"Oh, look at that. Doesn't Ainsley make a pretty dish of a girl," exclaimed Lady Elinor.
Ainsley fluttered his eyelashes and pretended to use the quill as a fan.
"You're supposed to be still," Ellen hissed.
Although she was wearing a pretty pink dress with a laced bodice over a corset so tight she could barely breathe, she wasn't wearing shoes or stockings and felt strangely underdressed. Her legs were exposed down to her lower calf.
Tewkbury stared at her bare feet, which were crossed at the ankles and stretched out in front of her, and her whole body began to prickle. Ainsley pressed his arm tighter around her shoulders and she could feel his breath on her neck.
Tewkbury scowled.
He was playing the role of the jealous husband all too well, Ellen thought.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen," Louisa announced, "what painting could this be?"
"I've seen it somewhere," Dobberham scratched his head. "The question is, where?"
"The two shepherdesses," Miss Anne guessed.
"One is holding a letter, the other a quill, so my guess is 'The Missive,'" Lady Cynthia suggested.
"Very clever, but not quite," Louisa said.
"Oh, I know, I know!" Miss Mary clapped her hands and jumped up and down. "It's that picture in the library. I saw it the other day when I went to get a book to read."
Dobberham scratched his neck. "Drat. Is it? Considering I see it every day, I must be blind not to recognise it."
"The Love Letter, by Francois Boucher, of course," the Duchess of Amersbury guessed correctly, "for there must be some improper element in it."
"There's nothing improper about love letters, is there?" Miss Anne protested.
Happy that their performance was over, Ellen and Ainsley parted company.
Tewkbury walked up to him, shoved him on the shoulder, and hissed something in his ear.
"'Crikey, Tewkbury, it wasn't meant like that," Ainsley protested. But he was met with a thunderous glare.
What was that all about? Ellen wondered. But she didn't have time to ask, for next up were Tewkbury and his partner.
And what they represented caused the entire audience to gasp.
Lady Cynthia, dressed in a Greek gown, stiff and proud, leaned back and raised her arms in a dramatic gesture.
But Tewkbury was—naked.
He had only a single white sheet draped over the crucial parts of his lower body as he lay languidly on his side, leaning on his elbow.
Ellen felt her jaw drop.
His torso was finely chiselled, the shoulders broad, the muscles rippled, revealing a powerful but lean body with a well-sculpted chest.
"My goodness, look at him! He is a Greek statue come to life!" exclaimed Lady Gosford.
"It's a pity he's already taken, ladies, isn't it?" cackled Lady Elinor.
"Not fair, not fair at all," complained Benton, "now all the ladies here will fall in love with him, and he's off the market."
Louisa clasped her hands in front of her and looked at them rapturously. "Splendid." She sighed. Then she turned to the audience. "Now, what are they trying to portray?"
