Page 12 of What a Lord Wants

While she changed, he searched the bookcase along the wall. He slid his hand over the embossed spines, one by one. He grinned to himself. He was feeling his way along the shelf the same way she’d traced her fingertips across the sketch. Art wasn’t real until it was felt. But how could he make her feel it so that she would relax enough to be the model he needed for his masterpiece?

She returned as he found the book he’d been seeking, and he faced her just in time to watch her replace the last of her hairpins, her silken strands wound into a chignon that made it impossible for him to discern the color. But now he knew, and a thrill passed through him at the thought of watching her unpin it again tomorrow.

“Take this with you.” He handed her the book. “Study it, especially the models.”

Her eyes gleamed with laughter. “You’re giving me homework?”

“Great craft requires constant study.” He tapped a finger against the book’s cover. “Pay attention to the emotions, theirs and yours. Art is all about emotion.”

She slid him a sly glance as she thumbed through the pages. “Really? I was told it was about mutual seduction.”

Cheeky chit. He dug out a sovereign from his waistcoat pocket and tossed it to her. If she proved as valuable as he suspected, it wouldn’t be coins he’d soon be giving her in payment but jewels and furs. “Tomorrow. One o’clock. Don’t be late.”

With a distracted nod, she turned toward the door.

He walked over to his worktable, to check the glazes and paints that Jacopo had prepared that morning by mixing the pigments and oils. A few hours of good light remained, enough to apply more coats to a painting that he had almost finished, although he’d much rather have continued to sketch her, to learn the nuisances of her form and the subtle imperfections he had yet to see but was certain she must possess.Somewhere. Eads was on top of his game to—

“Wait!” He stopped her just as she reached the wicket in the carriage doors and was about to step into the alley.

“Yes?’

He looked at her sheepishly, feeling like a complete nodcock. Good Lord,how preoccupied must he have been not to ask before now. “What’s your name?”

“Eve.”

He nearly laughed. “Truly?”

Shrugging, she slipped out the door.

“Her name is Eve,” he murmured with an incredulous shake of his head.

Of courseit was.

Chapter 3

She was late.

Again.

Evelyn hitched her skirt a few inches higher and hurried down the alley toward the studio as fast as she could without breaking into a run, her other hand holding down her bonnet, and her upper arm firmly pressed to her side to keep hold of the parasol tucked beneath.

She’d told herself that yesterday’s adventure was exactly the breath of freedom she needed, but that it couldn’thappen again. The miscommunication over the painting had led to an amazing experience, and she would cherish the sketch. More, she would always be grateful for the way Vincenzo had gazed at her, as if she were that season’s Incomparable, rather than looking upon her the way most people did—with scorn for being the unrestrained daughter of a shipping merchant.

She’d told herself repeatedly that it couldneverhappen again. Yet sitting home last night after leaving the studio, then staring at the canopy of her bed all the sleepless night long—how was she truly expectednotto want that same amazing feeling she’d had while posing for him? His dark eyes had studied her so closely that a tingling warmth in her chest had traveled out to the tips of her fingers and toes, making every bit of her feel electric. And alive.

The thought of being forced to spend the afternoon with the dowager Duchess of Trent made her stomach sink. No matter how wonderful Her Grace was, the day would have been torturous. Especially since Eve let the duchess believe that she’d forgotten all about fetching the painting from the Marquess of Ellsworth. The woman’s disappointment in her had been palpable.

The day would have been even worse had she spent it with Mariah, who dedicated her time to either working at Papa’s office in Wapping or doing charity work at the Gatewell School in St Katharine’s. Eve disliked both places. She found the shipping offices too busy and noisy for comfort, and as for the school, she couldn’t bear to go there. Because Gatewell only accepted children who had lost a parent at sea or on the docks, the place reminded her too much of the loss of her own mother.

So that morning as the long case clock in the entry hall moved closer and closer to one o’clock, Evelyn had tried to convince herself that remaining at home was for the best. That her madness over Burton Williams would be nothing compared to the scandal that would befall her if anyone discovered she’d been posing for a painter whose own reputation rivaled Lucifer’s. She’d paced and paced to physically fight down the rising dread marked by every tick of the clock and the fear that once more she was wasting precious moments of her life.

Truly, she’d tried.

Then she’d snatched up her parasol and dashed out the door.

She’d barely had time to call out an excuse—all right, a bald-faced lie—to the butler about how she’d completely forgotten about a charity board meeting at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, assuring him that she’d return in a few hours. Sneaking out of the rear of the hospital without the driver and liveried tigers of her father’s carriage seeing her had been more difficult. But they would be fine waiting for her in front of the hospital until she was done at the studio. Then she would come back through the hospital and out the main entrance, and they would take her home. No one would be hurt, no one would be the wiser. But she’d have another day of precious freedom.

She smiled. Domenico Vincenzo had called her beautiful. Even now warmth blossomed in her chest at the memory, and she broke into a run.