Page 87 of His Mistress, His Muse, and Other Madness
She stood there now, looking out the window and watching Mr. Spencer wish his first poetry student farewell. She allowed herself a smile, tried to stretch it wider. But it butted up against the sad bits of her soul and remained only a small thing.
“You look desolate, dear one.”
Cordelia left the window to welcome Lady Balantine into her study. “How can you tell? I was not even facing you.”
The dowager flicked her hand toward the window. “Beware of reflective surfaces, darling. They do not keep secrets well. Though it is no secret your heart is crying.”
“It isnot.”
“Bah.” Lady Balantine dropped into a chair by the fireplace, and when Cordelia joined her, she leaned forward and dropped a pit of printed paper in her lap. “Here. I found this while browsing throughAckermann’sthis morning.”
“Thank you, but I’m too tired for fashion plates.”
“Look at it, dear girl. It’s not a fashion plate.” Lady Balantine grinned.
Cordelia held it up and froze. A woman with long curly hair—the same wild hair Theo drew on every depiction of her—and her companion, a gargoyle. A true gargoyle with wings and fangs and a little tail and made of stone that looked more than a little like the caricature she’d drawn of him in anger the first day they’d made love. But it also had Theo’s hair and his broken nose, and it held in its clawed hand a stick of charcoal. The two figures stood in a room that looked very like the parlor in her old home, the same room where they’d first met. The gargoyle reached for the woman’s hand, which was open and palm up and not at all empty. For he’d drawn a heart on a bit of paper, and he offered it to her bashfully.
The drawing was entitledThe Gargoyle Grows a Heart, and the artist had signed the right-hand corner—T. Bromley.
She gasped, dropping the print as her hands flew up to cover her mouth. “I-I.”
“It does boggle the mind, my dear.”
“Has he really…” She peeked at the drawing again, yelped as if it had bit her, and sat on her hands.
Lady Balantine laughed. “You’re in shock. Perhaps we should have that tea.” She stood and bustled toward the door. “I’ll go see about it myself. You’ll want to be alone for a bit.”
“No, no.” Cordelia held out a hand, beckoning her back.
Lady Balantine nodded toward the window behind Cordelia’s desk. “You’ll want some time alone.”
Cordelia whipped around and gasped again. It seemed to have become her major form of communication, but what else was she to do when Theo stood in the window looking less like a stone man than she’d ever seen before. She ran to the window and slammed her palms against the panes. He lifted his hands and, briefly, his palms rested against hers, only a slim layer of glass between them, but then he snapped his arms to his side and disappeared.
Where was he going?
She ran, out the door and down the hall, skidding to a stop in the entryway when the front door opened and Theo—hair windswept and cheeks pink with embarrassment, pink as a watercolor rose—swept into the foyer, swept her up in his arms.
He kissed her. A hard kiss, his arms like chains wrapping around her waist, pulling her tight against him. She clung to his shoulders, tore at the hair at his nape, nipped at his bottom lip, gasped when he dragged his teeth down her neck, giving her room to kiss that space behind his ear.
He hissed and rocked away from her, breathing hard. “Hell. Cordelia. Apologies.”
“No.” She rushed toward him.
But he held up flat palms, stopping her. “No. No, no, no. I’ve come here for business, not pleasure.”
She did not care, she took his hand and flipped it palm up, as her own had been in his drawing, and she sketched a heart there.
“Cordelia,” he warned. “I’m serious.”
“I saw your sketch. InAckermann’s.”
“Ah. I had wondered if you would. Had hoped you would.”
“Lady Balantine just showed me.”
He looked around the foyer, shaking his head. “She has decided she can fund you after all?”
“In a way. She is renting me her second townhouse. For a very good price indeed.” She traced his fingers, pulled him closer.
