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"I like the windows," he said. "They are the largest in the house." He knew the studio was no larger than this room, but it was airier, thanks to the draught from the tall windows. He wanted more air. The tension between them thickened an atmosphere already heavy with Beaumont's secrets…with evil.
His reply elicited one sharp glance, but that was all. In silence, Madame Beaumont led him to the studio.
Windows, Leila thought ruefully as she attacked the mess on the studio worktable. That was her piece of lint about him, her small, vague clue. The Comte d'Esmond liked big windows.
His presence in her sanctuary made her edgy. He prowled the space just as he had prowled the parlor, examining everything, though here he touched nothing. He was wandering the opposite end of the room, studying the bookshelf, the fireplace, the sofa, and the shabby rug on which it stood. As though every object hid a secret. Her secrets.
"There's another stool behind that stack of canvases in the corner," she said rather too sharply. "Just shove them out of the way."
Even as the words came out of her mouth she realized that the idea of Esmond "shoving" anything was ludicrously incongruous. Out of the corner of her eye she watched him gently stack the canvases, one by one, against the wall. You'd think they were Ming vases, the way he handled them.
She was already seated, a folded sheet of foolscap before her, when he brought the other stool to the table.
"Do you want to discuss them first, or shall I just write down everyone I can think of?" she asked. "Or perhaps you'd rather write. My penmanship is not elegant."
She pushed the foolscap and pen toward him. She didn't have to push far. She'd shoved most of the extraneous materials to her right and left, to clear a space opposite hers. But he had placed his stool to her right, and sat before a heap of sketchbooks, brushes, pencils, bits of charcoal, and other artistic miscellany.
"No, you must write," he said. "I cannot read my own hand, and it vexes me. Just write the names of all your husband's friends you can think of. Later, we can discuss." "London friends?"
"All."
"That could take all night," she said.
"Stop when you are weary."
Strangling an oath, Leila dipped her pen into the ink, bowed her head, and proceeded to write. It went quickly at first, with the obvious names, then more slowly as she strove to recall the host of men and women she'd met or heard mentioned, but rarely interacted with.
Absorbed in the task, she didn't notice the time passing. As much as half an hour may have gone by when she became aware that Esmond had not moved a muscle, scarcely seemed to be breathing...and that he was watching her.
She hadn't looked up. She didn't need to see it. The awareness was a troubling warmth upon her skin—her face, her neck, her hands—and a tingling in her scalp. It was something like a caress, but something more like the pull of the air just before the lightning crackles.
She had felt it too many times before—even at a distance, in the inquiry room, when she had recognized him...sensed, as he'd said.
She hadn't wanted to think about what he meant by "sensed," but she couldn't avoid it now. It was an animal awareness, elemental as scent.
Silence blanketed the room. She could hear her own breathing, and the hurry of it, in time with the hurried beat of her heart. Her hand stiffened, and the pen tore into the paper, spluttering ink. She set the pen down.
"You are weary," he said.
"My hands," she said, frowning at them as though they truly were the cause. "Sometimes I—there's a—a spasm. It'll go away in a minute." She spread her hands on the table, stretching the fingers. "It happens. The same muscles, you know, overused. Fiona says I should soak them several times a day in warm, scented water, but I haven't the time or patience."
"Let me see."
"There's nothing to see. It's muscles. You can't—"
She caught her breath as he took her hand.
He turned it palm up and pressed his thumb against the soft flesh. "The little muscles are in knots," he said. "There, you see." He pressed, and Leila swallowed a moan. "And there."
"Oh." That at least was not a moan. More of a gasp, she consoled herself while the blood raced to her cheeks.
"I shall untie them," he said.
"That isn't neces—"
His fingers coiled with hers, and she couldn't speak or think past the surge of sensation.
Esmond had held her hand before—in greeting or farewell, or while dancing—and the contact had disturbed her. That was nothing to the pulsing intimacy of this: his fingers twined with hers while his thumb kneaded the muscles, warming, coaxing, and drawing out the tension like a thread.
She was aware of his voice telling her of bones and muscles and circulation, but she couldn't concentrate on the words. She was too conscious of his hands and what they were doing to her, mind and body.
As the muscles began to ease, the warmth he stirred became liquid pleasure, coiling through her blood.
It was intoxicating. Sinfully so. Her mind grew drunk with it, conjuring images of those devil's hands moving over her skin…everywhere. She could, almost, feel those caresses, and that "almost" made her yearn for what she imagined.
Her gaze lifted to his, to the blue enigma of his eyes and the unearthly beauty of his face, and she searched for some hint that he knew what he was doing to her. All she found was a quiet concentration, as detached as the words he uttered. No potter could have been more soberly focused upon his wheel. Her hand might have been a piece of clay.
His thumb slid to her wrist, to the hammering pulse, and paused.
"You have strong hands," he said softly. "Have you ever sculpted?"
She shook her head and wished she could shake it into sense. "I was happier with a brush." So weak and breathless her voice sounded. But she was weak. Even now, though he'd stopped, she couldn't find the will to free her hand. His were strong, too, and warm, and so sure. They possessed her, held her as his eyes could hold her. Perhaps he could do this so easily because she was not sure, because her outer assurance was a veneer, concealing the wanton within. She hadn't realized how thin that veneer was until she'd met him. Never before had it felt as fragile as it did now.
"I cannot sculpt or paint or draw," he said. "Even my penmanship is an abomination. Yet my hands are good." He released her and, edging a bit nearer, laid his left hand flat, palm down, upon the table.
It was perfectly proportioned and graceful, the fingers long, the nails smooth oblongs, neatly manicured. It told her nothing.
"You're right-handed," she said. "Show me that one."
"They match, Madame."
"Any artist knows they never do exactly. Let me see."
His smoothly composed countenance tightened, but only for an instant, and the change was so subtle and fleeting that she might have believed it a trick of the light. Her intuition didn't believe that, however.
He set his right hand down next to its mate.
As she studied it, her brow wrinkled. Something was wrong…the wrist. She leaned closer, looking from one to the other. "That's odd," she murmured.
She stared at her own wrists, then his again. She moved his hands closer together, then traced the back of his wrist with her fingers.
"You broke it," she said. "Badly."
Very badly. She couldn't begin to imagine what it must have felt like, but it hurt just to look. The bones had been skillfully set, but the perfection could not be restored. A practiced eye could discern the distortion, the faint scars. Leila could feel the damage, too—the several places where the bones didn't meet perfectly. There was a spur at the base of his thumb, and that knuckle was uneven.
She had thought him a perfect work of art, but he was not. A part of him had been broken. Though the mending was well done, it was there. It hurt to look at it, to touch it.
Something stirred her hair, a warmth on her scalp. Belatedly, Leila realized what she was doing—stroking his hand—and noticed that his head had bent nearer, and w
hat she'd felt was his warm breath. And something else, sensed rather than felt: the fire she was playing with.
Sliding her hand away, she drew back. "I studied anatomy," she said. "I was…curious. How rude. I beg your pardon."
"It was broken," he said. He didn't draw back. "But it happened a long time ago, and my hand has fully recovered. I was fortunate in my physician."
