Page 41 of The Art of Sinning
“Why would I?” Edwin looked truly bewildered. Sometimes he was too oblivious to be believed. “You didn’t ask. And it had nothing to do with you.”
“Perhaps I’m curious to know why Mr. Keane chose to abandon his sister to their family mills to come here.”
“That’s a tale for another time,” Jeremy said smoothly. Pushing away from the table, he stood and laid down his napkin. “If I’m to get any work done, I’d better go make sure that Damber has everything ready for when her ladyship is done with her breakfast.”
To her vast irritation, he gave a courteous bow and walked out, leaving her no more the wiser about why he was avoiding his family. It was so frustrating!
And Edwin was no help at all. That day, while she posed for her portrait, he chatted with Jeremy about everything except what she wanted to know. She didn’t think he did it deliberately, but it was still vexing. Every time she broached the subject of Jeremy’s mother and sister, Jeremy changed the subject to something that interested Edwin, and that was an end to her gaining any useful information about Jeremy’s life outside his work as an artist.
So while they talked, she tried getting information from Damber. Unfortunately, she never got to be alone with the apprentice to really interrogate him about his master. Still, she was able to glean a few things from their long conversation about street cant and painting and such.
Apparently Jeremy’s family was quite wealthy. He’d received an excellent education at a boarding school in Massachusetts, then had left home to study painting in Philadelphia at the age of nineteen. He had only the one sister and was half heir to the family mills.
And he worked late most nights. How he managed that while also cutting a wide swath through London’s stews and gaming hells was beyond her, but Damber wasn’t forthcoming aboutthat.
Later that evening, when she was posing privately for Jeremy, she came right out and asked him. He merely made some flippant remark and went on painting. Indeed, as the evening wore on and she quizzed him about his life in America, he continued to deflect her questions with jokes or facile tales of his travels, the sort she would imagine he used with any model.
Meanwhile, his formality chilled her to the bone. He called her “my lady” so often that she finally informed him acidly that only servants called her that. He refused to let her see the painting and threatened to expose her plans to her brother if she even attempted to look at it. And though he touched her sometimes to reposition her, his impersonal demeanor told her she was merely the model for his dratted work.
And that hurt. It was almost more than she could bear, to be alone with him with the reminder of their intimate kisses shimmering in the air while he treated her with cold professionalism.
He was a known rakehell, for pity’s sake! Didn’t they attempt to bed anything in skirts?
Not Jeremy, apparently. Over the next several days, he and Edwin discussed art and America and society until she was sick of it. At night, Jeremy told her so many stories of his adventures she was sure she could publish an account of his travels.
Yet she learned from it only that he could be an amusing raconteur. Which perversely meant that when it came to his feelings or anything that really mattered, he was more impenetrable than the cockney slang of a Spitalfields doxy.
He sharpened his wit on her; she sharpened her wit on him. But it ended there. She saw nothing deeper of him. He might as well have been one of Edwin’s well-crafted automatons, moving in carefully circumscribed ways, speaking of carefully circumscribed things in his brittle, removed manner. It was enough to make a half-dressed female scream.
Or cry. But she refused to cry over the likes of Jeremy Keane. She’d already told herself he was wrong for her. Why did she care if he agreed? She didn’t. She wouldn’t.
So on the morning of her ninth day of posing for the portrait, she’d decided to give up on trying to know him better. Tomorrow night was the masquerade ball and their visit to the bawdy house. Once that was done, she just had to suffer through his finishing the two paintings.
Clearly, whatever connection to him that she’d felt their first evening together had been imagined. Or else he was a master at keeping himself in check. And in her experience, that was never true of rogues.
Probably he’d kissed her to shut her up about her desirability so he could keep her compliant with his aims to paint her. Or something equally manipulative.
“Must you scowl?” Jeremy grumbled as he daubed and dabbed at his canvas. He seemed as out of sorts this morning as she.
“I didn’t realize I was,” she said coolly. “How unfeminine of me. God forbid I look like anything but a delicate flower for my portrait.”
Her sharp tone must have caught Edwin’s attention, for he glanced up from the accounting ledger he was going over. “You couldn’t look like a delicate flower if you tried. And who wants a delicate flower, anyway?”
“No sensible man, that’s for certain,” said a voice from the doorway.
She glanced over and broke into a smile. “Warren!” Abandoning her pose, she hurried over to the Marquess of Knightford, who also happened to be Edwin’s oldest friend. “It’s been ages!”
“Indeed it has.” With the usual twinkle in his eye, he bussed her on the cheek.
Warren Corry was the only man, other than Edwin and Samuel, allowed such familiarity. He was a flirt and a devil and notorious for breezing in and out of some of society’s loftiest bedrooms, but to her he was part of the family.
Still, the impudent look he now gave her might make it difficult for an outsider to tell. “You’re looking very lovely,” he said with a wink and a grin. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you in that gown, but it’s most fetching. Brings out the bit of red in your hair.”
She shot Edwin a triumphant look, and in the process caught Jeremy’s gaze. He was staring daggers at Warren. It gave her pause, especially since it was the first hint of emotion he’d shown in days.
How odd. Could he be jealous? Oh, wouldn’t that be delicious? She could finally vex him the way he’d been vexing her.
Though he didn’t seem the sort to be jealous. Probably he was merely irritated that she’d broken her pose. Well, she wasn’t a machine. He would just have to get used to it.
