Chapter Fifteen
In his wanderings at Belgrave, Jack had, during a rainstorm that had trapped him indoors, managed to locate a collection of books devoted to art. It had not been easy; the castle boasted two separate libraries, and each must have held five hundred volumes at least. But art books, he noticed, tended to be oversized, so he was able to make his task a bit easier by searching out the sections with the tallest spines. He pulled out these books, perused them and, after some trial and error, found what he was looking for.
He didn't particularly wish to remain in the library, however; he'd always found it oppressive to be surrounded by so many books. So he'd gathered up those that looked the most interesting and took them to his new favorite room - the cream and gold drawing room at the back of the castle.
Grace's room. He would never be able to think of it as anything else.
It was to this room that he retreated after his embarrassing encounter with Grace in the great hall. He did not like to lose his temper; to be more precise, he loathed it.
He sat there for hours, tucked into place at a reading table, occasionally rising to stretch his legs. He was on his final volume - a study of the French rococo style - when a footman walked by the open doorway, stopped, then backed up.
Jack looked back at him, arching a brow in question, but the young man said nothing, just scurried off in the direction from which he'd come.
Two minutes later Jack was rewarded for his patience by the sound of feminine footsteps in the hall.
Grace's footsteps.
He pretended to be engrossed in his book.
"Oh, you're reading," she said, sounding surprised.
He carefully turned a page. "I do so on occasion. "
He could practically hear her roll her eyes as she walked in. "I've been looking everywhere for you. "
He looked up and affixed a smile. "And yet here I am. "
She stood hesitantly in the doorway, her hands clasped tightly before her. She was nervous, he realized.
He hated himself for that.
He tilted his head in invitation, motioning to the chair beside him.
"What are you reading?" she asked, coming into the room.
He turned his book toward the empty seat at the table. "Have a look. "
She did not sit immediately. Rather, she rested her hands at the edge of the table and leaned forward, peering down at the open pages. "Art," she said.
"My second favorite subject. "
She gave him a shrewd look. "You wish for me to ask you what your favorite is. "
"Am I so obvious?"
"You are only obvious when you wish to be. "
He held up his hands in mock dismay. "And alas, it still doesn't work. You have not asked me what my favorite subject is. "
"Because," she returned, sitting down, "I am quite certain the answer will contain something highly inappropriate. "
He placed one hand on his chest, the dramatic gesture somehow restoring his equilibrium. It was easier to play the jester. No one expected as much from fools. "I am wounded," he proclaimed. "I promise you, I was not going to say that my favorite subject was seduction, or the art of a kiss, or the proper way to remove a lady's glove, or for that matter the proper way to remove - "
"Stop!"
"I was going to say," he said, trying to sound beleaguered and henpecked, "that my favorite subject of late is you. "
Their eyes met, but only for a moment. Something unnerved her, and she quickly shifted her gaze to her lap. He watched her, mesmerized by the play of emotions on her face, by the way her hands, which were clasped together atop the table, tensed and moved.
"I don't like this painting," she said quite suddenly.
He had to look back at the book to see which image she referred to. It was a man and a woman out of doors, sitting on the grass. The woman's back was to the canvas, and she seemed to be pushing the man away. Jack was not familiar with it, but he thought he recognized the style. "The Boucher?"
"Ye - no," she said, blinking in confusion as she leaned forward. She looked down. "Jean-Antoine Watteau," she read. "The Faux Pas. "
He looked down more closely. "Sorry," he said, his voice light. "I'd only just turned the page. I think it does look rather like a Boucher, though. Don't you?"
She gave a tiny shrug. "I'm not familiar enough with either artist to say. I did not study painting - or painters - very much as a child. My parents weren't overly interested in art. "
"How is that possible?"
She smiled at that, the sort of smile that was almost a laugh. "It wasn't so much that they weren't interested, just that they were interested in other things more. I think that above all they would have loved to travel. Both of them adored maps and atlases of all sorts. "
Jack felt his eyes roll up at that. "I hate maps. "
"Really?" She sounded stunned, and maybe just a little bit delighted by his admission. "Why?"
He told her the truth. "I haven't the talent for reading them. "
"And you, a highwayman. "
"What has that to do with it?"
"Don't you need to know where you're going?"
"Not nearly so much as I need to know where I've been. " She looked perplexed at that, so he added,
"There are certain areas of the country - possibly all of Kent, to be honest - it is best that I avoid. "
"This is one of those moments," she said, blinking several times in rapid succession, "when I am not quite certain if you are being serious. "
"Oh, very much so," he told her, almost cheerfully. "Except perhaps for the bit about Kent. "
She looked at him in incomprehension.
"I might have been understating. "
"Understating," she echoed.
"There's a reason I avoid the South. "
"Good heavens. "
It was such a ladylike utterance. He almost laughed.
"I don't think I have ever known a man who would admit to being a poor reader of maps," she said once she regained her composure.
He let his gaze grow warm, then hot. "I told you I was special. "
"Oh, stop. " She wasn't looking at him, not directly, at least, and so she did not see his change of expression. Which probably explained why her tone remained so bright and brisk as she said, "I must say, it does complicate matters. The dowager asked me to find you so that you could aid with our routing once we disembark in Dublin. "
He waved a hand. "That I can do. "
"Without a map?"
"We went frequently during my school days. "
She looked up and smiled, almost nostalgically, as if she could see into his memories. "I'd wager you were not the head boy. "
He lifted a brow. "Do you know, I think most people would consider that an insult. "
Her lips curved and her eyes glowed with mischief. "Oh, but not you. "
She was right, of course, not that he was going to let her know it. "And why would you think that?"
"You would never want to be head boy. "
"Too much responsibility?" he murmured, wondering if that was what she thought of him.
She opened her mouth, and he realized that she'd been about to say yes. Her cheeks turned a bit pink, and she looked away for a moment before answering. "You are too much of a rebel," she answered. "You would not wish to be aligned with the administration. "
"Oh, the administration," he could not help but echo with amusement.
"Don't make fun of my choice of words. "
"Well," he declared, arching one brow. "I do hope you realize you are saying this to a former officer in His Majesty's army. "
This she dismissed immediately. "I should have said that you enjoy styling yourself as a rebel. I rather suspect that at heart you're just as conventional as the rest of us. "
He paused, and then: "I hope you realize you are saying this to a former highwayman on His Majesty's roads. "
>
How he said this with a straight face, he'd never know, and indeed it was a relief when Grace, after a moment of shock, burst out laughing. Because really, he didn't think he could have held that arch, offended expression for one moment longer.
He rather felt like he was imitating Wyndham, sitting there like such a stick. It unsettled the stomach, really.
"You're dreadful," Grace said, wiping her eyes.
"I try my best," he said modestly.
"And this" - she wagged a finger at him, grinning all the while - "is why you will never be head boy. "
"Good God, I hope not," he returned. "I'd be a bit out of place at my age. "
Not to mention how desperately wrong he was for school. He still had dreams about it. Certainly not nightmares - it could not be worth the energy. But every month or so he woke up from one of those annoying visions where he was back at school (rather absurdly at his current age of eight-and-twenty). It was always of a similar nature. He looked down at his schedule and suddenly realized he'd forgotten to attend Latin class for an entire term. Or arrived for an exam without his trousers.
The only school subjects he remembered with any fondness were sport and art. Sport had always been easy. He need only watch a game for a minute before his body knew instinctively how to move, and as for art - well, he'd never excelled at any of the practical aspects, but had always loved the study of it. For all the reasons he'd talked about with Grace his first night at Belgrave.
His eyes fell on the book, still open on the table between them. "Why do you dislike this?" he asked, motioning to the painting. It was not his favorite, but he did not find anything to offend.
"She does not like him," she said. She was looking down at the book, but he was looking at her, and he was surprised to see that her brow was wrinkled. Concern? Anger? He could not tell.
"She does not want his attentions," Grace continued. "And he will not stop. Look at his expression. "
Jack peered at the image a little more closely. He supposed he saw what she meant. The reproduction was not what he would consider superior, and it was difficult to know how true it was to the actual painting.
Certainly the color would be off, but the lines seemed clear. He supposed there was something insidious in the man's expression. Still. . .
"But couldn't one say," he asked, "that you are objecting to the content of the painting and not the painting itself?"
"What is the difference?"
He thought for a moment. It had been some time since anyone had engaged him in what might be termed intellectual discourse. "Perhaps the artist wishes to invoke this response. Perhaps his intention is to portray this very scene. It does not mean that he endorses it. "
"I suppose. " Her lips pressed together, the corners tightening in a manner that he'd not seen before. He did not like it. It aged her. But more than that, it seemed to call to the fore an unhappiness that was almost entrenched. When she moved her mouth like that - angry, upset, resigned - it looked like she would never be happy again.
Worse, it looked like she accepted it.
"You do not have to like it," he said softly.
Her mouth softened but her eyes remained clouded. "No," she said, "I don't. " She reached forward and flipped the page, her fingers changing the subject. "I have heard of Monsieur Watteau, of course, and he may be a revered artist, but - Oh!"
Jack was already smiling. Grace had not been looking at the book as she'd turned the page. But he had.
"Oh my. . . "
"Now that's a Boucher," Jack said appreciatively.
"It's not. . . I've never. . . " Her eyes were wide - two huge blue moons. Her lips were parted, and her cheeks. . . He only just managed to resist the urge to fan her.
"Marie-Louise O'Murphy," he told her.
She looked up in horror. "You know her?"
He shouldn't have laughed, but truly, he could not help it. "Every schoolboy knows her. Of her," he corrected. "I believe she passed on recently. In her dotage, have no fear. Tragically, she was old enough to be my grandmother. "
He gazed down fondly at the woman in the painting, lounging provocatively on a divan. She was naked - wonderfully, gloriously, completely so - and lying on her belly, her back slightly arched as she leaned on the arm of the sofa, peering over the edge. She was painted from the side, but even so, a portion of the cleft of her buttocks was scandalously visible, and her legs. . .
Jack sighed happily at the memory. Her legs were spread wide, and he was quite certain he had not been the only schoolboy to have imagined settling himself between them.
Many a young lad had lost his virginity (in dreams, but still) to Marie-Louise O'Murphy. He wondered if the lady had ever realized the service she had provided.
He looked up at Grace. She was staring at the painting. He thought - he hoped - she might be growing aroused.
"You've never seen it before?" he murmured.
She shook her head. Barely. She was transfixed.
"She was the mistress of the King of France," Jack told her. "It was said that the king saw one of Boucher's portraits of her - not this one, I think, perhaps a miniature - and he decided he had to have her. "
Grace's mouth opened, as if she wanted to comment, but nothing quite came out.
"She came from the streets of Dublin," he said, "or so I'm told. It is difficult to imagine her obtaining the surname O'Murphy anywhere else. " He sighed in fond recollection. "We were always so proud to claim her as one of our own. "
He moved so that he might stand behind her, leaning over her shoulder. When he spoke, he knew that his words would land on her skin like a kiss. "It's quite provocative, isn't it?"
Still, Grace seemed not to know what to say. Jack did not mind. He had discovered that watching Grace looking at the painting was far more erotic than the painting itself had ever been.
"I always wanted to go see it in person," he commented. "I believe it is in Germany now. Munich, perhaps. But alas, my travels never took me that way. "
"I've never seen anything like it," Grace whispered.
"It does make one feel, does it not?"
She nodded.
And he wondered - if he had always dreamed of lying between Mademoiselle O'Murphy's thighs, did Grace now wonder what it was like to be her? Did she imagine herself lying on the divan, exposed to a man's erotic gaze?
To his gaze.
He would never allow anyone else to see her thus.
Around them, the room was silent. He could hear his own breath, each one more shaky than the last.
And he could hear hers - soft, low, and coming faster with each inhalation.
He wanted her. Desperately. He wanted Grace. He wanted her spread before him like the girl in the painting. He wanted her any way he could have her. He wanted to peel the clothes from her body, and he wanted to worship every inch of her skin.
He could practically feel it, the soft weight of her thighs in his hands as he opened her to him, the musky heat as he moved closer for a kiss.
"Grace," he whispered.
She was not looking at him. Her eyes were still on the painting in the book. Her tongue darted out, moistening the very center of her lips.
She couldn't have known what that did to him.
He reached around her, touching her fingers. She did not pull away.
"Dance with me," he murmured, wrapping his hand around her wrist. He tugged at her gently, urging her to her feet.
"There is no music," she whispered. But she stood. With no resistance, not even a hint of hesitation, she stood.
And so he said the one thing that was in his heart.
"We will make it ourselves. "
There were so many moments when Grace could have said no. When his hand touched hers. When he pulled her to her feet.
When he'd asked her to dance, despite the lack of music - that would have been a logical moment.
But
she didn't.
She couldn't.