Page 52 of Flirting with Forever

He cocked his head and, after an instant, nodded his approval. She smiled. She’d been damned good at this once.

“Now,” he said, handing her a thicker brush, “the verdigris.”

“Shouldn’t we let it dry?”

“We should,” he said. “But I would not sacrifice this moment of teaching to the perfection of the viscount’s painting. He has an unskilled eye, and if he does not care for the paint cracking on this glorious leaf in twenty years’ time, he may rot.”

She laughed. The verdigris was thicker than the other colors, like a small blob of Jell-O on the palette. She pushed it left and right, automatically feathering in a daub of yellow.

Peter’s brow went up.

She considered an addition of blue.

“I might try the red madder,” he said.

She looked at the red, but the resultant gray-brown would deaden her green. She flicked the tip through the blue.

She could feel the corner of his mouth rise. “The student rebels.”

“I am no man’s thrall,” she said, and the look that followed sent a pleasurable shiver down her back.

“Now for the shadow you admired so fervently,” he said. “Turn your brush.”

Uncertain, she flipped the sable from left to right.

“The other way,” he instructed, then gently slid the brush from her hand and returned it with the wooden point down.

“You use the other end?”

He picked up a clean brush from the shelf, as thick and wide as the one she used for her facial powder. “A brush has many uses. A good artist does not limit himself to just one. Take the point and draw it along the left there, flipping the edge of the verdigris up as you go. Go on. Do not hesitate. Exactly! You see, you have not only exposed a trace of the yellow below, but created a tiny hillock of verdigris as well.”

The suggestion of contour made the image leap from the canvas. “Amazing!”

“Just a trick. There are dozens and dozens. I could teach you all of them if you had time.”

If you had time. The offer warmed her heart, but more than that, it unleashed a longing for artistic connection in her that she’d had no idea existed.

“I wish I did,” she said truthfully. “I can’t stay much longer.”

“Of course. Tonight of all nights. I don’t wonder you have an obligation. But you will return? Tomorrow, aye? Then every Wednesday? Say three o’clock? You would be my last sitter of the day.”

“Wednesdays, huh?”

“You smile. Why?”

“I don’t know. Wednesdays always seem to be the day for weekly meetings.”

“Liaisons, you mean?”

“Yes, actually.” She giggled. “Especially the afternoons.”

“Is that an aye, then?”

The guileless look of hope on his face sent her back almost to her teen years. She would be courted. First, out of her gown for the painting, then, after many long weeks of laughter and wine, out of the chaise and into his bed. His reward for winning her trust. She wondered what it would be like for a man to seek her heart first, not her body—to be slowly won, not claimed. She was a castle, and Peter was willing to lay patient siege to her.

“Aye,” she said softly. “I should like that very much.”

“How much time do you have?”