Breath left her in a great gust. “Good.”
“You deserved to win that award. Your painting was better by leagues than all the others.”
She gave a wistful sigh. “I wish I’d been brave enough to put my real name on it.”
But they’d used Remmy’s name instead, and he’d taken her canvas all the way to London for the Royal Artist Society’s yearly competition. “If you ask me, your mother is likely to be in trouble with God for holding grudges so well and so long.”
She grinned, then elbowed him in the ribs. “What was that about? With the women? Why are you playacting?”
“It’s a promotion. For the Folly. We’re doing a morality tale on the dissolution of men who cannot conquer lust.” True in its own way.
Remmy took another long pull of the wine and scooted backward to the top of the rock. He stood, looking out across the lake. Wind rippled the surface and coming night darkened the depths. Below him, Tessa tilted her head back, and her long neck plunged into the deep, open bodice of her gown. Peg’s and Meg’s gowns had been lower, their breasts larger, but…
How much wine had he downed? He’d decided yesterday that Tessa—and by association, her bosom—no longer mattered. But here he was, comparing everything about her to everything about everyoneelse and finding that…
The world fell short of Tessa King’s beauty.
He tilted the wine bottle up, welcomed the liquid burn down his throat. “I’ve not a single reason to be melancholy,” he grumbled.
“You? Melancholy? Of course not.”
“Exactly. The June rake could never be melancholy.”
“Oh, do come off it, Remmy. You’re not the man that Brazen Belle wrote about. It must be this Richard Islington.”
“What do you know about Richard Islington?”
“Only what the women told me today, but even with that little, it’s clear to me it cannot beyou.”
Remmy sat abruptly, and the world veered off-center. It righted with a little shake of his head. He tapped the bottom of the wine bottle against his chest. “R. I. is Remington Ives. Me. I have done everything in that article. The actresses, the partial nudity. I don’t like you to know the particulars, but since you refuse to believe the truth, I won’t hide it from you— In the last six years, I’ve earned every scandalous sentence the Belle wrote.”
“Of course you have.” She patted his leg placatingly, a sisterly gesture that set off entirely unsisterly sensations like little bells throughout his body.
They last time they’d sat on this rock together…
I love you.
Thank you.
Mortifying.
He pulled the scandal sheet out of his jacket pocket and waved it in her face. “I’m ‘Mr. R. I.’”
“You are indeedaMr. R. I., but you’re not the man described there. Why do you insist on everyone thinking you are?” She snatched the paper from him and sipped from the brandy bottle.
The world spun a bit, the wine making him lightheaded. He took deep breaths and shook his head until it stilled. Shestill thought of him as a boy, a useless youth. Another long pull of the wine, hot and smooth and warming him on the inside to match the summer heat.
“I’m not who I used to be, Tessa.” A warning.
She scrunched her nose, clearly missing it. “Actresses, preening? All the”—she waved her hands and the bottle about in the air—“general rakishness and public nudity? You are not wearing acravat, Remmy. You might as well invite everyone to watch you bathe.”
“Excellent idea. I’ll send out engraved invitations next week.” He snagged the brandy bottle, the better to keep it safe.
She snorted. “I simply cannot—” Another snort, but this one erupted into a cascade of giggles. Between her happy, maniacal little laughs, she managed to squeeze out the wordscountenanceandit.
He took a hearty swig of the brandy.
She swiped it back and followed suit, her laughter popping into a tiny brandy hiccup. “Oh, itisdiverting.”
