That wasn’t true. He’d been promising enough to gain the modest notice of a London gallery owner, something his father had shot down like an ailing pigeon the moment he heard of it; Nesbit had been right about that. What was more, the art classes he’d taken on the sly had earned him more than one commission offer, something that simply wasn’t done in their world. A duke’s heir didn’t paddle in any pond save the duchy’s.
Georgiana pinned him with a golden gaze while he deliberated, seeing clean through the lie.
Ren slid his cup onto the white-damask-covered table and glanced around for no reason other than a rare case of nerves. They were alone for the most part, standing close but not overly so, the scent of crushed clover drifting by on a tranquil gust. Aside from the invisible thread connecting them, the subtle current humming beneath his skinwhenever she was near, they could almost have been, like the couple they hoped to bring together, discussing the weather.
“I don’t sketch much anymore.” Ren reached for a lemon scone and bit into it, like he hadn’t been a naïve twenty-two the last time he talked to someone about this. “Except for little drawings of Henry…and the staff on occasion. With permission, of course. I also quite like working on likenesses of my horses. Trivial scraps.” Chewing, he dusted his hands together and tried to look anywhere but at her. “There’s a studio of sorts, modest, at my Yorkshire estate. Enough unused rooms for paint and canvases, much better than my space in the city. I even thought to take up sculpture. There’s a discreet instructor in Hampstead I’ve been talking to.”
She hummed softly, drawing his gaze to her lips, to the sleek line of her neck. “So, the duke is an artist?”
Ren had never thought of himself as an artist. He’d never been allowed to. “I dabble. A meaningless pastime that keeps me occupied.”
“I want you to dabble with me.”
“Gia.”
“Ren.”
He shook his head, but he was charmed, and it showed.
Her smile bloomed, exposing the crooked front tooth he adored. “What can it hurt? A trivial scrap to remember my summer by.”
Ren knew what he wanted. Gia Harrington lying across his indigo sheets, legs parted, magnificent breasts cradled in his hands, his mouth all over her. Charcoal staining the fingertips he trailed along her skin, his drawings littering the floor, crinkling beneath them as he pressed her into the mattress.
What he couldn’t read was whatshewanted.
“Bad idea,” he whispered, the thought of her seeping through his artist’s mind. Regrettably, his body had also begun to respond.
She traced her thumb along the rim of her teacup. “But you want to?”
He paused, her invitation a drug he desperately longed to take.Yes.
“You have the materials here?”
He nodded. He never traveled without art supplies.
She shrugged daintily, the shrewdest negotiator he’d ever seen. “The unfettered soul I saw today, let him decide.”
“That soul has poor judgment, sprite.”
“I’ll bring my maid,” she offered, gazing at him through lashes dark at the tips, as though dipped in chocolate.
Ren pressed a bewildered laugh into his fist, then scrubbed his hand over his jaw. “Somehow, I have little confidence in her as chaperone if you’re proposing her for this fiasco. I wager she’s used to your mischief.”
“One miniature, less labor than a horse’s likeness.” She traced the toe of her shell-pink slipper through the grass. “It might not even be worth keeping.”
Ren glanced once around the thinning assembly, seeing most had moved into the manse for luncheon, then leaned close enough for his breath to brush the delicate swirl of her ear. The scent of honeysuckle and her sun-warmed skin swept over him, delicious impact. “It will be worth keeping, Gia. I’ve never had a taste for beginning something I cannot finish.”
5
Awareness
Over the course of the next day, Georgiana tried to think of herself as Gia.
She’d always been George. Resilient, dependable George, the least emotional of her seven sisters. Her brother told her often enough, though it counted more as an insult than a compliment. She loved him, but Charles was merely delighted she’d brought little trouble to his door. Resolute women got less attention, less care, lesseverything. They stayed steady through the chaos, cleaned up messes, marched through life as if the ground were littered with broken glass—while everyone else cried and shouted and sulked.
For once, she wanted her passions added to the mix.
The thought of Renwick Bellamont stirred a disarming amount of them.Gads, her body thrummed like a struck pianoforte string when he got within twenty yards of her. A blistering connection, inexplicable and inescapable.
