Page 84 of What a Lord Wants

Oh, the technique was fine, he supposed, despite the Rococo brushstrokes he’d been forced to use to soften Sally’s hair. So was the composition. He’d managed to find a pose that made her appear alluringly languid, and her physical beauty carried it off.

But it lacked spark, that indefinablesomethingthat would make a viewer pause long enough before it to be drawn into the scene. To make themwantto be drawn in. It wasn’t at all the vision he’d dreamed of creating, that feeling of spying on a sleeping Venus whose sexual temptation was tempered by human innocence and curiosity.

With an angry snap of the sheet, he covered the painting, less to keep the dust off the half-dried paint and more so that he wouldn’t have to look at it any more tonight. He didn’t need this reminder that his art wasn’t working. Or the reason why.

Eve.

Even now, when she was half a city away, he couldn’t push her from his mind. Dear God, how much he missed her!

He hadn’t seen her at all in the past month, except for a shadowy glimpse of her at Mercer House, watching him from the first-floor window as he walked to his carriage. He’d gone there to fetch papers he’d needed for the exhibition— a damned lie. He’d gone there because he’d wanted to see Eve, because for one desperate moment he’d wanted to tell her how much she meant to him. He wanted to carry her away to his bedroom and make love to her until she forgave him, until she’d never again question his feelings for her and her place in his life.

But in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Right now, his art—and the future that would come from it—demanded all of him. How could he make her understand that?

The exhibition preview was tomorrow, and he’d sent her a personal invitation. He wanted her by his side when this painting was revealed, when he would put the last touches on it and sign his own name to the canvas. He couldn’t deny that it most likely would change nothing between them. Yet he wanted her to know how much she meant to him, how much this painting belonged as much to her as to him.

But she hadn’t replied, and the uncertainty of what she would do gnawed at his gut.

Needing to keep busy so that thoughts of Eve didn’t overwhelm him, he crossed to his worktable to straighten the tools and notes left in utter disarray during the past few months, along with most everything else in the studio. Chaos seemed to reign in Sally’s wake.

The irony was biting.Everythingin his life had suffered upheaval. But unlike brushes and pigments, his life couldn’t be so easily put back into place.

He snatched up the leather satchel that had arrived at the studio this afternoon from his art seller in Rome that he’d dropped onto the pile of clutter to deal with later. His usual monthly dispatch. He never looked forward to sorting through the paperwork and handling the business end of his art, usually leaving it to his personal secretary to deal with.

But tonight, dogged by Constance’s threats and tormented by how badly he missed Eve, he felt just self-punishing enough to do it himself.

He tore loose the leather tie and spilled the contents across the table, caring nothing if any of them were stained by spots of still-wet paint or oil. The usual invoices fluttered to the tabletop, along with sales receipts and his updated inventory log. But a letter also fell out of the satchel, one addressed to him in elegant handwriting at the Rome address and secured in a sealed envelope.

He blew out a harsh breath as he sliced open the envelope with a knife. In his experience, a letter in an envelope never portended good news.

When he removed the letter, a second piece of paper inside dropped to the table and fell open onto its fold.

His heart stopped as he stared down at the pencil sketch and the woman who looked back at him from the page. A distant memory pierced him with such force, such surprise that he lost his breath. For a moment, he couldn’t move a muscle, yet he was transported hundreds of miles away, and nine years into the past.

Elena.

She’d aged well, her face still as beautiful as he remembered. She wore the same smile, too, although the lines around her mouth cut slightly deeper now. So did the ones at the corners of her eyes. Her hair, which she’d loved to cascade freely over her shoulders and down her back, was gathered into the loose chignon of a matron. But her eyes were as mischievous as ever.

He read the letter, unable to sort through the questions and emotions churning inside him.

My Dearest Domenico,

As I write this, I am in Rome with my husband on business.

Husband. He would have expected that news to stab him with jealousy, but oddly enough, it didn’t. While he would always hold affection for her, what he felt now was simply a fleeting grief at the passing of years.

Ihad hoped to find you here, mio caro, but the owner of the gallery where you sell your paintings tells me that you have done the unthinkable and left Italy. So you must settle for this letter. I hear that you are still as handsome as you were when I knew you.

His eyes strayed over the sketch. “And you are just as beautiful.”

My husband is a pompous fool who does not deserve me. But I love him, and we are happy. We have two children. Unfortunately, they both look like Niccolo. Fortunately for them, we are wealthy.

He laughed. Still the Elena he knew.

Iam so pleased to hear that you’ve become a celebrated artist. Niccolo and I own two of your paintings, but he does not know of our past. Not that he would care.

Dom grinned. “Well, heisItalian.”

But he would tell everyone that I had once been the lover of the famous Vincenzo, and I could never suffer another one of his boring stories.