Chapter Seven
Next evening
As Tristan hadknown he would, he’d come.
And here he stood in her garden, beyond the terrace, beyond the edge of light.
He’d been standing like this for a full ten minutes.
Staring…
At Lady Amelia, illuminated by the warm, yellow glow of the two candelabras in her studio, as she moved carefully and seriously, readying her materials for his arrival—easel placed before a straight-backed chair, indicating she would sit while she painted; brushes arranged with meticulous care at precise intervals on a small table; paints and water ready to be mixed and made into magic on paper.
He shouldn’t be here, he understood that. But he was an adult and, last night’s escapade in Rossi’s fountain notwithstanding, she was an adult, too. And as adults they’d made a bargain. Further, he was a gentleman; he wouldn’t be breaking his oath.
But…as a gentleman, shouldn’t he?
Well, he was here, so that wasthatdecided.
Except he was watching her through her open double doors like a lecher.
Right.
He cleared his throat, and her head whipped around, her clear blue gaze searching the night beyond the terrace for him. He had no choice but to step into the light. She didn’t smile or greet him in any way, but simply kept arranging brushes that had already been resituated three times since he’d arrived, and however many more before that. She was nervous.
He entered the studio and decided it would be best to get the obvious out of the way. “About last night,” he began.
Bent over the small table, she froze. Very deliberately, she straightened her long, elegant body, squared her shoulders, and faced him. “I licked your neck.”
His eyebrows lifted toward the ceiling. They couldn’t help themselves. That was certainly the obvious sorted.
“And…and…” she continued, her cheeks and the tips of her ears glowing pink. “And I apologize.” She swallowed. “Profoundly.”
Tristan hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t this. Aprofoundapology. He didn’t want her apology, profound or not. What he wanted, if he was being truthful, was for her to lick his neck again. He’d detected some talent in that tongue of hers.
But he wouldn’t say that. Any of it. Instead, he picked up the sound of piano drifting on the air. “Is that music coming from this villa?”
“Oh, that’s Archie.”
“Archie? Your brother?”
A tiny smile formed about her mouth. “There’s only one Archie, Your Grace.”
Intricate and skilled, the music carried on, each note following the next with inevitability.Nay.Archie wasn’t simplyskilled. “He plays magnificently.” An idea about the Windermere siblings occurred to him. “And Lady Delilah, does she have artistic ability?”
“This may come as an utter shock,” said Lady Amelia, dry as dust, “but she’s an actress, by desire if not by trade.”
“And your cousin?” He might as well ask. “Has she an artistic skill?”
“Juliet rather keeps herself to herself, but she does scribble an awful lot in her notebooks.”
“A writer then.”
“I’ve been on the lookout for an anonymously published serial about a trio of scandalous siblings,” said Lady Amelia, her tone still wry, but a twinkle in her eye.
Tristan snorted. Lady Amelia could be entirely too serious. He liked that she could be funny, too. “You Windermeres have hidden depths.”
She swallowed and cleared her throat, all traces of humor falling away. Her nervous gaze flicked toward the settee. The air seemed to change its elemental composition in an instant. “If you will have a seat”—she inhaled a tiny sip of air—“we can begin.”
