“I’ll never be able to explain to you what it’s like,” he said. “If you truly want to know what it is you’re asking of your models, you have to experience it for yourself.” He raised a brow at her. “If you dare.”
If she didn’t do as he suggested, he’d continue to accuse her of demeaning him. The infuriating man had boxed her into a moral corner where she couldn’t refuse.
“I’ll be right back.” She headed for the dressing room. By the time she closed the door behind her, her belly was writhing like net full of eels. She took a deep breath. She could do this. After all, she did expect her subjects to do this very thing without a qualm. In the interest of fairness, she should know how they felt.
Her hands shook as she removed her paint-spattered smock. The simple muslin day dress came off next. She was down to her chemise, stays and drawers and realized she couldn’t go forward. She was unable to unlace her own corset.
“Are you all right, Your Grace?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” Artemisia said, irritated that her voice tremored. Bloody French dressmakers. She’d long believed fashion made fools of everyone. How could it be that a grown woman couldn’t even undress herself? She hadn’t thought of this when she agreed to this farce. Now she’d have to admit she couldn’t go through with it.
“Do you need help with your stays?” The sound of his voice told her he was just outside the door.
“How thoughtful of you to offer.” She should have realized he’d be intimately familiar with the undressing of women. He wasn’t about to let her off on a technicality. She opened the door a crack.
“Yes, Mr. Doverspike, I would appreciate your help,” Artemisia said as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to assist her with her corset. She was committed now, and the last thing she wanted was for him to see her falter. She turned her back to him, certain he’d know what to do.
She held her breath as he tugged at the knot. When it came free, his fingers worked their way up her spine, pulling her laces loose on each set of eyes. She realized suddenly that he’d have to lace her back up when they were finished.
She removed the corset and her br**sts fell free beneath her thin chemise. She was able to draw a deep breath, but didn’t feel up to turning to face him. What might she read in his dark eyes now?
“Thank you. I can manage from here,” she said quietly.
He withdrew from the small room and left her to face her fear. She lifted her chemise over her head and lowered her drawers. What would he think when he saw her? She wished she provided a mirror for her models. She longed to check for imperfections.
She looked down at herself. Her n**ples were at full alert and if she slipped a hand over her slightly rounded belly to the dark curls at the apex of her legs she suspected she’d find them damp. Her heart pounded and she felt an answering throb in her groin.
Really, this was the most outrageous thing she’d ever done, she decided. She didn’t have to go through with it. All she need do was slip back into her drawers and chemise and call for Mr. Doverspike to re-lace her stays.
But then he’d know her for a coward and a hypocrite. How could she expect her models to do something in the name of art she was unwilling to do herself?
Artemisia took down the second robe from its peg and slid her arms into the capacious sleeves. She pulled it tight around her, the feel of velvet against her bare skin a surprise. She’d worn any number of velvet gowns before, but with all the layers of undergarments—drawers, chemise, corset, petticoats, crinolines, the soft fabric barely touched her skin and certainly not in such intimate places. The texture rubbing against her nak*d bottom was positively decadent. She decided she liked it.
“Do you require further assistance, Your Grace?” Mr. Doverspike asked through the door.
“No, thank you,” she said, determined to brazen this out. She drew a deep breath and opened the door.
The look of surprise on his face was almost worth the back-flips her stomach was doing.
She padded to the center of the room. “Well, don’t stand there gaping. If you intend to draw me, you’ll need more than a handful of fingers. My sketchpad is yours and you’ll find fresh chalk in the top drawer of the little desk.”
He quickly retrieved the items and seated himself in her straight-backed chair, crossing one ankle over his knee to cradle the sketchbook. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said, one corner of his mouth twitching with a suppressed grin.
Then suddenly all the levity drained from his features and his eyes went darker. Artemisia felt the heat of his gaze even through the thick velvet. Surely he’d scorch her when his view was unfettered by the robe. She looked down, seemingly fascinated by the swirling grain in the dark hardwood, unable to meet his eyes. She fiddled with her lapels, inching the fabric off one shoulder. Anticipation rippled through her, but now that the moment had arrived, Artemisia wasn’t sure she could go through with it. She was about to admit defeat when he cleared his throat.
“You haven’t asked how I want you,” he reminded her, his voice husky.
She looked up at him, realizing that he’d be the first man to see her in the nude. Her late husband’s pitiful poking exploration of her flesh had been done in total darkness. Funny that this stranger should know her in a way the man whose name she bore never had.
“How do you want me?” she asked in a small voice.
His lips moved as if he started to say something, then thought better of it. “Turn around, facing away from me,” he finally said with gentleness. “It’ll be easier.”
She obeyed, her heart beating a furious tattoo on her ribcage. She forced herself to take a deep breath.
“Now, let the robe fall slowly from one shoulder. That’s good. A little more.”
The velvet brushed over her skin, followed by a breath of air as she bared her back to him. Down her spine, past the curve of her waist, the robe cut a diagonal across her figure as it fell to her wrist on the left side.
“Let the robe drop to your elbow on the right. Bend that arm and lift it slightly,” he suggested, his voice strangely tight.
He was draping her, she realized, as elegantly as any painter might arrange his subject, using the folds of fabric to create opposing lines and textures. Thomas Doverspike might claim not to be an artist, but he certainly had fine instincts for it.
The fabric dipped to expose her buttocks. Was that his sharp intake of breath she heard? Heat lightning raced over her skin, leaving her feeling warm and rosy. The top of her crevice tingled as she imagined his gaze exploring her derriere.
“Can you make a quarter turn?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
“Like this?” she pivoted slightly, realizing he’d now see one of her br**sts from that angle. The knowledge made her n**ples pucker.
“Perfect,” he said with reverence.
Even though she knew he didn’t mean anything by it, Artemisia was inordinately pleased by his choice of the word. Perfect. She’d been called lewd and feckless and outrageous by people who didn’t understand her dedication to her art. No one had ever called her perfect. Her insides did a jig.
She turned her head to look over her shoulder at him.
“Yes, that’s it! Don’t move,” he said with excitement. His dark head bent over the sketchbook and the chalk scritched over the page. “You’re beautiful, Larla.”
Artemisia’s breath caught in her throat. She didn’t even mind his casual use of her milk name. It felt right. He found her beautiful.
She relaxed into his unabashed approval, enjoying the warmth radiating from her belly each time he looked up at her. The admiration in his gaze set her skin dancing as he followed the curve of her spine from her nape downward. When he focused on her bottom, she imagined the pale mounds must be pinking under his regard. Her n**ples were drawn so tight, if she hadn’t been ordered to stand still she might have pressed her own palms against them to ease the ache.
So this is what it feels like, to be admired, to be accepted, to be beautiful and perfect in someone else’s eyes. To be a work of art.
Artemisia’s spirit soared. As she bared her body, she exposed her soul as well. She closed her eyes for a moment and felt herself fly free.
Suddenly she realized this was no longer about art. Perhaps it had never been about art. She wished she’d been brave enough to drop her robe for him head on. She wanted him to see her—all of her—to have his dark gaze search out all her secrets and pronounce them perfect and beautiful.
And not just his gaze. She wanted his touch. She could almost feel his hand, the way he’d slid it from her cheek when he kissed her, down her neck to the tops of her br**sts. When his square capable fingers had brushed her n**ples, she thought she’d burst out of her skin. What if that hand continued trekking south, over her belly and into the patch of dark curls? Would he find her fair?
And his kiss. Her lips tingled to feel his mouth on them again. What if his lips wandered to other places?
She felt a growing moistness between her legs and scented a whiff of her own arousal, musky and sweet at the same time. Surely he must smell it as well. She gathered her courage and cleared her throat.
“When we are finished with the painting, I have another position in mind for you,” she said, surprised at the raggedness of her own voice. She opened her eyes and met his direct gaze.
“Really? What might that be? Something for Mr. Beddington perhaps?”
Bother his fixation with Beddington!
“No, this is something for me,” she said evenly.
“What do you need, Your Grace?”
She took a deep breath and jumped into the void. “I find I require a lover.”
Chapter 9
Mr. Doverspike laid his chalk down and rose to his feet. “Don’t tempt a man wearing nothing but a robe, Your Grace.”
“It’s no temptation,” Artemisia said, still turned slightly away, watching him over her shoulder. “I mean it.”
He walked toward her, sinuous and slow, like a tiger stalking a roe. She wanted to face him squarely, but sudden apprehension rooted her to the floor. She hadn’t meant she wanted him to make love to her right now. There was so much to be done on the painting and it might color her perceptions of him to change their relationship in such a profound way. And yet, she couldn’t find her voice long enough to call a halt to his advance. She knew she should pull the robe back up around her, but it seemed she’d misplaced the will to move.
Thomas—she thought of him as Thomas now—stopped behind her, his breath warm on the back of her neck. His hands rested lightly on her shoulders, then smoothed their way down her arms. He lowered his mouth to her neck, first kissing, then suckling her flesh. She’d never felt such a delicious sensation. Her whole being throbbed as he consumed her.
“Mmm. So sweet,” he murmured before nuzzling her ear and taking a tender lobe between his teeth.
Artemisia leaned into him and felt his body, hard and strong, against her softness. As he planted a string of baby kisses on her nape, his hands slipped around to tease the underside of her br**sts. Feather-light, his fingers moved with maddening slowness. She longed for him to claim her br**sts with his palms, to heft their weight and, please God, to soothe the ache in her n**ples with a rough touch.