How To Distract a Duchess by Mia Marlowe Read Free Book Online Page B

said. “No one has done that to me in a long time.”
    “I’m sorry if I offend.”
    “No, you’re not,” she said with a tight grin. “And I’m not sorry either. In fact, it’s rather refreshing to hear the truth from someone. I am hard to please. But it’s only because I care so deeply about my work and am rarely satisfied with it. I suppose that perfectionism spills over into other things.”
    “I’m sure your paintings are quite wonderful.”
    “But you wouldn’t know because you’ve never seen them.”
    He shook his head.
    “No one has. I am doing the entire Greek pantheon and until I finish with the major gods, I won’t have a showing. It’s rather like a symphony. No one would be satisfied with just the first movement. Each painting will be part of a larger whole.”
    “Then you intend to sell them all together?”
    “Sell them? Why would I do that?” she said with a frown.
    “The usual reason is to make money.”
    She shrugged. “Fortunately, I have no such needs.”
    “Then how will you ever know if your paintings are any good? I mean, unless someone is willing to plunk down a bag of guineas for them, how do you measure their worth?”
    “Art is measured by how it affects those who view it,” she said.
      “And how does painting the gods affect you?” His voice was huskier than he’d intended.
      She drew a few lines on her sketch pad as she pondered. The duchess didn’t seem to sense his underlying question. He drew a relieved breath.
    “The gods were men idealized,” she finally said. “Don’t we all seek perfection?”
    “So what you’re telling me, Your Grace, is that you’re looking for the perfect man.”
     
     

Chapter 6
     
     
     
     
    “Looking for a perfect man?” Her cheeks bloomed with fresh color. “Certainly not. Besides, perfection is only an ideal. It does not exist in men. I can only strive in the creation of it.”
    “And thus trump even the Almighty.” He raised a brow at her. She looked back to her sketchpad, but as Trev watched, her knuckles whitened around her chalk. Clearly, he’d struck too close to the mark. Then slowly, her mouth curved into an enigmatic smile.
    “Sit down, Mr. Doverspike,” she ordered with calm.
    “On what, Your Grace?”
    “On your posterior, of course. Mars did not have overstuffed armchairs, you know.”
    He did as he was bid, feeling even more ridiculous seated on the cold floor than he did standing. If he sat with his knees raised, his ballocks would dangle between his legs on the polished oak. If he sat with his legs straight before him, he’d feel unnaturally stiff, like a wooden marionette whose strings had been cut. He crossed his legs, Hindu-fashion, but felt too exposed by half.
    The duchess sighed. “Let me help you,” she said. “I experimented with a pose last night in my sketching. Place your weight on one hip, legs to the side.”
    She left her sketchpad and came to stand over him. It was a maneuver clearly designed to make him feel small.
    He stared up at her without a blink, determined not to let her best him. “How do you want my arms?”
    “Lean on one palm,” she suggested. “No, a little further. Here, like this, Mr. Doverspike.” The duchess knelt and positioned his hand away from his body so his torso was stretched into a reclining pose.
    “You know, I’ve never been naked with a woman who didn’t call me by my Christian name,” he said. “Under the circumstances, I don’t suppose you could call me Thomas?”
    “It is precisely because of the circumstances that I must call you Mr. Doverspike,” she said. “And besides, you aren’t naked. You are nude.”
    “Feels naked to me.”
    Her face screwed into a puzzled frown as she leaned forward and took his other hand. The heady floral fragrance she wore tickled his nostrils. Was that lilac or jasmine or some exotic mix of the two?
    “I’m not quite sure where I want this other hand,” she said.
    The neckline of her gown fell