“Oh, stop playing the hero.” She rubbed a hand absently along her arm. Knight’s words played in her head, unable to put aside or ignore. Fifty thousand pounds by the end of the summer. Irritation prickled through her, both at Knight’s presumption and now the lengths she would have to go to quash him before the rumours spread.
Henry watched her, a frown on his otherwise perfect face. Really, the expression was such a permanent one she might as well sketch it into being. Once, perhaps, he had known how to smile, but that time had long since passed if this encounter was anything to go by.
“Was he threatening you?” Henry asked, once again in a voice that promised violence. His gaze swept from her to the painting they stood before. Louisa held her breath as he glanced away, then frowned. Looked back. His eyes narrowed.
Confound it all.
She took hold of his arm and dragged him away from that godforsaken portrait and everything it represented.
“Now who is laying hands on whom?” he asked, but his tone was distracted, clearly still fixated on what he saw. Or what he thought he saw.
Of all the people in England to interfere, it had to be one of the few people left on this earth who could have identified her painting style.
She came to a window at the far end of the drawing room and released him. Outside, it was dark, and the glass reflected their watery likenesses back at them. Her brown hair and burgundy dress, blurred and smudged as though someone had rubbed their thumb across her reflection. She did not look at his.
“So,” he said, returning his gaze to her. “Is this the moment you tell me you had everything under control?”
“Stop it, Henry. You know you had no right to interfere.”
“Naturally. No right whatsoever. No doubt you were on the verge of removing his hands from you when I intervened.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Jealous?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“If he were one of my lovers, what then? Would you revoke your noble attempts to save me?”
She may have been mistaken, but it seemed as though he flinched. “It would not be the first time I’ve encountered one of your lovers,” he said, face impassive once more.
“No doubt you disapprove.”
“Just as I cannot guess your motivations, Louisa, you are not privy to my thoughts.” His mouth pressed into a thin line, and she cursed the stroke of fate that had ever brought him into her life. For someone so unfeeling, he should have been painted in shades of grey. Instead, he had been sketched by a delicate, expert hand, the darkness under his eyes crafted to illuminate their brilliance, the starchy white of his cravat displaying the robust tan of his skin, his hair a rich brown in the candlelight.
His jaw clenched a fraction as he watched her, and she remembered Caroline’s advice.
You should take another go at seducing him now, darling. Make him regret the day he ever slighted you.
Caroline had not doubted Louisa’s ability to tempt him into bed, but the truth was, time had altered them. She was a widow, a trail of lovers behind her, and no longer the girl she had been. Regardless of how much he had wanted her then, she could not deceive herself into thinking he wanted her now.
Yet even so—even so—there was an urge inside her to take his face in her hands and press a kiss to his mouth, just to see if he would respond the way he once had.
A little breathless, she glanced down, paying attention to the burnished glow of his waistcoat buttons.
“Why was he threatening you?” he asked.
“That is my concern, not yours.”
He nodded, a sharp gesture that felt like a punctuation, the end of something that had never really begun. He half turned as though to leave, then swung back to her and said, “Was it, by any chance, about the painting?”
Louisa gritted her teeth, narrowly suppressing the urge to do physical violence. “No.”
“I see.” He nodded once more. “I take it our host is unaware of its true artist?”
“Oh for heaven’ssake.” Glancing around, she ushered him further into the corner and behind one of the tall navy curtains, shielding them from view. To her relief, the quartet broke into a lively jig.
Henry looked down at her, his face cast in shadow, and the past reared its head once more, her body remembering what it was to yearn for the feeling of his even before she knew how that might feel. She had wanted him so desperately, she had been half out of her mind.
His eyes glittered as though he remembered, too. It would have been so easy to close the gap between them. Her lips to his; her body against his; her will tangled with his.
