The second was… beautiful.
But quiet. Darcy stared at it, a small frown curving her brow. Something was missing—some spark of life. Some human edge that would make the viewer feel the ache of longing or the unbearable sweetness of surrender. Darcy knew the moment she realized it: the scene wasn’t lacking skill. It was lacking desire.
She folded her arms across her chest and stared at both canvases, unease prickling beneath her skin.
A knock sounded. Before she could respond, the door swung open, and Madame Rebecca swept in, perfume preceding herin a decadent wave. She clapped her hands together, her eyes lighting with delight. “Simply ravishing! Red, these are stunning.”
Darcy frowned, reluctant to give voice to her doubts. After a few moments spent studying it beside Rebecca, she released a quiet breath and said, “Do you not feel as though something is… amiss?”
Rebecca blinked, clearly taken aback. She moved closer, examining both canvases. “These aremarvelous. The vividness and the tension are wonderful. You captured something raw in this one…”
Her voice trailed as her gaze shifted to the second painting. “Oh,” she murmured, stepping even closer. “This kiss… it lacks something.”
Darcy sighed. “It does. Yet I cannot determine what it is that eludes it.”
“Passion,” she said.
“Is that what it is?” Darcy tilted her head, troubled. “Passion?”
“Yes.” Rebecca tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps you could work it into Shelby’s expression. Just a hint of desire and want. A trace of surrender, perhaps.”
Darcy nodded slowly, eyes fixed on the canvas. She barely registered Rebecca’s departure. Moving forward, she stood before the piece and extended a hand, not to touch, but to feel the air just shy of the painted lips. She glanced at the first painting, noting the expression of raw ecstasy on the woman’s face, and wondered if it might serve as a point of reference. Darcy sighed softly. That did not seem the correct way to approach it. How was she to capture the expressions that conveyed the many shades of desire when she had never experienced them herself? Any attempt to guess would surelyleave the work wanting. “Passion,” she whispered. “How do I convey something I’ve never known?”
“Ah…” came a low drawl behind her. “That, Miss Red, I can help you with.”
Darcy whirled around, her hand flying to her chest as though to still the sudden, wild thundering of her heart. “My lord. I had not realized you were present.”
Lord Raine leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, his expression carved into a smirk of carnal promise. Shadows clung to him like a second skin, but there was no mistaking the glint in his eyes—wicked, amused, and darkly intent.
CHAPTER 10
Darcy stared at the earl, bemused by the unexpected bloom of sensual awareness and curiosity unfurling within her. It unsettled her, that quickening, yet she refused to betray herself. Determined to appear unflustered, she lifted her chin. “Madam Rebecca gave voice to what I had already sensed. There is something wanting in this painting. I captured the scene precisely as I observed it, yet…”
His gaze shifted to the painting. “I see a gentleman kissing a lady. That, I believe, was the assignment.”
Darcy gestured toward the canvas. “I believe they were merely… performing. There was no true feeling when their mouths met. There is, perhaps, a trace of tenderness in the gentleman’s gaze, but Lady Shelby…” Darcy hesitated, searching for the proper word. “She seems untouched by it. Indifferent, even. Rebecca suggests it requires passion, but I wonder if it is something else entirely. Surely not every kiss must be ruled by passion?”
Darcy was absurdly proud of how steady her voice remained, though her heart jerked so violently she feared Lord Raine must hear it.
The earl pushed himself from the doorframe and moved further into the room, each unhurried step drawing him closer until he stood beside her, his presence palpable. He regarded the painting in silence for a moment.
“I understand what Rebecca intends,” he said at last, his tone low and measured.
“Tell me,” Darcy softly said.
“Rebecca wishes those unacquainted with such pleasures to look upon this painting and feel something stir within them.”
“What is that something?” Darcy asked, her voice softening.
His gaze shifted to her then, lingering in a way that made her pulse quicken.
“A longing,” he said quietly. “A curiosity.”
The words seemed to unfurl slowly, each one deliberate, each one brushing against her senses as though he spoke not of the painting, but of her. Darcy became acutely aware of him. His nearness unsettled her in a way she could not easily name, for it made her breath falter, her composure strain, as though some deeper awareness had stirred within her without her consent.
“Rebecca would have the observer drawn into the illusion of temptation… to be beguiled by what they see. To imagine the sensation for themselves—the press of lips meeting theirs, the slow rise of desire, the ache of want unfolding simply from that first touch. To feel it,” he continued, more softly still, “and to wonder… what it might be like to yield to such pleasure. The expressions here do not accomplish that. Does looking upon this painting make you wonder what it might be like to be kissed?”
Darcy’s breath faltered, her fingers rising unconsciously to her lips. The space between them, while it could be considered respectable, felt suddenly too small. “No, it does not,” she murmured after a few beats of silence. “Is that truly Rebecca’s intent?”
