Her heart skipped. Dom had taken them from Burton, in order to give them back to her? Why? Surely he’d be happy to think she’d been punished by fate for the trouble she’d put him through, for a painting that should have been his masterpiece but that now could never be shown.
She certainly thought so.
“Burn them,” she answered quietly, gesturing at the stove.
He ignored her command and tossed them onto the chaise beside her. With that challenging gesture, he turned once more into the Dom she knew. The man who belonged right here.
“You should keep them.” His deep voice rumbled through the shadows. “One day you might want to be reminded.”
“Of Burton Williams?” she half squeaked, stupefied at the idea. Never. She never again wanted to think about how humiliated she’d been when everyone in the room was laughing at her. Only her mother’s death had caused her more pain.
“Of how lucky you were to escape him.”
Her breath strangled in her throat. He didn’t know about Scotland—couldn’t have known.
“I heard he courted you.”
So he didn’t know. A soft breath of relief escaped her. “How did you discover that?”
“The Earl of Spalding. He was at the ball and heard about what Williams had been doing upstairs.”
Fresh humiliation pulsed through her. Of course. But the earl was also a Carlisle, and now that the two families were joined, she doubted any Winslow secret was safe. Her shoulders sagged. “Burton did a lot more than court me.”
He stiffened, so tightly that she felt the tension, even from the other side of the studio. “What did he do?”
“Abandoned me along the road to Scotland,” she breathed, so softly that she wasn’t certain he’d heard.
But he had, and he slowly stood, his eyes never leaving her. “Tell me.”
She dropped her gaze to the hem of the satin robe as it lay across the tops of her bare feet. “Lord Spalding is correct.” She plucked at a loose thread in the hem, fixing her gaze there. She couldn’t bear to look at him, afraid of the expression she’d see on his face. God help her if Dom pitied her for being so foolish! “Burton courted me last winter, and I wrote those letters to him because I thought…”
Her voice trailed off. In the silence that followed, she heard the rustle of fabric as he removed his jacket and tossed it over the chair with his overcoat.
“You thought he cared about you,” he finished for her.
“No.” She looked up, her eyes blurring. The haunted expression he must have seen on her face stilled his hand as he reached to unbutton his waistcoat. “I thought he loved me.”
He held her gaze for a moment, until the embarrassment of how she’d behaved grew so great that she lowered her gaze again, back to the thread. She couldn’t blink fast enough to clear her vision of tears.
“He wanted to marry you.” His voice held an odd tone.
“Yes.”
“So he went to your father and asked his permission.”
“No.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw him pause midway through rolling up his shirt sleeves. “I don’t understand.” He finished the left sleeve and started on the right. “He’s a gentleman. It’s what we do when we find a woman we want to marry.”
“A gentleman by fortune of birth.” She was barely able to say that without an ironic laugh. “But no fortune of any other kind.”
“So that’s why he courted you.” Said so matter-of-factly that he didn’t have to add that most gentlemen were fortune hunters. Just like most young ladies. “But why didn’t he ask for your hand? You cared for him, obviously.”
She stilled with the thread twisted around her finger and glanced up at him. “You don’t know my father, do you?”
“Not very well.”
“Henry Winslow is a self-made man who believes other men should also work for their fortunes the way that he worked for his. He thinks that if a man wants to get his hands on Winslow Shipping and Trade, then he should come to work at the company and not receive it simply through marriage.” She repeated the words she’d heard Papa say countless times, “‘Oil and water, business and sons-in-law…the two do not mix.’”
An amused glint shined in his eyes at her impersonation of her father. “But if a man wants to marry you because he loves you?”
“‘Then my daughter should be prize enough.’”
“I’m beginning to like your father,” he murmured as he reached for a lantern. “And if a man wants both you and a position within the company?”
“‘Then he is a greedy bastard who deserves neither.’”
Dom laughed.
She irritably tossed away the thread with a peeved sniff. “You think it’s amusing that my father is so concerned with protecting his business that he nearly ruined his daughters’ chances at securing good marriages?”
“I think that your father is doing his best to help you.”
“By letting it be known that his sons-in-law will never be brought into the company and his daughters will never inherit? He was setting us up to be spinsters.”
“He was setting you up for a love match.”
Her chest tightened. She wanted to believe that, but look where it had gotten her. Into her fifth season without serious suitors. None would be forthcoming at all now that Burton had revealed her to be the worst kind of unmarried miss—a clingy, cloying one without fortune or position.
“You thought you had that with Williams, didn’t you?” He lit the lantern and hung it over a peg on the post nearest her. “What happened?”
Avoiding his gaze, she tightened the belt of the robe. “He wanted to marry me, but we didn’t want to wait for the weeks it would have taken to read the banns and negotiate the settlement. So we decided to elope.”
He was silent for a long moment, then said softly, “I see.”
Oh, but he didn’t. “Not because he loved me, I know now, but because he feared that Papa would refuse the marriage.” Humiliation heated her cheeks as she admitted, “Because Burton had no idea that there was no dowry or inheritance to be gained by marrying me.”
“You didn’t tell him?”
“I thought he already knew. When he did eventually find out, we were halfway to Scotland. He abandoned me at a posting inn along the Great North Road.” With no money, no one to help her, and no way to return to London. She’d never been more helpless or vulnerable in her life. “Thank God we didn’t have the money for ship passage and had to travel by mail coach, so that Mariah and Hugh Whitby were able to catch up with us and rescue me. And then Robert Carlisle arrived, chasing after them.”
“Carlisle chased after your sister?” Confusion thickened his voice. “But I’d heard that they eloped.”
A bleak smile pulled at her lips. “Which is what they want everyone to believe. That they had decided to elope to Scotland, with Hugh Whitby and I coming along to be witnesses.” A knot of emotion tightened in her belly. “But actually, they married over the anvil to save me, to hide my failed elopement behind their own successful one.”
He slowly approached her. “So that’s why Williams shared your letters at the party. He wanted revenge for your lack of a dowry.”
“The perfect revenge.” She shrugged a shoulder as nonchalantly as possible, despite the hollow ache in her chest where her heart used to be. “I can’t defend myself without revealing that our relationship was more than the failed courtship people think it was, and now he’s chased away any possible suitors.”
Not that she’d had any to begin with except for Burton. She was too adventurous, too bold, and far too outspoken to draw men’s proper attentions. She should have suspected the truth when Burton came calling. A viscount’s son would never have been interested in a troublesome miss like her simply for love.
“Not quite the perfect revenge,” Dom countered, stopping in front of her. When she tilted her head back to look up at him, he lowered himself onto the balls of his boots, bringing his fac
e nearly level with hers. “He’s embarrassed you with those letters, but he hasn’t ruined you by spreading rumors of the elopement.”
“Because he can’t.” She grimaced. “The Carlisles will toss him onto the first ship bound for the South Pacific if he does.”
“And they will, too. That’s one thing I’ve always admired about them.” He reached to tuck a stray curl behind her ear. “They fiercely protect the ones they love.”
She swallowed. Even now his casual touch fluttered butterflies in her belly. “You protected me, when you took those letters from Burton.”
“That wasn’t protection.”
But the gleam in his eyes told her otherwise. “Then what was it?”
“Preventing a murder. If he hadn’t handed them over, I would have pummeled him right there.” She sharply caught her breath, and he attempted to soften his words by teasing, “What a great shame it would have been to get bloodstains all over Lady Hawthorne’s fine Persian rug.”
Her mouth fell open. “You would never…He’s the son of a peer!”
“And I am a peer,” he reminded her, then smiled with chagrin that she’d momentarily forgotten. “That damned title had better be good for something besides ruining my career as an artist.”
Then he dropped his hand away. The brightness in his eyes faded as he pulled himself up to his full height.
She bit her bottom lip. “I’ve already lost friends over this.”
“Then they weren’t true friends. Your real friends will be back—if they ever leave you in the first place.”
She desperately wanted to believe that.
“A bunch of cruel people took the opportunity to laugh at you,” he explained as he retreated to his worktable. “At a woman who will never truly be one of them. You shine with more beauty and brilliance than they do, and your father possesses a larger fortune than all of them combined. Your very presence is an affront to them, so is your resilience, and it eats at them to see you live so successfully.” He reached for a jar of brushes. “So speaking as a peer of the realm who has to interact with these people on a daily basis”—he glanced at her over his shoulder—“please keep it up.”
Laughter spilled from her. Her hand darted to her mouth to stifle it, but she couldn’t help smiling at him through her fingers. Only Dom could make her feel better after everything that had happened this week.
When he turned back to fuss with his supplies, she snatched up the bundle of letters, then slipped them into the pocket of her robe.
She watched him in the flickering lamplight. So odd to see him dressed like this…all in white satin and kerseymere, with gold buttons shining on his waistcoat and black leather boots so highly polished that she could have used them for mirrors. She’d grown used to seeing him undressed in his rough, brown trousers, shirtsleeves, and stained workman’s shirt, the collar always open far enough to see the faint dusting of hair on his hard chest. His hair was constantly mussed from raking paint-stained fingers through his dark curls, and he seemed inexplicably to always have a three-day growth of beard darkening his face.
“You shouldn’t do that,” she called out. “You’ll get paint all over your fine clothes, and then how will you explain that to your valet?”
“Davies knows about my art. He’s one of the handful who do.” He sorted through a box of chalk, pausing to toss out the old, unwanted pieces. “My valet, my personal secretary, my butler—now you.” He frowned. “And Constance.”
The name sliced through her with a flash of jealousy she hadn’t expected, followed immediately by betrayal. “You told her?”
“I did not tell her.” He threw the chalk into the metal bucket he used as a trash bin, and it banged like pistol fire through the quiet studio. “She found out on her own.”
“From your reaction, I’m guessing she didn’t accidentally run into you at a society ball.”
A heartbeat’s pause, then he not-so-subtlety changed topics. “Is that why you’re in that robe?” He gestured at her with a piece of chalk. “Because you didn’t want to get paint on your dress?”
“Mariah caught me in the breeches and corset.” She grimaced. “I had to talk in double-time to explain why I was wearing them. If she happens to catch paint on my hem on the heels of Burton’s reading and your visit to the townhouse, she’ll most likely lock me in my room.”
“You crossed half of London by yourself in the dead of night to come here,” he muttered, his attention returning to the chalk. “I’d lock you away, too.”
“I wasn’t alone.”
He wheeled around in surprise.
“I paid our footman and his sister to escort me. They’re waiting with a hackney at the end of the alley to collect me when I’m ready to head home.” She waved her hand to indicate the neighborhood around the studio. “I’m adventurous, not foolhardy. Mary will vouch that I did nothing improper if anyone finds out, and Simon is a large man who knows how to use a knife and keep his silence.”
“Convenient,” he said in a sardonic drawl.
“I thought so. Besides,” she added somberly, her hand dropping to her lap, “tonight’s the last time I’ll ever come here.”
For a long moment, he stared at her, saying nothing. Her heart longed for him to reply. If only he would challenge her, deny it, and declare that he wanted her to return every day just as she’d done before—
Yet he said nothing. With every passing heartbeat, she grew more certain that he never would.
Instead, he asked, “Why did you come here tonight, Eve?”
Because here I feel protected, special...unafraid of the darkness. “Because I had to return your clothes.”
He slid his gaze sideways to the screen in the corner and to the breeches and stays flung over the top. His expression never changed as his eyes returned to her, but he knew she was lying. She could feel it in him, so well did she know him.
That was why he’d surprised her so much when she saw him arrive at the ball, looking so confident and powerful. A man born to society and completely in his element. She’d been staring at a stranger.
Now the man she recognized was standing in front of her again, and she simply didn’t know how to reconcile the two halves of him into a whole. Or what she meant to him. She’d once thought she knew, but now…
“And your companion at the ball?” She prayed that he couldn’t hear the jealousy in her voice. “Does she know that you’re Vincenzo?”
“No, although I doubt she would care.” Unconcerned for what it might do to his white trousers, he leaned back against the worktable and folded his arms over his chest. “Sabrina’s intentions are purely mercenary.”
“And your intentions for her?”
He didn’t answer, except for a rakish lift of his brow.
Her stomach plummeted. No wonder Dom didn’t want to caress her the way Eve had wanted him to. Why would he, when he had women like Sabrina and Constance gracing his bed? What was she in comparison? Nothing but an innocent miss who refused to remove her clothes, even when all he wanted to do with her was paint.
“So you’re Evelyn Winslow, daughter of the man who owns Winslow Shipping and Trade and sister-in-law to Lord Robert Carlisle,” he drawled, gazing boldly at her. As if meeting her for the first time. “The same woman whom the dowager Duchess of Trent sponsored this season.”
“Yes.”
“Any other secrets I should know about, then?” The lightness he forced into his voice couldn’t hide his lingering irritation with her. “You’re not a princess or a spy for the War Office?”
“I wish,” she sighed. And wholly meant it. “Just boring, old me.”
“There are lots of things about you, Eve. But boring certainly isn’t one of them.”
She couldn’t help the warmth that blossomed inside her chest. He’d meant that as a gentle chastisement, but he’d inadvertently given her the best compliment imaginable. Even better than calling her beautiful.
“I’m sorry for ruining your painting,” she wh
ispered.
He blew out a long breath and muttered, “So am I.”
She dropped her gaze to the end of the robe’s belt and twisted it around her hand. “I didn’t mean to waste your time. At first, I was caught up in the adventure of it all, in the excitement of being able to get away from home. And watching you paint was simply…” Captivating, enthralling, erotic…But there were some things she would never admit. “Entertaining. Then, later, I was having too much fun.” She forced a small shrug. “And you made me feel beautiful.”
“You are.”
Surprised at the unrestrained honesty in his voice, she darted her eyes to his, and her breath hitched at the heated look he gave her. Slowly and deliberately, he slid his gaze over her, from the tips of her bare toes to her half-covered legs beneath the hem of the robe, over her breasts, and up to her face. She felt his gaze as palpably as if he were stroking his hands over her.
But even that wasn’t enough. That soft ache between her legs beckoned her onward.
Forcing her hands not to shake, she reached up to unpin her hair, then shook it loose across her shoulders and down her back. The raw desire that darkened his face made her breath come shallow and fast, and it transformed the soft ache inside her into an eager throbbing.
“Dom,” she whispered, unable to find words for what she wanted from him as she reclined across the chaise. Her body begged to be painted.
He raked his fingers through his hair and looked away, his gaze coming to rest on the canvas on the easel, half-finished beneath its dust sheet. His voice turned uncharacteristically husky as he mumbled, “It’s a damned shame we can’t finish it.”
Her heart stuttered with a brutal thud. So this was the end of the adventure…and also of Dom’s presence in her life. She flinched beneath the anguish of it.
He’d trusted her as his model, and even now he trusted her with his real identity. He hadn’t asked her to keep it secret, because he knew she would. Proof that she was special to him…and him to her.
“But you can,” she insisted in little more than a breath, making her decision about how this night would end.
He gave a strangled laugh. “Never.”
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