Page 40 of His Mistress, His Muse, and Other Madness
“Not at all,” Cordelia assured her. “Lord Theo is…” Her gaze softened yet still somehow bore a hole right through him. “He is teasing me.” Said as if she could hardly believe it.
“I’m not,” Theo assured her. “It’s precisely what you do. You meddle until things are as you wish.”
She huffed. “I prefer the way you said it the first time.”
“You organize,” he continued, “and you inspire.”
Her chest stilled on an inhale, and her lashes fluttered as a rose-scented wind stole across her cheeks.
He stepped back and studied the drawing so far. He’d caught her eyes when she’d been gazing at him intently, shocked he’d teased her. No tease, though. Mere truth, and something he rather liked about her, too.
“Can I see?” she asked.
He nodded, and she stood, joined him on the other side of the canvas. She stretched out a hand and traced the lines of herself without touching the charcoal. “It’s… lovely,” she said. “But you’ve made my hair a bit wild.”
He leaned down to speak into her ear, pushing a tendril of that wild hair out of the way. “I deal in exaggerations. And that’s the best bit of you I wanted to bring out.” Just one of them, the one that featured in his dreams, waking and sleeping.
Her breath caught.
He pulled away an inch to see her eyes, those brown pools like honey in the sunlight then stood and returned to his easel, picking up the charcoal and revisiting the lines of her face. He focused on finding the perfect curve for her eyes and the bow of her upper lips, tried to capture the slight upward flight of her brows, the gleam in her eye just before she winked at him.
“Theo.” Her voice husky, begging.
“Hell.” He dragged in a raw breath, then faced her.
Her smile broke, likely because of his grim expression, but she pressed on. “Thank you.”
“For what?” he asked, ripping the charcoal down the page as he returned his attention to the deepening sketch.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dreamis not my favorite. I preferMuch Ado About Nothing. Yet… it eased the pain of old memories. Thank you.” Such sincerity in her voice.
His hand trembled, and he stared into the eyes of the Cordelia taking shape beneath his hand. The scent of flowers climbing into his lungs like clinging vines—did that come from the garden flowers or from her? She always smelled of some sort of flower, fresh and warm.
“Lord Theodore, do you not use color?” Mrs. Bexford asked from nearby.
“No,” Theo answered.
Mrs. Bexford chuckled. “Do you smile at anyone but your muse?”
He threw a glance at Cordelia and frowned. “No.” He’d not even meant to smile at Cordelia, but he’d not been able to stop it. Rather like indigestion.
“A shame,” Mrs. Bexford said. “You’d have a lovely face if you smiled.”
“You’re not supposed to appreciate the loveliness of any face but mine, Meredith.” The baron stabbed his paintbrush into an orange square of watercolor and then stabbed that onto his paper.
“Use the jealousy as inspiration, darling,” Mrs. Bexford said. “You do your best work when under its influence.”
“No need for jealousy,” Theo assured the man.
“Mrs. Bexford,” Cordelia called out, “I saw you in London at the Theatre Royal ages ago.Macbeth.”
“And? What did you think?” The actress said it as if she didn’t care for Cordelia’s opinion. When she clearly did, taking peeks at her though she sat with her profile to them.
“Magnificent.”
“Don’t grin like that, Delia,” Theo said. “You’re throwing the portrait off.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, and his cock jumped with interest. Damn it all to hell.
