The Education of Mrs. Brimley (5 page)

She removed a small handkerchief from her cuff, worrying it with her hands. She had hoped to keep her circumstances secret and not come to this revelation. However, given the nature of the requested assistance, she saw no escape. She lowered her gaze, as well as her tone. “There is no Mr. Brimley.”

“You are a widow, are you not?”

Even though she could not see his face, she could well imagine one of those dark eyebrows rising.

She shook her head and waited for his reaction. Given her admission, he would be justified in demanding her departure. Without his assistance, she would have to admit her masquerade to the spinster sisters. She’d be back on her uncle’s doorstep in a matter of days.

Chambers’s silence encouraged further explanation. She took a breath for courage.

“In order to procure this position, I pretended to have been married. I had no idea I’d be expected to teach bedroom etiquette.” There. She had admitted her deceit. She should feel ashamed, she supposed, but telling the truth actually made her feel a bit better. She had never anticipated how physically taxing this burden of lies and deceit would be. She lifted her chin but still avoided his gaze. “I suppose you must think me devoid of all honor.”

Chambers chuckled deep in his throat. “You do not wish to know my thoughts,
Miss
Brimley.”

His voice, low and seductive, brought her gaze round to meet his. A dark, forbidden knowledge smoldered deep in his eyes, fueling a resonant response within her. For the first time, she recognized her vulnerability, alone with this man. Awareness tingled up her spine. She stepped back, gulping a swift intake of needed air.

He chuckled deep in his throat. “Your secret is safe.” A slight smile tipped his lips before he turned his attention back to the drawing board. “The ladies at the school wouldn’t nay-say your instructions. Make something up. They won’t know the difference.”

“But I don’t wish to lie to the girls,” she insisted. “They trust me to tell them the truth.” Granted she had already told more misrepresentations in the past two days than she had in her entire lifetime, but lying to the Higgins sisters was necessary. Lying to children, abominable. She glanced quickly about the room. “Haven’t you a painting or a picture in a book that might assist me?”

He traded his piece of charcoal for his glass, considering her over the rim while he drank. He tilted his head slightly. “I may have something.”

For the first time that evening, Emma felt a stirring of hope that this scandalous foray might yield positive results.

Chambers slipped the knob of the walking stick under his left palm and moved toward a desk pushed against a back wall. He shifted through a clutter of papers.

“I have a friend in Paris, Auguste Rodin, who created a bronze statute of a full-size nude male. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?” He looked back at her over his shoulder. “It caused quite a stir at exhibition.”

She shook her head. Chambers’s awkward posture suggested he’d be more comfortable if he allowed his walking prop to bear more of his weight. His pride, she guessed, disagreed. Her heart softened. She understood a thing or two about pride.

“Some time ago, Rodin sent a letter with a drawing . . . Yes, here it is.” He brought several pages of the letter over to the dais. Shifting through them, he produced the one with a detailed drawing of a male figure. “Just as you requested, a picture of a man as God made him.”

Proper etiquette demanded she couldn’t acknowledge her observation regarding his altered gait. She couldn’t even ask how his condition occurred, although she’d admit to being curious. Accepting the offered paper, she hesitantly pulled her gaze from his broadening smile.

She adjusted her glasses so as to see, then memorize, every detail. Anticipation fluttered in her chest. This, after all, constituted not only the purpose of her visit, but also the culmination of all the speculation of her youth.

The drawing portrayed an athletic man, an Adonis, she supposed. Her gaze skimmed the bare shoulders and slipped past the trim midriff, focusing instead on the forbidden area between the man’s muscular legs—that very spot deemed improper for virginal eyes.

Her lips parted in surprise.

“Why, it’s so small. I believe I could cover it with one hand.” As if to prove her theory, she stretched her hand, base to tip. Although she wasn’t exactly sure what she had expected, this appendage hadn’t the menacing character alluded to in so many poems. Disappointed, she turned to Chambers.

“Why is there so much commotion over two small potatoes in a twisted sack?”

Chambers’s eyes crinkled, his amusement at her inexperience evident. “This man is flaccid. An aroused man looks much different.”

“Can you show me?” she asked.

He nearly choked. “You wish to see my manhood?”

“I thought you might have another picture.” Emma’s cheeks burned at her blunder, although she was shocked to realize a small part of her wished to answer in the affirmative. She pushed her spectacles up her nose trying to think prim, innocent thoughts.

“I need to let the girls know what to expect.”

His lips thinned a moment before he pivoted smartly using the stick and retreated to his easel. Derision filled his voice. “I assure you I have no interest in retaining pictures of aroused men in my studio, in my house, or on my person.”

“You are an artist,” she insisted, not willing to let the opportunity pass. “Perhaps you can create a drawing for me, purely for scientific purposes, of course.”

“A drawing?” He scowled, his gaze skipping from the easel to her face. He must have seen her sincerity, because the scowl softened as he returned his attention to the easel. Was that a twinkle she saw in his eye? A sly smile chased away his disdain.

“Miss Brimley, you may recall that the girl I hired to pose for me has not materialized.”

She nodded. “Indeed, you thought I was she earlier.”

“You have need of information, and I have need of a model.” He smiled, reassuring her that his moment of displeasure had indeed passed.

Her hopes lifted.

“Perhaps we can design an agreement,” he continued, “that will satisfy both our desires.”

“You wish to paint my portrait?” Pleasure rippled through her. Great ladies had portraits painted. She could bend to this arrangement, especially if it required more time in his presence.

“I wish to paint you naked.” A devilish smile played about his lips. “But I’ll settle for painting you in a thin gown.”

“Sir!” Shock paralyzed her. “Surely, you don’t mean it!”

He positioned himself in front of her. “In exchange for information,” he added.

“I’ve never been so insulted.” She tried to step around him, but he continued to hinder her exit. Again she regretted the absence of her fan. She would have thrashed him with it.

“What kind of woman do you take me for?” she cried, frustrated at his efforts to thwart her.

“A comely one, I suspect, beneath all that black.” Using the tip of his walking stick, he lifted the hem of her skirt an inch off the ground.

“Sir!” Shocked, she slapped the material back in place. The man was incredulous.

A bemused grin played about his mouth. He was playing with her, she realized, feeling the stab of disappointment. She had fooled herself into thinking this dandy was different, yet it was all mockery. Pain burrowed deep.

“I refuse to be the subject of your jest.” Her lips tightened, her eyes burned. She tried to push by him, but he caught her arm.

“There is no jest.”

If only that were true! She looked away, afraid he might see the yearning in her eyes. Her throat tightened making words difficult. “If you meant to compliment me, I assure you—”

“I meant no compliment.”

Her head swung around, capturing his gaze. His brow lifted. “I was merely stating facts.”

His ridiculous statement confirmed the joke. She jerked her arm from his grasp and turned her face from his scrutiny, before beating a hasty path toward the door.

“Think of the girls,” he called behind her. “How are you going to prepare them for their marital duties without my assistance?”

She paused. Logic slowed her retreat. The headmistress was to observe her class in the morning.

“Do you have so many resources that you can abandon the one readily available to you?” His voice wove through her thoughts like rhyme through a stanza.

Indeed, that very lack of resources had inspired her visit in the first place. If she couldn’t turn to him for answers, where could she go? She kept her back to him but listened to his calm, insistent plea.

“How can you mislead those young, trusting girls at this crucial juncture?”

She ignored his light mockery. He may not believe her dedication to her students, but then he wasn’t familiar with the events that had brought her to this wilderness. Now that she was here, she could never go back. First, however, she must prove to the Higgins sisters that she had knowledge of a carnal nature . . .

“You would answer all my questions about intimacy?” she asked over her shoulder, hesitant to be reminded of his handsome visage. “No matter how difficult, and with complete honesty?”

“The difficulty, I suspect, will be yours in framing the questions.” His voice moved closer, the exposed skin on the back of her neck prickled in response. She imagined he was an arm’s span away. “Yes, I will answer all your questions,” he said, “completely and truthfully.”

She turned to face him, surprised to find him even closer than she had approximated, uncomfortably close. She studied him anew, mentally assessing her adversary. The London popinjays had always underestimated her intelligence. Although it pained her to place him in that category, she suspected he would do the same.

“If you will answer my questions first”—she hesitated to emphasis her sacrifice—“I will pose for you.”

“You must think me daft.” A smile tilted his mustache. He raised one brow and shook his head. “After I fulfill your needs, what assurances do I have that you will fill mine?”

“You have the word of a lady,” she said decisively, although in truth she suspected she could avoid meeting his demands.

“No, I don’t think so.” His eyes narrowed. He tapped an idle rhythm with his prop on the wooden floor.

She bit her lip, suddenly wondering if she had been the one to underestimate him. She studied him anew.

“Let us strike a bargain,” he said, overlapping his hands on the top of the silver-knobbed cane. “My needs are for a model to pose in the Grecian fashion. You, on the other hand, require answers to questions of a personal nature.”

He stepped closer, engulfing her in a subtle atmosphere of forbidden magnetism. She could almost taste his determination in the shared air between them, but she refused to give ground.

“I propose that I will answer one of your questions”—his raised finger almost touched her nose—“for every item of clothing you remove as my model.”

Her knees threatened to buckle. Surely, he could not desire her, by her uncle’s estimation a scrawny scarecrow devoid of a woman’s charms, as a model. She was no beauty. To suggest otherwise was cruel.

“I will pose,” she said, pushing her spectacles farther up her nose, “but only fully dressed.”

“I cannot paint what I cannot see.” A dimple flashed in his smile. Sheer willpower kept her from smiling in response.

Chambers’s intense gaze raked her form as if fact belied his words. Never had a man regarded her with such intent, certainly not one as handsome and refined as this. His voice, soft and seductive, surrounded her with the rich scent of warmed brandy and his own unique essence. He lured her much like the famed mythological sirens. Lord help her, she could happily drown in this assault.

“I need to see how light and shadow caress a woman’s curves.”

Immediately, she imagined a physical heat, flowing down her chest and swirling around her waist and hips. Her mind insisted that modesty called for distance between them, but her feet refused to move.

“I need to judge how proportion is modified by the angle of the pose.”

Emma thought of the paintings she had viewed of women languishing in forest bowers, bending in some trivial task. Even if she were fully attired, those poses would be too risqué to consider. Still, her insides quivered at his indecent proposal.

Chambers turned abruptly, releasing her from his enchantment. She slumped slightly, catching her breath while he strode toward his easel. “I will draw a picture of an aroused man’s private regions if you will remove just one article of clothing.”

She should run. She should escape now while she still had her dignity, and yet . . .

“I have already removed my cloak,” she said, a bit short of breath.

He smiled, a subtle gesture. “And I have already shown you a picture of a naked man.”

She considered a moment, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of compliance. “A boot,” she announced. “If I had a buttonhook, I would remove a boot. However, as it is unlikely that such an instrument would be readily available in an artist’s studio . . .”

Chambers stepped over to his desk and returned with a long hook fashioned from a metal replica of a woman’s leg, complete with garter. “Perhaps this will help?”

Her bluff called, Emma hesitantly accepted the bachelor tool, then sat on the only seat available, the velvet divan. She worked on her side buttons. Who would have thought the man stocked his studio as another would equip a boudoir? Beatrice’s voice slipped into her thoughts.
Women come and go at all hours of the night.
Emma’s hands froze in the effort to remove the loosened boot.

Chambers placed a fresh piece of foolscap on the board and drew some quick lines on the page with his charcoal. “When a man is aroused, his manhood grows long and hard.”

“Hard?” The word interrupted her thoughts. Her boot fell to the floor with a resounding thud. From her vantage on the dais, she couldn’t see Chambers’s face until he leaned to the side of the board. A knowing smile teased his lips.