Stroke of Genius (25 page)

“Well, his driving got so wild, Homer upset the sleigh. Over we went!”

“Oh, no. Were either of you hurt?”

“No, we were thrown clear and landed in a fresh snow bank, so it was soft as a feather tick.” An expression Grace had never seen on her mother’s face before flitted over her features and was gone, to be replaced by a grimace. “But somehow the gelding’s traces broke and he was off to his stable before Homer could catch him.”

“You were stranded in a snowy wood in the middle of the night. That doesn’t sound like much fun.” Grace leaned back in her seat. “Or terribly proper either.”

“It wasn’t and we had to walk all the way back to my house. By the time we got there, my parents had missed me and the whole house was in a tizzy. Fortunately, they hadn’t yet alerted the authorities and started an organized search.” Minerva shuddered. “Imagine the scandal.”

“Quite.”
Still falling short of letting a man creep into one’s bedchamber.

“But the good thing, the wonderful thing actually, was that was the night your father asked my father for my hand. So it all turned out well in the end.” Minerva smiled at her husband through the isinglass. “And now that time is nearly here for you, Grace.”

“We don’t know that, Mother. The marquess hasn’t asked me to anything but a house party.”

“Still, I have a feeling you’ll leave
Clairmont
betrothed, my dear.”

“I don’t know, Mother. I hardly know the marquess.” She looked out at Crispin. When he leaned over his horse’s neck and stroking its mane, she had to shut her eyes against his masculine beauty. When she opened them again, the horses had fallen behind the carriage, but the afterimage of Crispin’s hair falling forward, of his big hand running over the gelding’s neck was burned on the backs of her eyes.

“Mother, if a title is so important to you, why didn’t
you
seek a titled husband when you visited England all those years ago?”

“Well, I’d already met your father before that visit and I was ever so much younger then. I didn’t realize how important one’s social position in the world can be. I was distracted by . . . other things.”

“But you weren’t engaged. And I’ve heard you complain so many times about how badly Papa used to swear and how he didn’t follow society’s rules.” Grace frowned in puzzlement. “You really weren’t well suited at all. Why
did
you want to marry him?”

Her mother templed her fingers and was quiet for a bit. “This is going to sound strange, Grace, but there is something wildly exciting about a man who doesn’t follow the rules.” Her mother’s lips curved into a smile. “It makes it that much more of a challenge when a woman tries to help him learn to follow them.”

“There may be something to that.” Grace sighed. “The marquess seems like a perfectly nice gentleman, who follows the rules to every crossed ‘t’ and dotted ‘i’. And he’s about as exciting as burnt toast.”

“Don’t say that, dear,” her mother said with concern. “It’s not the same thing at all. You’ll be a marchioness once you wed remember. And English peers have a very gay time of things. Your life will be filled with excitement.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have told you that story. I don’t know what got into me. I suppose it was seeing your father on a horse again.”

They fell into silence and Grace wondered if the marquess would want to do the things Crispin had done to her. Would Lord Dorset touch her till she unraveled? Or kiss her till her insides turned to pudding?

The greater question, she realized, was whether she could ever
allow
the marquess to do those things.

Chapter 26

Galatea was set on venturing to the countryside. So Pygmalion would sally forth as well. Anything to be near her.

After they stopped for a picnic lunch alongside the road, Mr. Makepeace decided to ride in the carriage with Grace and her mother. Crispin declined to join them at first, but her father insisted.

“I enjoyed the ride, but my backside is sore already,” Homer admitted as he tied the mare to the rear of the brougham. “Which reminds me, Hawke, do you know why marriage portraits always show the man seated and his bride standing?”

“No, can’t say that I do,” Crispin said. Now that he thought about it, that was the preferred arrangement for such a portrait.

“It’s because the paintings are done after the honeymoon. The man’s too tired to stand and the woman’s too sore to sit!”

Homer laughed loudly at his own wit and Crispin joined him. If Mr. Makepeace launched into that story some night at the marquess’s dinner table it might make his lordship think twice about forming an alliance with an American bride and her earthy father.

“Come, lad,” Homer said. “Your leg and my backside could both use the rest.”

Ordinarily any reference to his impediment would grate Crispin’s soul, but Homer meant well. As Crispin climbed into the carriage after Mr. Makepeace, he felt mildly guilty. He had considered turning the dinner conversation in such a way that would lend itself to one of Grace’s father’s slightly racy jokes some night.

Now he decided against that course. He liked Homer Makepeace. He’d rather laugh with him than invite Polite Society to laugh at him. 

Which would Grace rather do to me?

Her face was a closed book, unreadable as he took the seat opposite her. She hadn’t spoken directly to him during lunch. Hardly looked his way, in fact. Now she shouldn’t be able to help it since he was seated right in front of her. But she turned her head and looked studiously out over the knolls and gullies they plodded past.

Did she ever think of that night when she left her window open for him?

He’d dragged Wyckeham out a couple times in the dead of night on the off chance she’d left the sash up again, but it remained steadfastly closed.

He supposed he should have seen her when she called at his studio, but he was still smarting from her dismissal. Usually, his lovers begged him to stay longer. At his first mention of the marquess, she’d been quick to don her wrapper.

He’d meant it in jest. She took it in earnest. She was still set to wed a title.

A cynical man wouldn’t worry about it. He’d look on that night as a carnal adventure with a virgin from which they’d both emerged happily unscathed.

Except Crispin hadn’t.

In the heat of passion, when her fingers clutched at him and she moaned his name, something inside him was indelibly marked. She’d etched herself on his soul like a foundry brand on an iron bell. 

How was it possible she felt no such reciprocal mark?

After a few minutes conversation, the elder Makepeaces were lulled by the rocking of the carriage into a light sleep.

Grace was looking down at her gloved hands, neatly folded on her lap now. Her dark lashes were curled on cheeks that were soft and smooth and made his mouth water to press a kiss on them.

A filmy fichu covered her bosom, not quite obscuring the swell of her breasts beneath it. They bounced a bit with the motion of the carriage.

With very little effort, he could see her in his mind’s eye, sitting there without a stitch.

Her tight-nippled breasts jiggle with the rhythm of the coach.

And her gloved hands—he decided he’d leave the gloves on her—would not quite hide the triangle of curling hair just a hand’s span south of her belly button.

She looks up, a sly gleam in her amber eyes, and holds a finger to her lips to signal they must be quiet so as not to wake her parents. Then she parts her knees and spreads herself with both hands. I kneel before her glistening folds.

Crispin shifted in his seat and stretched out his right leg to accommodate the tightening of his trousers. His ankle brushed past hers.

Her eyes flared open and shot to his face.

“Don’t stare,” she whispered. “It’s rude.”

“I crave your pardon. I’ve always been a little uncertain about what constitutes rudeness,” he whispered back.

At least she was talking to him. Not pleasantly, but he’d take it.

“You’ve never craved anyone’s pardon,” she hissed. “And don’t try to tell me you don’t know what’s rude. You know exactly what you’re doing.”

“Ah, but do
you
know what I’m doing?”

“Probably.” She glanced pointedly at the bulge at his groin. “One commendable thing about current male fashion is that a woman rarely has to wonder what a man is thinking.”  

“Commendable, hmm. Glad you approve. Care to join me in my thoughts.”

“I fear I already have.” She flushed scarlet and clapped a hand to her mouth. “That didn’t come out right. I didn’t mean that
I
was thinking about . . . I meant that
you’ve
already been thinking about me joining you—I mean, well, . . . not joining precisely, but—”

He leaned forward and put a finger to her lips. “Is there any way you can see yourself climbing out of this conversational abyss with your dignity intact?”

She shook her head.

“Then let’s agree to change the subject.”

She nodded, but didn’t say anything.

He leaned back, satisfied just to look at her. The slight indentation of her temples, the long column of her neck, the stray wisps of hair curling around the dear little shells of her ears—

“You’re still staring,” she whispered after several minutes.

“Yes, but now I’m not . . .
thinking
.”

She covered her eyes with one hand for a moment and turned her lips inward, obviously biting back a retort. Then she sighed deeply and dropped her hand back to her lap.

“Very well, a new subject,” she said in a normal tone, signaling that whatever he had to reply had better be something her parents could overhear. “Have you ever worked someplace other than in your studio?”

“Not since I finished my studies, no. But we’ll muddle through. I sent Wyckeham and Nate ahead of us yesterday with the necessary material and equipment.”

“I see. Mother and I did the same thing with Claudette and our baggage. She wanted all our things aired and ready to wear once we arrive.”

Claudette in the countryside. That’ll please Wyckeham.

Wyckeham had regaled Crispin with tales of the delicious Claudette as often as he’d allow.

Crispin glanced at Mrs. Makepeace, who was puffing softly in her sleep and listing badly toward the brougham’s padded armrest. “A sensible woman, your mother.”

“Unless she’s in an upset sleigh,” Grace whispered.

“What?”

She shook her head. “It’s nothing. Nevermind.”

“At any rate, we’ll have to start from scratch with your casting.”

“Why? You’d made such good progress.”

“What I’d done previously with the clay model wouldn’t have made the trip,” he explained. “But one or two solid days and we should have it, I think.” 

Her lips curved in a quick smile. “Careful.
Thinking
can be dangerous.”

“Anything worthwhile usually is.”

She gave a slight nod and he thought he detected a glint of promise in her eyes.

What did it mean? Was she agreeing to continue their dalliance? What did that signal for her courtship with Lord Dorset?

Was a dalliance all Crispin wanted from her?

A frank talk should settle matters. If he only knew for certain what it was he wanted settled. 

Mr. Makepeace snorted himself awake and nudged his wife with his toe. “I think we’re almost there, Minerva.”

The brougham stopped and their driver descended to open an iron gate built into a rock wall that stretched as far as Crispin could see in either direction. Then the driver remounted the equipage and they passed under an arch from which hung the Dorset crest. Their driver chirruped the team into a brisk trot down a tree-lined lane.

The lane wound on past lush meadows, past green hillsides dotted white with sheep, past crofter’s cottages. A barefooted goose-girl shooed her honking flock out of the carriage’s path. The equipage rattled over a stone bridge arching above a brisk stream. Crispin noticed a mill snugged against the water’s edge at the next bend.

Lord Dorset’s land had every appearance of prosperity.

Perhaps his home is about to tumble down around him and he needs Grace’s dowry to prop it up,
Crispin thought with guilty hope. He might be able to lure her away from a business arrangement of a betrothal, but if the visit to
Clairmont
resulted in a love match? That was a different kettle of fish.

“Oh, my!” Mrs. Makepeace said when they caught a glimpse of
Clairmont
, Dorset’s ancestral seat perched on the next hill.

The massive home didn’t seem in bad repair, but distance could be deceiving, Crispin decided. Any woman, for example, was beautiful if one simply stood far enough away from her.

As they neared the end of the long lane, Crispin realized the Dorset manor house was as splendid as its first sight promised.

Lots of English country homes were a mishmash of hundreds of years of architectural tinkering with very little thought to style and even less to substance. This home couldn’t have been more than seventy-five years old, classically Georgian in style, with brick arches and columns and space for over a hundred rooms, judging from the number of multi-paned windows winking at the sunset.