Page 51 of His Mistress, His Muse, and Other Madness
He snapped the book shut. “You were looking for me?”
She threw the satchel at him, and it landed mere inches from his foot. “You left that.” She held out her hand. “Give me my drawing back. I must have it to win the prize.”
“No.” He kicked his satchel under a nearby table.
She clutched her hands in her skirts. She could tackle him, pull the drawing from his pocket. A temptation, indeed. But shewasa lady. Still. Somehow, after all this time. So she relaxed her hands and pulled a chair to face him, stole the notebook and pencil— No, it was broken, and she did not feel like mending it to a point. She grabbed the box of charcoal instead and laid everything out on the table next to her.
“Stay still,” she demanded. “If you will not give me that drawing, I will make a new one.”
He folded his hands together, studied her over his knuckles. “Few of the muses have any training in art. I doubt Pentshire will count having your work amongst mine against us. To my great shock and dismay, he seems a mostly honest fellow. Not that I’ve stopped looking for his faults.”
“You be quiet. I must concentrate.” She’d draw him in the manner he’d taught her mere minutes ago—exaggerations and truth. But she’d not let her partiality to him soften her sketching this time.
She would not draw the man with a soft, hidden heart. She’d draw the gargoyle.
He chuckled and sank lower in his seat, drawing his propped leg off his knee and setting his foot to the floor, legs spread wide.
Her tummy flipped, and her breasts ached, and why did that man’s pose seem intentionally designed to set her body aflame? Intentionally designed to draw her gaze to the apex of his legs, so clearly displayed by his stance.
She licked her lips and held on to her anger.
“You’re spoiled,” she said, scraping the charcoal across the page.
“Oh?”
“Yes. You were a pampered marquess’s son who didn’t get to attend a grand tour or whatever it is you expected, and now you hold a grudge.”
His slight smile hardened and broke away. “I never wanted a grand tour.”
“Then what do you care about? Other than making fools of those you hate for, apparently, having more money than you do?”
His hands on the ends of the chair arms became claws, white-knuckled and vicious. “Do you know who I target in my satires, Lady Cordelia?” All hisDelia my dearsgone. Ice in his voice now. “I target men who mistreat the women they should protect. I target men who ruin their families with their selfish actions. I drew a caricature of the masquerade months ago, to show the vultures picking over a dying man’s luxuries. I expose men like my father, hoping that shame will curtail their activities before their families lose everything.”
She slashed the charcoal in the opposite direction, creating a crosshatch effect to shade the gargoyle’s marble skin. She’d learned a thing or two during her lessons, even if she couldn’t do those things well. “Why does everyone insist Lord Waneborough was a louse?”
“Why do you insist he was a hero?”
She added devil’s horns, claws like his fingers curved over the ends of his chair.
He stood, slowly.
“Sit back down,” she barked. “I am not done yet.”
He decimated the short distance between them and knelt in front of her. “He hurt you, though you will not admit it, and I will not let it happen again. I do not know why”—his hand appeared over the top of her drawing, and his knuckles nuzzled the sensitive flesh beneath her chin as he pushed her face up to meet his gaze—“you have come in here like a fury ready to strike me down, but tell me how I can help.”
She threw his hand away as she leapt to her feet, the notebook and charcoals spilling to the floor. “I do not want your help. I do not want to be your burden as I was your father’s. Do you not think I know? He did not want me! He felt pity for me.” She beat her fist against her chest. “So he locked me away in a tower and sent servants to care for me, but they did not want me either, because I had no talent. Only my father ever wanted me, and he died. But I choose to see the best in your father because to see only bad would drive me mad, would leave me in a puddle of my own tears from morning to night. There is more to life than nightmares, Theo.” She shook her finger at him as he rose to standing. “But some nightmares cannot be ignored, I suppose.” She shot him a look that said everything she’d left unsaid.
“You think I’m a nightmare, I suppose.”
“Just like your father, you don’t really want me. You only want me about so I can help you hurt all these people.”
He took a tentative step toward her. “If they are harming others, they deserve to be harmed themselves.”
Why did tears sting her eyes? She hated them, and she flung them away with the heels of her hands. “You despise me and cannot wait to be rid of me and I… oh, heavens, I cannot help it… but I cannot stop thinking of your kisses. Only two, but they’ve entirely ruined me.” She shook as she spoke, a hopeless, bitter sort of laughter rising up out of her with each word. “I’ve become obsessed with a man who hates me!” She clutched her belly and laughed until every ounce of energy she’d gained from sleep the night before had drained from her, and her limbs, loose and heavy and numb, threatened to give out, to drop her to the floor. She turned to find a row of windows and pressed a palm against the glass, seeking steadiness.
Into the shivering silence between them, he spoke. “God, Cordelia.” A tremble ripped through his usually steady voice. “Hate you?Hateyou? How many times have I shoved a mask on just in time to hide mywanting?”
Another variable to add to her confusion. She turned from the window.
