Passion Wears Pearls (19 page)

It was another dismal day, even more overcast than the last, and Eleanor paced anxiously, praying that the carriage would come and that the lack of light wouldn’t keep him from sending for her.

A long night of jarring erotic dreams had set her nerves on edge, but Eleanor was determined to put on a brave face. All their conversations about rules had shaped a dream landscape where everywhere she turned, Josiah Hastings was there—touching her with hands that trailed colors over her naked skin. She’d awoken with the startling irrational thought that there would be no hiding her sinful desire with his handprints in sapphire and violet on her body for all the world to see.

It had taken her a few deep breaths to accept that the power of Morpheus hadn’t actually left marks on her skin, but one unsettling truth had lingered.

I felt no shame.

His company was affecting her in ways she hadn’t anticipated and in ways she couldn’t really understand. The only thing that was still absolutely clear to her was that the
practical matters of her world had not changed. She had promised to sit for an artist in exchange for a life-altering amount of money. If she breached that contract now, there would be nowhere for her to turn.

And she had no desire to end things, even if a sensual nature she didn’t know she possessed was coming to light. The hours she spent with him were flying by too quickly, and Eleanor dreaded nothing more than their end.

By the time she’d finished brushing out and pinning up her hair and dressing for the day, Eleanor was ready to face him. Every instinct insisted that as soon as she entered the studio again, the world would feel right and solid.

At last there was a knock on the door, and Eleanor opened it eagerly to find young master Tally waiting for her.

“Has the carriage come?” she asked, and held out a small brown bag of ginger candy she’d bought for him on the way home.

He nodded cheerfully, shyly placing his hands together as if holding the reins of a horse, and then accepted her gift. The blush that lit his cheeks rivaled any of hers, and she sympathized with him for it.

“Thank you, Tally!” Eleanor quickly adjusted her wrap and swept past him to head down the stairs. Within seconds, she was cheerfully ensconced in the carriage and on her way to Josiah’s studio, waving farewell to Tally as the horses pulled away.

The ride was brief and uneventful, but it was time enough to try to refresh an internal lecture on decorum and the dangers of allowing her imagination to run riot and get the better of her.

She was too impatient to wait for the driver to help her down. She alighted on her own and walked briskly past the outer rusty gate into the building.

“Who’s walking?” a man’s voice growled, and she froze with her foot on the first riser. “I say, who’s walking there?”

She turned to behold a brutal thug of a man in a rough woolen coat rising from his chair in the center of the room. “I … am Eleanor Beckett.”

He nodded tersely. “I remember your name. I’m to let you pass with all courtesies, but you’ll mind I don’t know any. Good morning, then.” He sat back down with a grunt and proceeded to ignore her, stoking a small fire at his feet.

“G-good morning.” She took two steps up the stairs and then hesitated. “May I have your name as well? For courtesy’s sake?”

He looked as startled as she’d been just moments before. “Creed. Roger Creed.”

“Good morning, Mr. Creed. It was a pleasure meeting you.” She smiled in satisfaction as the gruff man bobbed back up only to sit unsteadily back down on his stool.
Lady M’s sixth principle of etiquette: Good manners are the best defense and can disarm any opponent.

She climbed the rest of the stairs, pausing only once to catch her breath and leave her coat and bonnet on the coat rack on the house-floor landing, and then finally reached the door to the studio. Eleanor took one moment to straighten her skirts before breezing in, only to have another surprise awaiting her.

A cot with bedding was pushed against the garret wall beneath the windows, and it took seconds for her to surmise that Josiah had spent an entire night at his creative labors. There were a dozen small jars and dishes with paints and powdered pigments on one end of the table, and every candle on the table was spent to less than an inch of its life.

And, of course, there was Josiah himself, wearing the same clothes he’d changed into yesterday, albeit with new splashes of paint and red-colored smears on his shirtfront. Where another man might look deflated or rumpled, when he turned to face her, her heart skipped a beat at the keen energy that radiated from his frame. He looked refreshed and ready to take on titans, and she marveled at him as she had that very first day.

“I see you’ve taken your friend’s advice and put a man downstairs.”

He managed to look a little embarrassed. “Ah, I meant to send a note about that! I hope he didn’t startle you.”

“Mr. Creed is rather … intimidating, isn’t he?”

Josiah smiled. “Mr. Creed? I see he introduced himself.”

“He was most cordial,” she lied sweetly, remembering the sight of the poor man nearly falling off his stool. “But why now? You were so insistent before about not needing anyone.”

“There is a lady in the house. Perhaps not in residence, but at least, often enough to warrant it. I’m not going to risk your safety.”

“But you would risk yours?” she asked.

“You’re taking things out of context and redirecting the conversation, Miss Beckett. As I told you, I’ve been meaning to make improvements on the security of the house for some time. Your arrival simply prompted me to move a bit more quickly.”

Eleanor wasn’t sure why she wasn’t willing to drop the matter. But there was something in the way he wasn’t quite meeting her eyes that made her wonder what else was happening in his world. “So you’re just following Mr. Rutherford’s advice?”

“Precisely.”

“Why is Mr. Rutherford so focused on security? And on your behalf, as well as mine? It’s not as if you expect Mr. Perring to leap out of an alley and offer to let you break his nose again, or track me down to Mrs. Clay’s and attempt to kidnap me, is it?”

He crossed his arms and gave her the look of a man amused by the debate. “Rutherford’s nature is as mysterious and unknown to me as the Amazon, and as to the rest, I’m sure I haven’t given Mr. Perring a single thought. Of course, now that you mention the idea of kidnappers and bandits, I feel like a fool for not putting a battalion of men downstairs.”

“You’re teasing me, Mr. Hastings.” She crossed her arms to mirror his gesture, playing along. “Shall I change and see if we cannot allow you to make some progress before there is a dragon at the gates?”

He shook his head and her heart sank. “No, the light is impossible today.”

“But the carriage …” She dropped her arms. “You sent for me.”

“My optimism was misplaced, but perhaps we can still salvage something of the morning. I am in need of a change of scenery, Miss Beckett. Let’s get out for a walk, shall we? The skies are gray but not immediately threatening, and a brisk stroll might stir the blood and help me focus.” He gallantly gestured toward the door, but Eleanor kept her place.

“A walk?” she asked.

“There’s a small private green nearby. We can see a bit of the streets and then stop in the park for some roasted chestnuts. What say you, Miss Beckett?”

The proposition flustered her for a moment. “You’re asking me to walk out with you?”

He straightened his shoulders and then sighed. “Not like a suitor, Miss Beckett. I’m asking you as an artist, simply needing to clear his head and get a breath of fresh air. And naturally, we won’t be alone.”

“We won’t?” Eleanor hated the disappointment that seeped into her voice at the revelation. It was only proper that they be chaperoned, but now? After days of sitting with him alone in his studio, it was jarring to realize just how much of the rules she’d begun to cheerfully forget while enjoying the pleasure of his company.

“Escher will tag along, at a respectable distance, of course.”

“Mr. Escher?” She blurted it out before she could stop the incredulous words from escaping her lips. The man was a less likely chaperone than even poor Tally. “Well, as you’ve gone to all this trouble to preserve my reputation …”

Josiah smiled. “Delightful.”

Eleanor had a fleeting urge to kick him in the shins. It was déjà vu, for the man was always getting her to agree and concede to things, as if the idea had been hers in the first place. Worse, so far, every defeat had been impossibly wonderful each and every time.

The path was muddy through the small private green, and even with his failing eyesight, Josiah could tell that there wasn’t much green to speak of. But it was good to stretch his legs after a long night of mixing paints and working, and the warm imprint of Eleanor’s gloved hand in the crook of his arm was enough to let him ignore the blasted gray fog creeping up from his feet. If he looked straight ahead, it was like peering over a wall. All morning before she’d arrived, he’d been fighting the surreal terror of not being able to see his own boots.

Yesterday’s session had ignited his creative sensibilities, and he’d gone through a box of candles throughout the night in his pursuit of his muse.

It’s going quickly. Which is good, if my eyes are going to fail just as fast.

But the fear was diminished with Eleanor at his side, and Josiah was determined to escape for a few minutes while he still could. At the very least, he’d have allowed himself time to see if his horizon would steady long enough to let him even attempt to paint today.

Escher’s curses against the numbness of his toes and the aches in his bones were muffled but distinct behind them, guaranteeing an odd humor to the excursion as they both did their best to ignore him.

“May I ask, were you in India during the Troubles?”

“You may ask, Miss Beckett, and I was. But I’m not sure it’s a topic I’m comfortable with. I was there in Bengal, but not in any famous sieges or battles. India was a dream until the moment it became a nightmare, and I don’t like to relive it.”

She nodded, silent for a moment. “Then I’ll ask what an artist was doing in India in the first place.”

He smiled. “Painting, Miss Beckett. I’d gotten the fantastic notion that a new and exotic locale would make me a
superior artist. I wanted to see new things and be inspired by a strange and glorious ancient culture.”

“And were you? Inspired?”

“I was. It was a spectrum I never knew existed. Although, it hurts now to think of those colors—lost forever to me.” He spoke from the heart, unchecked, and immediately regretted it. “But who needs rainbows when I can enjoy the beauty of London!”

“Beauty, indeed, Mr. Hastings!” Eleanor laughed as he made a sweeping gesture that took in the fairly colorless and industrial landscape that ringed the park. Black bare branches scraping a narrow slice of steel gray sky offered almost no aesthetic respite from the wintry streets of London proper. “No wonder you think me a model!”

He stopped and studied her in earnest, his mood sobering. “Do you still doubt my taste, Miss Beckett? My aesthetic sensibilities? Or do you truly need me to argue once more how lovely I find you?”

“I wasn’t … pressing you for compliments, Mr. Hastings. It was a foolish comment.”

“You are one of the least foolish women I have ever known, Miss Beckett, but by far, the most modest,” he said.

The smell of roasting chestnuts led him down the path, and Josiah steered her gently toward the diversion. He bought a small bag of the steaming treats, though not as gracefully as he’d planned. Even without gloves on, the cold made it harder to distinguish the coins in his purse, so he just shoved a few at the vendor and prayed it was enough.

“You’re so generous!” she exclaimed softly when they’d stepped past the man’s hearing.

His chest tightened, but at least the error was in a positive direction. “When you say it like that, it makes me want to empty my pockets altogether, Miss Beckett. But I imagine you’ve money enough now to enjoy your own philanthropy.”

“Not yet, Mr. Hastings. The portrait isn’t finished, remember?”

“Ah, well … if you’d just let me advance you
some—”

“No, I will not take a shilling until I have fulfilled my end of the contract. It wouldn’t be proper!” Eleanor chided him gently, but ruined the stern admonition with a smile. “Besides, I live the life of a duchess thanks to Mrs. Clay’s care. She has spoiled me completely.”

“I’m glad,” he said, genuinely happy to know that his impulsive decision to take her to the Grove had been a good one. “Michael adores her, too, even if she does keep trying to put flowers in his room.”

“Mr. Rutherford is very lucky to have you as a friend. Mrs. Clay shared that it was you who pointed him to the Grove and made sure he had a home there.”

Josiah shrugged his shoulders. “It was the least I could do, and luck is something none of my friends believe in. We were an unlucky lot, but blessed to have met in India when we did. I wouldn’t be here if not for Michael and the others, and helping him to find a place under Mrs. Clay’s ample wings was a small thing.”