A Thief in the Nude

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A Thief in the Nude Page 4

by Olivia Waite


  His hands unclenched at the sadness he heard in her voice. Gently he put his arms around her shoulders, waiting to see if she wanted to pull away. Instead she sighed and leaned into him, so he allowed himself to relax into the embrace and rest his cheek on the top of her head. “You don’t have to keep up,” he said. “Wherever this takes us, we go together.”

  They stayed that way, simply holding each other, while their breathing settled into a regular pattern and even their pulses kept matching time. It was the single most intimate moment John could remember having with another human being. He tried to imagine painting it, trying to fix on canvas the sense of warmth, of something newborn and fragile just coming into the world—but no palette, no subject seemed enough to contain it. For the first time his imagination failed him: all he could do was feel.

  Eventually, however, time intruded as a clock chimed the hour—one o’ clock. “It’s late,” he said.

  “I should be getting back,” Hecuba agreed at once. “Do you mind watching over Henry VIII a little longer? I shouldn’t risk it in the rain.”

  “Of course.” John hesitated. “Do you need me to arrange a way for you to get home?” he asked. “I could...”

  She waved away his concern. “It’s merely a few minutes’ walk, through the richest neighborhood in London. And I know the shadows—I can manage easily, even in this weather.”

  On how many nights had she stolen alone through the darkened city? A mixture of distress and admiration poured uneasily through him, the two emotions inseparable. John stood apart, considering this, and watched as she donned her now-dry clothing and became a thief once again. Standing there in those black trousers, as mischief lit her eyes...

  She caught him looking and quirked an eyebrow at him. “You aren’t seriously thinking of painting me dressed like this, are you?” she demanded.

  He blinked at being caught out, then grinned. “I’m thinking of doing many things to you dressed like that.”

  She blushed but couldn’t stop the corners of her lips from turning up. “Tomorrow night?”

  John would have agreed, but when he opened his mouth to do so it turned into a yawn. “Best make it two nights from now,” he said ruefully. “I can’t paint properly if I haven’t slept well.”

  She tilted her head in agreement. “Two nights,” she said, “for you to recover.” In the space of a heartbeat and with another sly smile, she was gone.

  John took the rolled-up portrait upstairs with him, thinking that Henry VIII himself had not been nearly as dangerous as Hecuba Jones.

  Chapter 4

  Two nights later, Hecuba crept through the study window again.

  The weather was dry, thankfully, but nevertheless Mr. Rushmore offered her a glass of whisky. “My brother’s asleep, but we’ll still have to be careful.” When she nodded, he held out his hand.

  She took it and hoped hers wasn’t trembling too noticeably.

  Their glasses caught what little light there was as he led her down the hallway. A very subtly masked door led to a narrow stairway—a servant’s stair, obviously. Rushmore moved with a silence that surprised Hecuba, until she looked down and saw he was in his stocking feet.

  She smothered a laugh as they ascended the stairs.

  The north attic was three stories up: a cool, high-ceilinged space that overlooked the street on one side and on the other the small garden behind the house. Mr. Rushmore began lighting candles and placing them at strategic points around an open space at one end of the attic.

  The sharp scent of turpentine laced the air.

  She hadn’t realized before that a scent could wrap itself so fully around her memory. Years fell away and she was five years old again in a scratchy brocade dress, or demolishing brightly colored stones in a mortar and pestle the day before her tenth birthday—or the summer she’d turned thirteen and her mother had set her to preparing new canvases while a fading Cynthia Jones put the final touches on her last landscape.

  Hecuba swallowed the old grief and looked around, reorienting herself as the light increased. This was not the neat, ordered studio her mother had filled with light and laughter. There was an obsessive, distracted air about the space. Presumably there was furniture in here somewhere, but it lay beneath a sea of paper, paints, gessoed canvases and a tidal froth of pale studies and sketches. Hecuba lifted one loose sheet from a nearby stack and saw a figure captured in hasty charcoal lines, viewed from behind in the process of pulling off a billowy shirt. There was a subtle feminine curve to the hips and in the line of the small of the back, which was the sketch’s focal point. That blank space was traced by a spine outlined in a single charcoal stroke, whose boldness and beauty took her breath away. The image was furtive and erotic, unabashedly voyeuristic.

  She narrowed her eyes at Mr. Rushmore. “From the other night?” she asked.

  He grinned and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, an old one much muddied by gray and brown smudges—pencil and charcoal and chalk. “I’ve been like a man possessed,” he said, “sketching at all hours, going through reams of paper, always sending out for more supplies. I spent hours this afternoon grinding powders and mixing hues.” Candlelight gleamed on his dark hair and the planes of his cheek as he picked up a canvas with a prepared background and placed it on an easel. He gestured to a screen in the attic’s far corner. “There’s a selection of costumes and draperies and other props behind there. Choose whichever you like.”

  Hecuba set her whisky to one side and went to investigate.

  A riot of color and texture greeted her—most of them false velvets and paste jewels and theater castoffs. But there were masquerade costumes as well and things that were old enough and fine enough that she could identify them as family artifacts. Hecuba trailed her hand over one deep black velvet gown, but hesitated to try on something that had clearly come down through the distinguished Rushmore lineage. What would the ghost of his noble ancestress think to find her sumptuous silks and velvets put to such a use?

  Instead she chose an amber gown in an ancient style. Her clothing fell silently to the floor and she was glad not to have to navigate the confinement of stays. Even without them it took her a few awkward moments to pull the garment over her head, and she felt a few locks of hair pull away from the knot at the back of her neck. The dress was slightly too large, so she found a long rope with flaking gilt paint and wrapped it around her waist.

  She allowed herself a few deep breaths to try to calm her nerves. It was no use telling herself there was no reason to be nervous, that she’d sat for portraits before. This was different—she felt exposed and raw, as though by letting this man paint her image she was handing over some vital part of herself.

  If that was the case, it would be necessary to make certain she gained something from him in return.

  She flexed her fingers, took another breath and stepped out into the light.

  Mr. Rushmore looked up with a smile on his lips—but almost at once the smile vanished, replaced by a look of such intensity that Hecuba almost retreated back behind the safety of the screen. But he didn’t speak, merely stared. Eventually she frowned at him, grabbed the glass of whisky and downed it all in one long gulp.

  “Wait,” he said, a single syllable humming with urgency. He dragged a chair and small table to the edge of the pool of candlelight, right on the boundary between brightness and shadow. Hecuba sat in the chair as indicated and Mr. Rushmore placed his own glass in front of her. The liquid glowed in the light that spilled over Hecuba’s shoulder.

  She went still when she felt his hands on her hair.

  His fingers were easy and gentle, loosening the knot at her neck and pulling out a few strands to match those she’d dislodged when putting on the gown. Each light touch was a separate star in the darkness, but she simply tightened her hands on the tumbler instead of reaching for him.

  He moved back behind his easel and looked at her, considering. Hecuba knew she was slouching slightly and partly shadowed and that her hair
must look positively wild. She sent Mr. Rushmore her most dignified glare.

  At once, he grinned. “Circe,” he said and his hands reached for a brush.

  Circe—the ancient sorceress famous for turning men into pigs. A woman who knew the secret road to the underworld and whose singing ensnared the unwary. Yes, that was much better than a nymph or maiden whose only distinction was beauty and whose only role was to be some god’s hapless victim. Circe had victims of her own. The thought made Hecuba smile.

  The painter’s brush paused at the end of a stroke, the artist’s eyes narrowing, alight. “Oh, yes—that’s...” He trailed off and began to work more feverishly still.

  For hours Mr. Rushmore painted, glancing between his model and the canvas while his right arm rose and fell in a broken rhythm. Hecuba tried not to fidget, though nothing in the world made her want to move like being required to keep still.

  At least her thoughts could move freely. She watched Mr. Rushmore and allowed herself to imagine what she would do to each individual part of him as soon as the work was finished. She would taste the corner of his mouth and the spot on his lip he bit when he was thinking particularly hard. She would smooth the furrows in his brow then trace her fingers over the yellow smudge on his temple, where he’d absently rubbed a paint-stained hand. She wanted to put her mouth right on his collarbone, which the open neck of his shirt left bare. Then she would pull his hands to her breasts and make him touch her the way he had the other night.

  And this time she wouldn’t stop.

  By the time Mr. Rushmore stepped away from the painting, Hecuba no longer knew whether the stiffness in her limbs and the ache in her joints were from holding still or holding back. She rolled her shoulders as Mr. Rushmore set paints and brushes aside. “It’s done,” he said. “Or as nearly done as it can be tonight. I’ll add the finishing details once this layer has dried.” There was a note of sudden shyness to his voice when he asked, “Would you like to see it?”

  “Very much.” Hecuba rose and walked around the easel, taking the whisky with her. She handed the glass to Mr. Rushmore and he must have taken it—but by then Hecuba had stopped paying attention to anything other than the painting.

  She was hunched—and wild, as she’d feared. She was also twined in shadow, limned in light, a hybrid thing of darkness and flame. The whisky had become a brazen goblet, shining in her hands like a miniature sun. She recognized the glare on her face, directed across the room at a bronze mirror—and in that mirror was her face again, smiling in a way that allured nearly as much as it threatened, gazing not at Circe-Hecuba but at Hecuba herself.

  It was an old painter’s trick, she knew, to put in a reflection that looked back at the viewer. But it made her shiver nonetheless. She leaned in and looked more closely at the brushwork. The layers of paint in the light areas had the effortless precision of long practice, but the brushwork in the shadows...

  Hecuba sucked in a breath. All the dark areas of the canvas were populated. A curve here outlined a hunched shoulder, a series of short lines became a reaching, desperate hand. Ghostly limbs and hints of bodies lurked everywhere, visible only in the way certain lines of paint dashed across the canvas. From far away the shadow figures would be unnoticeable—from nearby, they were perfectly eerie. “How on earth did you think to paint the darkness like that?” she breathed.

  Rushmore made a strangled sound of surprise when he noticed. “I didn’t think,” he replied, leaning closer to the canvas. “That was just the way the brush wanted to move.”

  Hecuba looked at him as he stared in astonishment at his own painting, as if it were someone else’s hands that had brought color and line into vivid life with talent and skill. “I suspect you may be a genius, Mr. Rushmore.”

  He shrugged, his eyes still on her likeness. “I just wish I’d found a brighter gold to work with.”

  “That’s easy enough,” Hecuba said, pointing to one particular orange hue. “If you add more ammonia to your Naples yellow, it will temper the hue of the finished paint.”

  He stared at her in silence.

  She lifted her chin, girding herself to be challenged. “I used to help my mother to mix her pigments.”

  His mouth lifted in a delighted smile. “Even Hecuba green?”

  She shook her head. “The color is poisonous and the recipe complex—she never let me near it.” Her fingers plucked absently at the rough rope of her belt.

  “A pity,” he replied. “That was a secret that the world will regret losing.”

  Hecuba considered telling him that it might not have been lost, not quite, but thought better of it. Three days ago this man had blackmailed her into a waltz and a nighttime rendezvous. They might have achieved a measure of trust since then, but three days was a very short time. There was no need to give away all her secrets just yet.

  Especially since the connection she felt to Mr. Rushmore could easily be chalked up to pure, unadulterated lust. Even now candlelight gleamed on his dark hair and slid beguilingly over his skin. She wanted to put her hands everywhere the light touched— then to send her fingers slipping into the shadowed places on him as well. She distrusted this impulse for its power as much as for its impropriety.

  He turned and caught her gaze, a half smile hovering on his lips. Suddenly Hecuba knew, with a profound and unsettling certainty, that this man could change her life in ways she couldn’t possibly foretell. The course she’d laid out for her own future would be altered and she would careen down another, wilder path. Although for a moment this revelation froze the blood in her veins and the breath in her lungs, in the next instant she rose onto the tips of her toes and kissed him, winding her hands around his neck for balance and trusting that she’d find her feet again when she needed to.

  Hecuba Jones had never run away from a challenge. And predictability was much too highly esteemed.

  He tasted dark, notes of whisky and smoke and the bitter tang of paint. For a heartbeat he remained stiff with surprise—then his arms curved around her, one hand resting on the small of her back and the other tangling in the hair at the back of her neck while he returned her kiss.

  It was all the encouragement she needed. Her heels hit the floor as she loosened her arms from his neck and began to pull his shirt from the waistband of his trousers.

  He laughed in shock, but his hands went around hers and stilled them. “What on earth are you doing, Miss Jones?”

  “Disrobing you,” she said. “Ask me what I plan to do after that.”

  He groaned, a sound as resonant with need as Hecuba could have hoped. But he still kept her hands pinioned. “I’m not convinced you have thought this through.”

  “Because I am a virgin I do not know my own mind? Or rather: my own body?” Hecuba scoffed and gave up trying to pull at his shirt. Instead she leaned closer and pressed their joined hands flush against that part of her that ached and throbbed at the juncture of her thighs. “I assure you, Mr. Rushmore, I know precisely how and where I need you.”

  “Oh God.” He tipped his head back, eyes screwed shut. Hecuba brushed her lips over his collarbone and felt him gasp beneath her mouth. Then, lightly and deliberately, she flicked her tongue out against his skin.

  Mr. Rushmore shook. His hands tightened almost painfully around her wrists. “Wait,” he said, a choked sound.

  Hecuba lifted her head. She’d asked him to wait two nights earlier and he had. So Hecuba took a deep breath and stepped back, though she kept hold of his hands. His fingers relaxed their grip, allowing her to twine her fingers more closely with his.

  At length, his eyes opened and his gaze met hers. “It’s not about you,” he said. “It’s myself I don’t trust.” He looked away then back while his fingers tightened and released. Hecuba wasn’t entirely sure he knew he was doing it. “It’s all too much,” he blurted out. “The painting, your innocence, your desire, mine...I can’t keep it all sorted out in my own mind and I despise myself for the inconsistency.” He blew out a long breath. “I
’ve always been able to keep control before, in love affairs. But you...this...it’s totally different. I’m worried I’ll go too fast or too slow. How can I tell how to proceed when I can barely tell which way is up?”

  He was trembling slightly as he spoke. Hecuba wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned in to him. He relaxed slightly as she began to speak. “When I was younger,” she said, “I took lessons in the mornings with my cousins and their governess. Reading, mathematics—that sort of thing. The afternoons were for learning deportment and dancing and other such skills, but my parents were too poor and too low in society to care much about making me an accomplished young lady. Once lessons were over, I trailed my father around the house as he taught me how to walk silently, how to pick locks, how to dress to stand out or blend in with the background. Or else I ran wild in the village with the tradesmen’s children.” She let her polished tones slide back into the flat country accent of her youth as she went on. “There’s not a lot of mystery left between men and women when your best friends are the daughters of a barmaid and the village tailor. We guessed most of it fairly early on. We learned the rest as we grew older.”

  Hecuba pulled back and saw that Mr. Rushmore was looking at her with astonishment but none of the censure she’d feared to see. She put on her gentry voice again, a habit which had become easier and easier over the years. Sometimes she wondered whether she even had what could be considered a natural way of speaking or whether it had all become masks she could put on and take off at will. “The world has a great many rules for those of us who live in it. We learn not to expect the same kind of behavior from a dairymaid as we would from a duchess.”

  “You’d be surprised,” he murmured with a ghost of his former humor.

  Hecuba sent him a quelling glance. “I had to learn several different sets of rules growing up, which makes it easier for me to adapt when the world shifts and old habits no longer apply. You had no such advantage. Right now you are troubled because all your rules for how to deal with me have been overturned. I am either too virginal or not virginal enough. You said it yourself—you want either to idolize me or to seduce me. You’re failing to do either.”

 

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