Her mother would most definitely notice if she’d gone missing. Her mother saw her now, blew her a subtle little kiss, and tipped her head in a signal with a smile that at first confused Genevieve. And then, oh God, she realized the Sussex Waltz was beginning which reminded her that . . .
She turned.
The other man she’d been unable to refuse earlier was standing before her.
He stretched out a hand.
She could not for the life of her understand what the Duke of Falconbridge wanted from her. She ascribed his presence and his attention to the week’s general theme, which was “torture.” He’d perhaps come to Sussex to shop for a wife, since he’d recently shed himself of the candidate he’d selected.
It wouldn’t be her.
Regardless of how determined he might be. And the man personified determination. Regardless of the glimmer of temptation she’d felt to . . . well, allow herself to be charmed. To surrender to the sheer force of him. The notion that she’d ever thought she could entirely ignore someone of his reputation on her walk today she ascribed to naïveté and heartbreak. He’d skillfully found her unprotected flank again and again.
He’d even made her smile when she’d thought to never do it again.
And yet she recalled his eyes when she’d said the name “Abigail.” She’d panicked; she’d played her trump. And she’d hurt him.
This was the impression that lingered.
It was as though everything else he’d said and done up until then had been steps in a dance, and he’d only dropped his mask when she tripped him.
So he was a clever man, a watchful man, a powerful man, but a man with unexpectedly human vulnerabilities. She wasn’t certain she cared. She still didn’t think he was a nice man.
She took his hand. She was immediately overwhelmingly conscious of its size; it enveloped hers with almost absurd masculine strength.
And they glided in to join the dancers.
She’d been right. She could stare his third shirt button in the eye, and likely they looked almost comical swirling together about the ballroom.
But he was brisk and graceful. Something of his strength communicated to her, and for a moment she felt as though she were sailing.
And, since the theme of the week was torture, he was intent on conversation.
“May I ask a question, Miss Eversea?”
“I can hardly prevent you.”
She’d been trying to daunt him. The contrary man’s eyes lit with humor instead. What color are they? she wondered idly. His eyes? She didn’t care. They were dark.
“Well, let’s see. . . . One of your brothers escaped the gallows . . .”
“He was innocent,” she said shortly. “And that’s a statement, not a question.”
“Patience. And your sister is engaged in the pursuit of worthy causes . . .”
“We’ve established that, yes. I await the question . . .”
“Have patience. And another of your brothers is a war hero, having been desperately wounded in battle . . .”
“ ‘Hero’ is among the vast number of things we enjoy calling my brother Chase, yes. You are reciting to me things I know.”
“Patience. I wonder, does it play havoc on your nerves, being part of such a, shall we say, eventful family?”
You play havoc with my nerves.
It was an odd question. She doubted it was an innocent one. “I love my family. All families are eventful.”
He cocked an illustratively disbelieving brow.
He was right, of course. Few families were as eventful as the Everseas.
He regarded her thoughtfully for half a bar of music. One, two, three. . . . One, two, three . . .
“Well, I’ve given it some thought, Miss Eversea, and I’ve decided you haven’t at all answered my question. And since I managed to at last produce a question, perhaps you would agree it is only fair to produce an answer for me.”
She almost laughed. Her equilibrium was thrown. And for a merciful instant she forgot about the anvil on her chest.
“I think I prefer to speak to your third button after all.”
“My third button is not at home to unannounced guests,” he said sternly.
She did laugh then, delighted.
And he smiled down at her, and what she saw were excellent teeth and faint lines: at the corners of his eyes, one faint one bisecting his forehead, a cleanly drawn jaw. His nose was straight. His shirt was stunningly white. Everything about him was elegant and emphatically drawn.
His strength was such that she felt for a moment buoyed, relieved of the burden of staying upright under her own power. He was not one of those broad sturdy men that populated the Sussex countryside; he was quicksilver and sinewy.
And out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Harry’s head turn her way, a familiar flash of gold. She craned her head sharply, briefly, the way someone might if they thought they’d stumbled across a guinea. But the ballroom was crowded and she didn’t see him after all, and deflated, enervated, she returned her attention to the duke.
“I imagine paintings are very restful after the, shall we say, vigor and unpredictability surrounding anyone named Eversea. Paintings stay the same day after day, don’t they?”
It sounded like an innocent question. Genevieve was immediately wary. She suspected everything this man said and did was fueled by strategy.
“But one can notice and feel new things about the same painting, depending upon how you feel on a certain day.”
They swept in a turn and suddenly Genevieve’s feet struck earth again with a thud and she panicked. The ballroom had once been Genevieve’s favorite room in the house, with its glowing amber floor and that row of gaudy chandeliers on high and when it was empty it echoed with the promise of music and gaiety. But now it was the place where she could not see Harry or Millicent. Torment came at her in a fresh wave. Was he even now on bended knee behind that unconscionably bushy fern in the far corner? Had he herded her out to the back garden—where it was in fact far too cold to issue a proposal, in her opinion, but there were stars out and—
Oh, dear Heaven above thank God there he was. Dancing with Millicent. Were they yet engaged?
“Can you really see different things in a painting from day to day?” This seemed to genuinely interest the duke. She wasn’t certain which part of it fascinated him most, the fact that a painting could change or that she thought it could.
“Well, it isn’t like a crystal ball. Whereby you see shifting images and the like. But haven’t you ever looked at a painting for a length of time, or on more than one occasion, and experienced it differently each time?”
Where to begin explaining art to someone who seemed to know nothing about it? Now, if she were dancing with Harry . . .
“Of course. As a young man touring the Continent, I once looked at length at a painting called Venus and Mars by an Italian painter called Veronese. Do you know it? Venus is nude as the day she was born, and Mars is entirely clothed and down on his knees in front of her, and it looks as though Mars is about to give her a pleasuring. And there are cherubs hanging about. I looked at it for quite some time.”
A . . . pleasuring. God above.
He had her attention now.
She was speechless.
Everything was astonishing about what he’d just said. She stared up at him, her mind exploding with vivid images, her cheeks going increasingly hotter. She knew the painting. She knew precisely where Mars was kneeling in front of Venus.
The duke had said it purposely.
Suddenly she was acutely aware of her five senses, as though they were blinking on, one by one, like fireflies in the dark. Most particularly vivid was touch. She was potently aware of his hands: the one resting with firm assurance against her waist, warm there now through the fine silk of her gown, the other enfolding hers. She was acutely aware of his size, and everything that was masculine to her feminine.
Goodness. He could certainly look at her for a
long time without blinking.
“Do you . . . know of a painter called Boticelli?” She sounded tentative.
“I do, in fact. But vaguely.”
“I think he isn’t rated highly enough. I enjoy his grace of line, the light infusing his subjects.”
Moncrieffe knew a subtle thrill. He’d thrown out a temptation, a subtle invitation. She’d recognized it and taken it up. “And I have seen his Venus and Mars,” he added. “Ironically, in it Venus is entirely clothed and Mars, the poor bastard, is sprawled looking as though she’s just had her way with him and he’s spent.”
Somehow they’d drawn closer, closer, and he said this nearer to her ear than any man ought to be during a waltz.
“It’s allegory.” She murmured it, unconvincingly, in his ear.
“Is it,” he murmured back. As though he didn’t believe her. As though he was inviting her to consider that it was, in fact, a representation of what had just happened between Venus and Mars, of what could happen between any man and woman, between the two of them.
She’d gone quiet. What was she thinking? Had her own boldness, or his, overwhelmed her?
“I’ve an acquaintance by the name of Wyndham who paints. His paintings leave you in no question of what they’re intended to represent. No viewers mistake them for anything other than what they are or read additional meanings into them.”
Wyndham painted all the most lascivious paintings for The Velvet Glove, the bordello favored by any man who preferred his whores pretty. Everyone depicted in his paintings was naked, or mostly naked, and having a marvelous time.
“Did you make the acquaintance of this Mr. Wyndham in the process of pursuing your interest in . . . ‘horses’?”
Well.
He was instantly riveted. His eyes focused intently, speculatively on her, and she looked back bravely enough, her eyes both glinting, and tentative and uncertain. It was clear to him that she was new to this sort of flirtation; she feinted and then fell back, as though with his questions he’d revealed a new path her nature was drawn to but hesitant to follow.
He smiled slowly. “I might have done.”
She wasn’t a coquette. But he would wager his life that what he’d sensed earlier in her was true: she kept her passions leashed, for reasons of her own.
Everything leashed could be unleashed. He would find a way.
She did battle with another of those wicked, delighted smiles; he saw it tugging at the corners of her mouth. He found himself waiting breathlessly for it to have its way with her; he wanted to see her smile beneath the chandelier light; he wanted to see her aglow again.
She did smile.
And when she did, he became all at once aware of small things, separate, all at once, the way a rising sun lights on objects one by one, illuminating them. The feel of her hand in his, how small, how fragile; her narrow waist supple beneath his hand and the frail layer of fabric between his hand and her skin; the light glinting from the jewel resting against her pale bosom, the scent of her, floral and womanly, a certain tightening in his gut. He lacked the precise vocabulary to describe what he felt. It was unexpected and he nearly stumbled; it was like inadvertently staring at his fingers during a pianoforte piece and losing his place.
He could truthfully say he’d lost his breath for a moment. He doubted she’d noticed.
He found it again in time to speak. “Do your feelings about paintings—and other things—change so very often then, Miss Eversea?”
“Some of my feelings about things never change. Including paintings.”
It was a cryptic statement nevertheless meant to cover a multitude of things: how she felt about her family, about Harry, about the duke and whatever his motive might be for courting her, if that’s what he was so determinedly doing.
“There are things the artist intends, and things the viewer sees, and what the viewer sees isn’t always what the artist intends. Isn’t always apparent upon first viewing. I suppose that was my original point,” she added.
“Isn’t it the same with people?” the duke asked.
Genevieve looked up warily. Was he actually implying she possessed hidden depths? Because of course she did, but it wasn’t as though anyone else seemed to think so. Was he perhaps thinking of his erstwhile fiancée? She wondered why the engagement had ended, and if it had indeed been as mutual and friendly as gossip would have it.
She sincerely doubted it.
“I suppose it is,” she decided to say carefully.
“But paintings are a good deal safer than people, aren’t they, Miss Eversea?”
Safe. It was another word she found unflattering and yet strangely appealing. She had a terrible suspicion this was leading to another assessment of her character she wouldn’t appreciate. She might be called “sensible” and “serene” and “mature” again and if he uttered those words she’d be unable to bear it. She would scream until the chandeliers shook.
“Some paintings are considered heretical,” she said irritably.
“Ah, but that isn’t the fault of the painting. It’s the prejudice of the viewer. For instance, isn’t the fault of your dress that when you turn it looks like a pond rippling beneath a full moon at midnight. Or that you resemble a naiad rising from the depths in it. It is the opinion of this particular viewer.”
Her head went back in shock.
And instead of casting her eyes down bashfully again, or fluttering her lashes in coy confusion or responding with a mumbled thank-you . . . she locked her eyes with his.
Her eyes were so soft. Like the hearts of pansies. But they were also surprisingly intensely searching, and he thought he could feel them probing his soul. Sorting through impressions.
Hot color swept her cheekbones as she absorbed the impact of this observation. She was attempting to decode it.
So she wasn’t immune to the compliment. She simply didn’t trust it.
In truth, he hadn’t fully expected to say it himself. Where on earth had it come from? This was what unnerved him.
And to think he’d once thought her face ordinary.
How could anyone think this was a quiet girl? Her stillness and calm were deceptive. She disturbed him the way the approach of a distant storm did; she enervated him. She felt like . . . portent. He wondered if she contained her passions because she instinctively knew they’d too rapidly run away from her if unleashed.
He sensed seducing her would neither be as impossible nor as tedious as he’d originally feared. And if he kept her off balance just often enough the event might happen sooner rather than later.
She finally ducked her head. She was frowning just a little, troubled.
“Do you see what you expect to see, Miss Eversea?” he said softly.
“Lines,” she murmured.
“Lines?”
“I saw lines. The faint ones in your forehead. And the ones at the corners of your eyes. Perhaps from frowning overmuch?”
She suggested this gently, as though he ought to give up the habit of glowering.
Why the . . . . little . . . devil.
He was perversely, wildly entertained.
“Are you insulting my appearance, Miss Eversea?” In all of his born days no woman had tried as hard not only to resist him but to actively drive him away.
“I didn’t say they were unappealing. They add interest to your face. From an artist’s perspective, anyhow,” she added hurriedly, lest he mistake it for a compliment.
He’d been inwardly admiring her eyes and she’d been counting the lines ’round his as though they were the rings in the oak in Ashdown Forest and would reveal his true age to her.
Which was nearly, but not quite, twice hers.
Then again, she’d just shot another miserable, yearning glance toward Osborne, who hadn’t yet any lines to speak of in his face. He probably scarcely even taxed the edge of his shaving razor with whiskers yet.
“So if they’re not unappealing, perhaps they’re appealing,” he pressed, with mordant hum
or.
“Perhaps from an artist’s perspective,” she clarified firmly, and a little desperately. “They’re not unappealing.”
“And from a woman’s perspective?”
“I suppose it would depend upon the woman.”
He admired the dodging so thoroughly he laughed. Was she counting his gray hairs as well? There were only a few. Dashing, he’d been assured. His mirror assured him of the same thing. He still had nearly all of his hair. Most of it was black.
“I believe women generally find other aspects of my character more diverting, as the lines have not yet been mentioned to me in casual conversation. It must take the eye of an artist to notice them. And point them out. Your attention to detail is astonishing.”
He’d deftly complimented her into a corner yet again and she knew it.
He felt her ribs move in a sigh beneath his waltzing hand. He did smile.
She could try to discourage him. But he was luring her, a bit at a time, closer and closer to him. She was reluctantly intrigued and drawn to him and confused by why she was.
It’s because I’m a grown man, Miss Eversea. Not a boy.
He felt her draw in a quick, sharp breath; her rib cage moved beneath his hand. Her mouth went tight and white at the corners of her mouth, as though she was suppressing some pain.
She glanced across the room. That handsome Lady Millicent Blenkenship was dancing with Lord Harry Osborne. They were nearly the same height, and swept in circles in pleasing unison, two bright golden heads.
He decided to test a theory.
“As I said earlier today, though it’s unfortunate I’ve parted ways with Lady Abigail, I do hope to experience the same happiness in marriage your brother Colin knows.”
“Please.”
The pain in the word shocked him.
“Please,” she repeated more reasonably and carefully, as though she were correcting herself on the pronunciation of the word. “I shouldn’t like to discuss matrimony.”
Even her distress was dignified and contained. But it was real. Two hot spots of color sat high on her cheeks. He sensed that for her this amounted to an outburst. She was suffering greatly.
What could it be? Why?
What I Did For a Duke Page 9