Stroke of Genius (10 page)

But he didn’t want her to suffer for it.

“Think on it, dear boy,” Olympia said. “You’ll see that I’m right.”

He’d think on it. Thinking was all he’d been doing. Grace, when he woke. Grace, while he worked. Grace, when he lay on his bed at night, clutching his sheets and waking with a corner of his pillow tucked between his lips, sucking her tight little nipples in his dreams.

He did plenty of thinking.

But if he didn’t
do
something else soon, he was going to burst out of his own skin.

Aphrodite’s advice rolled round in his head. He fought against its pull with all his might, but not even the gods could resist Aphrodite. And Pygmalion was no god.

Wyckham cleared his throat at the threshold to Crispin Hawke’s studio.

“Go away, Wyckham!”

“But, sir, Miss Makepeace is here.”

His master’s massive shoulders tensed. “Tell her to go away, too.”

“And how, I’d like to know, shall you fulfill your commission if you turn out your model?” Miss Makepeace spoke up from behind Wyckham.

She pushed around him and entered the private sanctuary without permission. Wyckham cringed, waiting for the explosive response, but Hawke didn’t even turn around to face her.

“I’ve heard you described as a genius,” she continued, “but it’s beyond even your powers to produce a miracle from thin air.”

Then Crispin Hawke turned around and gave her a sardonic bow. He’d rolled up his shirtsleeves and his hands and forearms were streaked with gray clay to the elbows.

“My dear Grace, you take an awful chance coming here unannounced. The day is warm and I seriously considered working in just my leather apron.” One dark
brow arched in question. “But perhaps that happy circumstance is what you were hoping for.”

If Miss Makepeace had been a hedgehog, all her spikes would have been standing on end.

“Come, Claudette,” she said as she whirled about.

Wyckham sighed. He’d hoped for a little more time with Claudette, that lovely French baguette with feet. She’d fallen quickly into his feather tick the last time she was here and they’d become exceedingly fast friends. Wyckham was planning to stretch things out this time. Adventurous, willing and incredibly wet, the blonde lady’s maid was just the sort of bedmate he preferred.

And this time Wyckham hoped to wring a few “oo-la-la’s” from the little French witch.

“No, stay,” Hawke said, starting to catch Miss Makepeace by the elbow, but stopping shy of his goal because of his clay-crusted hands. “You should at least see how your sculpture is coming along.”

Hawke stepped aside and the piece he was working on came into view. The work rose out of a mound of clay, two willowy arms, hands tilted just so. Earthen fingers grasped the tips of the hand with the unbuttoned glove. Even without a live model, the casting of Miss Make-peace’s hands was taking sensual shape.

“Oh!” She stared at it openmouthed. “I stand corrected. A miracle worker, too.”

“Hardly,” Hawke said with more humility than Wyckham had ever heard from him. “It would be much easier with a live model. Stay, Grace.”

Miss Makepeace nodded. “Very well.”

Wyckham slanted his gaze at Claudette. The little minx licked her bottom lip and tossed him a wink. His willy rose like a tower in his trousers. As one, he and Claudette turned to go, anticipating Hawke’s order that he “entertain” Miss Makepeace’s maid.

“But I’d like Claudette to remain here with us,” Miss Makepeace said with determination. Wyckham and the French wench froze in midstep.

His willy flagged a bit.

“No, I never allow anyone but my subject in the studio when I’m working.”

Hope rose in Wyckham’s chest and his willy with it.

“But I insist,” Miss Makepeace said.

Wyckham’s willy retreated back into its foreskin sheath.

“And I resist. You stay here with me alone or not at all.” Hawke folded his arms across his chest, heedless of the gray stains he left on the white shirtfront.

Emboldened by the master’s stance, “Big Will” peeped out his head again inside Wyckham’s smallclothes. There was still every chance for a frisky romp with the delectable Claudette.

“Then you leave me no choice but to go,” the lady said.

Oh, no.
This “jack-in-the-box” routine left Wyckham slightly light-headed.
A man’s willy can only take so much teasing.

“Go, then, but I cannot answer for the consequences,” Hawke said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Miss Makepeace’s face was really quite angelic, but right now she looked as if she’d relish smashing a demon or two and hurling them back into the pit.

Starting with Wyckham’s master.

“I can’t guarantee the accuracy of a sculpture based on sketches and memory,” Hawke explained. “It would be a shame if, say, one of your lovely hands should suddenly sprout a sixth finger.”

He picked up a small lump of clay, rolled it between his palms into the likeness of a slim appendage and wiggled it at her.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Only if I must, Grace.”

Hawke’s lips twitched in a smile, but Wyckham knew his will was like iron. He’d set his feet and there was no budging Crispin Hawke once he’d done that.

Miss Makepeace’s eyes flared and her nostrils quivered. Wyckham couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t call Hawke’s bluff. It wasn’t worth getting his hopes up—or anything else, for that matter—until she announced her decision.

Miss Makepeace made a noise in the back of her throat, somewhere between a growl and curse, and untied her bonnet.

She stays!

“Mind this for me, please,” she ordered Claudette.

Claudette dropped a saucy curtsey as she took the bonnet and slanted Wyckham a look that set his blood surging hot again.

“Wyckham!” Hawke’s gaze didn’t leave Miss Makepeace for even a heartbeat. Good thing. Even though she was a lady and all, she had the look of a wench who might lay into him if he let down his guard. “See that you make Miss Makepeace’s maid feel welcome.”

Welcome, he says. I’ll settle for just making her
“
come.
”

Wyckham bowed and said, “Yes, sir. Very good, sir.”

I’ll thank you later, sir.

Wyckham gave Claudette his arm, but once they cleared the studio, she dropped it along with the bonnet and wrapped her arms around his neck. Before he could say
“sacre bleu,”
her lips were fastened to his and her tongue was down his throat. She pressed herself against him, rubbing like a cat against a post, and they stumbled into a little alcove.

Her mouth was wet and hot and she stole the breath from his lungs. Wyckham wondered if it was possible
for a man to drown in a kiss. Then she plunged a hand down the front of his trousers and he ceased to care if he did.

Without a word, Grace took her position and jerked on the opera gloves. Crispin almost regretted coercing her to stay since she was obviously aggravated. But then he noticed the way her flush made her skin rosy all the way down to the edge of her low bodice and decided it was worth risking her wrath.

Do her nipples change color when she’s angry, too?

Judging from the stormy expression on her face, it would be worth his life to try to find out.

Her gaze traveled around the room and fell on his partially complete statue of Hector. The marble giant had a length of that abominable puce serge wrapped around his neck.

“Why does that statue need a scarf?” she asked, the corners of her mouth turned down. “That’s the fabric you bought at the dressmaker’s. I thought you despised that color.”

“I do.” Since his cock wouldn’t settle that day at the modiste’s he’d had to buy the bolt to hold in front of him when they left the shop.

“Then why—”

“It’s to remind me of something,” Crispin said.

Her brows knit in a frown, but she held her arms in the correct position for his sculpture.

“Some people tie strings on their fingers. I give old Hector a neck scarf,” he said with a shrug.

“Of what does it remind you?” she asked.

“Not to rush in where angels fear to tread.”

He worked in silence for a while. Contrary to his prior claim, it was not easier to work on this casting with her present. He was acutely aware of her, of her
scent, her soft breathing, the way her hair escaped its pins and tickled around her ears. He longed to pluck out each of those pins and run his fingers through the length of her chestnut curls.

“You’ve made amazing progress on this work for a man who spends his days gallivanting about town.”

Her voice jolted him out of his fantasy. Good thing. Before he started thinking about another place with chestnut curls he’d like to run his fingers through.

“The piece is coming along.” He crossed over to a commode with a basin and pitcher and washed the clay from his hands and arms.

“Are you stopping?”

“No, I just wanted to take a look at all the sight lines.” And if in the process he was able to drink his fill of her, looking at her from different vantage points, so be it.
And so much for not rushing in, you fool!
“You know, to make sure the angles are right.”

“And for that you need clean hands?”

“Clean hands, clean heart, Grace.” He toweled off the excess water.

She fumed in silence for a moment. He’d known this reckoning would come after toying with her breast at the modiste’s shop.

“Do you find it difficult to keep up your work schedule when you make social calls during the day?” Her tone was brittle as shale.

He frowned. He hoped she’d be a bit more explicit in her anger, to rail at him for daring to touch her breast. Just the thought of her saying the word “breast” gave him a thrill.

“Social calls? What are you talking about?”

“We chanced to see you yesterday when we were out and about,” she said. “At St. James Park.”

He circled her, ostensibly checking different angles
on the composition, but in reality, he wanted to get closer to her.

“And you didn’t speak?” He made a tsking noise as he leaned over her shoulder. From this angle, he could see down into the shadow between her breasts. He drew a deep breath. She must have just washed her hair. A fresh citrusy scent rushed past his nose and straight to his groin. “It was most inconsiderate of you to snub me.”

She turned to meet his gaze and then, after only a few heartbeats, looked away.

“We didn’t have opportunity to speak to you. You ducked so quickly into that townhouse with the gilded door.” She clenched her fingers into fists. “It was almost as if you didn’t wish to be seen.”

“Surely you jest. No one goes to St. James Park with the goal of not being seen.” He reached over her shoulder to uncurl her fingers and found that her hand trembled. “What’s really troubling you, Grace?”

“You, you big dolt!” She bunched her fingers into a fist again, turned on her stool and punched his shoulder. “How could you…do what you did to me in the modiste’s shop and then go visit a courtesan?”

She was jealous of Olympia! Crispin suppressed the urge to laugh, but she must have seen the twitch of a smile all the same. She punched him again.

This time he caught her fist and held it as he walked around to stand before her. “Steady, my dear. Just because I’m in your pay, it doesn’t give you leave to pummel the help.”

“Fake humility doesn’t fool me.” She snorted and pulled her hand away. “The day you feel yourself in my employ, I’ll walk naked down Fleet Street.”

“Careful, Grace. You tempt me to real humility. You might be surprised what I’d dare to see you walk naked anywhere.” His voice was rough.

He trailed his fingertips from her cheeks, down the column of her throat to the tops of her breasts. His body roused to her nearness. And to the fact that she’d stopped whacking him.

He fully expected her to bat his hand away, but she didn’t. Just as in the modiste’s shop, Grace went still as a hare. He traced the lace at the top of her bodice, letting a finger slip into the hollow between her breasts. Her lips parted softly and her eyes closed.

Crispin hadn’t been able to kiss her at the dress shop, with her mother and the other women so perilously close, but nothing stopped him now. He lowered his mouth to capture hers.

And—miracles!—her lips parted beneath his. He tongued her gently and she groaned softly into his mouth. Crispin gathered her in a snug embrace and she surprised him by molding her body to his. Her hands ran over the crown of his head and smoothed his wild hair while her tongue began a game of chase with his.

His hands found her breasts again. No light touches this time. He cupped them both, massaging and lifting. He tried to slide his hand into her bodice to touch her satin skin, but his hands were too big and her bodice too tight.

She broke off their kiss, staring at him breathlessly.

“Wait a moment. You’ll tear something,” she said simply. Then with Yankee practicality, Grace began to undo the buttons down the front of her gown.

Pygmalion could never be certain when the transformation occurred, but in his striving with it, somehow, the stone began to shape him.

Claudette better be right about this,
Grace thought furiously as she tackled the third button. A heart-to-heart discussion with her maid convinced Grace that she was still a virgin, even though a man had touched her breast through a few thin layers of cloth.

Surely she’d still be a virgin even if cloth was missing from the equation.

So long as she was clothed from the waist down, Claudette assured her, she would remain in the same happy state of purity she now enjoyed. And she wanted to feel Crispin’s hand on her breast again with a desperation that bordered on obsession.

What did it matter if Crispin Hawke frequented a courtesan? It wasn’t as if her heart were engaged, goodness knows! She only needed him to complete her investigation of this strange new phenomenon. A writer never turned down a new experience. The flurry of sensation would all be grist for the mill of her pen.

How is it a man’s hand on a woman’s breast makes her warm all over? Makes her feel more tinglingly alive than a brisk ride across the Commons? Makes her insides melt like a lump of sugar in a steaming cup of tea?

Grace had it all planned out. It was the essence of empirical inquiry. Once she had the answers to those
burning questions, she could dismiss Crispin Hawke and set him back to work on her sculpture.

A man took pleasure where he wished. Why shouldn’t a woman?

Of course, her mother would be horrified, but what Minerva Makepeace didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her daughter one bit. Actually, the whole forbidden quality of the experience added some extra spice.

I’m a modern and independent woman. I don’t need anyone’s permission,
she assured herself.

But her modern and independent stance would be more convincing if her hand didn’t shake while she unbuttoned her gown.

“Let me,” he said softly.

Her hands dropped to her sides. Crispin’s large fingers worked the tiny buttons with surprising ease.

Probably practiced ease.
“About that woman…” She hated herself for broaching the subject, but it was like a pesky fly buzzing in her brain. The courtesan’s gilded door simply wouldn’t go away.

“What woman?” Crispin unhooked her stays and pushed the supportive undergarment aside.

Grace silently thanked Claudette for suggesting the stays that fastened in the front to go with her button-down-the-front gown that morning. Her mother was right: French maids did know best when it came to fashion.

Then Crispin took one end of the ribbon that held her chemise neckline closed and gave it a tug. The delicate lace and muslin fell away. Crispin laid back the dress bodice, her stays and chemise till her nipples peeped from behind the fabric. The fierce look of hunger on his face made her breath catch.

A deep heaviness pulled at her groin, a low ache. Not
at all unpleasant, but an ache nevertheless. It was a puzzle how something could be classified as pain and pleasure at once. Definitely a mystery worthy of further study. Why had no one written about this before? Perhaps they had, but she’d been reading the wrong sort of books.

“What woman?” he repeated, spellbound by her breasts.

What woman?
She struggled to recall. When was the man going to touch her breasts instead of just gawk at them? Blood roared so loud in her ears, it was hard to remember. Had she asked about a woman?

“Oh! That courtesan on St. James Park—do you visit her often?”

“Not as often as she’d like.” His smile was wickedness itself.

Conceited swine.

She nearly reached up and closed her gown. But then his head dipped and he began to kiss her breasts.

This was even better than the touch of his hand. Little tingles chased along behind his lips. His warm breath feathered over and between her breasts. The stubble on his chin rasped the valley between her peaks and set her skin dancing. He nuzzled a circle around one nipple and it drew so tight, she bit her bottom lip to keep from crying out.

Then his mouth covered her nipple and she couldn’t stop a strange sound from escaping her tightly pressed lips. It was a cross between a whimper and a moan. A small sound. A distressed sound. It encouraged Crispin to suck gently, then roughly. And swirl his tongue around her areola and flick that needy bit of skin as if it had been naughty. As if his tongue were the paddle needed to bring discipline to her wicked little nipple.

And he kept at it till she made the noise again.

He straightened to grin down at her. “Liked that, did you?”

She moistened her lips with her tongue. “It was…tolerable.”

“Just tolerable?”

He caressed both breasts with his big hands, thrumming her sensitive peaks. Her belly clenched and she was much definitely warmer and moister
down there
than when she first entered his studio.

“Perhaps I might rate it as ‘mildly diverting,’” she said through clenched teeth. Couldn’t the man feel her heart galloping? She certainly could, both in her chest and between her legs.

He snorted like a stallion. “Mildly diverting? That’s a challenge no fellow can withdraw from without a severe dent to his manhood. I can damn well do better than ‘mildly diverting.’”

Before she could admit she was teasing, he scooped her up and carried her toward the fainting couch in the corner.

“Crispin, your leg!”

He surely shouldn’t put so much extra weight on it and he couldn’t even use his cane with her in his arms.

“Never mind about my leg,” he growled.

Even though his step was canting, his chest and arms were like iron. Grappling with stone had made him unusually strong. His muscles appealed to her far more than the current notions of male attractiveness, which called for a man to be slim and graceful. She landed on the tufted couch with a plop and he dropped to one knee beside her.

He kissed her again, all trace of gentleness gone.
There was no teasing exploration. His tongue demanded and received entrance and he claimed her mouth with it.

This was no longer a writer’s research, an intellectual inquiry. He was delivering a lover’s summons, a command she felt powerless to deny.

Instead of being fearful, she was moved. She met his fierce kiss with one of her own.

One hand cradled her head and the other roamed over her bare breasts, squeezing and caressing. He rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and she writhed under him. When he gave it a firm tug and a little twist, she tore loose from his kiss, panting and gasping.

He gave no quarter. Crispin trailed his mouth along her jaw, her neck. He paused to suck for a moment at her clavicle, then kissed his way down to her breasts.

This time he nipped and played with them. Teasing her nipples with the nearness of his mouth, while denying them relief.

Grace threaded her fingers through his hair.

“Please,” she whimpered and his lips finally covered her taut peak.

He sucked. He scraped his teeth over the sensitive flesh. Jolts shot from her nipples to her womb and a nameless longing made her back arch, thrusting her breasts up to him. Her brows drew together.

Want. Need. Must have.

What?

With only a dash of shame, she realized she wanted him to touch her.
Down there.

Surely that wasn’t normal. Was it? A virgin shouldn’t want a man to venture below her waist.

Not if she wanted to remain a virgin. Which she surely did. Didn’t she?

The throb between her legs made it hard to think.

Not the act of a genius,
Crispin told himself, but his cock was in no mood to listen. He was playing with fire. Teasing a virgin, a marriage trap with feet.

Oh, but what a delectable little virgin. Her breasts were even lovelier than he’d imagined them, and he thought he’d endowed them with every possible grace in his mind. Firm, round, skin like satin, and a nipple like a ripe berry between his lips. His imagination had failed him for the first time in his life.

Reality was so much better.

And she made the most cock-alluring sounds. Desperate, needy sounds. She wanted him.

Far be it from him not to come to a lady’s aid.

He swelled so, his trousers were fit to burst. His cock was primed and ready. And in the heat of lust, his thigh didn’t pain him a bit.

She did it again, that distressed little sigh. She covered her mouth with one hand to stifle another.

He wondered if she was as ready as she sounded. Without conscious thought, his hand pulled up her hem and began to caress her knee through her thin pantalets. Then he reached the spot on her upper thigh where the pantalets stopped. Crispin sent silent thanks to the French once again for designing a garment that left a woman’s secrets so easily accessible. The skin of her inner thigh was as soft and tender as her breasts.

He kissed her into delicious incoherence again as his hand moved north.

Only another inch or two.

He’d be fingering her damp curls before she knew it.

He caught sight of Hector and the puce serge neck cloth in the corner of his eye. Sanity finally raised up a huge roadblock in his head. He stopped.

Grace is a virgin. A virgin! And you, my lad, are well on
your way to being leg-shackled for life if you continue down this path.

Crispin jerked back both his hands, released her mouth and scrambled to his feet.

“Why are you stopping?” she asked, sitting upright. “Am I not as pleasing to you as that courtesan?”

Not pleasing?
Her nipples were swollen and reddened from his rough ministrations. He had to look away from those luscious breasts spilling out the front of her gown.

And he was not going to discuss the relative merits of her body. Not and remain sane.

“You’ve misconstrued my relationship with Olympia Sharp. She’s my mentor, my supporter, nothing more.”

“Oh,” she said softly. “I’m glad, Crispin. Then what’s amiss?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” he said, grinding his teeth and turning his back to her completely. He didn’t dare look at her or his will to stop would evaporate. “Has it escaped your notice that you’re about to surrender your purity to me?”

“Nonsense,” she said. Her tone was breathy and quavering. He heard fabric rustling behind him and hoped to heaven she was tucking her charms back behind their fabric prison. “I have it on good authority that a man may touch a woman’s breasts without any damage to her virginity. I’m still fully clothed, from the waist down at least.”

He laughed without mirth. “My dear Grace, it’s entirely possible for me to violate you without removing a stitch of your clothing.”

“Really? How?”

His groin ached to show her. “Is your education that incomplete?”

He heard her slippers hit the floor and figured it was safe to turn around.

“In this subject, yes,” she admitted. “But I’m a good pupil and dedicated to increasing my knowledge.”

“That’s what Eve said, you know.”

“Her sin was seeking the knowledge of good and evil, not knowledge in general.”

“Some things you’re better off not knowing, at least not until you have a husband to instruct you.” Crispin couldn’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth. He sounded downright Toryish. “I hope you don’t intend to flaunt yourself before members of the
ton
like this.”

“Of course not,” she said. Her skin was still flushed and her lips red and juicy. “I’d earn a reputation for being shockingly fast. But since I have no intention of marrying you, I thought you’d be the perfect man to instruct me in what I ought
not
do.”

There was a twisted sort of logic in her argument and Crispin’s cock cheered the line of thinking. His head still tried to sort through it.

“So you came here this day with every intention of dallying with me?”

She giggled. “Dallying. What a lovely expression. Yes, I suppose I did. Would you like to dally some more?”

“No!”

His cock called him twelve times a liar. If he took her maidenhead, he’d be honor-bound to wed her. And even if he didn’t feel compelled to do right by her, he was sure Horace Makepeace would see to it he walked the aisle with Grace whether Crispin wanted to or not.

Unless Mr. Makepeace learned Crispin’s true background. No gentleman would saddle his daughter with a nameless bastard.

“I want to complete your casting,” he said gruffly and stomped back to his workbench, his thigh throbbing more than ever.

Grace sighed and glided back over to pull on the opera gloves and assume the pose.

It occurred to him that Olympia might have been right after all. He needed to see Grace safely wed as quickly as possible. Then they could “dally” to their hearts’ content with no threat to his independence.

“You know,” he said, testing the idea, “if you’re going to wed a titled gent, you’ll need a bit more subtlety.”

“What are you proposing?”

He winced at the word. It was exactly what he wasn’t prepared to do.

“I’m only suggesting that you need to be less forward, less blunt, more sophisticated in your flirting.”

“Is that what you’d call it? What we were doing was a type of flirting?”

Flirting with the deep end of the ocean.
Now if he could teach her merely to dabble her toes in the water.

“In a manner of speaking, but not the sort of flirting acceptable in Polite Society, you understand.”

“Perfectly. I’m not wholly ignorant of the world, you know.” She frowned. “Flirting is rather looked down upon in Boston, the Polite Society sort or otherwise.”

“I could teach you, I suppose,” he offered.

“Oh, would you?” she said with enthusiasm. “I’m particularly interested in knowing how you’d violate a woman without removing her clothing. It sounds quite aggressive. Violate. Even the word lacks a certain finesse. I take it the act is similarly crude.”

Had her mother told her nothing? He swallowed hard. “We’ll leave that lesson for last, shall we? I was thinking more about how to flirt with your fan and what to say when a gentleman asks you to dance, how not to give offense. That sort of thing.”