I smiled. “I know you do not.”
Her mouth tugged to the side. “I suppose you do. What, did you try to steal all the portrait miniatures from his gallery?”
“My relationship is somewhat more amiable than that.”
She crossed her arms. And heaven help me, but it was all I could do not to let my gaze drop to the rather glorious enhancement that posture made of her already fascinating figure. “You really are a mystery to me, sir. You act like the most fastidious and honorable man alive, yet I have caught you in the very act of stealing.”
I shrugged. When this was all over, I was going to tell her everything. I’d take her to Darcy House and Pemberley and see if my houses suited her. “You must trust your own eyes, of course.”
“I am beginning to doubt everything they tell me where you are concerned.” She shook her head and waved her hands as if wiping clean her thoughts. “But that is neither here nor there. What I want to know is how you expect me to get through this sculpture trial long enough for you to do… whatever it is you need to do.”
“Well, now, that ought to be simple enough. Chantrey himself will not even be there.”
“But a dozen others will. They are students working under a master, and I am to join in their company and work from the same drawings to produce a bust. And then there are guards about, keeping watch on all that valuable art in storage, and did I forget to mention thatI do not know what I’m doing?”
An ostrich reached through the bars just then, his head hanging just above Miss Elizabeth’s shoulder, and made a screeching sound beside her ear. She flinched and instinctively reached for my hand before she turned to look at that offensive bird. I laced my fingers through hers, stroking the inner part of her palm with my thumb. I couldn’t help it. She was positively delectable—piquant and sassy, but sweet and strong and sensible all at the same time.
I was mad. Or lost.
Far from withdrawing her hand from mine, Elizabeth tightened her fingers. She had even rested her other hand on my forearm as she edged away from that curious ostrich. The giant bird had taken a liking to her bonnet, pecking and tugging at it as she pulled away. Instead of being outraged or fearful, Elizabeth laughed. “He really is magnificent, is he not?”
I gazed down at her. “Yes. Magnificent.”
“Come!” She tugged my hand toward the vultures’ cage. “I have questions for you, and fond as I am of that ostrich, I do not think I can manage a straight face with him poking at the feathers on my bonnet. Now, then. How am I to play this part tomorrow?”
“Oh, I should think it would not be so very difficult. You will scarcely make a beginning before I am ready to slip out, and then you will feign illness. In a room full of males, not one of them will doubt or question you.”
“Not on the illness part, anyway. But the rest…”
I smiled and leaned down to her ear. “Come, Miss Elizabeth. You must know at least a little about how to mold clay. I cannot believe you have never seen it done before.”
She stiffened and regarded me suspiciously. “And where do you think I have seen this?”
“Oh, I am sure I do not know. But you live in the country, do you not? Surely, it is not so unheard of that some villager of your acquaintance might make clay pots. For flowers or something.”
Her throat bobbed, and she sucked her lower lip between her teeth. “Do you know, William, being around you is frightfully nerve-wracking.”
I chuckled. “If you will allow me? That ostrich loosed one of your hairpins.”
Elizabeth froze, only her eyes following my hand as I caught the wayward curl plucked from the back of her head. Her hair was soft as satin and glossy as jet, and it spiraled around my finger. I knew not the first thing about fixing a woman’s hair, but it was a diverting study. A twist here, a gentle tuck there, and her hair looked… I gulped.
Lost. That was what I was.
Elizabeth’s breath was nearly as ragged as mine. Perhaps that was the first time a man had touched her hair. She carefully felt my handiwork, her eyes still on my face and her chin lifting. “Thank you,” she whispered, the puff of her breath warm against my skin.
I had to close my eyes and swallow. Another half a moment, and I would make a public spectacle of us, taking her in my arms and kissing her the way she’d kissed me in the woods.
I coughed. “Of course. Come, Miss Elizabeth. Perhaps we ought to rejoin Bingley and your sister.”
Elizabeth
Ineededair,orI was going to swoon right there on the floor. It was only a mercy that Jane and Mr. Bingley were so lost in each other’s presence that they hardly seemed to notice.
It was time for us to depart anyway, and Jane accompanied me to a little shop to admire some ribbon while the gentlemen secured the carriage. She could not cease the giddy smiles or fits of nervous giggles whenever I looked at her. She was losing face even now as we admired a length of blue satin.
“Mr. Bingley loves blue,” she said. And giggled.
“I should think he would. It is my favorite shade on you, as it brings out your eyes.”
