She thought she knew what desire was. She’d wake from time to time with a yawning emptiness, a vague discontent that left her adjusting her knickers in frustration. She never imagined this torrent of sensation, this unassailable urge toward something dark and forbidden. Now she simply wanted, unable to name her desire. Sharper than hunger, the relentless throb between her legs threatened to drive reason from her mind.
A small whimper escaped her lips when he covered her br**sts with his blessed hands.
“Shh,” he urged. “It will be all right. I’ll make it all right.”
One set of her body’s demands was assuaged, but a new group queued up, clamoring for his attention. Her skin shivered under his touch, tendrils of pleasure shooting up and down her limbs. When his fingertips traced the curve of her ribs, the small muscles barely beneath the surface contracted with joy.
He turned her to face him and claimed her lips, pulling her against his body. She could lose herself in his kiss.
But she knew she mustn’t. With Herculean effort, she pulled herself from his embrace.
“No, please,” she said, even though her body rebelled against her will. “This isn’t the time or place.”
“Don’t you remember what your father said? If we haven’t time, we haven’t anything. Here and now is all any man or woman can lay claim to,” he countered, placing his hands on the narrow expanse of her waist and tugging her close.
“No, Thomas.” She gathered up her robe to cinch it around her rioting body. “We must wait until the painting’s finished.”
“Why?” He parted her robe, clearly disinterested in her answer, and slid his hands in to caress her br**sts. She couldn’t find the will to cover herself again, not when he tormented her with his thumb circling a pink areola. Then he dipped his head to claim a nipple with his mouth.
“Oh!” A jolt of desire streaked from her breast to her womb. She had to explain something to him, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember what. His tongue twirled circles around her sensitive nipple, robbing her of rational thought. When he switched to her other breast, she grabbed a slice of sanity and held on.
“We must wait. Once the painting is finished, then I can set you up in a nice little townhouse, someplace in Mayfair, I think,” she said breathlessly. She buried her fingers in his dark hair. Her legs were trembling so, it was a wonder she was still upright. “Close enough to be convenient and far enough to be discreet.”
“Set me up?” He straightened to his full height.
“Of course.” Artemisia craned her neck to look up at him. Her n**ples demanded his mouth once more, but he hadn’t reduced her to begging. Not yet. “Isn’t that how these things are done?”
“What do you mean by ‘these things’?” His eyes narrowed.
“Just as I told you. I intend to take a lover. I wish that lover to be you.” She pulled her robe closed, gathering her shredded dignity with it. How could he run so hot and then so cold in mere seconds? “I would agree to a generous stipend, of course.”
“A stipend,” he repeated.
“That way you wouldn’t have to continue working for the counting house.”
“So I’d be available whenever you need me,” he said flatly. “To perform for your pleasure when you wish.”
“Exactly, clever boy.” She wished he didn’t sound so doubtful about it. She could already imagine furnishing a little love bower, a place apart from the rest of the world where she and Thomas could plumb the depths of delight without fear of interruption or discovery. “We could even draw up a contract, if you like. Some men do when they take a mistress, I’ve heard tell.”
“I see.” He ran his hand through his hair, but one lock fell back down on his forehead. She reached up to push it away, but he grasped her hand and held it tightly.
Too tightly.
“So I’m to be available to rut you on command?”
“There’s no need to be vulgar.” She tried to pull her hand away, but his grip was firm.
“What if we agree on a good roll thrice a week and maybe a quick swive or two as needed?” he suggested, his face hard as English oak. “I’m pretty good with my hands, I’m told. Perhaps we should write a diddling now and then into the damned contract, too.”
“Why are you so angry?”
“Because, madam, I am unable to enter into a service contract of that nature with you,” he said coldly.
“You don’t find me attractive?”
“That is beside the point.”
“Then what is the point? Men enter into this type of arrangement with women every day of the week.” She finally worked her hand free. He’d left her knuckles red and aching. “Why are you making everything so difficult?”
“Because, Your Grace, you are not a man and I am not a woman. I cannot be your kept mistress.”
“Semantics, Mr. Doverspike.”
“Reality, madam.” He knotted the sash at his waist. A muscle in his jaw worked furiously. “And now, if you would please clothe yourself, I will assist you with your corset. Then I find I must absent myself from this house before I do something I will later regret.”
His dark eyes glinted dangerously. Then he turned and waved a hand toward the tall windows where the sun was reaching its zenith and disappearing over the manor house’s steep gables.
“As you can see, Your Grace, we have already lost the light.”
Chapter 10
“The manifest of the Valiant, the disposition of her cargo and the final tally of profit from the latest voyage—I believe you’ll find everything as you hoped, Your Grace.” James Shipwash slid the thick file across the desk to Artemisia.
She was meeting him in the small suite of offices she kept near the wharves instead of in her study. Mr. Beddington had to keep up appearances and a business address was one of them.
It was a tidy collection of spaces, an anteroom where Mr. Shipwash did his work, Mr. Beddington’s inner sanctum where they held their weekly conference, and a storeroom to house the records the business generated. During day-to-day operations, James Shipwash ran interference when occasionally someone tried to call on Artemisia’s nom de guerre. It was simple enough for Shipwash to tell a visitor Beddington was unavailable or had just stepped out.
Mr. Shipwash pushed his spectacles up on the bridge of his nose. “Even with the week’s delay on account of squalls off Bermuda, the Valiant has produced more profit than we projected. If I may be so bold as to say, taking on that coffee shipment was a stroke of genius, madam.”
Artemisia leafed through the ledgers of neatly totaled columns and sighed. Once the world of business had excited her almost as much as her art. Perhaps it was the clandestine foray into a man’s world under the guise of Mr. Beddington that gave the enterprise its spice. She certainly had a knack for it, a definite gift for predicting which cargo would bring the most coin once it was brought successfully to market. But lately, the facts and figures of trade failed to stir much enthusiasm in her.
Perhaps because Mr. Doverspike had shown her that there were some masculine realms into which she could not enter, no matter how well-moneyed or well-intentioned she was. A woman could not keep a man as a man might keep a mistress.
At least, not that man.
But why should it matter who paid the rent on a love-nest if both the birds were content to flock there together?
Evidently, it did matter. It mattered a great deal. Thomas Doverspike had not returned the following morning for his sitting, or any morning since. The canvas of Mars remained in shrouded seclusion.
And the painting would have been good, she thought with bitterness. Strong and controversial in theme, her Mars was just the sort of work that would catapult her to the pinnacle of the art world’s attention.
But now it would never see the light of day.
Why did Thomas Doverspike insist on being so difficult?
She shifted her attention back to the ledgers. At least, numbers were easier to understand than men.
“This looks fine, Mr. Shipwash.” She turned her gaze to the window where a spiky forest of nak*d masts bobbed in the Thames. “Be good enough to draw up a list of exportable items for the return trip to the Caribbean and the Americas by Thursday next and I’ll make my decisions then.”
“Very well.” He gathered up the report and filed it in one of the polished mahogany cabinets. “Now as to the other matter you asked me to investigate . . .”
“The other matter?”
“The gentlemen, madam,” he said. “Here is a dossier on each. As you can see, Lord Shrewsbury’s son has debts in excess of ten thousand pounds to proprietors of various gaming hells.”
Artemisia waved that away. It was the bargaining chip her mother was counting on to arrange the match between the viscount’s son and her sister Delia. Ready coin was the surest way for a moneyed commoner to marry into a title.
“Shrewsbury the younger is fond of drink, mad for foxhunts and absents himself from Parliament as often as he can.”
“In short, he’s a model British peer,” Artemisia said cynically.
“There is nothing to urge against his suit of your sister,” Mr. Shipwash admitted.
“On the contrary, my sister is the one pursuing him. And if I know my mother, she’ll see the match made if for no other reason than to repay Viscountess Shrewsbury for snubbing her at the theatre,” Artemisia said. “And what of Trevelyn Deveridge?”
Mr. Shipwash frowned. “He’s a bit of a chancer, madam. Second son and all. Served admirably enough in the military, but resigned his commission under unspecified circumstances. He seems not to have any visible means of support other than the miserly pittance his father, the earl, doles out. Yet he lives well. No unusual vices, other than what might be expected in a healthy young man.”
Artemisia took the cryptic remark to mean Mr. Deveridge fancied light women. She knew her mother would not consider that a detriment as long as the gentleman hadn’t contracted the French pox. “He’s young?”
“Nearly thirty, I’d say,” Mr. Shipwash said. “It’s noised about that Lord Warre is not terribly pleased with his youngest offspring.”
“Why not?”
“I’m thirty years of age myself, Your Grace,” Mr. Shipwash said. “My place in the world is established. I have a wife and child and meaningful work which engages me thoroughly. Trevelyn Deveridge is a man who might have been an earl but for an older twin. Now, he’s a ship without a rudder.”
“Well, if that’s all he lacks, Constance Dalrymple will supply him with direction in short order once he marries Florinda,” Artemisia said with a rueful chuckle. She could almost pity the faceless Mr. Deveridge. “Thank you, Mr. Shipwash. I will present these reports to my mother.”
“I must apologize, Your Grace, for my failure on the other matter.” When she frowned quizzically at him, he continued. “Thomas Doverspike. The man is a vapor. I consulted the constabulary, but he has no history of arrest. None of the counting houses in London has heard of him. I found no trace of him for good or ill.”