Page 120 of The Muse of Maiden Lane

She looked steadily back at him. “I want you to finish your painting.”

He searched her face, amazed by what he found there. Good Lord, she was serious. He didn’t know whether he should be disappointed or elated.

“I couldn’t start until twilight,” he said. “That’s the hour I require, not the middle of the day. It might very well disrupt our evening.”

Her blush deepened. “Twilight doesn’t last forever.”

Teddy’s heart lost its rhythm. The meaning was plain. They would still have their wedding night, come what may. But first…

The artistic possibilities beckoned.

“In that case,” he said, “if the weather holds and you don’t change your mind—” His mouth tipped up in a sudden grin. “This evening, at sunset, I shall ask you very politely to change into your starry raiments and accompany me and my canvas to the banks of the Thames.”

Twenty-Nine

Stella had warned Teddy when he proposed that she enjoyed taking risks on occasion. And it wasn’t only traveling to and from Maiden Lane without a chaperone, or galloping Locket in the park, absent the net Stella had long used to conceal the color of her hair.

It was now—boldly doing as Teddy had asked of her—standing on the banks of the river, wrapped in a dark cloth cloak with precious little underneath, as the fog rolled in from the water and the glow of twilight faded into evening.

There was no Locket beneath Stella to lend her strength. No Furies surrounding her to offer their support. Even Teddy was a distance away, seated behind his easel as he prepared his palette.

A shiver traced down Stella’s spine. It wasn’t from the cold. And it wasn’t from fear or anxiety. She wasn’t afraid. Far from it. She felt bold as a brass farthing. Confident, there in the mud, standing on her own two booted feet.

What a glorious day it had turned out to be! First married, then feted by their friends at the Finchleys’, and now this—wild and unconventional and utterly conspicuous. The very opposite of the stultifying life she’d known before.

“I’m ready,” she said, untying the fastening of her cloak at her neck.

Teddy’s brows sank. He was having second thoughts. Third ones, too, by the looks of it. Never mind that it had been his idea. He wore the same expression he’d worn when he’d learned that Stella was traveling about the city unescorted. That visible conflict between the freedom he’d promised her and the masculine urge to protect her at all costs.

Stella registered his internal battle, but she didn’t allow it to alter her course.

She slipped the cloak from her shoulders, revealing her bare arms, bare throat, and the shimmering, pearl-spangled net that made up her gown.

They weren’t completely isolated on their tree-shrouded section of the river. Mr. Jennings stood with the wagonette at the top of the bank, respectfully giving them his back. Further on, beyond the tangle of ash, alder, and willow trees, lay meandering public walks and a curving, wood-lined roadway.

It would be scandalous to be observed. Reputation ruining, without doubt.

Once upon a time, Stella Hobhouse would have been concerned with such things. But she was no longer Stella Hobhouse. No longer, even, Stella Hayes, despite her and Teddy’s marriage ceremony, and the lengthy wedding breakfast, and countless champagne toasts that had come after.

All that was gone the instant Stella shed her outer garments. She was one of the Pleiades now.

She tossed her cloak to Teddy. His hand reflexively shot out to catch it. But he wasn’t looking at her cloak. He was staring at her, his jaw gone slack.

A thrill of feminine power went through her. “Don’t you approve of Ahmad’s design?”

Teddy’s throat worked on a swallow. “It’s, ah, a bit more revealing than I’d imagined it would be.”

It wasn’t, in truth. It was an illusion, merely.

Still…

“Isn’t that rather the point?” She turned, giving him his preferred three-quarter profile. Her unbound hair fell back from her shoulders, the mother-of-pearl paillettes on her net gown tinkling in the breeze that drifted over the water.

He cleared his throat. “Stella—”

“I’m Electra now,” she informed him. “Unless you’ve one of the other Pleiades in mind?”

He ran a hand over his hair. A scowl darkened his face. “Electra will do,” he muttered.