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“Unfortunately, as I found out when I set out for Italy, my stomach doesn’t share my love of the ocean. I get terribly seasick. I’m like Erasmus in that regard.”
Theo laughed. “That is another truth, I think.” She paused in her amusement, thinking of Erasmus and the discussion she must have with Haven about him. But she pushed the thought aside for later.
“And I loved that telescope.” His gaze lingered on her. “I would look at the moon and imagine I saw a face, which my mother claimed was a hallucination brought on because I’d eaten an entire pie by myself. Apple, if that is your next question. I adore apple pie.”
“I doubt there is any pie, my lord, which does not merit your attention. How old were you?”
“Nine.” He shrugged. “Maybe ten. Coincidentally, it was the first time I found out my father had a twin brother. Erasmus announced his presence by riding up to the front door and falling off his horse, drunk. He’d come to beg money from my father and possibly to catch a glimpse of my mother. Whatever his reason, he was desperate enough to board a ship bound for England, at least. He stayed drunk most of the time he was here, which wasn’t very long. Insisted on calling himself the Marquis de Haven. Which made no sense at all.”
“Do you think,” Theo said carefully, “he might have visited London for a time before he returned?” She was convinced that was the only way Erasmus could have seen or possibly met her father. Or seen her brother. The thought gnawed at her, begging to be explained.
“No. My father put Erasmus on a ship himself. Probably wanted to make sure his brother was gone. He went back to France with another sum bestowed upon him and some of my grandmother’s silver, which we didn’t realize until later. At any rate, I hope my telescope ended up in the hands of a young boy who was as fascinated by the heavens as I was.”
Theo absorbed every word he spoke. The cadence of his rumbling tenor. The way he always sounded as if he’d just awoken. But mostly, Theo concentrated on the many truths her husband imparted to her. The parts of himself she suspected he hadn’t shared with anyone else.
Haven reached out, tracing the spray of freckles up her chest with a forefinger, and whispered, “The Corona Borealis. It’s a constellation. Your freckles are remarkably similar. I told Blythe that, you know. He never could remember the damned name.”
Fire lit across the skin of her chest at his touch, flowing down across her breasts, peaking her nipples. The pull in Haven’s direction, always present, tugged even stronger now. It was hard to concentrate on anything else but him. Even the fact that Blythe had stolen the idea that her freckles resembled a constellation from Haven failed to disturb her focus on the man before her.
“Is this studio your apology to me?” she murmured, catching his fingers with hers.
“Will Theodosia’s Line of Demarcation finally be dissolved?”
“Possibly.”
His lips brushed softly against her fingertips. “My greatest crime is for allowing you to think our enthusiasm for each other was commonplace. Something that any man with a cock and a willing woman could accomplish.” His eyes shuttered closed for a moment. “It was not. What happened between us, myfeeling—was only for Theodosia Louise Barrington, and no one else. As rare and beautiful as you are.”
“Ambrose.” She rubbed her thumb along his bottom lip, her heart squeezing tightly at his words. “I fear, my lord, that diplomacy is required for the dissolution of Theodosia’s Line of Demarcation.”
A soft, almost imperceptible sound of relief left him. “Diplomacy?”
The notion had floated about Theo’s mind since the day he’d come upon her in the park and had only grown stronger since. Her fingers itched for her charcoals. To have him at her mercy while she sketched out the curving muscle of his chest. The rough lines of his cheeks and jaw. The thought was highly erotic. “I want you to model for me.” She lifted her chin. “I will accept nothing less.”
“Is that really what you want? When you mentioned it before, I thought you were only being flirtatious.” He pretended to examine her. “Have you hit your head?”
“No.” Theo swatted at him, the slow burn working itself up her body making her shiver. “Because you remind me of Theseus,” she said. “Surely Phaedra has mentioned the resemblance.”
“Theseus?” Haven snorted. “I remind you and your sister of a Greek warrior?”
“No,” she whispered, tugging gently on his hand. “The big feral tomcat who is chief mouser at Cherry Hill. I’ll start with a charcoal sketch.” She looked him directly in the eye and danced away, out of reach. “Take off your shirt.”
* * *
Ambrose should have guessedTheo didn’t really think he resembled a famous Greek warrior but instead a feral tomcat. His feelings would have been hurt except he was far too aroused.
Theo marched to the shelf, shaking her head before crossing the room to one of her trunks. He hadn’t emptied that one completely. It was full of notebooks and sketchpads. Her maid, a plump tyrant named Betts, had fought Ambrose mightily for those trunks, declaring that no one should touch them but Theodosia. And he knew why. One pad was full of nothing but drawings of an older man he took to be the late Duke of Averell.
Back bent, she clucked her tongue as she riffled through the trunk while Ambrose traced the slender line of her back with his eyes. Lovely, artistic hands fluttered about, pausing only to push the spectacles up her nose when they slipped.
He longed to have those beautiful hands skimming his chest. His thighs. His face.Christ, any part of his body would do. It pained Ambrose that she thought herself less than what she was; he found it confusing that such a beautiful, confident woman, a Barrington, no less, thought herself lacking in some way.
Theodosia was the most dazzling of all the stars in Ambrose’s sky. Guiding him, like the north star, directly to her and no one else.
She searched through the trunk, finally standing with a pad and a piece of what looked like charcoal in her hand. Giving him a very pointed look, she said in a low, seductive tone. “Shirt. Off.”
Jesus.The words shot straight down between his legs to his cock. He’d forgotten how bloody forward Theodosia could be. And how much he liked it. Especially when her bold behavior was directed athim.
He started to unbutton his shirt, a piece of extremely worn linen that could remain as one of Theodosia’s paint rags for all he cared. “Will you be disrobing as well, Theodosia?” The hopeful note in his voice was difficult to miss. Sleeping beside her night after night without being able to touch her had been a particular sort of torture.
