“Talk to me, Penelope. You know you can tell me anything.”
He tried to put his arm around her in a hug, but Penelope slid off the bench. “Good night, brother. I think the education of Lilith proceeded very well.”
He now sat in the empty room. He pondered Penelope’s words: I think there is only hurt behind the facade. He suspected as much, but whenever he tried to help Lilith, she lashed out. When he attempted to talk to Penelope about her life or marriage, she turned quiet. He wished he knew how to talk to them. Hell, he wished he knew how to talk to Parliament.
He glanced at the mantel clock: quarter past ten. It would be too late to attend the musical evening. To atone for his social sins he would make a stab at the mounds of work waiting on his desk. He headed to his study. His secretary had divided the documents that required the marquess’s attention into three towering piles: Parliament, business, and estate. He felt tired and disinterested gazing at the stacks.
Nonetheless, he sat, withdrew his penknife, and opened the first letter on the Parliament pile. Prime Minister Disraeli had written that he was regrettably unable to attend the house party, but penned a lengthy outline of political points to be subtly discussed at the party and a list of the men whose votes George needed to romance. Somewhere in the middle of the letter, George’s mind’s eye wandered off the page and to the memory of Lilith on the parlor sofa, nestled amid the blues, reds, and golds. The light of the glass lamp had showed the contours of her neck and the mounds of her breasts beneath the robe. He remembered their softness and the rise of the nipples underneath his body that night at her party. He released a low, long breath as he imagined what waited beneath the blue silk. More creamy skin and peaks the shade of a faded rose. How would they feel as he swept his fingers over their tips? How would they taste if he teased them with his tongue? If he slipped her robe down, lower and lower, would her thighs be as ivory and silken? Would her curls be a rich auburn? How would his cock feel sliding into her snug body? His mind continued to wander down this dangerous path, fantasizing about Lilith’s body in various love-making positions, until he glanced down to find he had idly doodled his fantasy of Lilith’s nude body on Disraeli’s letter.
What was he doing and thinking? He ran his hand down his face.
Of course he desired Lilith. How could any man of a healthy, lustful appetite not? She was a lush beauty, an ever-blooming garden. If he never touched Lilith in an intimate way again, delivering her tidy and well-trained to her future husband, at least he could reward himself by imagining her glorious breasts bathed in sunlight as she rode atop him, sliding up and down his shaft. His hand slid across his thigh to where his erection strained against his trousers and slowly began to pleasure himself as he imagined her. He could see the glow in her luminous eyes. Her hair would be loose and brushing his face like soft feathers as she moved above him, sinking him deeper into her—
The door creaked open and the object of his lustful fantasy slipped inside.
Bloody hell! He grabbed Disraeli’s letter and shoved it in a drawer.
“Good evening.” Her voice was breathy. He couldn’t politely stand with his cock jutting in a stone-hard erection. And that damned blue robe clinging to her curves and the way her hair tumbled loose as he had imagined it didn’t help matters.
She edged toward him. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your work.”
“Not at all,” he choked.
“I must admit that I lied.” She held up her hand. “I know, I know, you are about to say that you’re not surprised or you expected it from me. I just…just had to be alone with you.”
His penis almost popped his trouser buttons. “Lilith, I’m your guardian for all intents and purposes and it wouldn’t be right if we…we…”
“If we?” she said, prompting him to continue.
“You need to be virtuous for your future husband.”
Every visible inch of her skin turned crimson. “I didn’t mean that! I meant…” The shock gave way to laughter. “That’s rather funny.”
He didn’t know which was worse: mistakenly assuming Lilith desired him, or being laughed at for said mistake. In any case, the mortification destroyed his erection. “It’s the usual reason a lady in a state of dishabille wants to be alone with me,” he said for the sake of his wounded pride.
Lilith flashed a flustered smile. “I simply wanted to ask you something in private.”
“Of course.” He rose, now that he safely could, walked around the desk, and motioned to the sofa and chairs.
She settled onto the sofa. “It’s like my fifteen-minute appointment.”
“I’ll give you a few more minutes this evening,” he teased, taking the chair opposite her. “How can I be of assistance?”
She didn’t answer but studied his face, her eyes narrowed as if she were searching for something. His body heated under the scrutiny. Then she surprised him by sliding from the sofa and kneeling before him. She seized his fingers and gazed up at him.
“I saw your sketches of me today. They were wonderful. Truly. I couldn’t believe you sketched them. So I made Penelope reveal everything to me.”
His stomach tightened. “What do you mean? I merely wanted to give the modiste a guideline, as, pardon my saying, sedate and understated have never characterized your fashion sense.”
“No, not that.” She edged closer, her belly pressing against his knees. “How you were all supposed to be the perfect family. How your father disapproved of your art. How you were paddled if you drew or painted.” She squeezed his fingers to her chest. “I’m sorry. I wish I had seen. I was too wrapped up in my own anger. I could have helped.”
“I don’t recall needing help.” He tried to retract his hands. “Penelope has a tender heart, but I’m afraid her version is most incorrect.”
“Don’t you see? You’re an artist. You must draw again. You must make art. This is why you have been so…so…miserable all these years.”
“Miserable? I’m not miserable.” Yet with her so close, her eyes dilated with tender emotion, and wet lips glistening from the firelight, the last years felt painfully empty.
She placed her palm on his heart. “You’re an artist. It’s your calling.”
Her touch burned. Sweat beaded around his hairline. He came to his feet, yanking at his tie until the knot came loose.
“My calling?” he scoffed. The words came out more derisive than he intended, but he could barely catch his breath.
“Yes,” she said softly. “Don’t look away from me. Don’t dismiss me. Being an artist is noble. You should be proud of your talent.” She opened her arms with a bursting motion. “You must draw and paint and sculpt and get out all the beauty that’s inside of you. ‘Then let winged Fancy wander / Through the thought still spread beyond her: / Open wide the mind’s cage-door, / She’ll dart forth, and cloudward soar.’”
“More Keats?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He swallowed his desire to call her childish. He paced to his desk and pulled a letter from the estate pile—a bill from a stonemason regarding tenants’ homes. “I’m afraid that all my fancy darted forth and left years ago. I think a better simile would be to say that my fancy has been put away, along with my toy soldiers and hobby horse. I had to grow up and face my responsibilities. My father made a marquess from an irresponsible, lackadaisical boy who would rather, I don’t know, draw pictures of bird eggs than understand the intricacies of running an estate.” He rubbed his temples, suddenly tired. “I know you enjoy your little art and poetry, but it’s time you learned some responsibility, too. Let us discuss my expectations for you at the coming house party.”
She crossed to the other side of the desk and began neatening the political stack.
He placed his hand atop hers to stop her efforts. “My secretary has put these in a specific order.”
She glanced down to where their skin touched. “All those bird eggs you drew,” she said quietly. “Fragile promises of hope. Maybe some will hatch, some will not. The mechanics of nature are beautiful and heartless. But that tiny boy caring for those eggs, no doubt checking their nest every day, lovingly drawing them… What an irresponsible, lackadaisical little boy.”
He hated when she did that. As if she possessed some supernatural ability to look inside his memories. She held his gaze until he couldn’t bear being stripped naked by her deep eyes and looked away.
He cleared his throat. “As for the house party, there will be some influential—”
“What happened to the eggs?”
He paced to his window. “I haven’t the time for this inane conversation!” The bird had built the nest in the bushes leading to the labyrinth garden. The head gardener had it ripped out and the eggs smashed as George watched. He remembered the mother and father bird squawking and flying around the gardener’s head, trying to protect their babies. He had drawn the scene at night in his bedchamber. He didn’t know how to get the pain out of his young heart. The resulting painting was as ridiculous as the blotched painting at Lilith’s party on the night of their notorious kiss. Just slashes of red and black paint.