She was about to give him an earful, surely. But what he wanted was for her to think about what he’d said, rather than simply react to it.
So, he did the only sensible thing. He handed the paintings back to her, gave a slight bow, pivoted on his heel, and exited the room through the open double doors, gone from the house in seconds and soon navigating the maze of Florentine streets beneath a clear, starry sky.
What had he been thinking in there? Speaking that way to a proper, unmarried English lady?
It mattered not.
He’d been following his instincts, and he’d been in the right.
Further, Lady Amelia Windermere was no simple proper English miss.
In fact, he sensed there may be something decidedlyimproper buried not so deep inside that particular English miss.
His logical side told him to leave it be—to leaveherbe. But his other side—the side that had brought him to Italy—knew he wouldn’t be able to.
Chapter Five
Next day
Amelia squirmed onthe stool the servant had indicated and took in the space around her. Twenty-foot ceiling…walls of windows on three sides…busts, statues, and statuettes in various phases of completion in this corner…a spinning platform vast enough to hold an elephant in that corner. A bright, airy space with the breeze soughing through the cypress and olive trees outside. A view extending across the hills to the vast west. Perhaps if she squinted hard enough, she’d be able to make out the Mediterranean Sea.
She might be a speck envious of this studio.
A card emblazoned with a time and a street address had arrived alongside her cup of coffee this morning. She hadn’t needed to ask to whom the address belonged.
The Duke of Ripon.
Today was to be her first sculpting session, and it would be his style to expect her simply to understand his intent. Arrogant, condescending man.
And—oh—that she’d known. That was the part that truly, deeply galled her.
He’d known that she would know.
And he’d known that she would be here.
Well, she hadn’t arrived on time, a fact from which she took no small satisfaction. An hour late, in fact. He could stick that in his pipe and puff it.
Except now he seemed to be making her wait.
Which gave her time for reflection—the sort of time she most definitely didn’t need.
She’d showed him her real art—hertrueart—the only art of genuine interest to her. The only other person who knew of it was Signore Rossi.
Then Ripon had had the nerve to mentionnudes.
The absolute cheek of the man.
Didn’t he know that ladies were meant only to paint for idle pleasure? Ladies didn’t paint nude figures. To do so would only invite more scandal onto her family, and she’d had enough of that.
Except, perhaps his suggestion hadn’t been cheek… Or not wholly cheek.
Perhaps it had been forthrightness. She might’ve detected as much in his eyes. A curiosity not bound by social niceties. It was maddening, yet…strangely enlivening, too—the not knowing what someone would say next.
Nudes, though…
A moderately young lady—she could concede she wasn’tyoungyoung anymore—of marriageable age—at seven and twenty she hadn’t quite reached the point of no return—painting people in the altogether? The very notion.
Yet he’d formed the notion and in the speaking of it had planted it squarely in her head.
