Page 42 of One Dangerous Desire
“Why? I like you as you are.”
“Perspiring and covered in paint?”
“Yes.”
It wasn’t the grandest compliment she’d ever received. Perhaps he hadn’t intended it as a compliment at all. But it felt like one. May had heard enough false praise and fawning to last a lifetime, but none of it sent warmth rushing through her like Rex’s unadorned approval.
“Very well.” She started toward the drawing room door.
“Why not the room you came from? Won’t you show me what you’re working on?”
“It’s not finished.”And it’s dreadful.Oils were never going to be her medium, she feared, despite how much the bold, vibrant colors appealed to her.
“Let me see. Please.” He’d never pleaded with her for anything. In fact, he often left the word off in conversation, when others knew to add it as a polite nicety.
“As long as you don’t judge too harshly.” She tried for a light, teasing tone, but he watched her so intently, her voice wobbled instead. “Just this way.”
She retreated into the parlor, aware of how closely he followed behind. The edge of his trouser leg brushed the back of her skirt. Today, his scent was more woodsy than spice but not a jot less appealing.
He moved to stand before her easel, leaning in closer than most did to appraise art. “You’re dreaming of the English countryside and an elaborate estate, I see.”
No compliment there regarding her artistic efforts. Not that she’d expected one. Effusive praise had never been his way.
“That house isn’t a dream. It’s in Berkshire. I visited just last year, and I’ll have you know it’s quite charmingly dilapidated.” The piece, if she managed to finish it, depicted Hartwell, the country estate of a viscount she’d come to England to meet and marry. In the end, Viscount Grimsby had given his heart to a lovely suffragette bookseller. May had attended their wedding the previous year and the painting was to be a gift for Lord and Lady Grimsby.
“I recognize the estate. I’m acquainted with the man who owns it.”
“Are you?” May couldn’t imagine the two men in the same room. Lord Grimsby always struck her as painfully restrained, while Rex, despite his fashionable attire, exuded a kind of untamed magnetism.
“Lord Grimsby invested in a factory and housing project I own in Berkshire.” He made the admission in a low monotone, as if speaking of his commercial success unnerved him.
“My goodness. I had no idea your business interests were so diverse.” It seemed he’d been very busy in the years since they’d parted.
After turning away from the painting, he stalked toward her, drawing almost as close as he had to inspect her artwork. She thought he might touch her, kiss her. He vibrated with some barely leashed emotion. But he didn’t reach for her, and a moment later he’d swept all the tautness from his face. He wore that arrogant, practiced look he’d given her in Ashworth’s drawing room the day they’d met again after years apart.
“I learned from men like your father. He never relied on Sedgwick’s profit alone to earn his keep.”
“Yes, I know.”And thank goodness for it.After his initial gloom-and-doom predictions, Mr. Graves recently assured her that despite the uncertain future of their storefronts in Chicago and New York, investment income could keep her father comfortably solvent for years—provided he stopped squandering money on chorus girls and losing at gaming tables. “He’s not here, in case you were hoping he’d join us for tea.” She grinned nervously, both to cover concern for father and to ease the tension that seemed to hang between them like a thundercloud.
Finally, inch by inch, the tightness around his lips eased and a smirk crept across his face. One corner of his mouth tilted up, hinting at the crease in his cheek she knew would emerge if he truly let himself smile. “What a shame. It’s time your father and I put the past aside.”
May laughed, a nervous titter at first and then a deep, freeing chortle. Just the kind of laugh Mama would have rapped her knuckles for when she was a girl.
Surely, he was joking.
Yet he wasn’t. He was glowering at her.
“You’re serious?” She swallowed her last waning chuckle when one dark eyebrow arched high on his forehead, as if he was offended that she found his comment amusing.
“Of course. Six years is long enough.”
A strange tickling sensation started in her chest, a little seedling of hope burrowing into her heart. When he spoke to her father this time, he wouldn’t be a penniless shop clerk. Rex Leighton was a man of substance. A man her father couldn’t dismiss as he had Reginald Cross. But why did he wish to speak to him at all?
Mrs. Campbell’s arrival with a tray of refreshments gave May an excuse to ignore the fluttering under her breastbone and busy herself with serving tea. Rex watched her hands, taking care not to meet her eyes, as she performed the familiar ritual. Then, after she poured fragrant Oolong into his cup and offered it to him, he stared at the steaming liquid a moment before awkwardly taking the delicate porcelain in hand.
“Not much of a tea drinker, Mr. Leighton?”
He finally looked at her directly, kicking that tickle in her chest from frolic to frenzy. He narrowed his eyes as he took a tentative sip. “You know I prefer coffee, Miss Sedgwick.”
