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She had turned to pick up her sketchbook, and her bent head concealed her expression.

“Good,” she said and pushed the sketchbook into his chest. “I am not bashful. I draw myself nude. The practice isn’t particularly productive, as I don’t have a long enough mirror. And my figure isn’t ideally suited for it.”

He made a sound of negation, but she sighed and rolled her eyes.

“It’s a fine figure,” she said. “I don’t need your compliments. But it’s not full and rounded, and neither is it androgynous. It’s a body. A contemporary body. Entirely lacking in the capacity for rhetorical grandeur.”

It was strange to hear a woman speak so, of her own appearance.

“Rhetorical grandeur,” he repeated doubtfully. “Is that the only measure of the figure in art?”

She regarded him for a long moment.

He read the challenge in her gaze but was too slow to guess its import.

“Let’s see, then,” she said. “There’s charcoal in the bag. Take whatever piece you like.”

Quick as thought, she twisted around, reaching behind her back. In a moment, the brown silk of her bodice sagged away from her torso. She pushed it down over her shoulders, shrugged out of the sleeves, and twisted again, undoing the sash.

He froze. He could see her shoulders and collarbones through the thin fabric of her chemise, the curves of muscle in her bare arms. He hadn’t considered this before—a woman’s muscles. Maybe he’d been a poor student of anatomy, or maybe he’d been with softer women. Her muscles flexed as she worked at the back of her gown. They looked firm. She wore no corset.

She pushed the bodice down farther and he saw her breasts through the chemise, the dark pucker of the nipples. Her body wasn’t ample, but the dark shadows beneath the curves of her small breasts made his breath catch. The chemise was not entirely transparent. He couldn’t see if she was freckled, if she blushed.

It wasn’t a drawing lesson he wanted. His body stirred. He dropped the sketchbook and was at her side in an instant, stopping her hands, tugging up her gown.

“You’ve made your point,” he grated. “This is far too advanced.”

She turned from him, bending her wrists behind her back, slender fingers doing up her buttons. A tendril of hair tangled with a button. She picked at the knot.

“Here,” he said and loosened the tendril, then brushed the other loose pieces of hair over her shoulders. The curls felt smooth and springy in his hands, like live things. The portion of her nape revealed was sized for his lips.

He stepped back, ruefully.

When she faced him again, her brilliant smile confirmed her victory.

He couldn’t let it stand at that. He leaned over and kissed the smile from her lips. This time she responded instantly, opening to him, their tongues tangling, hers pulling his deeper.

“Maybe I’ll learn to draw after all,” he said, pulling back slowly. He grinned at her. She looked dazed, fingertip touching her bottom lip.

“I’m too busy to teach you,” she retorted, lowering her hand, pressing her lips together. The quick rise and fall of her chest betrayed her. She tossed her head.

“But if you learn elsewhere,” she added, “I might make the time to sit for you. Provided, that is, you sit for me.” Her face darkened. “And provided you don’t obliterate the canvas.”

He shrugged, noncommittal.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he said. “One arrangement at a time.”

“Fine,” she said. “We can revisit the issue at a later date.”

“Please,” he said politely.

She averted her gaze and gathered her sketchbook and bag.

He wasn’t in a position to make any arrangements. How had he let this happen? He was cursing himself while he escorted her to the front hall and called for the coach, and he cursed himself when he returned to his study and saw the mud on the carpet.

He was starting to see symbols everywhere. Mud on a carpet lacked rhetorical grandeur to be sure, but the meaning was clear enough.

Now that she’d gotten her foot in the door, it would be no easy task to get rid of her.