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EIGHT

Still in the alcove

Several shocked seconds later

“What?” Jack blinked owlishly.

Aubriella had utterly flummoxed him.

“What?” he repeated, pulling on his earlobe. “Surely I misheard you.”

“You heard me perfectly well, Jackson Matherfield. You will allow me to draw you, front, back, and sides, in various poses and donned only in pantaloons.” Aubriella was quite certain that of all the things she might have chosen as a stake, Jack had never considered such an outrageous and scandalous request.

But how else could she acquire a fit male specimen to compare to da Vinci’s renderings?

Desperate times and all that.

His expression a mixture of horrified mirth and offense, Jack stared so long, Aubriella began to reconsider her impulsiveness. At last, he spoke, the usual sardonic man she’d come to expect.

“May I surmise, Aubrie, that your obsession with the human body has not waned over time?”

“It has not, though I wouldn’t call it an obsession but a keen scientific interest.” On the verge of blurting that she possessed da Vinci’s drawings of human anatomy, she bit her lip.

Could she trust Jack with her disreputable secret?

No.

Not yet, at least.

After all, he’d exposed Aubriella’s stunt at university and, just like every other male she knew, had deemed it unfitting for a woman to pursue knowledge of biology and anatomy. As if women weren’t capable of knowing their own minds and interests.

“No. I cannot agree, and I shan’t apologize for refusing.” He shook his head, a shock of ebony hair falling over his forehead. “Emmet would call me out. You’d be ruined. Besides, where in the bloody hell do you think you could sketch me without discovery?”

Jack had a valid point there, but Aubriella refused to concede.

“I suspected you’d refuse.” She lifted a shoulder, pretending a nonchalance she didn’t feel. “I guess you’ll never know how I came by the knowledge regarding The Honorable Francine Willoughby.”

She had no intention of revealing the truth to him. The Ladies of Opportunity had sworn a solemn oath to preserve their clients’ privacy.

Still, Jack didn’t know that.

“Besides, I’m positive you’d lose.” She permitted a confident upsweep of her lips. “I haven’t been bested at hazard in years. I’m sure it would bruise your male pride to lose to a mere woman—a gangly, clumsy, bluestocking spinster to boot.”

“Don’t do that,” Jack snapped, censure darkening his features.

Aubriella couldn’t prevent her eyes from flying wide at his unexpected terseness. “Do what?”

“Disparage yourself.” He raked a hand through his hair, then gently clasped her shoulders. “You are a lovely young woman with a figure any man with eyes in his head would admire. What’s more, you are intelligent—the most intelligent woman I am acquainted with. You do not need artifice or pretentiousness, and I have never heard you speak unkindly of anyone nor spread gossip.”

He’d painted her a virtual saint.

Nevertheless, Aubriella barely heard the compliments. At his touch, sensation zipped along her arms, and though it made no sense scientifically, her knees went weak, and lightheadedness swept through her.

Surely hunger explained this curious physical response.

She’d scarcely touched luncheon or dinner.

“I…” She swallowed; her mouth suddenly gone dry as cold ashes. Rarely at a loss for words, she struggled to gather her scattered wits. “I only repeated what others have said.”