if to prove his point, Nathan Harcourt produced a little canvas stool from the satchel he had slung over one shoulder, crouched down on it beside one of the tables near the door, took out a stick of charcoal and began to sketch the diners seated there.
‘Portraits? Nathan Harcourt?’
Monsieur Le Brun’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. ‘You know this man? I would never have thought... I mean,’ he regrouped, adopting his normal slightly supercilious demeanour, ‘though he is a countryman of yours, I would not have thought you moved in the same circles.’
‘Not of late,’ she admitted. ‘Though, at one time, we...did.’
All of ten years ago, to be precise, when she’d been completely ignorant of the nature of men and from too sheltered a background to know how to guard herself against his type. And from too ordinary a background to have anyone sufficiently powerful to protect her from him.
But things were different now.
Different for her and, by the looks of things, very, very different for him too. Her eyes narrowed as she studied his appearance and noted the changes.
Some of them were just due to the passage of years and were pretty much what she would have expected. His face was leaner and flecks of silver glinted here and there amidst curls that had once been coal black. But it was the state of his clothing that most clearly proclaimed the rumours that his father had finally washed his hands of his youngest son were entirely true. His coat only fit where it touched, his hat was a broad-brimmed affair of straw and his trousers were the baggy kind she’d seen the local tradesmen wearing. In short, he looked downright shabby.
Well, well. She leaned back and observed him working with mounting pleasure. When he’d achieved the almost-impossible feat of becoming too notorious for any political party to put him up for even the most rotten of rotten boroughs, he’d vanished, amidst much speculation. She’d assumed that, like the younger sons of so many eminent families, when he’d blotted the escutcheon, he’d been sent to the Continent to live a life of luxurious indolence.
But it looked as though his father, the Earl of Finchingfield, had been every bit as furious as the scandal sheets had hinted at the time and as unforgiving as her own father. For here was Nathan Harcourt, the proud, cold-hearted Nathan Harcourt, forced to work to earn a crust.
‘I shall not be at all displeased if he should come to my table and solicit my custom,’ she said, a strange thrill shivering through her whole being. ‘In fact, I would thoroughly enjoy having my portrait done.’
By him. Having him solicit her for her time, her money, her custom, when ten years ago, he had been too...proud and mighty, and...ambitious to have his name linked with hers.
Oh, what sweet revenge. Here he was, practically begging for a living and not doing too well from the look of his clothing. While here she was, thanks to Aunt Georgie, in possession of so much wealth she would be hard pressed to run through it in ten lifetimes.
Chapter Two
Nathan stood up, handed over the finished sketch to his first customer of the night and held out his hand for payment. He thanked them for their compliments and made several comments witty enough to hit their mark, judging from the way the other occupants of the table flung back their heads and laughed. But he had no idea what he’d actually said. His mind was still reeling from the shock of seeing Amethyst Dalby.
After ten years of leaving him be, she had to go and invade territory that he’d come to think of as peculiarly his own.
Not that it mattered.
And to prove it, he would damn well confront her.
He turned and scanned the restaurant with apparent laziness, hesitated when he came to her table, affected surprise, then sauntered over.
If she had the effrontery to appear in public, with her latest paramour in tow, then it was time to remove the gloves. The days were long gone when he would have spared a lady’s blushes because of some ridiculous belief in chivalry towards the weaker sex.
The weaker sex! The cunning sex more like. He’d never met one who wasn’t hiding some secret or other, be it only her age, or how much she’d overspent her allowance.
Though none with secrets that had been as destructive as hers.
‘Miss Dalby,’ he said when he reached her table. ‘How surprising to see you here.’
‘In Paris, do you mean?’
‘Anywhere,’ he replied with a hard smile. ‘I would have thought...’ He trailed off, leaving her to draw her own conclusions as to where he might have gone with that statement. He’d made his opinion of her very plain when he’d discovered how duplicitous she’d been ten years ago. Back then, she’d had the sense to flee polite society and presumably return to the countryside.
He hadn’t allowed himself to dwell on what might have become of her. But now she was here, why shouldn’t he find out? He glanced at her hand. No ring. And she hadn’t corrected him when he’d addressed her as Miss Dalby, either.
So it didn’t look as though she’d ever managed to entrap some poor unsuspecting male into marriage with a pretence of innocence. This man, this sallow-skinned, beetle-browed man whose face looked vaguely familiar, was not her husband. What then? A lover?
‘Are you not going to introduce me?’ He cocked an eyebrow in the direction of her male friend, wondering where he’d seen him before.
‘I see no need for that,’ she replied with a stiff smile.
No? He supposed it might be a little awkward, introducing a former lover to her current one. Especially if he was the jealous sort. He gave him a searching look and met with one of mutual antipathy. Was it possible the man felt...threatened? He could see why he might look like a potential competitor. Without putting too fine a point on it, he was younger, fitter and more handsome than the man she’d washed up with. Not that he saw himself in the light of competitor for her favours. God, no!
‘After all,’ she continued archly, ‘you cannot have come across to renew our acquaintance. I believe it is work you wish to solicit. Is it not?’
Of course it was. She didn’t need to remind him that whatever they’d had was finished.
‘I explained to madame,’ put in the man, proclaiming his nationality by the thickness of his accent, ‘that this is how you make your living. By drawing the likenesses of tourists.’
It wasn’t quite true. But he let it pass. It was...convenient, for the moment, to let everyone think he was earning his living from his pictures. And simpler.
And that was why he’d strolled across to her table. Exactly why.
There could be no other reason.
‘Madame wishes you to make her the swift portrait,’ said the Frenchman.
Miss Dalby shot her French lover a look brimming with resentment. He looked steadily back at her, completely unrepentant.
Interesting. The Frenchman felt the need to assert his authority over her. To remind her who was in control. Or perhaps he’d already discovered how fickle she could be, since
