My Fake Rake

“Perhaps he never worked from life,” Seb suggested.

“It seems a dreadful gap in his artistic education. What a pity.”

She did nothing to ease his fascination with her, damn it. “He still managed to obtain the commission to paint the mural in your family’s ballroom.”

“True enough. But he ought to know better. First—there needs to be parity. If he’s got cavorting nude nymphs, he needs naked satyrs or wrestlers or some such. And then he should use actual women as models so he can get their anatomy right.” She glanced down at her own chest. “Mine certainly don’t look like iced cakes. Well, perhaps they’re more like petit fours.”

Seb couldn’t help it. His gaze went straight to Grace’s breasts. He had the impression of small but delightfully full shapes that could easily be covered by his hands—and then he dragged his eyes away.

Please someone rescue me from myself.

“They’re, erm, quite nice.”

“I think so, too,” she said with a nod, then added, “I noticed, you know.”

“Your, ah, breasts?”

She shook her head. “The way you entered the room.” She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “Quite different from yesterday.”

“Different meaning better, I hope.”

Her lips tilted into a smile. “Oh, yes.”

“Very good,” he said evenly, but he felt like turning cartwheels around the ballroom.

“Don’t mistake me,” she continued, “there wasn’t a thing wrong with you before. The duke’s lessons only highlighted what was already there.”

One unfortunate consequence of his fair complexion meant that his cheeks turned a deep pink whenever he experienced the slightest bit of discomfiture. They also flushed whenever he felt pleasure. He didn’t have to look in a glass to know that her words had turned his face a vivid pink.

He could take refuge behind the stance of a dispassionate observer, and he quickly told her of his experience on the walk over. Deliberately, he spared no detail, including his humiliating inability to speak to the milliner. He recognized his candor with Grace for what it was—an attempt to preserve the platonic distance between them.

“Ah, Sebastian,” she murmured sympathetically when he’d finished recounting his mortification. “That’s a pity.”

His chest squeezed. “I’m sorry to fail at this. You need a rake, and I’m not certain I can be one.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She rested her hand atop his, and his skin went taut and sensitive. “This process is uncomfortable for you, and I hate to think of you exposing yourself to pain, especially on my account.”

Her words both cooled and inflamed him. “This is for both of us. It’s time I learned to throw off the bonds that weigh me down. Been afraid of making a fool of myself for most of my life. I don’t want to live with that fear any longer.”

As he spoke, he realized he’d meant every word. It was exhausting, walking around with this paralyzing terror that he might encounter a room full of strangers or that he’d have to speak to someone he didn’t know. Perhaps he might never be what some would call normal, but he could be a stronger, better version of himself.

A gentle smile touched her lips. “Whatever I can do to help rid you of that fear, you’ve only to ask.”

“I will.” He forced his attention back to the ceiling so he wouldn’t stare covetously at her mouth.

After a moment, she said, “Why . . .”

She seemed disinclined to continue, so he prompted, “Why what?”

“Why is it that . . . you haven’t married?”

He felt his eyebrows shoot up. The unexpectedness of the question had him reeling, and that she had asked it was even more startling. “Honestly never considered it.”

“Too dedicated to your studies, like Newton or Descartes?”

“Too poor. Barely any allowance from my adoring father, and what funds I can get through grants is barely enough to keep me in mutton and secondhand books.” He spoke easily, without bitterness. His requirements were simple, and he didn’t mind his poverty overmuch. It was merely something to tolerate, like the weather. In his case, the winter of his coffers lasted twelve months out of the year.