Page 28 of What a Lord Wants

“Then I hope you find your muse.”

So do I.He gestured at the chaise, then moved behind his easel and canvas so he could sketch her and retreat once more into the safety of the walled fortress his art had erected around him. “Let’s get to work, shall we?”

Chapter 7

Several Weeks Later

Eve raised her thumb and held it up at Dom, as if gauging the distance between them for the drawing she was making of him. She squinted one eye in mocking exaggeration of what she’d seen him do when he’d sketched her, moving her thumb forward and back for a full minute. Then she looked down at her sketch, made one small mark, and raised her thumb to start the whole process again.

“Enjoying yourself, are you?” Dom didn’t glance up from the worktable where he was taking inventory of paint. Normally, his apprentice would have mulled the paints from dry pigments, but since Jacopo was absent, Dom had been forced buy paint from the colormen. The paints now sat on the table in small bladders that had been punctured and resealed with a tack, ready to be mixed with oils and used.

The faint irritation she heard in his voice made her smile. “Immensely.”

She leaned forward on the chaise where she sat in the corset and breeches, with her hair down and her legs tucked casually beneath her instead of reclining in the pose he’d selected for the painting. There was no work today because the sky was too overcast, and Dom refused to bring in lanterns. Lantern light was the wrong hue, he’d told her, and would change the color of her skin.

So she busied herself instead with sketching him. And teasing him mercilessly.

“But you’re not holding yourself in a natural position.” She gave an exaggerated sigh of peevishness. “I am unable to capture your true essence.”

He scowled.

“There it is!” She scribbled madly on the paper.

He shot her an aggravated glance, although the sparkle in his eyes told her that he didn’t find her nearly as annoying as he let on.

In fact, they both seemed to enjoy quiet afternoons like this, cocooned in the studio, wiling away the hours until the sun decided to show itself again and he could continue painting. He’d completed the underpainting two weeks ago, layering across the initial charcoal sketch of her form on the canvas a thin painting in raw umber. No details, only the barest of outlines. Then slowly, over the next several days he’d applied layer after layer of paint to different places on the canvas, letting each layer dry before returning to that section of the painting. The earth tones of the underpainting gave way to the real painting above, rendered in vibrant colors that made her figure and face come alive on the flat surface.

But today, there was no work, and it was just the two of them in the studio. Jacopo had been called back to Italy for a family emergency and wouldn’t return for at least a month, and Eve was glad of it. Not that she didn’t like Dom’s apprentice—the young man had left her alone after she’d given him her most charming smile and told him in Italian that if he ever patted her bottom again she would grab him by the bollocks and castrate him. The threat was not lost in translation.

No, she simply enjoyed having the maestro to herself.

Best of all, Constance had not made a reappearance.Thank goodness.Eve was even gladder still when Dom had all the paintings of the woman removed from the studio. He said it was because he needed to concentrate on the model in front of him and couldn’t do it with images of other women in sight.

A complete fabrication, she was certain. Still, she was glad they were gone.

He crossed the studio to her and took the sketchbook from her hand to look at what she’d drawn. “Not bad.” Then he flipped it over to a blank page and handed it back. “Better.”

She gave a sniff of mock offense. “Perhaps you should rethink any plans you might have of becoming a model.”

With a low chuckle, he took back the book, then gently slapped her on the hip so she would put her legs down and make room for him on the chaise beside her. He sat, then held out his hand for the pencil. She gave it over.

“Looks like the sun is never going to show itself today.” He began to sketch on the blank page. “You might as well leave and enjoy yourself somewhere else.”

“I enjoy myself here.”

He fought back a small smile of disbelief.

But it was true. During the past few weeks, she’d looked forward to being in the studio with an anticipation she’d never felt for anything else in her life. And not just because he made her feel beautiful, although he did, and the painting currently coming to life on the easel proved it. Dom also made her feel intelligent with all their conversations about art and culture, philosophy, humanism, and religion. Whoever would have suspected that her studies at Miss Pettigrew’s School for the Education and Refinement of Young Ladies had enough merit to prepare her for conversations like these?

More, he did exactly as he’d promised that day in the rain—he’d made her feel special.

He’d kept telling her that she was the only person who could pose for this particular painting, but she never truly believed him until he started putting the layers of paint onto the canvas, when her face and body began to emerge from the colors and shapes.

The truth, though, was that it wasn’t him or her. It was both of them, working together, that drove the energy and life appearing on the canvas. That was more special to her than he would ever know.

“What are you drawing?” She shifted closer to see the sketch, leaning into his shoulder and bringing her face next to his. If anyone saw them together like this…scandalous.But they’d worked together so closely during the past weeks that neither gave a second thought to such casual contact. Especially since he’d begun to paint her bare flesh.

His compromise of the breeches and stays had worked while he’d done the initial sketch and underpainting, and even when he’d begun to paint those parts of her—arms and legs, shoulders, head—that were already exposed. When he’d finished those sections of the canvas, though, she’d had no choice but to undress completely.