Chapter 6

 

 

Jonas watched her enter the room with Peter McBride. She was laughing at something McBride had said, and her cheeks were flushed, ruddy from the cold, her small nose touched with red. She still wore that puce monstrosity, but her eyes sparkled beneath the stiff fabric, and she untied the bonnet and set it aside with a shake of her head that caused a few more strands of light brown hair to loosen and dangle against her throat.

She seemed . . . different today, Jonas thought. More confident, somehow. He watched as she unfastened her mantle and shrugged out of it, hanging it on the peg next to the door. She never stopped talking to McBride, who was also strangely animated, his hooded eyes unusually bright.

Something had happened between them, Jonas thought, watching the couple from the corner of his eye while he pretended to study the canvas before him. Something that had caused them to band together. He wondered what it was, wondered if he should be concerned. Perhaps Peter wanted her. . . . Jonas frowned at the thought, but then he dismissed it when he saw Peter follow her to her chair. McBride didn't spare a glance for the sway of her skirts or the subtle turn of her waist, he didn't watch her from behind the way a man does when he wants a woman. Granted, she looked pale and too delicate in that pink-striped satin, but there was still a shape there, still the soft rounding of hips and breasts, still the sensual indentation of waist.

No, McBride didn't want her; the knowledge eased Jonas's tension. It made it easier to implement his plan if there was no suitor about—though the idea that McBride might be any competition at all was ludicrous.

A sudden commotion at the door put an end to Jonas's thoughts, and he looked up to see Clarisse enter, Tobias and Daniel just behind. Jonas lifted the palette off his stiff thumb and put it aside. It was time to put things in motion. He made his way to Clarisse, his anticipation sharpening with every step.

She was fumbling with her cloak, and when he approached she glanced up, frowning. "What're you so happy about this mornin'?" she snapped. "My head is poundin', and it's all your fault. You and that wretched Rico Childs."

Images from last night flickered through his mind— warm cognac and deep red wine and tangled bodies— and Jonas smiled more broadly and held out his hand for her cloak. "I didn't hear any complaints then," he said, hanging the rusty black velvet on the peg. "You seemed to enjoy yourself."

She put a hand to her eyes. "I didn't know I'd have a headache this bad this mornin'," she complained. She glanced at the class and sighed. "So what d'ya want me to do today, darlin'? Somethin' that lets me sleep, I hope."

He leaned closer, brushing his lips against the coarse, hennaed hair at her temple, catching a whiff of unwashed, smoke-scented skin. "Your breasts, Clarisse," he said in a low voice. "They're exquisite, quite perfect. Will you show them to my class today?"

She giggled and pulled away, her blue eyes glinting. "You are a wicked man, Jonas Whitaker. A wicked, wicked man."

He lifted a brow, chucked her under the chin. "But you like it, darling, don't you?"

"I like it," she said simply, and Jonas felt a tug of satisfaction. Ah, Clarisse, how simple you are. How very, very simple. He smiled as he watched her make her way across the studio to the changing screen and disappear behind it, and then he looked over at Miss Carter and saw the gentle flush on her cheeks as she talked to McBride. A flush he hoped would soon become much harsher, much redder.

He moved away from the door and his students fell silent waiting for him. Slowly, aware that their eyes followed his every move, Jonas grabbed a chair from the big table and set it before them, positioning it on the platform Clarisse had posed from yesterday.

"We'll continue with life studies today," he said casually, deliberately turning his gaze to Miss Carter, smiling inwardly at her wide-eyed attention. "Miss Carter, I believe you should continue with charcoal this morning. The rest of you prepare your palettes. And let's forget about using raw umber for the flesh tones, shall we?"

He waited while they worked, waited until Clarisse emerged from the changing screen, wrapped in a rumpled piece of white linen. She tossed back her red hair and seated herself in the chair, and then, with the aplomb of a woman who'd dropped her gown for many men before, she let the wrap fall to reveal her breasts.

Jonas smiled. He refused to look at Miss Carter, at least just yet, preferring the keen edge of anticipation, allowing himself the luxury of imagining her expression instead, the way her face would turn scarlet with embarrassment, how her hands would shake. Ah, he could picture it so easily. He felt liberated already, and he concentrated on positioning Clarisse to emphasize her breasts even more, turning her body slightly, lifting her chin to elongate the line of her throat, raising her arm to cause her breasts to lift. He allowed his anticipation to grow, waited for the right moment, savored every lingering second.

"Notice the color of the skin," he instructed as he posed her. "Try starting with vermillion for the veins, then glaze over with the lighter colors. Remember Titian's luce di dentro—the internal light. Clarisse's skin glows with life—it radiates."

He touched Clarisse's cheek, ran his finger over her jaw, down her throat, a slow, caressing touch. "Remember that a silk woven of blue and red threads can't be duplicated by any silk simply dyed purple. Like the silk, there are different colors in Clarisse's skin. See here, the pink of her cheek, the bluer shadow of her jaw." He dropped his hand lower, skirting her collarbone. "See how it shines here; it's almost white in the light, but the sun adds just a bit of Naples yellow—"

Almost time. ... He felt a surge of expectation, could barely contain himself as he touched the top swell of Clarisse's breast. Now. He smiled broadly, turned to Miss Carter. "And here, the—"

He froze in surprise.

She wasn't scarlet with embarrassment, wasn't averting her eyes as he'd expected, as he wanted. Instead she was sketching intently, her fingers curled around the charcoal, her motions slow and deliberate. There wasn't a hint of mortification on her face, not a touch of chagrin.

Disappointment pricked him, annoyance came sharp and quickly on its heels. "Miss Carter," he barked, feeling no satisfaction at all when her gaze riveted to his. "Do you know so much more than the rest of us that you don't have to pay attention?"

She frowned, looking slightly confused. "I am paying attention," she said slowly.

"Oh?"

"Yes, I—" She turned her easel so he could see her sketch pad—a confusion of lines, a figure that was barely recognizable as a woman's form—and he saw that beside each spot he'd named, she'd scrawled a color. Naples yellow by the shoulder, vermillion for veins, ultramarine shadows . . . They were all there, every one he'd mentioned.

Behind him he heard an aborted snicker, a cough. Jonas stiffened. Miss Carter was watching him with same expression she'd worn that first day, when she'd looked at him and smiled that uneasy smile and told him she didn't have an easel. He saw that same naive expectation in her eyes now, only this time it was more intense. This time it seemed to demand something.

It made him uncomfortable, it made him think of yesterday, when she'd faced him and asked to sketch. Like then, he felt the overwhelming urge to humiliate her, to weaken that innocent strength.

Slowly, deliberately so, Jonas smiled. "I see," he said in his coldest, quietest voice. "What a good idea that is, Miss Carter. Words for colors. I had no idea you wished to be a writer."

She looked taken aback. "1—I don't."

"No?" Jonas thinned his smile. "Then perhaps you could tell me how those words resemble art?"

She seemed confused for a moment, and then he saw the dawning in her eyes, the flash of awareness, along with a strange disappointment.

"Perhaps you heard nothing 1 said yesterday," he went on.

"No," she protested in a low voice. "I heard everything you said."

"Really? Then perhaps you should try utilizing your knowledge, Miss Carter." He drew his hand away from Clarisse's breast, pointed to the sinew of her throat. "For example, perhaps you'd care to tell us what color you see here."

There it was, that expectation again. She leaned forward, looking thoughtful, her eyes narrowed in concentration as she studied the place he pointed to. "It's pink," she said.

"Pink?" Jonas lifted a brow. "Pink how, Miss Carter? Pink-white or pink-yellow? Do you see blue there, or purple? Green or brown?"

It seemed to take her an eternity to answer. "Pink- yellow," she said finally.

"Pink-yellow?"

She nodded.

"And here, Miss Carter?" He moved lower, to the hollow at the center of Clarisse's collarbone. "What colors do you see here?"

"Purple." Her voice was more confident now, a bit bolder. "Gray."

Not confident enough. Jonas smiled. He lowered his hand. "What about here?" he asked, stopping at Clarisse's nipple. "Tell me the color here."

He waited for her reaction. Waited for shyness and nerves and the pink heat of embarrassment. He wanted it. And for a moment, just a moment, he thought he had it. He watched her freeze, saw her stiffen almost imperceptively, and he felt the pure rush of elation, thought This is it. She'll run now. She'll run—

But instead she gave him an unblinking stare. Instead, she licked her lips and said easily, "Pink. And— and brown."

There was not a trace of humiliation in her voice. His elation fell away, and in its place came anger and disappointment. Damn, he'd been so certain she would run, and her stoicism now enraged him, the way she lifted her eyes to his, the determination and hope in her expression. It frustrated him more than anything else she could have done, sent the blood racing hot and furious in his veins, and before he could stop himself, before he even knew what he was doing, he stalked over to stand behind her.

"Draw," he demanded, hearing the harshness of his voice echo in the thrumming of his blood. "Draw Clarisse. Now."

She tried to turn to face him. But he grabbed her shoulder and kept her facing the easel, and after a few breathless moments she did what he wanted. She leaned forward and touched the charcoal to the paper, made one tentative stroke alongside the scrawled words, added another for shading. Before she could draw a third, he wrenched the charcoal from her fingers, ignoring her quick inhalation, her half-spoken protest.

He leaned over her shoulder, and with quick, certain motions he drew the lines—one and then a second, another to show the roundness of Clarisse's breast, a fourth for detail. He heard Miss Carter's breath pounding in his ear, felt the tension in her body. He finished in seconds, dropped the charcoal into her lap and drew back.

"Is that what you were going to draw, Miss Carter?" he asked, pointing to the breast he'd drawn on her paper. Just a breast, nipple erect, intimate in detail, without arms or chest or throat to give it proportion. He looked down at the top of her head, at her honey-brown hair. "Well?" he asked.

She lifted her chin, he saw the deep rise and fall of her chest beneath the candy-striped satin. "I wish I could do it half as well," she said, and her voice was quiet and even and without a trace of fear.

Her answer took his anger; the soft wistfulness of her words left him standing there, suddenly cold and ill at ease. Jonas looked away, stiffening when he saw Clarisse's raised brows, McBride's castigating gaze. Daniel's face was set, and even Tobias—silent, servile Tobias—was squirming in his chair. Suddenly Jonas realized that he'd forgotten the plan he'd had spent most of last evening plotting.

He had meant to embarrass her with Clarisse's nudity. Had meant to send her running from the suggestion of sex. Had meant to see her blush and squirm because she was too innocent and too naive.

But it was that very innocence that disarmed him, and instead of humiliating her, he'd lost control and humiliated himself. Her naive determination defeated him as easily as she'd defeated him the other day, as cleanly as if she'd looked at him and said once again the silly words that had been ringing in his head since she'd spoken them. "You must wish you still had it." Christ, so absurd: that dewy-eyed pity, the misplaced compassion. As absurd as the wistful longing in the words she'd just said. "I wish I could do it half as well."

He stepped away from her chair and turned his back to them all, closing his eyes, trying to calm his racing heart. No one had ever done that to him. No one in a very long time, and it was intolerable that it was happening now, and with a woman who was nothing more than a pampered backwoods daughter, an innocent without wit or cleverness or beauty. It was intolerable that when he looked at her he saw everything he hated —the powerlessness that had forced him to take her on, his weakness—

His fear.

There was no more time for subtlety. It would take more than the suggestion of sexuality to make her run. It would take seduction itself. Much as it annoyed him, there was no other choice. Jonas rubbed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and waited for the drumming in his head to subside.

"Sir?" It was Daniel's voice, young and concerned and a little frightened.

Jonas waved his hand. "Go on," he said. "Continue."

He waited until he heard the scratching of charcoal on paper again, the hiss of brushstrokes and the wet suck of paint, and then he walked as casually as he could to the empty canvas in the corner by the window, to the half-drawn odalisque, and forced himself to remember what was at stake. He waited until he was calm enough to trust his voice, and then he sat on the windowsill, feeling the cold from the windows against his back, letting it soothe him before he spoke.

"Miss Carter," he said, and then he noticed that she hadn't moved, that she was sitting there watching him. He forced himself to speak evenly, quietly. "I would like you to stay after class today."

She nodded shortly, but she didn't look away, and when he saw the look in her eyes, the quiet speculation touched with pity, he felt the baffling rage growing again, and he made himself turn away to look at the courtesan. But the sight of the unfinished canvas only angered him again, and he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the cold glass. The motion reminded him of Rico, of yesterday. Where the hell was Childs? He found himself thinking of last night's fine French cognac, wishing he had a glass of it in his hand. A drink for courage. The thought brushed through his mind, and he smiled derisively, wondering when things had degenerated so far that he needed a swig of cognac to attempt a kiss.

Not just any kiss, he reminded himself. A kiss calculated to frighten. A kiss for a woman for whom he felt nothing but anger and resentment, for whom he felt not the slightest attraction. And how best to go about it? He couldn't just go up to her and grab her. No, best to do it subtly, to approach things carefully, as if he were attempting to seduce one of the rich daughters who came to him to have their portraits painted, one of the silly, vapid creatures who simpered and preened

within sight of their starched chaperones but watched him with knowing, too-wise eyes. They were easy to win over; he'd had enough of them to know. He knew how they changed the moment the chaperone's back was turned, how they talked of grand passion and rebellion when all they really wanted was wooing and romance and fops who professed their love with every breath.

But Imogene Carter was not like them, and his intentions were not the same. He didn't want consummation. He didn't want pleasure. He spent the rest of the lesson turning ideas over in his mind, wondering over the best way to approach her. He paced the room wondering. He criticized his students' work, offered suggestions, but by the time the class was over, he couldn't remember who had done well and who hadn't, who was the best at blending colors, who had drawn Clarisse with proportion and grace. He couldn't remember what Miss Carter had drawn at all.

He was aware that they were all watching him with wary eyes, and he almost felt their questions hovering as he moved from easel to easel. What will he say? Why hasn't he yelled at her, at me? What made him so damned angry earlier? So many questions, though they should be accustomed to his erratic behavior by now. It surprised him that they weren't, made him feel faintly ashamed, and that only increased his preoccupation—so much so that Jonas barely said a word when the lesson ended. He only waited while they all gathered up their things.

All except Miss Carter. She watched them leave, and Jonas saw the way she worked over her drawing with barely suppressed energy. Nervousness, he thought, feeling a stab of satisfaction that only grew when he saw a reluctant McBride walk out the door.

Clarisse stepped from behind the changing screen, buttoning her bodice. She turned to Jonas with a smile. "You want me to stay, darlin'?" she asked.

Jonas shook his head. "Go on," he said. "I'll see you later."

Clarisse's brow furrowed. She looked at Miss Carter, then back to him. "But—"

"Go on."

Her mouth tightened, a perfect little rosebud of red- stained pink, and resentfully she moved toward the door. But not before she brushed by him, not before her hand grazed the front of his trousers, her fingers tracing him through the cloth. It seemed she was not so upset about last night after all.

He waited until she disappeared through the door, until the heavy oak slammed shut behind her, before he turned to Miss Carter.

He said nothing. He let the silence stretch between them until it seemed nearly unbearable, and then he moved toward her, stopping just behind her, barely a hairsbreadth away. He felt the heat of her shoulders at his thighs. He glanced down at the easel in front of her, taking in the shaky lines she'd drawn, the tentative, minimal shadowing, the outline of Clarisse's body without detail—the swelling of breast without a nipple, with nothing but two-dimensional heaviness.

There was no talent in the drawing; or rather, there was some skill, but it was mediocre, passionless, technique without magic, like a mildly pleasing story without emotion or depth. She would never be a great painter; the most she could hope for was to become a decent portraitist—or perhaps even one of those traveling artists who went from town to town drawing prize pigs for awestruck farmers. But a great painter? Ah no, never that.

Still, there was enough to work with for now.

She drew a breath. "Sir?" she asked finally, and he heard again that strange hope in her voice, the slight giddiness that jibed badly with his earlier assessment of nerves. "Is there something you wanted?"

He refrained from making the most obvious answer, the lie he couldn't support and she wouldn't believe. Instead, he leaned over her shoulder, plucking the bit of charcoal from her fingers like before. But this time he pressed against her back, let his hair fall over her shoulder, felt it drag along her cheek.

He heard the sharp catch of her breath, felt the infinitesimal freeze of her body. He could almost hear her heart pounding against her chest.

"You're falling behind, Miss Carter," he whispered against her ear. "I thought, perhaps, a private lesson would be in order. Also, I wanted to apologize for today."

She turned to look at him; he saw the surprise in her eyes. He half expected her to say something, to make some coy little remark, but she merely nodded and turned back to face the easel. "It's quite all right," she said. "Shall we get started?"

Jonas frowned. Her composure was surprising, her calm acceptance. But then, he supposed she didn't know him well enough to know he rarely apologized for anything. "It was unforgivable. I should not have lost my temper."

A momentary pause. Then, "I understand."

"Do you?" He leaned closer; he could smell the heat of her, the fragrance of—what was it?—vanilla maybe, or ... or almond. Very subtle. Almost masked by the harsh scent of paint. He whispered against her ear. "1 confess I'm not used to having women in my class. Perhaps I'm a bit more . . . thoughtless . . . than I should be. Forgive me?"

He saw the erratic pulse in her throat, the quivering flutter beneath her pale skin. Slowly, slowly, he dropped the piece of charcoal he'd taken from her, stroked her clenched fingers with his thumb.

She inhaled slowly, pulled away. "Sir, shouldn't we start?"

He didn't budge. "Start what?"

"The lesson."

It amused him, her attempt to maintain the illusion. Jonas cocked a brow, smiled a tiny smile. "The lesson," he repeated. "But, Miss Carter, this is the lesson. We have started." He let the charcoal fall from his hand, and then he reached down again, curling his fingers around hers, stilling them. Again he stroked her fingers with his thumb. "This, for example, this is a lesson in how to touch." He raised her stiff hand to his mouth, brushed her knuckles with his lips before he let her hand fall again to her lap. "And this—this is a lesson in caressing." He laid his finger against her cheek, stroked the smooth, warm line of her jaw. The blood pumped into her cheeks; for a moment Jonas imagined he felt the heat of it.

He let his finger fall beneath her chin, felt her convulsive swallow as he stroked her throat, stopping at the high rounded collar. "And now, perhaps, we could try a kiss—"

She wrenched away from him, her shoulder cracking into his chest. He staggered back. She got to her feet so violently her skirt grabbed the chair leg. The fragile stool crashed to the floor. Jonas caught his balance just before he fell, awkwardly saving himself with his good hand, clumsily moving into a crouch.

She was staring at him, her breath coming fast and shallow, her eyes wary. She had grabbed something off a nearby shelf, ostensibly to protect herself, though she wasn't wielding it like a weapon, and she didn't try to use it against him when he got to his feet to face her. She didn't move at all.

He smiled at her, let his contempt show on his face. He gestured to the door. "Go ahead, darling. Run away. Run on home to your goddaddy and tell him all about it."

She flinched as if he'd hit her. Then something melted in her eyes, the wariness disappeared, replaced by something else that made her eyes seem too wide and too brown—almost black. Something he'd seen before. He stared at her, trying to decide what it was, startled when she laid the slender stone statuette on the shelf beside her and faced him with a strange equanimity.

"I know," she said. Her voice was calm and steady, soothing in its evenness. "You don't have to pretend. 1 know."

Jonas frowned in confusion. What the hell was she talking about? "You know what?" he asked.

"Peter told me."

"Told you what?"

She glanced toward the door, and then back at him. "I know what they say about you. That you're . . . mad."

He hadn't thought she could say anything to affect him, and for a moment he didn't understand her, thought she was talking about anger. But then he realized her meaning, it translated itself in his mind: mad . . . insane.

Insane.

He hadn't expected to hear that—not from her. Most people never said it. Most people were afraid to even think it. And yet here she was, offering it to him as if it were an excuse for everything, begging him to take it as if it somehow made everything all right. It was startling, it was uncomfortable, and strangely, it hurt. Not as much as it had when his brother Charlie had said it, or when his sister thought it, or when his father scrawled it on the papers committing him to the Bloomingdale Lunatic Asylum. But still, it hurt, and in the wake of that startling realization, he suddenly understood something else, suddenly he knew what he was seeing in her eyes, why that look was so uncomfortably familiar.

It was that damnable compassion again, that wretched pity.

It was unbearable.

"Well, if they say it, it must be true," he said, advancing slowly, angrily, feeling a vindictive pleasure when she backed away. "It gives you even more of a reason to run, doesn't it, darling?" He kept moving, forcing her back and back and back, watching her trip over her skirt. "Go ahead and run. Run for the door." She was nearly to the corner now, nearly trapped. He kept going. "Hurry now, before I change my mind."

She bumped into the wall behind her, jumping at the contact, and he saw her nervousness, saw also the way she lifted her chin to face him, her unflinching, determined expression. He told himself to release her. Told himself to stop, but he couldn't. The word was ringing in his mind: insane, insane, insane, and he wanted to punish her for saying it, wanted to punish her for the way she offered it to him, as if he weren't to blame, as if he couldn't control himself.

Because it was true, it was all true, and he hated that about himself, hated that she'd seen it.

He trapped her with his forearms, heard the dull thud of his wooden hand against the wall, felt the vibration of it into his wrist, his arm.

"Too late," he whispered. "You should have run."

He pressed against her, pressed his whole body against her, felt her legs and her hips and her breasts through the voluminous petticoats, the boning of her corset. She was stiff, inviolate in her armor, but he heard the harsh gasp of her breath, imagined he felt her fear shiver in the air around them.

Now, he thought, now for the pièce de résistance, and he bent his head to kiss her, to rape her with his mouth, to send her running away.

And stopped.

She was staring at him, her brown eyes soft, her mouth set, and though he saw the tiny vibration of the pulsepoint in her throat, there was no fear in her gaze at all. Nothing but a strange and fatal honesty, an empathy he could not imagine, a strength he could not endure.

"What?" he demanded, unable to stop himself. "What in the hell are you thinking?"

"I want to know what it's like to be you," she said, and her voice was thin and hushed and hard to hear. "I want to understand."

As quiet as her words were, they crashed through him, stole his breath, brought the anger and shock rising so violently in him that he jerked away as if her very touch were poison.

"I want to know what it's like ..."

He pointed to the door, stunned to find that he was shaking, that his finger was trembling. "Get out!" He screamed the words, his voice was roaring in his head, painfully loud. He saw her cowering in the corner and he wanted to hurt her. "Get the hell out of here."

This time she did as he ordered. This time she picked up her skirts and ran, a blur of pink and white. He heard the door open and slam closed again, heard her steps on the warped boards of the hall, the creaking stairs.

It wasn't until she'd been gone a full five minutes that his rage left him. Without it, he felt sick and hollow.

"I want to know what it's like to be you."

Christ.