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His jaw flexed, but he slid farther down the bed. She ran her right leg up his thigh and cooed, “That wasn’t easy, but good things will come of it.” She reached back to the tea tray and picked up the little dipper that sat in a jar of honey. Golden sweetness spiraled down to the plate. She waggled her eyebrows at him and then looked at his crotch.

Dominic drew in a sharp breath. “Torie.” His voice was raw.

She dipped the honey stick again.

“Lie still, Viscount.”

Chapter 34

A few weeks later, Torie woke to find herself alone in bed. Her husband had seduced her at dawn, and then leapt out of bed an hour later, cheerful and energized, whereas she had fallen back to sleep, meaning she’d missed the best light in her studio.

That could not happen tomorrow, she decided, scowling at her own laziness as she rang for Emily. Dominic would have to come home at luncheon if he wanted to dally with his wife. She needed first light for painting.

Now she thought of it, Dom had been routinely coming home at midday, sometimes not returning for the afternoon session. His opponents had managed to push the antislavery vote off the agenda once again, with the ludicrous excuse that more information was needed about how widespread the practice was.

Despite how loudly Dom shouted that even a single enslaved person was too many, the opposition had prevailed.

Emily appeared at the door, holding a tea tray. “Miss Florence would like to pay you a visit, my lady.”

She was itching to go to her studio, but . . . “Of course!” Torie exclaimed.

Florence appeared in the doorway, beaming. “I thought you might like me to read to you while you have tea. It’s so boring to eat without a book in hand.”

“I would love it,” Torie said, patting the bed. “Slippers off.”

Florence agreeably kicked them away and nestled herself next to Torie. Thankfully the children were finally out of mourning; she was wearing an adorable blue dress covered by a long pinafore, because Nanny Grey had discovered that Florence fell to her knees daily—either by accident or because she saw something interesting on the ground. What’s more, Monsieur Langlois had the children painting in watercolors, which tended to splatter.

“Castle Rackrent,” Florence said, pulling a book from her pocket. “You’ll love it, Torie. The husband is terrifyingly mean! A pestilent rogue!”

Torie sipped her tea, smiling. After a few chapters, Florence went off for her daily trip to Green Park—where the mother rabbit never deigned to be seen—and Torie decided that she could not spare the two hours needed to properly attire herself. Ignoring Emily’s admonishments about viscountess behavior, Torie pulled a wrapper over her nightgown and went downstairs to her studio.

A rose at the top of the composition caught her eye. With sudden energy, she bundled on her pinafore and set to work. The petals were too smooth; she wanted the swirl of the stroke to be evident. Her still lifes never tried to capture reality. They were about ideas, and so her brushwork had to be visible.

Two hours later, the studio darkened as rain showers threatened. Torie began pacing around the easel, watching how light changed the impression that one rose was falling. Flitwick appeared with two standing candelabras and a bowl of fruit. Torie wasn’t hungry, but she pulled out a fat yellow pear and placed it before the black bowl, where it might balance the falling rose.

A rap on the door made her turn around, vexed. “I don’t wish for anything else, Flitwick.”

Monsieur Langlois stood in the doorway, his expression diffident . . . fascinated. In the month since he’d arrived, they had flipped from tutor to student and back again several times, finally settling on friendship.

She was a better painter than he was; in this particular realm, Torie was pragmatic rather than boastful. But he was better than she at vocalizing what she was doing. He could see into the heart of a painting, whereas she became inarticulate.

“I don’t like it,” he said immediately, approaching the table. “This pear, she is gauche, bold, gaudy.” He snatched the fruit, waving it in the air. “She is a visit from the world of fertility and light, sensual and delicious.”

A throat clearing had Torie turning to see her husband, home for luncheon.

“Torie, your brush is dripping down your sleeve,” he said gruffly. “May I ask why Monsieur Langlois is talking about sensuality in the presence of my unclothed wife?”

She’d seen that dangerous look before, as when Dominic faced four ruffians at Smithfield Market. It must have been a particularly aggravating morning in the House of Lords; his jaw was tight and his eyes shuttered.

“The pear is sensual. I am clearly not.” She waved at her paint-covered pinafore. “I was considering changing the composition of this painting, but Monsieur Langlois thinks adding the pear would be a mistake.”

The Frenchman drew himself up and said, through pursed lips, “If you suggest for one moment that I would make an invidious advance to the viscountess, to a woman who paints like—”

Torie cut him off before he embarrassed her. “But you’re right about my dressing gown, Dom. I walked in meaning to glance at my painting and remind myself what was left to be done, but that was hours ago, after breakfast.”

Langlois blinked at her. “I didn’t notice your attire, my lady.”

No one could have mistaken his astonishment. He was genuinely uninterested in clothing, and in her as a woman, for that matter. Paint was all that mattered to him. Paint, and what one could say about paintings.