Page 28 of Forgery, Love, and Other Lies
“I’m well aware.” But she did not pull away. It felt rather nice to have someone unreasonably protective over her. She looked up at him. She’d evaded the question in his eyes from earlier in the evening. About her mother. The memories were painful, and he’d not pressed. That made her want to settle them into his palm like tiny gems.
“You were curious before.” Her voice sounded fragile in the night, like a wavering star about to fall to earth, and she cleared her throat before speaking again. “About my mother.”
“No need to discuss it if you do not wish to.”
“It’s no matter. It is as much a fact now as the color of the sky.”
“She’s not always been in a bath chair, then?”
“No. She fell. Down the stairs. Hit her head, too. For quite some time, she was unconscious. Weeks. When she woke up, she was not quite herself. She regained her mental faculties, but never the use of her legs. She has always helped my father with the books, and during her illness, father failed to do the job she’d done so well for years. He was worried about her. To distraction. And by the time she was well enough to return to her work, much damage had been done to our finances. In addition, we had to pay doctors and buy a good chair.”
“You said you had no intention of forging paintings any longer,” he said. “Does that mean your family is doing better, your motives for criminal activity not quite so pressing?”
She heard the smile in his words, and she put her own smile in her response. “We are better. But the shop is still not as profitable or stable as we should like. Yet, no matter the pressure, I will not do it again. I’ve decided to…” No reason to tell him.
He elbowed her, a gentle nudge. “You’ve decided to what, Miss Frampton?”
Heavens, the way he said her name, as if it were poetry, as if it were starlight, as if it were the thing most likely in the entire world to bring him pleasure… she could not survive it, so she thrust words into the world to cover the echo of her name on his lips.
“I want to design jewelry.”
He stopped walking, yanked her to a stop, too. “No.”
“Yes. I’m no good at painting. And I do not like it.”
His bark of laughter ripped the night sky open. “No good? You’re a genius. Don’t try to lie to me.”
“I can’t paint my own scenes. I can only copy. That’s what I have a genius for—forgery, not creation. I cannotcreatewith paint, and it vexes me.” Tears pricked against her eyes. She hated crying. She wouldn’t, so she squeezed her eyes closed. “But jewels and gold… I see stories there. If Papa would give my designs a chance, they would do well. I’m sure of it.”
“Fiona.” A soft whisper at her temple. “I’ve no doubt your designs will bewitch all of London. And abroad.”
“I’ve not given you leave to use my name,” she snapped, though his belief in her made her want to croon instead.
“‘Miss Frampton’ is too stiff a moniker for a moonlit night.” His voice fell low and dark and full of promises best kept in the shadows after midnight, promises best whispered, best kissed into skin. The heat of his body lessened from full conflagration to fireside warmth, and he tugged her back along the path.
“A great loss,” he said in lighter tones, “if you give up painting, but it’s your decision. A great loss, as well, if your other designs never see light. I am determined not to dislike your father, but he’s not proving helpful in that endeavor.”
Their steps took on the same pace and length, and she did not look up at him as they walked, but she felt his nod nonetheless, the curt movement shifting muscles in his body, the tremors of which passed into her own.
“I understand, too,” he said, an unexpected declaration, “why you forged those pieces.” He swallowed hard. “You were just trying to help.”
She threaded her fingers through his. Scandalous act, but she did it anyway. They wore gloves, and a double barrier of cotton separated their skin, but the palms of their gloves must both be worn thin—or the heat of his body incinerating—because she swore his skin nestled close to hers as she squeezed his hand.
“We’ll find the paintings,” she said. “I know it. And your family will have their inheritance, and I will have my safety.” Her steps faltered, slowed.
He unthreaded their fingers and patted the top of her hand. “Let us be done with unhappy conversation. Tell me who your favorite artist is.” False lightness attempted to lift his query into the air, but it sank.
“You think me weak,” she said. “You think I cannot handle discussion of undesirable eventualities.” Everyone thought her weak and silly and—
“I do not. I did not ask you the question to spare you pain. I merely… It’s the exact opposite, Miss Frampton. You do not run from difficulty. You face it head-on. Even I can see that in our brief acquaintanceship. I happen to think that those who fight the worst of life for those they love deserve little breaks. Moments they can just be and enjoy life instead of worrying about the next crack in the earth that might swallow them whole.”
She looked up at him. The moon loved his face, turned his skin silver-gold and swept his hair into darkness. He seemed an ethereal thing of shadows and fairy tales. Hades perhaps—a man of the darkness who loved the light. What a lucky woman his future Persephone would be. Not her. She was of the dark like him, willing to do whatever she must to survive, existing in a gray area between right and wrong, redefining those words to suit her worries and solutions.
He was beautiful, and his dark eyes looking down at her seemed to offer a mirror for her to see herself in before they blackened entirely and swallowed her whole. Nervous energy lighting her veins on fire, she shifted from foot to foot, began to step back, to step away from him and the velvet trap of his gaze.
But his warm arm snaked around her waist, kept her close and stole her breath. She licked her lips, and a fire flared to life in his midnight eyes as they dropped in a flash to her mouth. Made her think of kissing, it did. Odd when she’d not much thought of kissing in her life. Too busy thinking of other things. She’d looked once upon the delivery boy’s lips with curiosity. And several times, when exhaustion did not claim her in the privacy of her bedchamber, she’d thought about men’s bodies, all the little hidden parts of them, in fact, wondered if they looked in life how they looked on canvas, in marble.
Seek out answers to such wonderings, though? No. Who had the time? His arm around her waist promised answers if only she’d melt into it.
