Page 13 of Her Rogue to Ruin
“Is something amiss?” There. Her voice sounded raspy but not as quivery as a moment ago. She drew in a long breath and let it out in shaky gusts while waiting for him to explain why he’d closed them in together.
Oddly, he swallowed twice, then tensed his jaw. He appeared tongue-tied, and yet she knew him to be one of the most eloquent men of her acquaintance.
“If you mean your work, nothing is amiss at all. My mother is thrilled with her portrait. And my sister can’t stop talking about your talent and kindness.”
Portia allowed herself another deep breath, this one easier because the commissions that had been such a boon to her livelihood were apparently not endangered.
But the man before her—a man she thought of far, far too often for her own peace of mind—was deeply unsettled. He paced in front of the door he’d just closed. And when he finally stopped and fixed his gaze on her again, he grimaced.
Somehow, he managed to look beautiful even with his mouth tilted in unease.
Those lips of his were a sin. Full and edged by dimples. Mercy, they were wonderful lips.
“I have something I wish to ask of you.”
Portia’s mind took flight at those words. Then her heart began a little dance in her chest. She willed it away, chastising herself mercilessly.Don’t you dare act the fool in front of this man any more than you already have.
There could be no hidden meaning in his words. Nothing to hope for.
She was a widowed portrait painter. He was a dashing young viscount with a flurry of admirers nipping at his heels. And he was her employer.
He meant to ask something practical, no doubt. She’d been commissioned to paint individual portraits of his mother and four sisters, and then there was to be a group portrait at the end that included the whole family. Portia had often wondered why no portrait had been commissioned of the viscount alone. Perhaps that was it.
“Would you like me to paint you too, Lord Pemberton?”
He winced at the question. Then he lifted a hand and ran it through the thick mahogany waves of his hair. The rumpling of his appearance did nothing to make him look less appealing.
“I don’t want to lose you as portraitist to my family because of what I am about to ask.”
Portia’s mind got caught on the first six words of his sentence.I don’t want to lose you…
When she couldn’t get her brain and throat to agree on a proper reply, he released a chest-deep sigh.
“Good grief, I’ve made a hash of it already, haven’t I?” He stepped closer.
Portia dug deep for the power to resist closing the distance between them.
“What is it you wish to ask of me?”
He clasped his hands and held them in front of his mouth, his head down in contemplation.
What was he wrestling with so fiercely?
Portia longed to reach out and lay her hand atop his, to ease the discomfort that clearly had him in its grip.
But before she could do anything so impulsive, he shocked her by leaning forward, bending at the waist, and retrieving her fallen paintbrush. He lifted it carefully, as if the worn bristles and paint-stained wood were a treasure and offered it to her with a kind of earnest solemnity.
“Thank you,” she said softly as she reached for the brush.
He held fast when she gripped it.
“Promise me something before I ask?”
“Anything.” The word came out quickly, without thought. Full of feeling.
He quirked a quick smile, the edges of his sinful lips tipping sweetly.
“You must refuse me if you’re offended. Refuse me and do not worry that it will affect your work here in any way. This question, this thing I’m going to ask of you, shall be between us. Separate.” He swiped his free hand through the air as if to draw the perimeter of that separation. “Discreetly done and unknown to my mother or sisters.”
