“I’ll be off now,” he said abruptly.

She gave in to her fascination for the leather patches and laid one hand on his sleeve. “Don’t be too long. It might rain.”

He stared at her, his look harsh, and then his gaze dropped to where she touched him.

She withdrew her hand hastily. “I just wanted to feel the patch.”

He placed his hat on his head, nodded at her, and left without another word.

It did not rain, but he did take too long: For the first time since their arrival in Devon, he did not appear at dinner.

Much later that night, she became aware that he’d returned to his room. She’d been listening, but she had heard nothing—for such a big man, when he wanted to, he moved with the silence of a ghost. She deduced his presence only by the light that had not been there before, under the connecting door between their rooms.

When she opened the door he was in his shirtsleeves, the tails of his shirt already pulled loose from his trousers.

He tossed aside his collar. “My lady.”

She remained on her side of the door. “Have you had anything to eat?”

“I stopped by a pub.”

“I missed you at dinner,” she said softly.

She had. It hadn’t been the same at all.

He glanced sharply at her but said nothing, instead picking up his already discarded tweed jacket and checking its pockets.

“Why do you do this?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“I smiled because my uncle demanded it. Why do you act in a way calculated for people not to take you seriously?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said flatly.

She hadn’t thought he would address her question, but still his outright refusal disappointed her. “When Needham came to see my aunt at your town house, I asked him what he knew of your accident. He said he’d been your aunt’s guest at the time of your fall and knew everything about it.”

“There you go. It’s not just my own word.”

But Needham had also been the one he specifically named when he hadn’t wanted news of his bullet wound to spread. Even to this day, none of the servants had any idea he had been injured. The bandaging had either been burned or smuggled out of the house.

“How’s your arm, by the way?”

The last time he allowed her to change his dressing had been the night before her uncle’s arrest.

“My arm is fine, thank you.”

He crossed the room, opened the window, and lit a cigarette.

“My uncle never smoked,” she murmured. “We had a smoking room but he never smoked.”

He took a long drag. “Maybe he should have.”

“You never say anything about your family.”

And she had not felt comfortable asking Mrs. Dilwyn. She didn’t want the housekeeper to wonder why she knew so little of her own husband, and yet she knew next to nothing besides the fact that he was no idiot.

“Freddie is my only family; you’ve met him already.”

The cool air from the window was pungent with the smell of cigarette fume. “What about your parents?”

He blew out a thin stream of smoke. “They both died a long time ago.”

“You said you came into your title at sixteen, so I suppose that was when your father passed away. What about your mother?”

“She died when I was eight.” He took another long pull on his cigarette. “Any other question I can answer for you? It’s late. I need to go to London early in the morning.”

Her hand closed around the doorjamb. She did have another question, she supposed.

“Can you take me to bed?”

He went very still. “No, sorry. I’m too tired.”

“Last time you had a river of rum in you and a bullet wound.”

“Men do stupid things when they’ve had that much to drink.”

He threw the remainder of his cigarette outside, walked to the connecting door, and closed it, gently but firmly, in her face.

Angelica had to read Freddie’s note three times.

He was inviting her to see the finished portrait. The finished portrait. Freddie was a slow and meticulous painter. She’d expected that he needed at least another four to six weeks.

When she arrived at his house, he clasped her hands briefly and greeted her with his usual warm smile. But she could tell he was nervous. Or were those her own nerves making themselves felt?

“How are you, Angelica?” he asked as they climbed up toward the studio.

They hadn’t seen each other since he took the nude photographs to help with his painting: He hadn’t called and she had been determined not to contact him until she’d heard something.

She’d already pushed herself at him plenty—too much—since her return.

“I’ve been well. Cipriani replied to my letter, by the way. He said we are welcome to call on him Wednesdays and Fridays in the afternoon.”

“Then we can call on him tomorrow—tomorrow is Wednesday, isn’t it?”

“No, Freddie, that would be today.”

“Ah, excuse me. I’ve been working day and night,” he said. “I thought today was Tuesday.”

Freddie did not usually paint day and night. “I never knew you could work so fast.”

He stopped two steps above her and turned around. “Perhaps I’ve just never been so inspired.”

He said it very softly, but very properly, as if they were discussing something quite removed from her nakedness.

She rubbed her thumb against the banister. “Well, now I really can’t wait to see it.”

The bed was still in the studio, artfully rumpled, the canvas that was her nude portrait draped behind a large white cloth.

Freddie took a deep breath, then gripped the cloth and yanked it off.

She gasped. A goddess lay before her. She had dark hair that glimmered gold and bronze, warm-hued, flawless skin, and the figure of a courtesan—a very, very successful courtesan.

But as beautiful as her body was, what riveted Angelica was her unsmiling expression: She gazed directly at the viewer, her dark eyes burning with a desire that would not be suppressed, her parted lips full of agitated need.

Was this how she had appeared to Freddie?

She stole a glance at him. He was studying the floor rather attentively. She tried to look at the painting again and could not meet herself in the eyes.

“Well, what do you think?” Freddie asked at last.

“It’s…it’s rough around the edges.” The edges being all she could manage to look at. The brushstrokes were not as fine as she was accustomed to seeing in a painting from Freddie. But there was such an intensity to the image, such a sexual charge, that if he questioned further, she would have to concede that the less polished style suited the raw, frustrated hunger the woman in the painting emanated.

He covered the painting again. “You don’t like it?”

She smoothed her hair, hoping she was the very picture of decorum and propriety. “Did I really look like that?”

“You did to me.”

“Perhaps you could repaint it and turn my face away.”

“Why?”

“Because I look as if…as if…”

“As if you’d like me to make love to you?”

A surge of fearful anticipation nearly strangled her. They stared at each other. His throat worked. In the next heartbeat he had her in his arms, his kiss sweet yet forceful.

It was everything she had ever imagined—and more. They fell into the conveniently located bed. He pulled off her hat. She yanked loose his necktie.

“Just one moment,” he whispered against her lips. “Let me lock the door.”

He hurried to the door, but before he could turn the key in the lock, it was opened from the other side and in stepped Penny.

“Oh, hullo, Freddie. Hullo, Angelica. Two of my favorite people in the same place—excellent. Say, Freddie, your necktie is undone. What happened, a frenzy of artistic ecstasy?”

Freddie stood speechless as Penny reknotted his tie for him.

“And what’s the matter, Angelica? You had to lie down? Do you need me to find some smelling salts for you?”