you home from Paris to live with me, like some...overlarge souvenir is certainly not going to answer. Certainly not the part about propriety, anyway. I can just see the stir it would create, amongst the ladies of Stanton Basset, to have a disgraced politician of your notoriety come live among them. The resulting panic would be akin to shutting a fox up in the henhouse.’
He went very quiet. And still. He wasn’t even dabbing paint at the canvas any more, just standing there.
‘Nathan?’ She sat up and tried to peer at him round the canvas. He was staring at the painting, his jaw hard, his lips compressed into a thin line.
‘You were joking, weren’t you? A man like you...well, you don’t really want to marry anyone, do you? Certainly not to save her from facing loneliness.’
‘And you are certainly not that desperate, are you?’ he said.
No, she wasn’t. But then she looked about the dingy rooms and wondered if perhaps he was. He didn’t seem to know exactly how much she was worth, but it was highly suspicious that he’d made that casual proposal just after she’d told him she had a house and admitted to an income of sorts. He would have a roof over his head, guaranteed. And if the sum total of his ambition was to spend the rest of his days messing about with paints...
She shivered.
‘You are cold,’ he said, flinging his brush aside and coming across the room to drape a blanket over her. ‘I’m sorry. I know these rooms are a touch basic, but the light up here is so superb, during the day, that I didn’t care about that when I rented them,’ he said ruefully.
‘Of course,’ she said with a tight smile, though if he thought to fool her into believing he was living like this by choice then he’d seriously underestimated her intelligence.
If he was angling for a wife to provide for him, he wasn’t going to admit it straight out, was he? And even if he wasn’t deliberately trying to deceive her, he was just typical of his class, who refused to admit they were in want. They’d leave bills unpaid, even flee lodgings at dead of night, rather than openly admit their finances weren’t in order.
She pulled the quilt up to her chin, but the cold feeling in her stomach wouldn’t go away.
‘I think it is time I left,’ she said in a small voice that didn’t sound a bit like her.
‘Why? You cannot want to go back to your apartments and have to watch Fenella and Gaston billing and cooing all day, can you?’
‘No, but...well, I have to go back some time, don’t I? I cannot simply move in with you just because the way they carry on is making me a bit uncomfortable.’
‘I wouldn’t mind if you did,’ he said. ‘Though I could wish the place was a bit more comfortable, for your sake.’
That was even worse than proposing marriage. Though it dealt with his earlier assertion that he was being careful of her reputation. A man didn’t ask a woman to be his mistress if he really cared about her, did he?
‘Hmmph,’ she said and stalked to the bedroom to retrieve her clothes. A wave of sadness washed over her as she was pulling her crumpled chemise over her head. If they’d married ten years ago, she was sure they would have been happy. She hadn’t any ambitions beyond the kind of life he’d described, after all. She certainly wouldn’t have minded him filling up his leisure hours with painting. It was clearly a very large part of who he was. And she would have wanted him to be happy.
But as she swiftly donned the rest of her clothes, she reminded herself that the years had changed them both. She wouldn’t be content nowadays to live in some cottage, doing nothing more than raising a pack of children and seeing to a man’s domestic comforts.
And he’d got used to sampling a different woman whenever the fancy took him. Why, he’d thought nothing of asking her to move in with him, so lax had his morality become.
He didn’t really want to marry her.
Any more than she wanted to marry him.
They’d had their chance, ten years ago. And lost it.
By the time she’d tidied her hair in the mirror, and felt ready to leave the room and face him, she’d drawn right back into the crusty cocoon that had kept her heart safe for so many years. Even the grin he sent flashing her way could not pierce it. It just reminded her that Nathan was dangerous.
Because when he smiled at her like that, he could make her say yes to almost anything.
Nathan flung his brush down and plunged his fingers through his hair. Oh, there was nothing wrong with the portrait itself. It was undoubtedly the best work he’d ever done. The trouble was that it was almost finished. Just like his affair with Amy. Only a few more days and she would be leaving Paris, going back to England. And he was going to lose her all over again. And this time it was going to be far worse, because this time round it wasn’t all vague dreams of a possible future he would lose. This time he knew exactly what he’d be missing.
Because he’d gone and fallen in love with her, all over again, prickly as she was. He understood why she’d become so defensive. Life had dealt them both some hard knocks, which only made them more compatible, if anything, than they’d been as youngsters. He wouldn’t be interested in some shy, naïve young vicar’s daughter, straight from the country—not any longer. Tainted by his years in politics, corrupted by the sordid means he’d sunk to in order to obtain his freedom, he’d find such a girl insipid.
But this older, more experienced Amy, the cynical wary woman she’d become, matched him just as he was now. He wouldn’t change a thing about her. Not one thing.
Except her opinion of him.
Moodily he stared at her image, staring back at him from the canvas. He’d caught a look in her eyes that...
He flung himself away from the stool and strode to the window. He’d painted her as he wanted her to look at him, that’s what he’d done. With love in her eyes, longing expressed in every line of that sleek, lush body.
Which was the height of absurdity. She might enjoy seeing the sights of Paris with him. Might enjoy casting off the restraints imposed on single women, to indulge in this passionate affair. But once it was time to leave, he didn’t fool himself that she was going to experience much more than a tiny pang of regret. She would be sorry to have to return to a life of dull respectability, but would she be sorry to bid him farewell?
He didn’t think so.
She’d told him at the outset all she wanted was a fling. And he’d thought he’d be content with that. He’d certainly never thought he’d contemplate marrying anyone, ever again. And yet when she’d turned down his guilt-induced, sacrificial proposal, he hadn’t felt so much relieved as...a bit insulted. And as the days had passed he’d begun to find the thought of her being with anyone else unpalatable. At about the same rate he’d seen that being married to her wouldn’t have been the ordeal it had been with Lucasta.
And now...well, now he wanted her so desperately, he couldn’t stand the thought of her leaving. He leaned his forehead on a pane of glass and gazed out blindly over the rooftops of the city he’d started to think
