And he, somehow, found words. “Just because I dislike art doesn’t mean I dislikeyou.”
The pencil dropped from her hand, and then her wide eyes fluttered, blinking as she knelt, hiding her face, and retrieved the pencil.
“Do I unnerve you?”
“Not at all.” She turned back to her painting and rummaged in her box some more, this time finding a bottle of ink and a paintbrush with an angled tip. She uncapped the ink and tipped the paintbrush into the well, then attacked the silhouette, filling it in, blacking it out.
“Can I move yet?” From the other side of the screen, Miss Angleton’s lips barely moved.
“Yes. Some more music would be appreciated.”
Miss Angleton returned to the piano. When the companion was fully into her song, Drew stood behind Amelia. What drove him there when the edge of the room was safer? Her love of challenge? Her easy and respectful command of Miss Angleton? The way her hands had gracefully curved the silhouette into being? Or the way she attacked it now, carving a dark hole into the paper with ink and brush?
Or did his reason for needing to be near go further back than that? Did it go to that day in London when she’d wanted the house, and he’d wanted to give it to her? Further still to the night her townhouse was broken into? Did the desire go further back than that? To the day she slipped to his side as if she’d always been there and helped him take control of a situation he’d been quickly losing control over. Since that moment she’d been his foundation, the steady, deep-digging roots he clung to.
Dangerous to admit it now. Because realizing he had roots in a woman, or she had her roots in him, and he’d not even known it… what would it do to him? How would it change him?
He despised change.
She lowered the brush to dip it into the ink once more, and he wrapped his hand around her wrist, gently shook until she letgo of the brush and it dropped into the inkwell with a clink. He lifted her hand, uncurled it, turned to inspect the soft underside of her fingers. They were as red and raw as they’d been earlier. But cleaner.
“Do not they hurt?” he asked. “When I found you had not waited for me, I had Mrs. Scott send the poultice and bandages to you. Wherever you were. Did you use them? They’re not wrapped.”
“No, they’re not. The wrap was unwieldy at dinner. But yes, I used the poultice. For a bit. It does not hurt much.”
He nodded, ran his thumb along the edge of the wounds. “Will you let them heal before another archery attempt?”
“Are you demanding I do so?”
“I’m requesting.”
“I might.” She pulled her hand away from him.
He studied the silhouette she’d created. Stepping closer, his front almost touched her back as he peered over her shoulder. Her breath was a shiver up her spine. “Was it difficult to do that with your hand injured?”
Her shoulder lifted and dropped, a miniscule movement. “Yes. I like a challenge.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“It’s not my best. It’s only tracing a shadow. It should be perfect. But I got the nose slightly wrong, especially in the painting of it. The ink bled over the outline.” She looked up at him. “Will you let me trace you?”
“No.” An immediate answer requiring no thought.
“I did not think you would,” she said with a sigh. She returned her attention to her ink and her paintbrush, her neck curved as she bent low over her supplies.
Before better thoughts could guide his actions, his hands were on that neck, his knuckles tracing down the sloped side of it. So soft and warm and full of life. He never touchedthe world, kept a constant cotton barrier between it and his hands; his gloves the best protection against passion. But he’d been missing something, hadn’t he? Missing this—velvet skin and blood blushing across creamy slopes beneath gray wool, a feast of delights. And without gloves, his hands could consume it one warm inch at a time. His body tightened, and a flicker of desire sparked his every nerve. He wanted. After so long of wanting nothing but what could keep his coffers full, he wanted something quite… impractical, ephemeral. Skin to skin, heat against heat.
Soul to soul.
She froze. And that little flicker of shock, of voiceless gasping hesitation, froze him, too. He dropped his hand to his side, rummaged through his pocket, and tossed the gloves into her supply box. Better this way. An excellent reminder of why he wore gloves. That flicker of connection, of need—dangerous.
“For you,” he said. “The seamstress in the village is making another pair. For the both of you. Those should fit better, should be especially made for the activity. Though I had no measurements to give her. But until then, these will do.”
She picked them up. “Three-fingered gloves?”
“For shooting,” he said, and then he left. Because his fingers cried out to touch her once more not with the backs of his knuckles but with his fingertips. He would be able to truly feel her, then, learn her, and in the learning, perhaps, keep her.
Too much.Too muchall at once. He must retreat. But he could not. Not again. He’d promised himself to do what he must to gain her. So instead of leaving the room, he returned to his seat at its edge.
