Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jane tried to focus on the scents in the hallway outside the ballroom as she followed Thomas. It was nice, to be distracted by the smell of candles and crushed flowers, rather than focused on what they were about to do.
The music filtered through the walls in a muffled way, almost dreamlike, as though the whole party were happening in a whole other world, while she was here, following her husband down a corridor neither of them had never walked before.
Although she had visited Penelope and Cecil a few times before and had been given a tour of their estate, she had never been down this way, and one would never suspect it. Not with how confidently Thomas led her from one hallway to the next, now with how she assuredly she followed him.
Perhaps she should ask where they were going.
His hand was at the small of her back – barely touching, just the suggestion of pressure through the silk of her dress – and it was enough to keep her moving forward without argument.
She watched the candlelight shift across his jaw as he tried each door they passed, finding them locked or occupied until the third one opened onto a small drawing room, dimly lit by the fire in the fireplace.
Thomas stepped inside, held the door open for her and beckoned her inside with a small nod. Jane inhaled deeply and walked in, unable to shake off the urge to shiver when he closed the door behind them.
The room was modest by Penelope's standards – a settee, a writing desk, two armchairs flanking a fireplace.
A decanter of something amber sat on the mantle and on the other side of the room, bookshelves lined the far wall.
Jane's eyes adjusted to the low lighting as Thomas moved to the desk, pulling open the shallow drawer and running his fingers along the interior until he produced a stub of pencil and a folded sheet of paper.
“You came prepared,” Jane said, because she needed to say something.
With the passing moments, she was losing more and more of her boldness, which said little about her.
“I wish I had such amazing foresight,” He huffed, his tone light with amusement as he set the pencil and paper on the top of the desk. “Fortunately, your friend keeps a well-stocked desk.”
He moved toward her slowly, every inch closer deliberate in the way he always was, like a man who had decided on something and saw no reason to pretend otherwise. He reached past her and turned the small lock on the door, the click of it seemingly echoing in the quiet room.
Jane felt her heart jump slightly and she tried to convince him that perhaps this was not ideal after all.
“Thomas, I am not sure if this –”
“I know,” he said lowly, clearly shedding his air of formality for the night. “I know this is your friend's house. I know there are a hundred people forty feet from here who would have a great deal to say about this.”
“Then you understand why this is –”
“Dangerous.” He said the word before she could, and the corner of his mouth moved, not quite a smile. “Yes.”
He was close enough now that she could smell him – cedar and something spicy and warmer underneath.
Whenever she was close enough to sense it, she yearned to burrow herself within his embrace, to simply lose herself completely, surrounded by his essence.
His eyes moved over her face in that particular way that conveyed intent, as though she were a precious moment he was trying to commit to memory before it was taken from him.
“I have thought about your body,” he began, quietly and without flourish, “Every day since I drew you the first time. I have thought about the line of your shoulder and the way the light fell across your collarbone and the particular curve of–”
He stopped himself suddenly, and he stood straighter. “I want to draw you properly. Here and now. I know the light is poor. I don't care. I need to – I need something to keep.”
The last three words cost him something. She could hear it, and could not help but wonder if the price was the same as when she gave into his whims, when she allowed herself to be closer to him than was necessary.
Jane stood very still, listening faintly as music from the ballroom pulsed distantly through the walls. She could not help but think about the hundred people out there, and Penelope's carefully arranged floral centrepieces, and every sensible reason she had to say no, not here, not now.
But when she opened her mouth, the words that came out were,
“How would you like me?”
The question had cost her something too, that much was obvious, thanks to the emotion that flashed across his face. He clenched his jaw and inhaled sharply, shaking his head slightly, before he sighed.
Then he leaned in, his breath tickling her ear as he whispered, “Take off your clothes, duchess.”
“Thomas,” she gasped in shock. “Here? Now? Surely you do not intend to do such a thing at a time like this.”
He brushed her hair back, over her shoulders, then he caressed down her neck and collar, his expression dark.
“You looked utterly breathtaking this evening. I wanted to tell you that the moment I saw you from the top of the stairs. And I felt as though I had used up most of my life’s good fortune when we danced.
You are so immensely beautiful; my duchess and that dress is a thing of wonder on its own.
As are you, when you are bare, and naturally emboldened.
Please? Do not deny me the pleasure of putting the curves that I have dreamt about on paper. ”
Jane was not sure how, but his tongue seemed to be dipped in honey tonight, which was the only way she could explain how she was easily coaxed into doing all of this without fail.
Other than that, his words set her alight, spreading heat and fire through her insides, filling her with thoughts she was not equipped to handle.
With a sigh, she reached up and began to work the first button at the back of her own gown.
“Help me,” she said. “I cannot reach.”
His hands replaced hers without a word. He undid each button with careful, unhurried fingers, and she felt the bodice loosen, felt the cool air of the room kiss her skin, and she did not look at him.
She stared at the dancing flames fireplace and listened to the sound of her own breathing until the gown slipped from her shoulders.
Thomas stepped back and she stood straighter, stepped out of the dress and gracefully bent over to pick it up. Then, Jane folded it over the arm of the settee with a kind of deliberate calm she did not entirely feel, and stood in her chemise for a moment before she looked at him.
His expression was guarded, contained in a way that told her he was spending considerable effort on giving her a particular impression.
Pinned by the weight of his gaze, she removed the chemise.
The room was cool and dim and she was aware of every inch of her own skin, the way the weak candlelight from under the door caught the swell of her hip, the soft plane of her stomach. When she was finally brave enough to meet his gaze, she found out Thomas hadn't moved.
He was watching her with rapt attention, almost as if he was trying to understand her.
Every dip of his eyes was deliberate, no single glance wasted.
She swallowed her unease, because she knew he had not yet begun to create his art yet.
There was still a chance things could get much more. .. intense.
“Where would you like me?” she asked, mildly surprised that her voice had come out steadier than she had any right to expect.
It had taken him a moment to respond. Thomas inhaled sharply, then gradually, he raised a hand, gesturing to the center of the room.
“There. Fold your arms beneath your – yes.” He made his way to her side to alter her posture himself, his touch on her forearms brief and warm as he patted the cross of her arms beneath her breasts. “Tilt our chin away from me. Slightly.”
She turned her face toward the fireplace, heat filling her cheeks as he mumbled,
“Perfection. Utter perfection.”
She heard him walk away and settle into the desk chair behind her. Moments later, the air was filled with the soft scrape of the pencil against paper.
The room was quiet except for that, and to keep herself from drowning within her own head, she told herself to focus on the things she could hear. The soft scratch of the pencil, the distant orchestra, her own heartbeat.
She had never been looked at like this. Not examined for flaws or assessed for value, the way her mother used to measure her before social calls. Thomas was not searching for her inadequacies to memorize them and frequently toss them in her face to make her question her worth.
Jane could feel the difference in the quality of his attention – it was acquisitive, she thought, it was the gaze of someone who wanted to possess what they were seeing. Not in any diminishing sense. The way one would desire to possess a thing they find remarkable.
It made warmth pool low in her belly, which was inconvenient, because it made her want to burrow in a small hole and hide away until it had passed.
She wasn't certain how much time had passed – though she knew long enough that her arms had begun to ache slightly and the distant music that reached her ears had changed key – before she became acutely aware of what she was doing.
Standing unclothed in a locked room at her friend's ball while her husband drew her from a desk chair eight feet away.
The reality of it settled over her like cold water.
She turned slowly to face him. Thomas looked up from the paper immediately, as though he had not been entirely focused on it, his eyes focusing on hers in question.
“Someone could come,” she said, inhaling deeply as she noticed the unintended sultry tone of her voice. “Someone could hear us in here, or notice we're both missing, or–”
She glanced down at the paper in his hands. “And that. Someone could see that. Do you not think this is dangerous in the slightest?”