Her purpose invigorated, she applied the colors she would need to the palette, selected her favorite brush and knife, and went to work.
She could lose herself here, in her painting, in her oils, and in her mind. She brushed and smoothed and dabbed. Sometimes, she wiped the results away and other times she allowed them to remain. Eventually, she covered the canvas with the glossy paints. The effects were not always exactly what she wanted, but she could pour out her emotions onto the canvas and give them a place. The waves, the sky, the rocks… Whites and all different colors of blue: indigo, cerulean, sapphire… And grays. Steel gray, stormy gray, and silver, like the moonlight…
“It’s stunning.”
She startled at his voice just behind her and then stepped back. She had no idea how much time had passed since she’d set to work but the sun burned almost hot on her skin and hair now. “Do you think so?”
She’d hoped she would be painting and picnicking with George today, but as she gazed at her creation, she was glad George was not here. The painting, much as a poem or a song, revealed the creator’s emotions.
Perhaps with George, she would have painted an entirely different landscape.
An elegant but masculine hand reached around her to point at the bottom half of the canvas. “So much light here, and then darkness… beneath it.”
His breath warmed the side of her face as he bent forward to examine her work.
“The waves seem ferocious,” she explained as she set her brush and pallet aside. “They are treacherous when they crash into the rocks. But beneath them, it is quiet and dark. Water can be dangerous but also peaceful.” The sea had successfully lured her into its depths the day before. She’d been invigorated by it but had also known not to swim out too far. She furrowed her brow.
“It can also be calm on the surface and yet deadly beneath—in a whirlpool or an undercurrent—like people,” he added.
She smiled over her shoulder at him. He understood! For the second time that afternoon, their faces were very close to one another’s. His lashes fell as his gaze dropped to her lips.
This afternoon had been magical so far.
He retrieved my hat from the sea.
Without stopping to think what she was doing, Margaret reached one hand up to the back of his neck and pulled his face down.
She did not have to pull hard as his mouth was already descending.
And with this kiss, her entire person sighed in relief. Her body remembered the sensations from that first night he’d arrived.
As she turned, he wound an arm around her waist, tugging her against his hard ridges and planes.
She was unaware that he had pulled the pins from her hair until a gust of wind swirled long strands of it around them both. Strands blocked out the light and tied them together like a silken rope. This part of her, today, in this moment, was wild and wicked and unruly.
You will fly.
He tasted of optimism and sunshine and all the romance of hopeful youth.
She pressed herself against him and edged her mouth to the corner of his, memorizing the feel of gentle stubble on his jaw and the taste of his skin. His neck was warm beneath her hand. This was not real. It could not be.
He groaned and buried his face in her hair as she clung to him.
The two of them stood like that, in a lover’s embrace, and time stood still. She breathed him in, savoring the moment. Only when a gull squawked overhead did she move, the sound jarring Margaret back to sanity.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled against the material of his shirt.Shehad kissedhim!
“I would have done it if you had not.” His chest rumbled beneath her skin when he spoke.
She pinched her eyes shut and pressed her forehead against his chest.
“You cannot marry him.” A matter-of-fact statement from him, as though the answer was obvious.
A million thoughts ran through her head. Sebastian could never understand her reasons. He’d only just begun his life. He could travel and go on his adventures, learning how to change the world for the next thirty years and when he returned, it would still be perfectly acceptable, good heavens,physically possiblefor him to set up his nursery.
But for her, time was running out.
Sebastian Wright, the handsome Marquess of Rockingham, was a mirage, a temptation set in her path to challenge her dream of becoming a mother.
