“My bed is not big enough?” she whispered. “Who are you inviting? The Regiment of Horse Guards?”
With every instinct straining to do precisely as he’d stated, he leaned over where she sat and put hands to the padded arms of the chair.
Her breath was fast, the pulse in her neck flickering.
“No. Just you and me, Hebe. Naked. Aching with need until that need is sated and we lie replete, awash with satisfaction.”
She gasped.
And he kissed her.
Unhurried and like silk.
Their bodies were unable to touch but inflamed ferocity ravaged Ernest – to not bother with either bed but tug her to the Gallery rug, tangle her silken locks around his neck and possess her like any self-respecting King of the Forest would do.
Yet…
The innocence once more in her kiss stalled him. Her inhale of surprise as he lightly bit her lip and slipped his tongue inside, her hesitant response and unsure fingers.
So he halted, sought ragged air and patience.
“You promised not to kiss me,” she rasped.
“In the music room,” he countered, allowing one last touch of her skin as he drew back. “Good night, Hebe Locke. Sweet dreams.”
And before his savage desires got the better of him, he spun into the darkness, leaving her with the burning lanterns that he’d become aware she slept beside for comfort at night, and bequeathing her to the loving care of the Gallery’s forty-eight long-dead ancestors.
16
HOME IS WHERE THE ART IS…
“Arrgghhh,” bewailed Hebe as she flipped to a fresh sheet of her sketchbook. Her fingers were like a string of sausages and her wits a bucket of porridge.
Sir Cosmo – named after an obscure Rothwell cousin of the Tudor era – snickered with tail swishing against the summer flies as a stable boy scraped him down after his daily run.
Legs were impossible.
“’Tweren’t that bad,” offered Mr Grampy Tom who sat next to her on the bench in the humid afternoon air. “I’d be mortal glad to have tha on my cottage wall.”
Hebe scowled. “The knees were wonky.”
“Nothing wrong with wonky knees.” He cast a wink.
“You have fine knees, Mr Grampy Tom, just overworked. And you are too kind.”
“Bah.” And he perused the clouds.
Some owners wished their horses to be painted in a staid flat style, a record of racing wins, but it was the silken hair stretched over muscle that interested Hebe, both the strength and fragility in those legs.
Mr Stubbs had spent six months dissecting the animals in order to study their movement, but Hebe knew her art could never take her that far. As luck would have it, the eminent artist had felt compelled to publish his discoveries for others such as herself to learn from.
“Will it rain tomorrow?” she queried, biting her lip as she started afresh with a graceful, curved line of thigh. “I am to visit Squire Skelton and sketch his colts.”
“Well, the frogs are quiet.”
Hebe debated that one. “They could be asleep?”
“Cows are lying down.”
