Page 11 of What a Lord Wants

His lips twitched at that blatant lie. “I’m two and thirty.”

“Young.”

For an artist, perhaps. Old for a marquess without a wife and heir. “Not so young. Michelangelo was still in his twenties when he sculpted both hisPietàandDavid, so was Leonardo da Vinci when he paintedMadonna of the Rocks. All four of Bernini’s masterpieces were finished by the time he was thirty, and Raphael was painting in the Vatican by the time he was twenty-five.”

“Well, when you put it that way,” she conceded dryly, “you’d better get busy.”

His hand stilled. He lifted his gaze from the paper, finding teasing amusement at his expense sparkling in her eyes. Another expression he longed to capture. Sweet Jesus, she could keep him busy for months!

“That is my intention,” he assured her. Then he handed her the book.

Her amusement faded into amazement. Slowly, she traced her fingertips over the sketch, as if it wasn’t real. Not until she touched it.

“You made me look beautiful,” she whispered, her eyes fixed on the page.

“Youarebeautiful. I simply put it on paper.” He tossed the chalk onto the tray of the nearby easel and wiped the red dust from his fingers that were perpetually marked by paint, requiring him to wear gloves whenever he was outside the studio. In Italy, his hands had been a badge of honor. Here they were anathema.

She gazed at him in wonder. “To be able to do this…I envy you.”

He shrugged, the casual gesture hiding his pleasure at her soft compliment.

He was used to cloying comments from gallery owners and collectors, as well as disparaging ones from critics. When he’d first inherited and returned to England during that terrible time when he’d felt lost and trapped in someone else’s life, he’d even gone to the Royal Academy of Arts where three of his paintings hung and eavesdropped on the student artists in order to find validation in himself and reaffirm the importance of his work. Not one of those people’s opinions affected him the way hers just did.

“It’s a life of study,” he admitted with genuine humility, grateful for the subtle reminder.

When he reached to take the sketchbook from her, she clutched it to her bosom and glared up at him as if he were a thief attempting to steal it. “What will you do with it?”

“Nothing. It’s only a test sketch.”

“May I have it?”

Quick anger flared inside him. He drawled out despite the tight clench of his jaw, “I suppose you want me to sign it.”

She blinked in confusion. “Why would I want that? I know you drew it.”

“But the person you sell it to won’t.”

“Oh, I willneversell this!” Then she laughed, a sound as sparkling as her eyes, and one that both eased his anger and utterly captivated him. “I can’t even show it to anyone I know, let alone a stranger.”

Unease pricked at him. Not show her image to strangers? Did she truly have no idea what it meant to be his model? He’d thought her a challenge, not a Herculean task.

Yet he consented. “Of course you can have it.”

Which pleased her immensely, based on her beaming smile. He took the book back only long enough to tear out the page, then reached down to fetch the charcoal to sign it…Vincenzo.

With her help, he’d soon be able to sign his own name.

He rolled it up to hand it to her. “Return tomorrow at one. We’ll work in the afternoon light, in three-hour stretches, five times a week.” A thought struck him, and he pulled the sketch back just as her fingertips touched it. “Do you own a parasol?”

A puzzled frown pulled at her brow, “Yes, of course.”

“Bring it with you.” He wanted to see how she’d look if the composition were a proper portrait.

He placed the sketch onto her palm.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

A tightness gripped his chest at the unexpected melancholy in her voice. She was thanking him for far more than the drawing, but for the life of him he couldn’t have said what. “You can dress now. We’re done for the day.”