Beyond Seduction by Emma Holly Read Free Book Online

him.
     
    "I assure you," he said, misinterpreting her silence, "I am who I say. I just came from that house over there, to change a broken frame. Here." He rummaged inside the caped woolen sweep of his winter
    coat. "Here's my card."
     
    Somewhat befuddled, Merry peered at it in the lamplight. "Nicolas Craven, Artist," said the tiny black letters, followed by an address in St. John's Wood.
     
    "I believe you are who you say," she admitted, not yet ready to accept the rest.
     
    "Then you'll ask your employers' permission to pose?"
     
    She shook her head, more in wonder than refusal. A thought was beginning to form: what it would mean if she said yes, how it might change her value on the marriage mart. What had Isabel's mother said? No decent woman would sit for him.
     
    As if sensing her hesitation, Mr. Craven jerked his chin toward her parents' house, a rise of Georgian marble behind the wall. "Is this where you work? For the Vances? I could speak to them, if you like. Make sure the job wouldn't endanger your position."
     
    The offer, kindly as it was meant, restored her common sense. Even supposing she had been a maid, her mother would never tolerate the presence of a servant who'd sat for the infamous Nic Craven—no more than she'd tolerate one with followers. That his manner held nothing of lechery would not matter; his reputation would be sufficient to condemn her.
     
    All the more reason to agree, hissed the little devil in her ear. You'd ruin yourself but good if you let him paint you.
     
    Besides which, if he's as much a gentleman as he seems, you might not have to ruin yourself in truth.
     
    Caught by indecision, she looked at him, really looked, for the first time since her rescue. From her glimpse of him in the house, she knew he was slender and untidy. Now she saw he was also handsome. Never had she seen a man with eyes so wonderfully expressive. One moment they twinkled boyishly.
    The next they were ironic. The humorous stretch of his mouth made her want to smile along. His bones were as fine as he'd claimed hers were. His nose, narrow and aquiline, was entirely without flaw. His
    jaw might have been too sharp for beauty, but it lent his face a strength it would otherwise have lacked. All of which came together to form a visage both individual and attractive.
     
    And knowing. That most of all. She could see it in his eyes. This man had plumbed the secrets she'd always wanted to explore. This man had tasted freedoms she could only dream of. A face like Nicolas Craven's promised things.
     
    Merry could imagine how it might make a woman weak.
     
    "I can't," she said with true regret. The devil on her shoulder groaned, but she could not accept his offer, not even if she could devise a way to keep it secret from her parents. A daughter's reputation reflected on her family. No matter how angry Merry was, hers didn't deserve to be treated with so little consideration.
     
    "Don't say you can't," coaxed Mr. Craven, the plea a sweet temptation. "Say you'll think about it. An artist doesn't find such inspiration every day."
     
    Oh, how she wanted to believe him! Her hand clenched around his card, the pull to accept a palpable force. Her chest ached with it, and something deeper, something only one man had ever called from
    her before.
     
    "I can't," she said again, then slipped inside the gate before his charm, and her foolish susceptibility,
    could make
     
    her turn around.
    *  *  *
     
     
     
    "I want progress," Althorp intoned, "not promises."
     
    Like dragon's breath, his words formed puffs of white in the misty predawn air. He'd instructed Lavinia
    to meet him in Rotten Row, inside the Albert Gate. The Serpentine was frozen, of course, but they
    were spared the hordes of skaters by the earliness of the hour. Only the groundskeepers threatened their less than splendid isolation.
     
    Lavinia didn't know if Althorp thought he'd been seen too often in her house or if he simply wanted to prove his power