“Inside, quick,” she whispered.
He complied and set the frame before the candles over the fireplace. Fussing with it, he said, “Do you have everything you need? Or do I need to return downstairs?”
“I have everything.” She snatched the paper off her writing desk beneath her window and rushed to the frame.
Scratching the back of his neck, Drew stepped back. For the first time in their entire acquaintance, he seemed to feel awkward.
“Sit.” She waved toward a chair before the empty fire. “There’s a bit of wine just there. I had my maid bring it up for me when I retired. I thought it might help you. If you wish it. I know how you dislike this sort of thing. The wine may make it a tiny bit more palatable.”
He grabbed the bottle and nearby glass and sat, stretching out one leg and sinking low as he poured the rich, red liquid into the crystal. He snapped the bottle down beside the chair and twirled the glass between his fingers. “You’ve thought of everything. I’m not surprised. You’ve always been terribly efficient. Tell me, is that a quality Mrs. Dart possesses, or does it belong to Amelia?”
From behind the newly stretched paper in the frame, she grinned. “Both. It is part of who I am. And I am both women.”
He snorted and tipped the glass up at his lips, allowing her the perfect angle from which to admire his jaw, dusted with dark stubble. Usually, it was clean shaven to perfection. Now… he seemed a different man. He’d even forgotten his gloves most of the day and—she peeked around the frame to verify her memory—he did not wear them now. He wore little, as she did—his pants and shirtsleeves only, his toes and muscled calves bare of stockings.
She stepped away from the frame, studying the silhouette. She’d done hundreds, and she’d never cared how perfect they were. It had never been about perfection or even competency. The silhouettes were for her alone—paper memories. His shadow was a bit too fuzzy and somewhat distorted. She needed clean lines for Lord Andrew Bromley, so she bustled around the frame and toward him, toward the mantel to reposition the candles.
But he caught her as she passed, pulled her down into his lap, and kissed her until her breasts ached and her arms had found their own way around his neck. When they finally parted, shestole his wine and took a gulp. She’d need the fortitude to pull herself away from her perch. And when she did, it was to the sound of his groan. He disapproved, but he did not stop her, so she fixed the candles in what she hoped was the perfect spot and returned to her frame without another kiss.
Shame, that.
From behind the frame once more, she watched his shadow lift the wineglass to his lips, take a long pull of liquid, then set it on the floor.
“How do you want me?” he asked.
In every way she could imagine. Granted, her imagination was somewhat limited, but it had grown exponentially in the last three or so days.
“Just as you are,” she answered. “But do sit up straight.”
He did so with a chuckle. “You sound like my childhood governess.”
“I’m sure you were a studious child.”
A nod.
“Be still.”
He froze. Good. The light was perfect now, his shadow crisp.
She reached for her pencil. “You must have been much admired at Cambridge. I’m sure you took?—”
“I never finished my degree.” An edge to his voice.
She must tread carefully. “Many young lords do not.”
“I wanted to.” Somehow, as he spoke, his profile remained frozen. Only his lips moved the tiniest bit, a shadow mouth letting words out at the smallest trickle.
She put her pencil to the paper, taking advantage of the task of outlining to organize her thoughts. So many things she wanted to know. She finished the wild tufts of his unruly hair. Wine and kissing must have rumpled it out of its usual tidy slick. And then she ventured a question. “What did you plan to do with your degree?”
“I fancied myself something of an historian. I lived and breathed in those days by Herodotus. Plato. My copies of Gibbon’sThe History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empirewere dog-eared. Falling to pieces. I planned on taking a great tour, staying in Greece, and studying there. I intended to learn in the same place as my heroes and drown myself in their culture and art and philosophy. Herodotus believed that historical events happened for a reason. He wanted to know thewhyof them.” A chuckle. “A concept that seems self-evident to us, perhaps, but then, when most everyone thought the world ran on fate and the will of the gods… radical.” His shadow moved itself into a blur as he spoke, and she fancied the young man’s voice had possessed the more mature man’s body for the briefest moment.
“He did not believe in fate.”
A shrug of the shadow’s shoulder. “Oh, he did. There’s a river of fatalism that flows through his histories. But an equal current, perhaps strong at times, is the notion that man never quits fighting despite the predetermined outcome.”
“Do you believe in fate?”
“I hate the very notion.” His throat bobbed. “I used to be fascinated by it, the idea that a future existed just for me, and I need only step into it. Utter rubbish. Terrifying, too. I shape my own destiny. No one else.”
