“And you should definitely go.”
He nodded, jaw set, and went to the window.
“But…Jack…what did you risk your neck to come and tell me?”
His hand was already on the edge of the drape when he paused. His fingers twisted into the fabric, and he looked at that,not her. “That I’m sorry, Lucy.” He let go of the drape and looked her full in the eye, his expression raw. “I’m sorry for everything. For tonight and dragging you away from Thornton’s. For every stupid thing I’ve done or said since I saw you again at Almack’s. I’m sorry I made you dance. I’m sorry I didn’t listen. I’m sorry for every thoughtless, insulting thing I said to you on that drive in the park. I shudder to think of it. And I am so, so sorry that, seven years ago, I let you leave my life. I was a thoughtless young man, and I didn’t know what I was losing. Now I’m an older one, and I’ve learnt it to my cost.”
It was a speech which made her need to sit down. She sunk limply to the edge of the bed.
But he still hadn’t finished.
He came toward her and went down on his knee. “Lucy…”
She was too stunned to do anything as he took hold of her trembling hand.
“Lucy,” he said again. Those lashes really were absurd, framing his eyes like that as he stared imploringly up at her. “I’m sorrier than ever that I got in the way of your art. You’ve told me so many times that I don’t think, and you’re right. But I’ve been trying. I’ve been thinking ever since I left you, and I realise now that all I’ve done is align myself with your enemies when I should have been standing between you and them.” There wasn’t even the trace of a grin on his jaw. His lovely mouth, that full lower lip, just kept tracing one perfect word after another. And he seemed to mean them all. “Can I help you instead? Will you let me? If I model for you now, every night until you need to complete your piece, would that be enough to let you finish it in time?”
Lucy stared. It took her a long moment to realise what he had just proposed.
“M-modelfor me?”
“If it’s what you need. If it helps. I’d do anything, Lucy. And you said yourself there’s nothing so very strange about it. It’s only art and what artists have been doing forever.”
Now he did grin, that very familiar one with its gleam of wild mischief. “It won’t surprise you to learn I have very little modesty. I won’t be embarrassed if you’re not. If this is how I can serve you, then so be it. My brain’s never been much use, but the flesh is willing.”
Her hand was still in his—burning hot now. She pulled it away, her palm damp.
“This is absurd, Jack! Think about it!” She did not wish to think about it. Not at all. Jack…Jacknaked…“You cannot, we cannot…”
“But would it help? Would it be what you needed to finish your piece?”
A model she could study closely every night? A model she could pose as needed? And one with the…erm…classical stature. Her eyes helplessly traced the breadth of his shoulders. She could even bring her large canvas up here and work directly onto it. It wasexactlywhat she needed. But…
“I can’t Jack. I can’t ask you to…to…” She blushed scarlet.
“An arm?” he suggested, smiling. “A leg? Would that little help?”
She couldn’t speak.
“Or am I the wrong sort of model? You said the one at Thornton’s wasn’t right. I confess I didn’t spare him so much as a glance. What is it that you need?”
“A…ah…a certain…physique.”
He frowned in thought, then raised an eyebrow. “Muscles? Is that what you mean? All those classical art pieces are full of heroically proportioned Adonis types.” He laughed at her expression, sitting back on his heels. “And you don’t think I’ll do, is that it? Do you think there’s padding in my coat shoulders?Have you ever heard the creak of a corset when I bend down?” His grin deepened along with her blush. “I ride, Lucy. I hunt. I box and fence and dance and row, and swim whenever I get the chance. I might just about do. I’m not the skinny twelve-year-old you last saw swimming in the river.”
No, she knew that. Had known it since she saw him at Almack’s. Knew it long before then, when he was eighteen, nineteen, and already broadening into a man. It was why his offer now was impossible. She had never once been able to look at him and remain unaffected.
But he was already on his feet, unbuttoning his overcoat. He pulled it off, then shrugged out of the tightly fitting tailed jacket he wore beneath it. Smiling, though there was a tinge of colour on his cheeks, he unbuttoned his shirt cuff and rolled the sleeve right up above his elbow.
“Here,” he said, “I’ll just sit like this.” He sat down on the end of her bed, a foot away from her, though the mattress dipped, tilting her towards him. She stood up hastily, watching helplessly as he dragged a pillow over and rested his arm upon it. “And you can draw if you like. Aren’t hands one of those devilishly tricky things to get right? You were always complaining about it when we were younger. And you know as well as I do how often you used to try and make me sit for you. I hardly ever did. Couldn’t sit still. And I didn’t, I confess, like to have you look at me so closely.”
“Why not?” she asked, curiosity getting the better of her embarrassment. After all, it was just a hand. She’d seen a fully naked man. She could cope with Jack’s hand. His bare arm. Her gaze flicked to the skin and muscle he’d revealed…
“Because,” he said, “you might not have liked what you saw.”
Lucy turned away to hide her betraying blush. The problem had always been that she liked it too much.
In those last years of their friendship, when she was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, she’d lived in terror of him discovering it. Maybe it hadn’t been wholly his fault their friendship halted when she left. In a small way, buried under the grieving loss, she’d been relieved.
