Page 9 of The Devil of Drury Lane
Trying to ignore the enticing fragrance, Mercy frowned at the tarnished silver service, having no idea how to entertain a man in a clandestine art studio and make it seem as if she’d asked him to call for any reason but the hope that he, the shyest man in London, might elect to finally kiss her.
Poor girl, she’d been waiting for Damien DeWitt to notice her for years.
Yet here he was, and she had no idea what to do with him.
In his circumspect way, Damien made a silent circle of the room, grazing his fingertip along a shelf of paint cans, across a canvas of the recently completed Waterloo Bridge. He examined her putty knife, shook a jar of charcoal pencils, lifted the rag she used to catch stray streaks to his nose with a sniff, dusted his polished boot through the cedar shavings at his feet. Nothing was above his inspection, above the penetrating mind she found so intriguing, from sponges to sealing wax to scraps of vellum she’d tossed aside in creative frustration.
Fragments of her life on display as they would be nowhere else.
Torn over the spectacle she’d invited him to witness, she wondered how she appeared to him. Frivolous? Unconventional? The urchin hiding in the hedges was now taller, fuller of breast, her hair still a red demon, a solitary chit dragging a trunk packed with desires and longings behind her.
Damien halted by the studio’s lone window, nudging the ragged drape aside with his knuckle, his serene journey leaving her to pop her paintbrush against her palm while she waited for something, anything, to happen. “Rather Bohemian, this district. Quite a few of the Drury stagehands live here, or so I’m told.” Glancing back, he let his first smile of the visit break free. Though it was incredibly controlled. “Not a coincidence, I’m guessing.”
She shook her head. Not a coincidence. A theater friend of a modiste friend of a laborer friend had told her about the space and guaranteed her father would never know of it.
As the youngest son of the Duke of Herschel stared at her, trying to figure her out, the wall sconce’s flame trembled, snagging in the golden glint of his eyes.
Her fingertips tingled. If only he’d be still long enough for her to sketch him.
Pausing, his attention caught on a painting she should have covered with a sheet to hide it from view. Her heart pounded as he crossed to it and dropped to a squat, bracing his broad forearm on his knee as he leaned in. With a soft sigh, he wiggled his spectacles from his pocket, and fit a silver arm over each ear.
When her heart dropped at the sight, she could do nothing to stop it.
The painting was rough but glorious. Incomplete but containing promise. She’d outlined it at an event in May held by a patron who offered the opportunity to work with models without the artist having to foot the cost. The subjects were often scarcely clothed.
Or as it had been this day, unclothed.
He opened his mouth, shook his head, glanced to the settee and back before speaking. “Did you draw this here?” His voice was ragged, laced with the remnants of a sentiment she couldn’t identify. Didn’t want to identify.
Mercy forced herself to go to him. Her blood pulsed in her ears, telling her this unveiling of self and soul might be a mistake. The couple in the drawing were intertwined, limbs tangled, fingers spread, faces lifted to the sky. They appeared to be in the midst of an act the models hadn’t been in the midst of at all. The image had come from her alone. “Baroness Coulter holds monthly gatherings in her drawing room. She’s a supporter of creative ventures.”
Mercy dropped to her knee beside him, close enough to feel the heat drifting from his body. “It’s quite charitable of her. And kind to keep the participants’ identities protected.”
Damien snorted beneath his breath, his gaze fixed on the drawing. “I’ve heard about her love of the arts.”
True, it was rumored the baroness sampled her artists like she would a fine wine.
“Why did you keep the sketch all this time? Some trivial bit of fancy I penciled as a girl?”
His nostrils flared with his exhalation. His fingers rounded into a fist before he shifted his gaze to her, his long body balanced there on her paint-spattered planks. Lady Baumbach had it right. His eyes were a wonderous mix, radiant despite his effort to contain everything swirling behind them. “Because no one aside from my brothers had ever seen me like that. Certainly not my parents.” He laughed but the sound was unamused. “You’d heard the gossip. ‘Herschel’s tetched son. Thank God for the twins.’ It was only when my father began to get violent that Cort and Knox stepped in. An argument that led to Cort joining the army and heading off to Waterloo. He could have died and it would have been my fault if he had. When Oxford offered the position in their history department, I never thought to refuse. Even if a son in my position being employed is an oddity. I couldn’t go back to Hampstead, not until he died.”
“Damien,” she breathed, lost in grief for that boy.
Unconsciously, he lifted his hand to his mouth and scrubbed it over the scar cutting into his top lip. “Funny, isn’t it, that my name means ‘to tame’ when I’ve never tamed anyone or anything in my life.”
This is it, Mercy. Your chance laid before you. “You could tame me with one word, one touch. A girl’s yearnings aren’t so very different from a woman’s.”
His eyes flared, his fiery gaze piercing her to her core. She could see the wheels of his mind spinning, gradual rotations increasing until his body fairly quivered with the vibration. “You don’t understand what you’re saying, Mercy Ainsworth. You couldn’t possibly. A childhood infatuation can’t lead you here, to me.”
Daring as she’d never dared before, she drew her paintbrush across the slice of skin exposed between his glove and his cuff. His fingers flexed, his ragged groan shattering the silence. “Actually, I comprehend quite well what I’m asking.” She glanced down, observing the circles she was drawing on his wrist with the bristles. “There was another student of my instructor’s, an artist he actually wanted to teach. We became friends, of a sort.”
Damien rocked back on his heels, his gaze going flinty. “I’m not sure I want to hear this.” He knocked aside her hand, his temper flaring for the first time in her memory. “In fact, I’m positive I do not.”
She laughed, delighted, mesmerized by the way his eyes were swimming with color, his attention having settled like a kiss on her mouth. “I was young, impressionable, a fool. His name was Pierre, if you can believe it. Pierre. He was worldly, his parents having fled Lyon due to the political instability. He wore velvet cravats and a ring on each finger. I admired his talent, at least. I thought he was a better choice for an amorous introduction than the man my father would eventually select for me. Someone twice my age, if his threats held.”
“Did he hurt you?” Damien asked, vestiges of anger crossing his face.
“My father? He hurts my feelings every day. Pierre was merely a pacifist, even on canvas. His paintings were as mild as his lovemaking.” Mercy trailed the brush over his shoulder, stopping when she hit the top fold of his cravat. The sloping curve of his neck called to her artistry, the dark hint of stubble lining his jaw her touch. Candlelight loved him, simply loved him.
