Harlequin Historical November 2015, Box Set 2 of 2 (52 page)

‘Yes.'

Every animal instinct in him fought as he went to the easel. Desire raged as jealousy kicked him in the gut. Jealousy that another man had touched her, held her as he wanted to hold her. There could be no uncertainty now. She'd come to him in the dark of night, on foot, not in the carriage owned by her wealthy protector, wearing her evening gown because she had to hide coming to him. Perhaps it was fear, perhaps it was shame. Whatever it was, he disdained to make it harder for her.

Only an artist could have walked away from her at that moment, he reflected with a bitter twist of a smile. Yet he needed time to collect himself, make sense of what he had experienced outside. The way he'd found her, lying there on the street. He still yearned to find the thief and tear him limb from limb. It enraged him anyone wanted to hurt Cameo.
Cameo
. It felt right, speaking her name at last. How long since he'd stopped calling her Miss Ashe in his mind? He hardly remembered.

Not bothering with his painting shirt, he lifted his palette, squeezed some paint out on to the board. ‘Damnation,' he muttered, as too much spurted out. Forcing himself to pick up his brush, he assessed her as she lay in her simple white garments. The moonlight shining through the windows transformed her skin to a pearly sheen. He had never seen her look so lovely, with a purity combined with a sensuality he could barely resist. With an inner groan he dipped the brush into the paint and began to outline her body on the canvas.

Soon the familiar focus found him in spite of his body's need. She was right, the chemise helped. He'd guessed the proportions of her body correctly, though her legs were longer than he'd first assumed and the smoothness of her arms he'd barely imagined. He worked on, faster than he had ever worked before, steady and sure.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed before he noticed her shivering through the cotton of her chemise.

The paintbrush clattered to the floor as he leapt up. ‘I've let the fire go down.'

After stoking the flames, he went to her. ‘I'm sorry you became cold. I lost track of time. It was coming so fast.'

A shake of her head sent dark curls spiralling. ‘I just need to move.'

He felt his own body tauten as she stretched like a cat beside him, arching her back. He ran his hand through his hair. ‘How are you feeling now? No after-effects from your scare on the street?'

‘No, not at all.'

‘Do you need to take a break from posing?' He quirked his eyebrow and added, ‘Perhaps you'd appreciate more whisky.'

She laughed. ‘No, I'm quite well. But I've been thinking, while you were working,' she spoke with sudden shyness, ‘about the painting's subject. I'm curious. I thought you quoted a line of poetry before. Was it from the poem for this painting?'

He nodded. ‘I told you, I think, this portrait is based upon a poem by Tennyson.'

‘Yes, but you never told me which poem.' She smiled, suddenly mischievous. ‘You were most mysterious, Mr Cole.'

‘Perhaps it's time for that mystery to be revealed.'

* * *

Cameo watched as Benedict took out a battered leather-bound volume from the bookshelf by the fire. Even the stretch of his shoulder as he reached for it sent a tremor through her.

‘May I?' He indicated the space beside her.

Cameo moved aside with a gulp. ‘Yes, of course.' Her stomach contracted as Benedict stood beside her next to the chaise longue, her awareness of him heightened by the fact she wore only her chemise, her legs bare. She still felt amazed at her boldness in undressing for him, but she didn't regret it. It felt right, not wrong.

Watching him paint had only increased her certainty. As he worked she had made a decision. She would stay with him tonight, for as long as he allowed her to remain. Explanations, confessions, they could come later.

Not tonight.

She loved him.

With a finger Benedict opened the book. Her stomach experienced another of those tight surges, lower down.

‘The painting is based on a poem entitled “The Gardener's Daughter; or, The Pictures”
.
It's one of Tennyson's early works.' He riffled through the pages. ‘It's long and I'm not using it all, but there's a description of a woman. I'll read part of it.'

Benedict's voice became a caress.

‘A certain miracle of symmetry,

A miniature of loveliness, all grace

Summ'd up...she

So light of foot, so light of spirit—oh, she

To me myself, for some three careless moons,

The summer pilot of an empty heart

Unto the shores of nothing! Know you not

Such touches are but embassies of love...

She...said to me, she sitting with us then,

“When will
you
paint like this?” and I replied,

(My words were half in earnest, half in jest,)

“'Tis not your work, but Love's. Love, unperceived,

A more ideal Artist he than all,

Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes

Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair

More black than ashbuds in the front of March.”'

Slowly he laid the book down on the chaise longue between them.

Cameo's pulse pounded. No words came from her mouth. If she opened her lips now, she would only be able to tell him—
she loved him.

‘Do you understand?' His voice was husky. ‘When I first saw you I knew you were the one. You're the girl from the poem.'

‘Me?' Tears threatened to brim over her lashes.

‘I didn't dare believe it.' He leant forward and touched her hair. ‘You came, in the month of March no less, with your hair as black as ash buds and your eyes like the hearts of deepest pansies. It wasn't merely your likeness to the poet's description. I'm an artist and yet it was as if I never saw a woman before I saw you.'

Cameo couldn't take her eyes from his face.

Benedict hollowed a laugh. ‘To think I chose that particular poem believing I could paint its subject! I don't think I ever truly painted before, because I hadn't been touched in the way the poet describes. The poem captures how everything changes, even for an artist, when we see with the eyes...'

He fell silent.

Cameo could barely breathe. ‘With the eyes...?'

‘Of love.' His voice seemed to brush her heart. ‘I couldn't believe it and yet I fought it. Cameo.'

The book of poems slipped to the floor as Benedict's lips came down on hers, her chemise crushing against him as he explored her mouth with exquisite force. Her fingers grasped the edge of his shirt, finding his hot, muscled skin as she sought his ardent lips, his searching tongue, sensing the building of his body's hard desire.

‘I yearned to do this from the moment I saw your cameo necklace,' he murmured as his mouth moved over her chin down to her neck. ‘I longed to put my lips to that beautiful skin...'

With a sigh her head fell back against the chaise longue. He trailed melting kisses along her throat, around the cameo stone, finding touch points to send tremors shuddering through her core and flashing circles of light inside her head.

She slid underneath him; let his lips trace the rapid rise and fall of her breasts through the lace of her chemise. Fingers of sharp desire pierced her as his teeth tore away the delicate fabric, to tease with his tongue the delicate rosebuds of her breasts.

‘Benedict.' The word was a moan.

‘You're saying my name.'

With a ragged breath he came to meet her mouth, his fingers sweeping her breast, where his lips had been.

‘Say it again,' he instructed, close against her lips.

‘Say what, Mr Cole?' She managed to find a teasing tone amidst her shudders.

On the tip of her breast his fingers firmed, quivering her into submission.

‘Benedict.'

His pressure relented. ‘I find it difficult to resist you. I thought you had a lover. I thought you wanted someone else.'

‘You thought I had a lover? Benedict, no. It was you I wanted. But when you first kissed me—you said you were sorry for it, do you remember?' She gave a mock pout.

Benedict smiled ruefully as he drew away and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I was sorry. I had to keep some defences raised. I knew what I'd unleashed. I didn't seek this with my model.' His lips tightened. ‘I must be honest with you. I had a relationship with Maisie.'

Cameo recalled her instinctive jealousy of the beautiful blonde, tasted it on her tongue. She raised herself up on to her elbows, unable to keep the words from spilling out. ‘Maisie is beautiful.'

‘Yes, she is.' Benedict stroked her cheek. ‘And so are you. I told you artists see in terms of light and shade. It's comparing sunlight to moonlight.' A tingle ran through her as his voice deepened. ‘I like moonlight best.'

He encircled her in his arms and she nestled into them. ‘Don't believe I always become intimate with my models. I'm not that sort of man. That's why I tried so hard to resist you. I knew what you were doing to me. It seemed safer to keep you at a distance.'

‘So you were purposely that way?' Sternly she sat up in his arms. ‘You've been quite temperamental, Mr Cole.'

‘Perhaps I was brusquer with you than I ought to have been. It was only because I desired you so much.' He curled a strand of her hair around his finger. ‘I can't believe it's such a short time ago that you came into my studio. It feels as if you have always been in my mind, as if I've always been hoping for you, waiting for you to appear. I'll never forget that moment when you released your hair.'

‘You seemed so angry with me then,' she recalled. It seemed long ago.

‘I've told you why. It was the power of my feelings for you. When you didn't come today, I realised my feelings. I thought I'd scared you away.' He took her in his arms again. ‘This is rare, Cameo.'

Dizziness engulfed her as again his mouth found hers. A diamond burst of passion exploded inside her as she yielded to him, allowing him to search her mouth deeply, her tongue passionately seeking his in return. The taste of him was known to her now, the warmth of his lips, the coolness of his tongue, the pressure that inflamed her. She clung to him, needing his kiss to last for ever, to go deeper, deeper.

‘Just paint me, Benedict,' Cameo whispered in a voice she hardly recognised when at last he released her. ‘Paint me.'

Chapter Thirteen

‘The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good,
O'er the mute city stole with folded wings...
Love at first sight, first-born, and heir to all,
Made this night thus.'

—Alfred
,
Lord
Tennyson:
‘The Gardener's Daughter'

‘C
ameo—'

‘Benedict.' She pressed herself almost wantonly against him.

He groaned. In a single movement he picked her up and carried her to his bed. She imprinted her lips on his warm neck, hearing him release another deep groan as he laid her against the pillows.

Benedict's eyes turned black with desire as he leaned over her. ‘Are you sure?'

His index finger swept the tip of her breast, hardening it through the cotton.

Cameo's stomach contracted, low down. She knew her eyes must be giving him the same message. Her decision had been made, watching him paint. ‘Yes. I'm sure.'

Surprising her into a gasp, his hands searched underneath her petticoat, sliding her drawers down over her legs in a swift, taut movement. Casting them aside, he studied her, the rippling effect on her skin even more powerful than his touch. ‘I've longed to see you like this.'

‘And like this?' Cameo didn't pause. Momentarily her chemise formed a veil between them as she lifted it over her head. With only the slightest sense of shyness she fell naked against the cotton sheets.

Still holding her captive with his scrutiny, he sent the dress sailing away across the wooden floor, to float into a white cloud across the floorboards.

His gaze lingered over her bare skin.

Silence shivered between them.

‘You said you wanted me to paint you,' he said at last, his voice husky.

Mystified, she watched as he went to the easel. Taking a fresh paintbrush he brought it to where she lay.

‘Will you let me?' His strong body silhouetted in the light, he leant over her. ‘I want my brush to discover every part of you.'

At her tremulous nod, Benedict put the tip of the paintbrush to her forehead and, light as a feather, traced it over her face, down her nose, across her cheeks, around her mouth, causing her lips to circle and part. With all the attention he gave as an artist to his canvas, so he touched her now. Downwards he stroked, over her chin, along her throat, behind her ears, finding pleasure points to make her quiver as he watched. The light edge of the bristles moved along her arms to caress each fingertip, only to come back again, just as slowly, almost lazily, looping inwards towards the delicate, hardened tips of her breasts.

Even more deliberate now, a tender torture, his brush moved downwards over her stomach. She tensed as he went further still, veering at the last moment to trail up and down each thigh, along her calves. At her feet the brush danced lightly, tickling her toes, before it moved slowly, so slowly, up to the crevice between her legs.

Cameo stiffened. His brush circled, teasing her, playing with her. Instinctively, she arched her back, as deep, excruciating darts of pleasure spread inside.

‘Benedict,' she murmured, closing her eyes as the room began to spin. ‘Benedict.'

The feeling spread deeper still. The brush flicking. Teasing. Tantalising. A wave broke over her, in her. Then pleasure, such as she had never imagined. Waves of it. Shudders. Gasps.

Just when she thought to swoon away he stood, left her quivering on the bed. In a single sleek movement, he lifted his shirt over his head, his chest muscles flexing, to reveal his strong arms and dark-haired chest. She remembered how he'd torn one of his shirts. She knew why, now.

With a flick of his button, he released his trousers. She'd never seen a man naked before, except for a marble statue at a museum, which her nanny had hurried her away from. She hadn't realised he would be as magnificent as this.

‘You're...you're a sculpture,' Cameo said impulsively, awed.

Benedict grinned briefly as he joined her on the bed, his nakedness like a hot flame against her skin. ‘Not one of Nicholas Trelawney's, I hope.'

A breath escaped her, ending on a suddenly nervous note she couldn't disguise.

Gently he cupped her face. ‘Cameo.'

Her breath escaped again.

He kissed her, slowly, languorously, until the fluttering in her stomach unfurled.

‘My paintbrush knows you now,' he whispered into her ear. ‘Will you let me discover inside you? Is this what you desire?'

‘You're my desire,' she whispered. She knew it then. No going back. No regrets. For a moment she'd felt a qualm, but he'd kissed it away. She would never seek a society marriage. This was her chance of experiencing love, if only for a little while, in Benedict's arms.

It was worth any risk.

Lowering his dark head, he took the pink tip of one breast into his mouth, while at the same time, between her parted thighs his hand found its way towards the most delicate part of her that no man had touched. She jerked against his searching fingers inside her, waves of desire rocking her from within with strange urgency, while his hardness pressed against her, his powerful pulse a match to the throbbing of her heart.

He came back up. ‘I can't wait much longer.' His words brushed against her lips.

‘Don't wait...' she breathed.

He shifted, raised her wrists above her head. Her fingers caught against the wooden bedhead, felt the carved leaves and buds as he found his mark.

A sharp pain.

A slight frown as he drew away momentarily. Puzzled.

She lifted her hips for more, needing him. Yearning for him to go on.

He shafted deeper.

Now she released her cry of pain mixed with joy, as he entered, thrusting deep inside. He muffled her cry in his mouth.

As her peak built with his, he tore his lips away.

‘You're my muse.' Benedict's voice became a throaty rasp. ‘Do you understand what that means?'

Cameo lifted her body to meet him as he went deeper, into her very soul. ‘I know what it means. I'm yours.'

* * *

Benedict glanced over to where Cameo lay asleep, naked beside him. Her breathing sounded slow and steady, rhythmically lifting her bare breasts up and down. Yet he lay awake, still stunned by her physical response. He'd guessed she possessed passion inside her, he saw it while painting her. For him it had been impossible not to sense it, but even so...

As she slept, her hand tucked under her pale cheek, he kept watch over her. He yearned to paint her that way, of course, as he wanted to paint her in every aspect, every mood. The moonlight came in through the window, silvering her skin with its gentle light. The softness of her skin he had barely been able to believe; it was as though she had been bathed in milk and honey since birth.

He frowned. There was something else. He'd felt it inside her, that moment of surrender. She was so perfect. A bud.

The tightness, the momentary barrier he'd discovered. It had made him suspect...

No. Impossible. There were no other signs. The man in the park who owned the black-crested carriage, surely he'd touched Cameo first, though the mere thought inflamed Benedict.

Yet that moment of sweet resistance...

Unable to lie still any longer, he got up, wrapped his dressing gown around him and went to the window, frowning as he stared out. Soon the sun would streak the sky gold and below in the street there came the sounds of the first of the market carts rolled in for the day.

‘Benedict.' A soft touch on his shoulder. ‘What's the matter?'

At her voice, he pivoted to find her standing beside him, her slim body wrapped in a white sheet like a toga, her dark hair tumbling over one shoulder.

‘You look like a Roman goddess. I should paint you that way.' He crooked a mocking smile. ‘I always want to paint you, don't I?'

‘Why are you awake?' She seemed to sense he wasn't as light-hearted as he tried to sound. ‘Will you tell me what's wrong?'

He reached over and ran his hand down from her lips to her neck, to where her breasts disappeared beneath the swathes of sheet. ‘You haven't been entirely honest with me, have you?'

She froze.

He encircled her wrist. ‘When were you planning to tell me?'

A whimper escaped as she tried to pull her wrist free.

He tightened his grip. ‘Your bones are so delicate, like a bird. I held a bird once. It flew into our cottage. It flapped its wings against the window, unable to break free. I caught it. I felt its tiny bones beneath the feathers before I carried it outside and released it to the sky.'

In reply he turned her palm upward, lifting it to his lips. Pure white, as soft as snowfall. But he knew the clues. ‘I know your secret.'

‘My secret...'

‘I can tell by these. By the paint caught in your fingernails. By the way you watch me work. By the way you sketch. By the way you observe the world. You're an artist. Aren't you?'

She almost collapsed into his arms with relief. He sensed her worry that he meant to ask her another burning question. But he refused to pressure her about that, either. Not now. He didn't want to hear any other man's name on her lips. Tonight was theirs alone.

‘You knew,' she murmured.

‘All along. Did you think you could fool me into believing you were a mere model? But you've always been more than that.' He reached out and drew her closer, laid her palm flat against his dressing gown, so she felt his hardness. ‘You standing there in the moonlight does this to me.'

She leaned over and lifted the paintbrush from the table where he'd left it beside the bed. ‘Come back to bed. It's my turn now.'

Once more she surprised him, guiding him as he lay down on the bed. She let the sheet fall completely away from her and stood for a moment in her nakedness, her breasts high, her waist curving sweetly above her rounded hips. Her hair formed a curtained shadow over her face as she joined him on the bed and straddled him, her slim legs bent on either side of his hips.

‘Don't move.' She dropped the paintbrush. ‘Wait. Will you let me...use my fingers?'

Benedict groaned his assent. He exhaled as she plied her hand in imitation of the way he'd teased her with the soft bristles of the brush earlier, flicking her fingertips first across his brow and cheeks, circling his mouth, and then taking her hand down his neck to the swirls of dark hair covering his chest.

Shifting her body backwards caused her breasts to form two tender points over him, as with slow movements her hand strayed further still down to his darker hair below. Tentative to start, unpractised, her caress grew more confident as she stroked steadily, until he feared his strength in holding back.

Just when he thought himself in danger, he reached for her and rolled her beneath him, slid inside. Her tightness, her moistness told him she, too, was deeply aroused. She rocked her hips and he moved, too, in an instinctive rhythm to match hers, diving further, deeper, as he kissed her hard and spilled her name into her mouth as he came.

He fell away to lie beside her as her high breasts heaved with her ragged breathing. It took him a moment to catch his own breath before he said, ‘You're quite an artist.'

She laughed.

‘I learnt from a master,' she replied.

‘It's the student who matters.' He ran a finger along the side of her face, along the profile he knew so well. ‘Cameo. You're more than a model to me. Will you let me teach you?'

Her face was a glow of light, as though a sunburst had broken through a cloud above her head. ‘Teach me to paint?'

‘Yes. We'll have to start your art lessons,' he clarified, as he idly caressed the tip of her breast, ‘among other things.'

‘Really?'

‘Really.'

Her smile said it all. Then she dived away, retrieved the paintbrush and dangled it in front of him.

The sheets dropped from her bare breasts as she rose up and the sight made him groan aloud.

‘Perhaps I wish to remain an artist's model, after all,' she said saucily. ‘I'm sure there are many other artists who might want me to pose for them, among the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, perhaps?'

He grabbed the paintbrush. ‘The only artist you'll model for is me,' he growled and, rearing up, pulled the sheets over their heads.