Stroke of Genius (16 page)

Wyckeham bowed. “Yes, sir. Very good, sir.”

I’ll thank you later, sir.

Wyckeham gave Claudette his arm, but once they cleared the studio, she dropped it along with the bonnet and wrapped her arms around his neck. Before he could say ‘
sacre bleu,’
her lips were fastened to his and her tongue was down his throat. She pressed herself against him, rubbing like a cat against a post, and they stumbled into a little alcove.

Her mouth was wet and hot and she stole the breath from his lungs. Wyckeham wondered if it was possible for a man to drown in a kiss. Then she plunged a hand down the front of his trousers and he ceased to care if he did.

* * *

Without a word, Grace took her position and jerked on the opera gloves. Crispin almost regretted coercing her to stay since she was obviously aggravated. But then he noticed the way her flush made her skin rosy all the way down to the edge of her low bodice and decided it was worth risking her wrath.

Do her nipples change color when she’s angry, too?

Judging from the storm cloud expression on her face, it would be worth his life to try to find out.

Her gaze traveled around the room and fell on his partially complete statue of Hector. The marble giant had a length of that abominable green serge wrapped around his neck. 

“Why does that statue need a scarf?” The corners of her mouth turned down. “That’s the fabric you bought at the dressmakers. I though you despised that color.”

“I do.” Since his cock wouldn’t settle that day at the modiste’s he’d had to buy the bolt to hold in front of him when they left the shop.

“Then why—”

“It’s to remind me of something,” Crispin said.

Her brows knit in a frown, but she held her arms in the correct position for his sculpture.

“Some people tie strings on their fingers. I give old Hector a neck scarf,” he said with a shrug.

“Of what does it remind you?” she asked.

“Not to rush in where angels fear to tread.”

He worked in silence for a while. Contrary to his prior claim, it was not easier to work on this casting with her present. He was acutely aware of her, of her scent, her soft breathing, the way her hair had escaped a few of its pins and tickled around her ears. He longed to pluck out the rest of those pins and run his fingers through the length of her curls.

“You’ve made amazing progress on this piece for a man who spends his days gallivanting about town.”

Her voice jolted him out of his fantasy. Good thing. Before he started thinking about another place with curls he’d like to run his fingers through.

“The piece is coming along.” He crossed over to a commode with a basin and pitcher and washed the gray clay from his hands and arms.

“Are you stopping?”

“No, I just wanted to take a look at all the sightlines.” And if in the process he was able to drink his fill of her, looking at her from different vantage points, so be it.
And so much for not rushing in, you fool!
“You know, to make sure the angles are right.”

“And for that you need clean hands?”

“Clean hands, clean heart, Grace.” He toweled off the excess water.

She fumed in silence for a moment.

He’d known this reckoning would come after toying with her breast at the modiste’s shop. It was obvious something was bothering her and he couldn’t think of anything else he might have done to set her off. It better than a play to imagine how she’d tackle the issue.

“Do you find it difficult to keep up your work schedule when you make social calls during the day?” Her tone was brittle as shale.

He frowned at her. He looked forward to hearing the word ‘breast’ come out her mouth. Seeing how the memory of that stolen moment affected her would be almost as delicious as actually diddling her tight little nipple. But she hadn’t delivered yet. Grace was certainly backing into the tongue-lashing he suspected was coming.

“Social calls? What are you talking about?”

“We chanced to see you yesterday when we were out and about,” she said. “At St. James’ Park.”

He circled her, ostensibly checking different angles on the composition, but in reality, he wanted to get closer to her. 

“And you didn’t speak?” He made a tsking noise as he leaned over her shoulder. From this angle, he could see down into the shadow between her breasts. He drew a deep breath. She must have just washed her hair. A fresh citrusy scent rushed past his nose and straight to his groin. “It was most inconsiderate of you to snub me.”

She turned to meet his gaze and then, after only a few heartbeats, looked away.

“We didn’t have opportunity to speak to you. You ducked so quickly into that townhouse with the gilded door.” She clenched her fingers into fists. “It was almost as if you didn’t wish to be seen.”

“Surely you jest. No one goes to St. James Park with the goal of not being seen.” He reached over her shoulder to uncurl her fingers and found that her hand trembled. “What’s really troubling you, Grace?”

“You, you big dolt!” She bunched her fingers into a fist again, turned on her stool and punched his shoulder with it. “How could you . . . do what you did to me in the modiste’s shop and then go visit a courtesan?”

She was jealous of Olympia! Crispin suppressed the urge to laugh, but she must have seen the twitch of a smile all the same. She punched him again.

This time he caught her fist and held it as he walked around to stand before her. “Steady, my dear. Just because I’m in your pay, it doesn’t give you leave to pummel the help.”

“Fake humility doesn’t fool me.” She snorted and pulled her hand away. “The day you feel yourself in my employ, I’ll walk naked down Fleet Street.”  

    “Careful, Grace. You tempt me to real humility. You might be surprised what I’d dare to see you walk naked anywhere.” His voice was passion-rough.

He trailed his fingertips from her cheeks, down the column of her throat to the tops of her breasts. His body roused to her nearness. And to the fact that she’d stopped whacking away at him.

He fully expected her to bat his hand away, but she didn’t. Just as in the modiste’s shop, Grace went still as a hare. He traced the lace at the top of her bodice, letting a finger slip into the hollow between her breasts. Her lips parted softly and her eyes closed.

Crispin hadn’t been able to kiss her at the dress shop, with her mother and the other women so perilously close, but nothing stopped him now. He lowered his mouth to capture hers.

And—miracles!—her lips parted beneath his. He tongued her gently and she groaned softly into his mouth. Crispin gathered her in a snug embrace and she surprised him by molding her body to his. Her hands ran over the crown of his head and smoothed his wild hair while her tongue began a game of chase with his.

His hands found her breasts again. No light touches this time. He cupped them both, massaging and lifting. He tried to slide his hand into her bodice to touch her satin skin, but his hands were too big and her bodice too tight.

She broke off their kiss, staring at him breathlessly.

“Wait a moment. You’ll tear something,” she said simply. Then with Yankee practicality, Grace began to undo the buttons that marched down the front of her gown.

Chapter 17

Pygmalion could never be certain when the transformation occurred, but in his striving with it, somehow, the stone began to shape him.

Surely she’d still be a virgin even if cloth was missing from the equation.

So long as she was clothed from the waist down, Claudette assured her, she would remain in the same happy state of purity she now enjoyed. And she wanted to feel Crispin’s hand on her breast again with a desperation that bordered on obsession.

What did it matter if Crispin Hawke frequented a courtesan? It wasn’t as if her heart were engaged, goodness knows! She only needed him to complete her investigation of this strange new phenomenon.

How is it a man’s hand on a woman’s breast makes her warm all over? Makes her feel more tinglingly alive than a brisk ride across Boston Commons? Makes her insides melt like a lump of sugar in a steaming cup of tea?

Grace had it all planned out. It was the essence of empirical inquiry. Once she had the answers to those burning questions, she could dismiss Crispin Hawke and set him back to work on her sculpture.

A man took pleasure where he wished. Why shouldn’t a woman?

Of course, her mother would be totally horrified by what Grace was doing, but what Minerva Makepeace didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her daughter one bit. Actually, the whole forbidden quality of the experience added some extra spice.

I’m a modern and independent woman. I don’t need anyone’s permission
, she assured herself.

But her claim to modernity and independence would be more convincing if her hand didn’t shake while she unbuttoned her gown.  

“Let me,” he said softly.

Her hands dropped to her sides. Crispin’s big ones worked the tiny buttons with surprising ease.

Probably practiced ease.
“About that woman . . .” she hated herself for broaching the subject, but it was like a pesky fly buzzing in her brain. The courtesan’s gilded door simply wouldn’t go away.

“What woman?” Crispin unhooked her stays and pushed the supportive undergarment aside.

Grace silently thanked Claudette for suggesting the stays that fastened in the front to go with her button down the front gown that morning. Her mother was right about one thing. French maids do know best when it comes to fashion.

Then Crispin took one end of the ribbon that held her chemise neckline closed and gave it a tug. The delicate lace and muslin fell away. Crispin laid back the dress bodice, her stays and chemise till her nipples peeped from behind the fabric. The fierce look of hunger on his face made her breath catch.

A deep heaviness pulled at her groin, a low ache. Not at all unpleasant, but an ache nevertheless. It was a puzzlement how something could be classified as pain and pleasure at once. Definitely a mystery worthy of further study.

“What woman?” he repeated, spellbound by her breasts.

What woman?
She struggled to recall. When was the man going to touch her breasts instead of just gawk at them?  Blood roared so loudly in her ears, it was hard to remember. Had she asked about a woman?

“Oh! That courtesan on St. James Park—do you visit her often?”

“Not as often as she’d like.” His smile was wickedness itself.

Conceited swine.

She nearly reached up and closed her gown. But then his head dipped and he began to kiss her breasts.

This was even better than the touch of his hand. Little tingles chased along behind his lips. His warm breath feathered over and between her breasts. The stubble on his chin rasped the valley between her peaks and set her skin dancing. He nuzzled a circle around one nipple and it drew so tight, she bit her bottom lip to keep from crying out.

Then his mouth covered her nipple and she couldn’t stop a strange sound from escaping her tightly-pressed lips. It was a cross between a whimper and a moan. A small sound. A distressed sound. And yet it encouraged Crispin to suck gently, then roughly. And swirl his tongue around her areola and flick that needy bit of skin as if it had been naughty. As if his tongue was the paddle needed to bring discipline to her wicked little nipple.

And he kept at it till she made the noise again.

He straightened to grin down at her. “Liked that, did you?”

She moistened her lips with her tongue. “It was  . . . tolerable.”

“Just tolerable?”

He caressed both breasts with his big hands, thrumming her sensitive peaks. Her belly clenched and she was much definitely warmer and moister
down there
than when she’d first entered his studio.

“Perhaps I might rate it as ‘mildly diverting,’” she said through clenched teeth. Couldn’t the man feel her heart galloping? She certainly could, both in her chest and between her legs.

He snorted like a stallion. “Mildly diverting? That’s a challenge no fellow can withdraw from without a severe dent to his manhood. I can damn well do better than ‘mildly diverting.’”

Before she could admit she was teasing, he scooped her up and carried her toward the fainting couch in the corner.

“Crispin, your leg!”

He surely shouldn’t put so much extra weight on it and he couldn’t even use his cane with her in his arms.

“Never mind about my leg,” he growled.

Even though his step was canting, his chest and arms were like iron. Grappling with stone had made him unusually strong. His muscles appealed to her far more than the current notions of male attractiveness, which called for a man to be slim and graceful. She landed on the tufted couch with a plop and he dropped to one knee beside her.

He kissed her again, all trace of gentleness gone. There was no teasing exploration. His tongue demanded and received entrance and he claimed her mouth with it.

This was no longer an experiment, an intellectual enquiry. This was a lover’s summons, a command she felt powerless to deny.