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"Yes."
"And your work goes well, I hope?"
"Very well."
"You have accommodated yourself to London?"
"Yes."
The short, fierce syllables announced that he'd driven painting altogether from her mind. That was enough, he told himself. He smiled. "You wish me at the Devil, perhaps?"
The pink deepened. "Certainly not."
His glance trailed down to her gloved hands. The thumb of her right hand moved restlessly over the back of her left wrist.
She followed his gaze. Her hand instantly stilled.
"I think you have wished me at the Devil since our first encounter," he said. "I even wondered whether it was on my account you fled Paris."
"We didn't flee," she said.
"Yet I offended somehow, I am sure. You left without word—not even the simple adieu."
"There wasn't time to take leave of everybody. Francis was in a great—" Her eyes grew wary. "He had made up his mind to go, and when he makes up his mind, he can't bear delay."
"You had promised me a portrait," Ismal said softly. "My disappointment was great."
"I should think you'd have recovered by now."
He took a step nearer. She didn't move. He clasped his hands behind his back and bowed his head.
He was just close enough to detect her scent. It was the same. There was as well the same tension between them that he remembered: the pull...and the resistance.
"Yet the portrait is reason enough to come to England, I think," he said. "In any case, this is what I told your charming friend, Lady Carroll. And she took pity on me, as you see. Not only did she invite me to join her family and guests in this picturesque town, but she ordered one of her brothers to accompany me, lest I lose my way."
He raised his head. In her tawny eyes he saw a turmoil of emotion—anger, anxiety, doubt...and something else, not so easy to read.
"Yes. Well. It would appear that Fiona has lost hers. She should have been here hours ago."
"Indeed it is a pity, for she will miss the dancing. Already the music begins." He looked about. "I have expected to discover some English gentleman bearing down upon us, seeking his partner for the first dance. But no one comes this way." He turned back to her. "Surely someone has asked you?"
"I know my limits. If I begin now, I shan't last the evening. I've reserved four dances only."
"Five," he said, holding out his hand.
She stared at it. "Later...perhaps."
"Later you will put me off," he said. "Your feet will hurt. You will be fatigued. Also, I may become fatigued as well, and so I may...misstep. I did this once, I recall—and never danced with you again." He lowered his voice. "You will not make me coax, I hope?"
She took his hand.
¯¯
"This morning?" Fiona repeated. "You can't be serious. You've been here hardly two days. And I've only just come."
"You should have come sooner." Leila shoved her russet gown into the valise.
They were in her assigned bedroom. It was only eight o'clock in the morning, and the party hadn't ended until nearly dawn, but Leila was well rested. She'd slept like the dead. That wasn't surprising. She had gone to bed feeling as though she'd just spent five years at hard labor—with Esmond as the ruthless overseer. The entire evening had been a battle. Actually, she would have preferred open warfare, with real weapons. How did one fight shadow, innuendo, hint? How could he seem to behave so properly yet make one feel so hotly improper?
Fiona sat on the bed. "You're running away from Esmond, aren't you?"
"As a matter of fact, yes."
"You're a fool."
"I cannot deal with him, Fiona. He is beyond me. He's beyond anything. Francis was quite right."
"Francis is a sodden degenerate."
Leila took up a petticoat, rolled it into a ball, and stuffed it into a corner of the valise. "He isn't stupid, especially about people."
"He's jealous because Esmond is everything he's not—or what Francis may have been once, but won't be ever again. That cur doesn't deserve you, never did. He certainly deserves no loyalty. You should have taken a lover long ago."
Leila shot her friend a look. "Have you?"
"No, but only because I haven't found just the right one. It's not on account of some idiotic principle."
"I won't be anybody's whore."
"'Whore' is a man's word," Fiona said. "Reserved for women. A man is a rake, a libertine. How dashing it sounds. But a woman who behaves the same way is a whore, a tart, a trollop—gad, the list is endless. I counted up once. Do you know, English contains about ten times as many disagreeable terms for a pleasure-loving woman as it does for her male counterpart? It makes one think."
"I don't need to think about it. I don't wish to think about it. I don't care what the words are. I will not sink to Francis' level."
Fiona let out a sigh. "You haven't even got to the point of flirting with your lovely count," she said patiently. "And he's not going to drag you to bed forcibly, my dear. I assure you, my brother does run a respectable household, and you may stay out your week without the least fear of being sold into white slavery."
"No. It's...He's treacherous. I don't—oh, how am I to explain?" Leila pushed her hair back from her face. "Can't you see for yourself? Francis was right, as usual. Esmond does something to people. It's like—oh, I don't know. Mesmerism."
Fiona lifted her eyebrows.
Leila couldn't blame her. Of course it sounded insane. She sat down on the bed beside her friend. "I had resolved not to dance with him," she said. "It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. Then—oh, I know it sounds laughable, but it wasn't. He threatened to—to coax me."
"Coax you," Fiona repeated expressionlessly.
Leila nodded. "And immediately, that became the last thing in the world I wanted." Looking down, she saw that she was rubbing her thumb over her wrist. She frowned. He'd noticed even that. He missed nothing, she was sure. The smallest self-betrayal. It had told him she was uneasy, and he used it. He'd threatened to coax her because he knew—the wretch knew—she was afraid he'd addle her even more than he'd already done.
"I don't think it's Esmond at all," Fiona said. "Your nerves are frayed, and that's Francis' doing, mostly—and overwork, as you admitted weeks ago."
"What Francis does is of no concern whatever to me. If I heeded his moods, I should go mad. But I know it's the opiates and the drink, and so I ignore it. He's the one with the frayed nerves. So long as he keeps out of my studio, he can tear the house to pieces for all I care. I scarcely see him anymore—and the servants are well-paid to clean up after him."
"Yet you prefer to go back to that? When you might have the Comte d'Esmond just by crooking your little finger?"
"I strongly doubt Monsieur comes at any woman's beckoning. Rather the other way about, I suspect. He does precisely as he pleases." Leila rose and resumed packing.
Despite Fiona's unceasing remonstrances, Leila was finished in another half hour. Very soon thereafter, she climbed into a hired carriage and headed for London.
She was home shortly after noon. She changed out of her traveling dress into an old day gown, donned her smock, and marched into her studio. Then and only then did she begin to release the turmoil that had been roiling inside her since the moment she'd spied Esmond in the ballroom at Norbury House.
Fortunately, she didn't have to decide what to do. She had assembled a still life before she'd left, and no one had touched it. The two daily servants never entered her studio to clean unless expressly told to do so.
The heap of bottles, jars, and glasses seemed merely a haphazard mess, but it presented an ideal painterly exercise. One had to look, concentrate totally, and paint only what one saw.
She looked, she concentrated, she mixed her colors, she painted...a face.
She paused, staring disbelievingly at the canvas. It was the face of the man she'd fled.
Her heart thudding, she scraped away the paint with her pa
lette knife, then began again. Once more she focused upon her subject, and once more the face appeared.
