Page 42 of Portrait of a Lady
He captured her lips in a kiss, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight. Beneath his smock, he’d worn only a shirt and trousers, enabling her to feel every inch of him through the near non-existent slip of fabric she wore. As always, her body roared to life at his nearness and the promise offered by the press of his hard cock against her belly.
“Evie, darling, I don’t believe we’re going to make it to the bed this time,” he whispered, already gathering the hem of her gown in both hands to pull it up. “You look far too ravishing in this gown, it’s a wonder I could think about painting at all.”
She giggled as he pawed at her beneath the gown, his lips and teeth tugging on her earlobe and making her laugh melt into a groan. “Hang the bed...the floor will do.”
“That’s my girl,” he rasped, cupping her breast and toying with her nipple.
She’d gotten so caught up in the moment, it took her several seconds to realize that someone had knocked upon the door. Hugh pulled away from her with a whispered curse, his annoyance clear. He hurried to offer her his dressing gown, which he’d left draped over the back of a chair. She slipped it on at once. It was one thing for her to be portrayed wearing it in the painting, but quite another for anyone to see her this way in person.
He waited until she’d covered herself before opening the door, revealing a footman on the other side.
“Begging your pardon, sir, but you have a caller. It is your brother and he insists the matter is urgent.”
Evelyn’s pulse sped up, instinct telling her the brother who had come calling must be Marcus. Her suspicion was proven true when the footman was pushed aside to admit Hugh’s eldest brother.
Marcus’ mouth pinched tight when he laid eyes on Hugh, then pressed into a thin line when he noticed Evie standing behind him, one hand holding the dressing gown closed over her chest.
“He will see me, and I will not stand about in the corridor while you beg him to admit me.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Hugh directed a glare at his brother. “Look at you, already so adept at throwing your weight around. Father must be so proud that his mantle will someday rest on your shoulders.”
“I’ve no time to suffer your impertinence,” Marcus snapped. “I want a word...alone.”
That last word he said while casting Evelyn a glance, one that seemed heavy with reproach. She raised her chin and refused to look away or be daunted by this man, regardless of how intimidating he might be. That they’d been caught in Hugh’s studio and not his bedroom boded well, for she could always fall back on the truth of the painting to protect her reputation—though her state of indecent dress and presence here without a chaperone would surely count for something. She told herself that none of it would matter, as Marcus himself would never reveal their affair to the world, since anything Hugh did would fall back on his family, no matter that they were estranged.
Hugh gave his brother a disdainful sneer. “Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of Evelyn. You certainly had no trouble giving me the cut in front of her.”
Marcus ran a hand over his jaw and shook his head, seeming quite put out by Hugh’s obstinacy. However, he pressed on, his words coming out clipped and sharp. “Very well. I suppose it cannot hurt, since the young lady is the matter I wish to speak with you about. It makes no difference to me if she is present to hear me ask you what in God’s name you could be thinking.”
Evelyn stiffened, going cold with fear as Marcus’s words slammed into her with all the force of a hammer between the eyes. Did he know? Had word spread of the nature of their relationship?
Hugh drew himself up, hands curling into fists, his chest swelling as he stared at Marcus with murder in his eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Evelyn is a dear friend who has commissioned a portrait, nothing more.”
Reaching into the breast pocket of his coat, he withdrew a folded copy ofThe London Gossip.“Care to explain this, then?”
While Evelyn fought to maintain her composure, Hugh scoffed, staring at the paper as if it were the most ridiculous thing he’d ever seen. “Viscount Radcliffe has taken to reading the scandal sheets like a sniveling girl. How surprising. You can’t honestly give any credence to the filth written on those pages.”
“Perhaps not,” Marcus ground out. “But I saw the two of you myself, and Elinor reports hearing that the two of you have been seen together on a few other occasions.”
Hugh shrugged one shoulder with a fluid motion that denoted nonchalance. Meanwhile, Evelyn felt as if she might faint, all the feeling seeping out of her fingers and toes. This was exactly the sort of attention she hated, the sort that made people whisper and stare.
“You seem quite interested in my affairs for a man who had no problem casting me out of the family,” Hugh spat. “Who I spend my time with is none of your affair, just as you’ve made it clear that the details of your life are none of mine.”
“It is my business when the reputation of an innocent woman might be at risk,” Marcus countered, before turning to address Evelyn. “Miss Coburn, you and I are not well acquainted but my impression from what I’ve heard is that you are an upstanding lady with a pristine reputation. My brother is not fit company for one such as yourself. Aside from lowering himself to this degrading profession, he is known to make friends with the most disreputable of London’s rakes, including the man whose theater box you occupied last week, an act which has drawn attention to you both.”
So that was it, then. Marcus thought himself a hero rescuing an unwitting maiden from the clutches of his brother. The insinuation was insulting, toward Hugh most of all, who had never treated her with anything but respect. His friends had only ever been kind to her, and their entire arrangement rested on her desires, not Hugh’s.
Squaring her shoulders, she found her voice as well as a good measure of indignation. “I understand your concerns, my lord, but it is as your brother says, we are friends and I have hired him to commission a portrait.”
When she paused, Marcus opened his mouth to reply, but Evelyn cut him off. She was far too riled up to be silenced now.
“Furthermore, you ought to be ashamed to speak of your own brother that way. He has done nothing to deserve such scorn.”
“Miss Coburn,” he began, raising a hand to placate her.
“Your mother ought to box your ears for treating your own flesh and blood that way. As a future earl, you possess the power to make people accept Hugh, and instead you’ve decided to join them in treating him like an outcast. It is my opinion, my lord, thatyouare the despicable one in this situation, the one who would not offer your brother the benefit of the doubt and have instead decided to cast him in the light of some sort of villain. Well, I’ll have you know that I am no simpering miss in need of coddling or concern. I will thank you to mind your own affairs and put mine from your thoughts.”
When she fell silent, she was shaking all over with rage. She’d never spoken so many words to a stranger before, and would never have dared talk this way to a lord of thetonbefore. Yet, she couldn’t find it in herself to regret it. If no one else would stand up for Hugh, then she would.
