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“I would not have it so. Yet today is our wedding day.”
“And this is not a normal marriage.” His darkened tone he regretted a minute later as the smile slipped from her face.
“I see you are intent to frustrate my attempts to be your friend at any point. Very well, you have your wish.” She gestured behind him, indicating he should walk away from her, then she turned on her heel and walked back in the direction of the other rooms he had skipped over.
There was something in the speed with which she walked away that he couldn’t let the matter lie. He knew he should walk away, just as he had been intending to do for some time.
This is one of my rules. I should never spend too long in a lady’s company.
His rules were already bending as they were by marrying a lady. If he was going to stay disciplined, then he couldn’t spend too long with her.
No nights will be spent with her, and there will certainly be no affection.
When he heard the music room door open, he couldn’t help following. Cursing under his breath, wondering why he felt the need to trail in her wake, James followed her all the way into the music room. By the time he caught up with her, he found her standing by the wall, not looking at the instruments but at the paintings.
“I thought you desired to be out of my company,” she remarked, without turning to face him. There was something in how the painting earned her gaze more than he did that irked him. He crossed toward Marina, standing beside her.
“Perhaps I can hold off that desire for a few more minutes. What sort of tour did you expect? To be led around the house like an infant?” he asked, smarting with the anger that she still would not look at him.
“Ha!” She laughed deeply, despite his irked words. “I see your manners now. When someone is in a disagreement with you, do you always retort to pettiness?”
“I am not petty,” he insisted.
“Your intimidating manner makes any words you say have gravitas, but the words certainly were.” She at last looked away from the painting. “I wished for a tour not a description or list. You very much gave me the latter.” Her eyes swiveled toward the painting once more. “I do not believe it… Is this a Hogarth?”
“It is.” James stood taller, the tick in the muscle in his jaw slackening a little as he stared in wonder at her. She had recognized the artist even though there was no plaque on the wall, and the signature was indistinct.
“Marriage-A-la-Mode, is it not?”
“Yes. The Toilette, the fourth in the series, I believe,” he said slowly, watching as she inched closer to the painting. “You know art?”
“You sound as surprised to discover I know art as I am to discover you own such a collection.” She offered an amused smile. “Strangely enough, I have filled my head with more than just empty space.” She stared in such wonder at the painting that James felt a little admiration for her.
It was the first time he had seen an expression of peace on her face, rather than challenge, fear, or anger. At this moment, staring at the painting, she was a different person altogether.
“You are this fond of art? To the point it affects your whole being?” he asked, gesturing toward her with a wayward hand.
“I do not know how a person could not be affected by it.” She shrugged, looking a little self-conscious. “When the picture and the artist deserve admiration, who could not be affected?”
“Then… allow me to show you something.” He couldn’t resist the temptation to impress her more. Perhaps it had something to do with the large green eyes on her face, the ones the color of a stormy ocean that had widened at the painting. He longed to see that expression some more and motioned for her to follow him.
They left the music room, moving through a small doorway in the far end of the chamber, stepping out into what the previous occupant had deemed a garden room. Though it once had been full of flowers and potted palms, James had transformed it. The floor to ceiling windows, arched at the very top, flooded the area with sunlight that basked on the walls of paintings.
“What is this place?” Marina asked as she stepped inside. “You have your own art gallery?”
“In a manner of speaking.” He closed the door behind them. He didn’t allow many people in this room, other than the maids that kept it clean. He often felt that people didn’t understand why he admired the paintings so much.
“Oh, my goodness, another Hogarth.” She hurried to one painting before stepping back, her heels moving so audibly and quickly on the marble floor beneath them that the sound could have been a fire crackling. “A Rembrandt too. God’s wounds, I do not believe it.” She paused at the far end of the hall, staring open mouthed at one of the oldest paintings he owned. “A Caravaggio.”
“I have never heard anyone recognize him before.” James stumbled forward, reaching her side. “You know this painter?”
“The darkness in his work.” She raised her hand as if she would touch the canvas, but she didn’t let her fingers drop. “It is stunning, almost intoxicating in its power.” The way she moved her fingers through the air, almost mimicking the paintbrush movements, had him distracted.
Intoxicating indeed.
He didn’t think of the painting but of her fingers and their sensual movements. They made his body stir to such an extent that he had to back up from her.
I will not bed her. I can’t. I have put in this rule to protect myself.
