Page 37 of Romancing the Artist

“So I have heard,” Caroline murmured. “Do you think Mariah is right? Do you think they will be shocked enough, muddled enough, that she will be able to introduce an alternative suitor and gain their approval?”

“I cannot say. Mariah believes it. I suppose I must, too.” He abruptly leaned forward, meeting her eyes and hoping she read the sincerity in his own. “Thank you, truly, for offering to help us. I am grateful to you, and I will fulfill my end of our bargain to the best of my ability. You have my word that I will do anything within my power to help you. You have only to ask it of me.”

Her eyebrows rose and one corner of her mouth tilted upward. “Goodness. It sounds as though I could ask you to slay a dragon. A pity there aren’t any about.”

He chuckled and leaned back. “And what have you against poor dragons?”

“Nothing at all. I am rather fond of the creatures in storybooks,” she said, her teasing smile fully apparent. “I will hold you to your word, sir. Though I have the feeling you do not yet understand how much I have asked of you already.”

“Indeed. I haven’t sat for a complicated portrait before. This will be an interesting experience, even if it takes all summer for you to create your masterpiece.” He smiled, and then the weight settled in the pit of his stomach again. All summer. And he would have at least part of that summer with his dreadful cousin. He found freedom from parental matchmaking only to leash himself to Claude.

“You see, it is an expression like that which makes me think I haven’t helped you at all.”

He looked up at Caroline and allowed a sigh to escape him. He glanced to the staircase, but his sisters had not yet reappeared. That gave him a little time to explain himself. “It is nothing to do with your service to me, Caroline. I am quite relieved on that account. It is another matter entirely. I learned this morning that one of my relatives, a cousin, is coming to stay with us for an undetermined length of time.” He tapped his fingers against his knees. “And he’s an unpleasant houseguest. In truth, he is an altogether unpleasant person.”

“Oh dear.” Caroline gave him a sympathetic frown. “I haven’t any cousins, pleasant or unpleasant,” she said. “Is he difficult to get along with?”

“For me, yes. Others don’t often see my cousin for what he is. He has a gift for charming people.” Edward rubbed his hand over his face, then studied Caroline’s expression. She didn’t seem eager, as one would look when anticipating gossip. Nor did she seem indifferent or bored. Instead, she leaned slightly toward him, her expression open and even a touch concerned. “He has a reputation, in some circles, for gambling. He wins often enough at cards and horses that this isn’t usually noted as a vice. And then…he flirts, outrageously, with genteel women. With those of lower status, he doesn’t limit himself to flirtation.” He winced and looked down. “I apologize. I shouldn’t speak of such things to you.”

Her hand appeared upon the table, palm down, but reaching toward him. He looked first at her hand and then raised his gaze to hers. She gave him a small, discreet smile. “My papa, he had a terrible reputation once. A lot of it undeserved. Because of all the things he knew of the world, he never shielded me from the truth of what is out there. He taught me how to tell a good man from a bad one. I understand what you mean, Edward. You needn’t apologize.”

His cheeks warmed, but he nodded. His parents hadn’t explained such things to his sisters until the last time Claude had visited. They had warned his sisters to keep watch on their cousin when near their friends, and moved their maids to sleep in cots in the same rooms as the girls if they could not sleep in their parents’ homes nearby.

Caroline tapped her hand on the table once, then withdrew it, her expression thoughtful. “I am terribly sorry for the discomfort he causes during his visits.”

The softness and the sincerity in her voice made him look up, and when he met her gaze this time, he felt something strange. A sensation he couldn’t explain, though it reminded him of the way his stomach dropped when he stood on the edge of a precipice or leaned too far over a railing to find the ground far beneath him.

“If it was only that, I might well endure it,” Edward admitted, surprising himself. But she had listened with so much sympathy and understanding. Why not tell her the rest? “He is the cousin who will inherit if I don’t have an heir of my own. Someday.” He swallowed and reached for his cup. The tea was cold, but he didn’t care. He needed something to ease the dryness in his mouth.

If anything, Caroline’s expression indicated an even greater understanding. “He represents all the things your parents fear and are using to encourage you to marry.”

He lowered his cup. “Precisely.”

“That is rather awful.”

“Immensely awful.” He stretched his arm out on the table, then tapped his fingers in the same spot she had tapped a moment ago. “Cousin Claude is awful. The worst sort of man. And when he is around, my judgment can sometimes suffer.”

“How?” she asked, her gaze on his fingers. “Surely, he doesn’t influence you to act as he does. I cannot imagine you behaving as anything other than a gentleman.”

“Even when I crash through trees like a boar?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at her. She blushed, but smiled, too.

“You are a very gentleman-like boar.”

He laughed, though it was quiet and short. “No. I haven’t any desire to act as my cousin does. He makes it difficult to keep my temper in check. We have come to blows in the past, or he pokes and prods me until I say or do something, in public usually, that leads to gossip or scandal.”

“And he looks like the victim of your temper rather than the villain that he is,” she surmised.

“Precisely.”

Caroline’s hand returned to the table. Smaller than his. Delicate, and without its glove since she had removed it to take tea. Without hesitation, she laid her slim fingers atop the back of his hand, the touch featherlight and soft. “You must do better this time, Edward. Prove to your family, and yourself, that your cousin cannot goad you into anything. Not poor behavior, and not into taking a wife as a means only to disinherit him.”

Edward wanted to turn his hand over and grasp her fingers in his own. He wanted to know how those delicate fingers would feel, laced with his. And the wanting of those things shocked him so much that he withdrew his hand, though not so fast as to startle her, and tucked it safely beneath the table where he clenched it into a tight fist. Her touch had done something. Stirred movement within, and his thoughts had turned in a dangerous direction.

“You are right, of course.” Why did he sound suddenly hoarse? Had the tea done nothing to help his throat? “I will take your advice to heart. I will do better this time.”

Her eyes brightened, and she gave a firm nod of agreement. “You will. I have complete faith in your abilities.”

That made one of them, at least. Would she still have that faith in him if she knew how he worked to avoid revealing his dream to his father? Caroline had worked hard, had obviously sacrificed time and energy, to devote herself to her art. And he hadn’t even the bravery, the cleverness, to tell his father he wanted to leave England and see the rest of the wide world. He father would spit fire, most likely. And forbid it.