Page 43 of His Mistress, His Muse, and Other Madness
“I don’t think we should worry about Lord Theodore, Ronny dear,” Mrs. Bexford said. “He’s good, but he’ll not provide much competition for the money.”
Pentshire threw his head back with an obnoxious but merry guffaw. “God, but I love a good cutthroat competition.”
Theo wanted to hit him after he was done with Bradley. What would giving a thousand pounds to some artist achieve except for amusing the earl?
A hand slipped around his wrist, a slight presence then a squeeze. Cordelia looked up at him, squeezed his wrist again. “Breathe, Lord Theo. I think it’s an excellent drawing.” She followed the outline of her eye in the drawing with her thumb then tugged him toward the edges of the garden, away from the others, stopping beneath a shady bower, wisteria hanging over their heads.
“Itisgood,” she said, letting go of his wrist and pacing away from him. “I’ve produced enough bad art to know good when I see it. I think you’ve made me look rather dreamy, not vulnerable. As if I were in love.” She gave a huff of laughter. “Vulnerable. In love. They may be something of the same thing.”
Theo stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I don’t believe in love.”
She startled, tilted her head, and the wind picked up a strand by the slope of her neck, played with it before it died down and dropped it to rest a red splash against her pale skin. “Do you know… I’m not sure I do either. Romantic love, that is. But… I would like to find evidence of it. And I think perhaps they are it.” She pointed her chin toward the group they’d just left. “Lord Armquist and his actress. They took long looks at one another at different times all morning long. As if they could not stand to look away from the one they love. ’Tis a pity their lives are so complicated.”
“They do not seem to care.”
“Do you often draw as you did this morning?” A bit of purple flower fluttered from above to land in her hair.
He picked it off and flicked it to the ground. “No. I used to. When I was young. I gave it up when I realized it was no good.”
“I think you’re very good.”
He shook his head. “Not me. Art itself. It does nothing.”
“It creates beauty, does it not?”
“What does beauty matter when the world is so ugly?”
She ducked her head and toyed with the cuff of his jacket. “Do you truly believe that? I know there is much injustice in the world. I lost everything when my father died, and I had no power to take care of myself outside of doing what I am glad I did not have to do. I think I tease about being your mistress, about joining the demimonde, because it could have been my reality, and teasing about it takes its power away. I know the world is not as I would like it to be, but… I’d like to think there are happy endings, too. Even if they do not happen for me.”
Everything about what she’d just said—utterly wrong. She should not have lost everything. She should not have lacked the power to fend for herself.
He snapped a bit of wisteria from a branch and twirled it. “I gave up on happy endings long ago. At the same time I gave up on the sort of art they expect here. But I… I used to think as they do. What a fool I was, a selfish fool to spend the first sixteen years of my life thinking I could be an artist.” He found the end of the bower, putting more space between them.
“What happened? To convince you otherwise?”
“I found out about my father. My older brother had kept the reality of our situation from me until I was, to his estimation, old enough to know the full extent of our debt.” Theo scratched his jaw. “Perhaps my grandfather shares some of the guilt. He did not train my father to care for the estate, believing his eldest son would always be safe. A foolish optimism.”
“Why must optimism be foolish? And why must you blame anyone? Living as if you expect those you love to die is silly indeed. Assigning blame will not change the past. Nor will it change the present that you live in.”
“You’re an optimist, too, aren’t you?”
A silly half grin popped up the corner of her lips. “I am.”
“I am not. Optimism has proved a waste of time in the face of reality. I was sixteen when I found out about my father, and my brothers had all taken on various work to keep the family afloat. Raph did what he could to keep the estate running despite not yet being the marquess, Atlas joined the army and fought his way up the ranks, Drew was working as a tutor and organizing his agency. And there I was, thinking I could spend my life painting, beingoptimistic, thinking I might live out my father’s dream of attending the Royal Academy of Arts. Ha.”
“Creating something beautiful hurts no one, Theo.” She stepped toward him, her hands rigid at her sides as if she could not determine what to do with them—wrap them round herself or reach for him.
“Perhaps not. But it doesn’t keep a family fed and housed. My father put art above his family, and I’ll not do the same. I’d rather die than waste my life as he did.”
“Your family has not conceded defeat. They’ve not given up. That’s optimism at its finest.” Her face sobered, and she looked away, back toward the group of gathered artists, her rigid arms softening as she clasped her hands together before her. “I do not think your father’s life a waste.”
Theo hissed a curse and flicked the wisteria away. He’d hurt her saying that. “Not an entire waste.” He stepped forward and held out an arm. The man had saved Cordelia, after all, and Theo could not deny the value of that. Not any longer.
She took his offered arm, and he drew her closer, close enough to tip her chin up with his knuckles and drop his lips to hers.
Somewhere nearby, a bee buzzed, but it felt like the buzzing of his blood along his veins as he sipped from her. A ruse. The others looked on, and they stood in a picturesque location. A kiss was a necessity. For the ruse. He’d been soft the first time, and he remained so now, but deepened the kiss nonetheless, licking the seam of her lips until they parted, then he stroked his tongue inside gently. Her body swayed toward his, and he wanted to crush her to him, to double—triple—the points of contact on their bodies, until no space remained between them.
His sign to end it. He took one last nip at her bottom lip, then lifted from the kiss. Her eyes were closed, her breath soft, as she tilted her face up to him, wearing a dreamy smile. What had she said about the painting? That he’d made her look dreamy? As if she were in love?
