"NEPHEW?"
"Hmm?"
"I wish to see your studio today."
Sean looked up from reading the Morning Chronicle at the breakfast table, thinking it was way too late for breakfast. By this hour on a normal morning, he'd generally have risen, eaten, and driven all the way into town to his offices. On a normal morning, he'd have already gone through the day's mail, sat in on several meetings, dispatched employees to see to his interests. On a normal morning, he'd be elbow-deep in business by now, expanding his empire, increasing his fortune. On a normal morning…
This wasn't a normal morning.
No morning had been normal since he'd agreed to this damned scheme. Lincolnshire had trouble falling asleep and, in consequence, stayed abed late. And then he wanted his "dear nephew Sean" to keep him company at breakfast. He ate very little and very slowly, and in consequence it all took very long.
Sean folded and set aside the newspaper. "My studio is private," he said carefully.
"From me?" The earl looked hurt. "I'm your uncle. You're my heir."
"I have work to do—"
"I know. Work that makes me mighty proud, work that rivals the very best." He gestured to all the old masters on his dining room walls. "I want to see where you work. I shall sit and watch quietly; I promise. It's not as though I could move around much even if I wanted to," he added with his usual good humor.
But Sean's smile was regretful, not amused. "I'm sorry, but I wouldn't be able to concentrate—"
"You won't even know I'm there."
He did want to make the old man happy. But he couldn't—he just couldn't—allow Lincolnshire to see Hamilton's studio.
At least, not in its current state.
No more than an hour after leaving the British Museum, Hamilton had fetched a few paintings and stuck them in an empty garret in one of Sean's buildings. He'd even included a half-finished canvas and propped it on an easel, so it would appear as though Sean were in the middle of a project.
But after that, he'd run off to Wales. Immediately and without a backward glance, with only a promise that he'd return in two weeks. Other than the pictures and a few well-used sketchbooks, he'd provided nothing.
No paint. No brushes. The earl would expect to see more than art, wouldn't he? He'd expect to see art supplies.
Still and all, Sean had no wish to disappoint Hamilton's uncle. Lincolnshire's condition was worsening by the day, and he was a nice fellow who deserved a happy ending. There was nothing for it; Sean had no choice.
He was forced to twist the truth once again.
"Unfortunately," he explained, "I find it impossible to paint with anyone watching over my shoulder. And I'm in the middle of something I fear I'm quite anxious to finish today. Will tomorrow be soon enough? I should be done then, and I'll be happy to bring you to the studio. Not to watch me paint, mind you, but to see the space. And to view the latest Hamilton canvases."
He hated lying. This whole exercise was mentally exhausting. For the umpteenth time, he silently cursed himself for allowing Hamilton to talk him into it.
"Very well," Lincolnshire finally conceded. "I shall look forward to visiting tomorrow."
Sean thanked him and finished breakfast, then went off to work. Or rather, to purchase art supplies.
Normally he wouldn't have a clue where to buy anything related to art. But he'd noticed Hamilton's sketchbooks all had REEVES & SONS stamped on them. Recalling a tenant by that name in one of his buildings in the center of the City, he was able to drive straight there.
It took him a good while to choose the supplies, particularly the colors. Completely at a loss, he finally consulted one of the Reeveses—father or son, he knew not—who selected the proper pigments for him. After hearing the man rattle on about tone harmony, warmer and cooler variants, transparent as opposed to opaque, and the benefits versus the drawbacks of a broad palette compared to a more limited one—this particular "palette" apparently referring to a list of colors rather than a thing one put the colors on—Sean felt as though his head might explode.
When at long last he came out of the shop—a "colorman's shop," he'd learned it was called—he also feared more than half his day had slipped away.
He was in a hurry. So much so that, on his way back to his curricle, he glanced twice at a woman in the bookshop next door before realizing she was Corinna.
A footman in Chase livery stood outside the shop, looking bored. Corinna stood on the other side of the window, her nose buried in a book. A bell on the door jangled when Sean opened it, but the noise failed to rouse her. Ignoring the bookseller's muted, "Good afternoon," Sean walked past the front desk and right up to her. Still reading, she didn't acknowledge his arrival.
"I'm not Hamilton," he said.
She jumped. Then slammed the book shut as her gaze flew to his face. "I don't believe you."
"So you keep saying. But I don't paint."
Her blue, blue eyes focused on the bulky package in his hands. Wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, it had REEVES & SONS stamped on it in smudged black ink.
A tiny smile tugged at her lips. "Then what did you buy at the colorman's shop?"
The sarcasm in her tone was unmistakable. Answering truthfully would only dig him in deeper. But he was tired of lying. He'd been trying to correct a lie. He didn't want to claim he'd purchased anything other than oil, pigments, and brushes.
So instead he said, "What are you reading?"
Her reaction was astonishing. She blushed and stuttered and quickly shoved the book onto the nearest shelf. When he looked to see the title, she grabbed his upper arm and maneuvered him down a row of bookcases. And around a corner and down a second row. She didn't stop until she'd backed him into a dead end.
He smiled down at her. She looked very becoming with flushed cheeks. And though she'd finally released him, he'd rather liked having her touching him.
He'd liked that to an alarming degree.
A small part of him wondered what she'd been reading. A very small part of him. The rest of him was busy contemplating the fact that the two of them were quite alone here, tucked amongst the quiet bookshop's tall shelves. There didn't seem to be any other customers, the bookseller was well out of view, and the footman who'd accompanied Corinna was apparently still outside daydreaming.
Sean set the package on a high, empty shelf.
The shop smelled like paper and dust, but Corinna smelled of flowers and paint. Her breathing seemed loud in the pervasive silence. Loud and a wee bit ragged. Watching him, she sank her teeth into her bottom lip—that plump, tempting lip—and swayed toward him, perhaps involuntarily.
Without thought, he leaned in to kiss her.
She tasted as sweet as she smelled, her mouth yielding against his. He brushed it once, twice, then settled into place, taking possession. She gasped, parting her lips just enough to let him in.
He knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't help himself—he didn't want to help himself. He'd been imagining this kiss since that first day in the British Museum. He wrapped his arms around her and slipped his tongue into her mouth, half expecting her to bite it in protest.
But she didn't.
She kissed him back.
First she angled her head to make their lips match more closely. Next she sighed into his mouth. Tentatively, she touched the tip of her tongue to his. Then, seeming to go boneless in his arms, she simply sank into the experience.
She felt…wonderful. Soft and warm and curving in all the right places. Sean wasn't a man to think in poetic terms, but the word that sprang to mind was divine. She molded her body to his and wound her arms around his neck, threading her fingers into the hair at his nape. By degrees she grew bolder, the kiss deepening, an exciting, arousing dance of lips and tongues. He sensed she was learning as she went along, but she seemed a very apt pupil. And an extremely talented one as well.
When she finally pulled away, he was left rather witless.
Her cheeks were even more flushed than before; her breath was now ragged enough to make her breasts heave beneath her thin dress; her eyes looked as hazy as he felt. "Why?" she asked in a voice so throaty it kicked his lust up a notch. "Why did you do that?"
He wasn't sure why. "I suppose because I wanted to."
"But you hate me!"
"Obviously, I don't. Although I will admit to finding you somewhat exasperating." He measured her in return. "Why did you let me do that?"
Her hazy eyes widened. "Are you jesting? What female—most especially what female artist—wouldn't let John Hamilton kiss her?"
For once he didn't protest that he wasn't John Hamilton. He was too stunned. "So it was a trophy kiss?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You kiss artists? You thought to add me to your collection? A particularly shiny prize?"
She splayed a hand on her heaving cleavage. "I've never kissed another artist."
She had not, he noted, claimed she'd never kissed another man. Evidently she'd been kissed before. But while she'd been an enthusiastic participant, she hadn't seemed schooled, making him suspect that she'd never been kissed before in the French manner.
He found himself pleased by that notion. A man liked to be first. However, he was very much aware that he had no business kissing her at all, in the French manner or otherwise.
He wasn't John Hamilton. He wasn't Lincolnshire's nephew. He wasn't an English peer, or a soon-to-be English peer, or remotely related to any English peer at all.
He wasn't even English.
He was an upstart Irish commoner with lots of money but apparently no sense. Aristocratic young misses like Corinna were off-limits to men like him.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"I'm not."
She was very blunt, he thought, not for the first time. And very beautiful.
He'd thought that before, too.
"I won't kiss you again," he vowed.
"I hope you will." Her lips curved, making him want to kiss them again, vow be damned. "I enjoyed kissing you very much," she added artlessly.
In the sense of being free of guile, of course. Of stating something simply and sincerely. She certainly wasn't artless in the literal definition.
"You shouldn't have enjoyed kissing me," he informed her, "because I'm not John Hamilton."
"Not that again." Reaching up to the shelf, she shoved his package toward him. "Don't forget your art supplies," she called over her shoulder as she walked away. "You're going to need them the next time you paint."
He was still standing there when the bell jangled and the door shut behind her.