gaze as the dark eyes moved over her face that increased her already significant discomfort by a notch. And then his mouth relaxed slightly into a smile that brought to the surface the warmth she had glimpsed the day before.
‘Would you consider giving this to Hetty? I think she would love to have it. And she is my sister, not my wife, by the way, hence the resemblance.’
Sophie felt her face heat with a sudden burning blush and she pressed her hands to them unconsciously.
‘Oh, dear, I’m so sorry. I always say more than I ought. And of course you may give it to her. In gratitude for the collar and leash, which I was so impolite as to forget to thank you for. Here.’
She pulled the sheet from her pad and held it out to him, wishing the blush would fade.
He reached out to take it just as Marmaduke awoke with a snort and she started and dropped the sheet. Marmaduke, his eye catching the fluttering page, readied himself to leap, but before he could move she managed to capture it just as the man grabbed for it as well. His hand closed half on the page, half on her hand and she drew back abruptly, slightly shocked by the heat of his touch. The contact had been only for a second, but her arm felt like it had been dipped in hot water and her skin tingled uncomfortably, retaining the imprint of his fingers. She clasped her hands together again, as if she could blot it out. He merely regarded the sketch and stood up.
‘Thank you for this. Good luck with... Duke.’
She nodded and busied herself with her pad and with Marmaduke. The man hesitated for a moment and then strode off without another word and she could finally breathe. She picked up Marmaduke and headed back to Huntley House rather blindly, forcing a man driving a tilbury to pull up sharply and bark out at her as she almost stepped directly on to the road in front of him. She glanced up at the angry driver, mumbled an apology and rushed across the road and into her temporary home. Once inside she deposited Marmaduke on his cushion and hurried up to her little nursery-like room on the third floor. In its small quiet space there was nothing to come between her and her disturbing thoughts, and the memory of that moment in the park kept recurring, of his hand, strong and firm and warm, grasping hers and the way her nerves had flared, a striking of a tinderbox. It was absurd and unwanted. This abrupt, unpredictable man came from a very different world from hers, no matter how respectable her birth. Everything about him spoke of wealth and influence and a degree of comfort in this foreign world that she would never understand. She should not be foolish enough to let herself be drawn to him simply because she was lonely and he and his sister were the only people who had treated her with any degree of sympathy, though on his part quite a cold and sardonic sympathy.
This was not the first time she had been attracted to a man, after all. Why, she had spent three whole months thoroughly enthralled with the squire’s middle son John when he had come down from Cambridge before realising he was a pompous, oily snake, hardly any better than Cousin Arthur. Her fascination with him had then sputtered and faded pretty quickly which had been very lucky since he had actually considered offering for her until he, too, had come to accept his parents’ viewpoint that she was completely unsuitable. No doubt this silly attraction would fare just the same as soon as she found out a little more about this strange man.
It was just that he was so very handsome. And then there was that contrast between the cold mask and his sudden, almost intimate smile. No doubt it had done very well for him with dozens of gullible women. Well, she might not know London rules, but she was not gullible and she knew when a man was very used to commanding attention and getting what he wanted from women. In fact, now that she thought about it, she could hardly believe she had actually asked if she could sketch him. What must he think of her? His abrupt withdrawal made it quite clear what he thought of her offer. She should remember she was not back at home with people who had already come to terms, of sorts, with her strange ways. She would never find her way in this town if she did not learn to mind her tongue. Not that there was any chance of finding her way here in any event. In a matter of days she, too, would be sent packing back to Devon and all this would seem nothing more than a passing dream. She should do her best to just enjoy the remaining days of blessed solitude. It would be over all too soon.
* * *
Max walked into the drawing room where Hetty was seated at the escritoire, writing a letter.
‘Here, this is for you.’ He handed her the sketch and watched her face light up in delight as she scanned the simple, evocative drawing.
‘Max! What on earth? Where did you get this? Oh, I look quite lovely!’
‘Lady Huntley’s madcap niece drew it. I came across her sketching that pug in the park and she made me...or rather you, a gift of this, in recognition of the collar and leash we sent. It is good, isn’t it?’
‘It’s marvellous, though I suppose I shouldn’t say so since it is almost a compliment to myself. It is certainly more like me than that stiff portrait Mama commissioned before Ned and I married. Now I certainly must go and storm the mausoleum and thank her. How sweet of her!’
Max sat down, his eyes on the drawing. The absurdity of the whole encounter was still raw and he had no idea whether to be annoyed or amused by the girl. It had been many years since anyone had managed to disconcert him. Her voice and even her proper but outmoded dresses might mark her as another of the multitude of well-born young women who invaded London from the country, but the resemblance stopped there. Women of her birth and age usually knew how to conduct themselves with proper modesty and certainly did not engage strange men in conversations that were not only peculiar, but bordered on an unspoken intimacy, as if she knew and trusted him. It was absurd that for a brief moment he had taken her at face value and had been imprudent enough to even sit down beside her in the first place. He couldn’t imagine doing that with someone like Lady Penny without having been properly introduced. And Lady Penny would not be wandering alone in the gardens in the first place with no better chaperon than that pug. Or asking if she could draw a man’s face, even had she been introduced to him with all formality. It was little wonder he had been so disconcerted.
‘She asked to sketch me. She said I have a “sketchable” face.’
Hetty’s giggle caught on a little hiccup as she tried to rein it in.
‘My goodness, she is an original, isn’t she? Did you agree?’
He frowned.
‘Of course not!’
‘Oh, why not? You could send it to Mama; you know she has always wanted you to sit for a portrait. And by the looks of it she would do a very creditable job.’
For a moment Max contemplated the possibility. It was true their mother had begged him repeatedly to sit at least for a watercolour she could hang in her drawing room in the Dower House alongside the portraits she had commissioned of his five sisters. A quick sketch would be much less painful. Or should be. But the thought of sitting while the girl’s expressive blue eyes surveyed and catalogued him wasn’t something he was comfortable with. There was something too...intimate in it. If he had to be painted by someone, he preferred it to be someone who knew how to respect boundaries.
There had been no reason to even stop to speak with her and he still didn’t understand why he had. He certainly hadn’t intended to when he had seen her while crossing the gardens, but her total concentration on her sketch had made him curious. And once he stopped behind her it had been hard to move, as if doing so would disturb some unfamiliar wild animal he had come across in the parks on the Harcourt estates. Or one of the wood sprites his sisters had insisted appeared at dusk in the deepest reaches of the woods. He had watched her hand moving lightly but firmly over the page, her head slightly canted, the sun casting
