Page 61 of The Duke Undone

“Where are the bricks? You cleared away everything.”

“I stacked them by the barrel.”

He picked up his jacket and shrugged into it, a carelessly coordinated motion. He was thick everywhere, wide through the chest, brawny-limbed. Shouldn’t such musculature present a limiting factor, working against his agility? Heavily muscled men were often clumsy, awkward. How could he move like a song, and after an afternoon at the public house at that?

“I had to occupy myself.” He fastened his buttons, then lifted his head, shaking his hair back from his brow.

“It was dig bricks from the mint, or hover at your shoulder while you sketched.”

The chill in the air might, with luck, slow the rush of blood to her face.

“You couldn’t disconcert me.” A lie, credibly uttered. “We call our Visitor at the Academy the mosquito. He’s always circling while we paint.”

“And what does the mosquito see these days when he circles you?”

She closed her sketchbook and held it protectively against her chest.

“Nothing that pleases him.” She’d not had an encouraging word in months. “He called my last attempt rubbish.”

“Then he is the philistine. Even I, idiot that I am, recognized your talent.”

He spoke with high spirits, giddy from his labors. He wasn’t thinking of what he said.

She looked away.

“Ah,” she said. “The picture you saw . . .” and destroyed. “That was my finest.”

“Miss Coover—” It sounded like the presage to an apology. She looked back at him, interrupting.

“I’m not in despair. I have a month to paint something better. And I shall.”

The apology—if apology it had been—had died on his lips. He twisted them in a wry smile.

“What happens at the end of the month?”

She sighed. The date was of paramount importance to artists but meant nothing to him. “If you hope to show a picture in the Summer Exhibition, you must submit it to the Hanging Committee at the end of March.”

How had they come to be standing so very close together? Lucy became aware of the other people bustling in and out of doors, looking down from the windows above. She was making herself a spectacle.

And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to step away, to break their gaze. Those pale eyes sent something hot shivering through her. A green dart.

“Ho,” he said. “Who’s that?”

She looked. Mr. Malkin was creeping along the wall, his gray fur patchy, his ears notched. A tooth stuck out, exposed by a sag in his lip. This was a recent development and gave him a fierce, not altogether sane, aspect. Dear Mr. Malkin! She had the defensive urge to bundle him away from Weston’s scrutiny.

“He’s an old campaigner.” Weston crouched, hand outstretched.

“And not sweetened by the experience.” She watched Mr. Malkin approach Weston on stiff legs. “It takes him time to get used to new people. And he always scratches men.”

Before she could scoop him into her arms, Mr. Malkin had reached Weston and begun to rub against his shins, purring creakily. Weston’s large hand stroked across Mr. Malkin’s knobby spine.

Traitor.

She sighed.

“It’s not you, it’s your trousers,” she said. “He likes fine fabrics. That’s what happens if you raise a cat in a dress shop.”

His laughter was low, in the register of Mr. Malkin’s satisfied purring. His hand stroked and stroked again slowly.