Page 27 of His Mistress, His Muse, and Other Madness
“You are to be my mistress, my muse. We must be less formal than we are now.”
She laughed, a brittle sound. “Much less formal, my lord.”
“Theo.”
“Theo,” she whispered. Then she cleared her throat and spoke with more confidence. “Theo. Yes, and you must call me Cordelia.”
“Cordelia.”
Her breath hitched, and she pressed a palm to her chest. “It is only an excision of a simplelady, but it is… it is… oh, I’m being silly. It is nothing.”
She had the right of it. Dropping the “Lady” made the name sound different, feel different as it twisted his tongue up in it. “There is more to prepare for, Cordelia.”
She must have heard something in his voice to take as a warning because she scooted farther from him. Attempting to escape? No. Not when she’d asked for it. Not when it needed doing.
He lunged across the coach and caught her in his arms, sat her on his lap. Where she went statue still; even her little round arse, perched upon his legs, clenched tight.
He tightened, too, in places he knew he would. He’d steadied his arms around her like shackles in case she decided to run back to her corner. She wouldn’t be able to run once they reached Holloway House, so he’d not let her run now.
She cleared her throat, intent on speaking no doubt. As she had done their entire journey.
“No,” he whispered in her ear, one hand wrapping round her neck at that slender sloped bit of her body where it became her shoulder, covered now by her high-necked, lavender spencer. Best not to touch skin, so why he stroked his thumb upward, finding skin anyway, his roughened thumbpad flirting with the velvet of her earlobe, he could not say. But he did.
And then she flinched, so he did not anymore.
“You must become used to this,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Me touching you. Me… kissing you.”
“Kissing? Ah, yes.” She swallowed hard and turned from statue to bird, a ruffled little thing beating its wings against the bars of its cage in vain. “The mistress bit does suggest… Ahem. Yes. I see. Kissing.”
“Yes.” He wouldn’t kiss her now, though. Not when they were alone. Never when they were alone. Privacy wove an intimate space where real kisses and caresses lived, shadows and locked rooms. And he’d promised to protect her as far as he could. “In front of the others. We must. Will you be able to bear it?”
A tight nod, and beneath his hand, her pulse fluttered. More wings against a cage, the bars his fingers. His own heart kicked into a rapid pace against his ribs.
“Good.” He set her aside, his body cold without her firm weight, her lush curves. He’d known they were there, hidden beneath high bodices and gowns without much shape, had seen them in the silk-and-feather ball gown she’d worn months ago at the art auction. He hardly needed a reminder of their existence. His body seemed to thrum to life around her, no matter what she wore. But pulling her onto his lap had turned the thrum into a bone-shattering vibration. It had branded new information into his muscles. He not only knew his body liked thelookof her, he knew his body craved thefeelof her.
Another benefit of thorough preparation. He would not be surprised by her feel, by his own heated reaction to it, when they touched in the coming days, when they embraced, when they kissed.
* * *
Cordelia did not like admitting she had jumped into a lake without knowing how to swim and might need just a bit of help. Someone to swim out to her, or perhaps row a boat in her direction. But here she sat, placid on the seat where she’d slept last night, feeling a bit odiferous, and looking out a window,drowning. And all because a domineering man had carted her up onto his lap and promised—no, threatened—kisses.
Of course, they’d have to kiss. Of course, they’d have to touch, even sit as they had sat mere minutes ago, so close, so terribly bone-singinglyclose. And naturally, her body had melted entirely. Become wet, doughy clay for him to shape as he pleased so long as he did so around those firm thighs of his, that hard abdomen, those chain-like arms.
She’d always known him to be handsome, but touching him changed things, granted her knowledge she shouldn’t have, woke something inside her that asked for more, that wished to reach out and take it. It had been too long since a man had touched her. She’d thought to never desire the touch of a man again.
But now that he’d touched her, the desire prickled along her skin and tingled in her fingers.
How did an illustrator cultivate such a hard body? Shouldn’t he be the doughy one from sitting all day at a table, hunched over a pot of ink and sheaf of paper? Her betrothed’s body had been slight and slender and almost soft as her own, a painter with unfashionably long hair and eyes with a dreamy haze about them. She could no longer remember their color. Odd, that. They must not have been a memorable shade to begin with. Unlike Lord Theodore’s eyes—pale gray and piercing, memorable.
But deuced inconvenient, like the rest of him, hard body included. How would she remain composed, focused, alert with those large hands on her? How would she keep from fainting dead away if he kissed her? At least such reactions would sell their lie. If she seemed a woman affected by her lover’s touch, it would be because shewasa woman affected by this man’s touch.
The coach slowed, and Lord Theodore—Theo she must remember to call him—was on his feet and out the door before it fully stopped. He disappeared into the daylight of the street, then his hand appeared in the entry. She hesitated. The shock of his touch, after all… Yet, because of that, she must touch him. Touching him now, before they arrived at their destination, was a preparation she sorely needed. She took his hand and a tingle of awareness skittered across her skin. She’d known it would and still it shocked her. She wore gloves and yet they offered no barrier. Of course not when layers of clothing had not protected her from the heat of his lap. It must be that he did not wear gloves, and she could see his knuckles, the scar on his thumb, the ropey veins like netting across the backs of his hands.
She… liked hands. Had liked to watch her betrothed’s hands while he painted. Had liked the look of them on her bare skin. She’d thought them paintbrushes then, and now she knew she’d liked them so well for the beauty they created, liked them for the sake of his art, which she’d loved. Loved him for the sake of his art as well.
Lord Theodore’s hands were different, as were the feelings they elicited. So much larger, tanned and beaten, offered a stark contrast to the other man who’d touched her with such familiarity. They were not beautiful. They were brutal. And the art they created did not rouse Cordelia’s aesthetic appreciation so much as her discomfort. Yes, she liked the caricature artist’s hands better than she liked his art. If Theo’s hands were to splay across the span of her naked belly—
“Lady Cordelia.” Lord Theodore snapped his fingers before her face. “You’re not attending me.”
