lonely. That she’d wanted to find others like her, who understood the dangerous game they played. Someone else who balanced on the sharp knife edge between what was strictly legal and what was morally right.

  When she didn’t answer, he filled in the silence.

  “I have a theory that all criminals secretly want to get caught.”

  She snorted. “That’s ridiculous! Of course they don’t. No one has a yearning for the gallows. Or the guillotine.”

  He raised an incredulous brow. “Really? You don’t want someone to recognize your talent? Isn’t that why you put your initials on the fake notes? So someone equally clever would notice and appreciate your skills?”

  It was unnerving, the way he seemed to read her mind. She managed a dismissive shrug. “Perhaps you’re right. Since public recognition is out of the question, a little private admiration from a peer who understands the complexity of what I do might be nice.”

  His expression was taunting. “Poor Sabine. All your successes are, by their very nature, unsung.”

  “It’s no different from being a spy,” she shot back. “Your victories are private too. You get the satisfaction of a job well done, but nobody knows your name.”

  He refused to let her look away. “Did you want me to catch you?” His voice was sinuous, an enchantment.

  Sabine sighed. Was she so vain? Maybe. She did want him to look at her with respect. And with a little bit of fear and awe, too. She wanted him to comprehend the brilliance of what she could do. She forced her hand to keep moving on the paper. “I’d have thought that at the very least you might appreciate the restraint I’ve used. It would have been so easy to spend the counterfeit fortune I made. I could have ruined your country.”

  The knowledge that she’d had such power made her head spin. The fact that she’d chosen the morally virtuous path made her proud. She still had some purity left in her soul after all. Of course, she should have known the one time she tried to do something honest it would all go horribly wrong. “No good deed goes unpunished,” they said. How true that was. Now here she was, entangled with this man like a fly in a spider’s web.

  His eyes bored into hers, and his voice was a smoky whisper. “You love it, don’t you? That tingle of triumph when you pass off a forgery. It’s like a drug, isn’t it, Sabine? You want more.”

  She shot him an angry glare. “Then we’re the same, are we not? Don’t you love the chance to test your skill against a worthy opponent?” She pointed h
er pencil at him for emphasis. “Don’t tell me the easy victories are the ones you remember fondly, because I won’t believe you. It’s the hard-won battles that give you the greatest amount of satisfaction.” She raised her brows, daring him to contradict her. When he did not, she let out a small huff. “Molière said it: ‘The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.’ ”

  She returned her pencil to the page and tilted her chin. “I will admit to a certain amount of pride in my work. Outwitting the so-called experts has been one of the few real pleasures in my life.”

  It was the delight she’d taken in it that worried her. It seemed to highlight a terrible contradiction in her personality. As much as she wanted to start doing the right thing, she really loved being a criminal.

  Her skills were what made her extraordinary, what set her apart. She didn’t want to be like all those other vapid girls of the ton, with no thought to anything other than fashion and beaux. What would she do all day if she gave up counterfeiting? She’d be bored within a week.

  But she was also tired of always looking over her shoulder, of expecting to be denounced, arrested, or even killed. Tired of sleeping with a pistol under her pillow.

  Sabine shook her head and smiled at her own indecisiveness. She didn’t know what she wanted. But one thing was certain: She couldn’t be both Philippe Lacorte and Sabine de la Tour. Philippe Lacorte was invaluable, whereas Sabine de la Tour was…what, exactly?

  “I can’t imagine what it would be like to be blind,” she mused. “I could live without smell, or hearing, or taste. But what if I could no longer see? What if I lost the use of my hands? To be unable to draw would be like death to me. Who would I be, if I didn’t have my skills?”

  She bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to reveal so much, but Richard Hampden had a way of looking at her that made her want to bare her soul. It was terrifying. She turned the portrait around for him to see, hastily trying to conceal her confusion. “There. I’ve finished.”