Her secret was safe.
Now, in her confusion, she picked up her pencil from where it lay on her dressing table by her sketchbook. She picked up the sketchbook too.
Was she an artist? Or was she a blushing schoolgirl?
Would a single one of those men at Thornton’s have turned away from this opportunity?
Besides, drawing Jack, hiding behind the page, seemed a sanctuary compared to where this conversation might lead. She could have made him go away, of course. He would leave if she insisted. But the words, sensible as they might be, stayed lodged inside her. Instead, as though watching someone else, she found herself getting her dressing table chair and pulling it closer to the bed. She sat down with her sketchbook on her knee.
It was for art. She was purely professional.
But she sat stiffly with the pad on her lap, twisting her pencil between her fingers. She could smell the fresh tang of the cedarwood from where she’d last sharpened it, though the dusty grey graphite had darkened the pale pink wood. It got on her fingers too. One day, she would buy herself a set with pure Borrowdale cores.
“Where did you go, Jack?” she asked. “Where have you been these last weeks? You left town so suddenly.”
He fidgeted some more with his rolled-up sleeve, tucking it tighter. “Oh…some business. The estates.”
Lucy frowned. The vague, evasive answer didn’t quite cure her suspicion that she and George had played a part in forcing his flight from town.
“It might help,” Jack teased, “if you actually looked at my hand.”
She glanced up, scowling, and met the laughter in his eyes. He only grinned, giving her a small wave with the fingers of his model hand.
So she looked at it, two feet away on her own pillow. It was hardly the first time she’d looked at Jack’s hands. She already knew they were as unfairly attractive as the rest of him. Broad and strong but still elegant. They looked capable of doing a great amount of work, though they likely never had.
But she hadn’t seen the strength of his wrist before—not thisman’swrist, with its sinews visible. That had always been covered by his cuff. And she had never seen this man’s arm, thickened from the lean youth’s she’d known. A complex hillscape of taut muscles and veins and tendons, dark hair cresting the highs and further defining the furrows. Subtle curves and lean lines. Thick, tight strength. And above, the bulge of a larger muscle just visible below his rolled sleeve.
It was wrong to think of food. The bite of an apple. Tongues licking and teeth grazing and tasting salt.
She stood up, chair scraping on the floor. Neck so rigid it might snap, she got another candle from her drawer.
“The light is terrible.”
Jack watched her, silent.
Sitting back down, she again picked up her sketchbook and put pencil to paper. She was going to draw. And ignore the insistent throb of impure thoughts. Art, she reminded herself, was not lewd or licentious. Everyone had a body. Women would not be ruined at the mere sight of an unclothed man.
Of course…it depended on the man.
Scratch, scratch… Every scrape of the lead sounded enormous in the room, but she made herself continue.
A hand took shape on the page. Then another.
“Turn your hand over, please. Palm up.”
Jack obeyed, and she shifted closer, studying each pad of flesh, every line of his palm. She could see the whorls of his fingerprints. She was close enough to smell him. Clean linen and soap and warm, masculine skin. Her eyes flicked up and found his intent upon hers.
If either of them breathed, she didn’t notice it. No time passed. Everything hung suspended.
There were shadows under his eyes. She’d not noticed them until now, looking closely in the light of her second candle. There was the redness of exhaustion in his whites. His lashes were thick enough to look like a faint bruise at the base. And his expression…his expression was almost that of their waltz. No, it was worse. Warmer, softer, ardent…Nowhe took a breath. She couldn’t miss that. The sound of it scraped over her own skin, right down beneath her stays.
Once more, she stood.
“I must get a knife. The pencil needs sharpening.”
It was true enough. The fine details were impossible to capture with a blunt pencil. But there was a knife in her drawer. She didn’t need to walk down these cool and silent stairs to the studio below.
But she did need a respite from the close quiet of the room. From Jack.
