Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady. Diane Gaston

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СКАЧАТЬ not done her justice, he realised. He’d not captured that spark of energy, that vivacity that was hers alone. His fingers itched to try again.

      But he must attend to the civilities. ‘I will make us some tea.’ He started for the galley, but she reached it ahead of him.

      ‘I’ll do it.’ She swept aside the curtain covering the doorway and glanced around the galley. ‘There is very little for me to do. You’ve prepared everything.’

      He’d placed the kettle on the fire before she arrived. The tea was in the pot. She poured the water.

      ‘You must allow me to carry the tray,’ he said.

      She looked up at him with an impish grin. ‘Must I?’

      He stepped into the space. ‘I insist.’

      There was no room for both of them, but he thought of that too late. Their arms brushed as she tried to move past him and the mere contact with her caused Jack’s senses to flare with an awareness of more than her physical beauty.

      She faced him, their bodies almost touching. Reaching up to his face, she gently rubbed his cheek with her finger. ‘You have a black smudge.’

      Charcoal from his drawings.

      He grabbed a cloth and rubbed where she had touched, but he could not erase the explosion of carnal desire she aroused in him. He turned from her and picked up the tray. She followed silently as he carried it to where they’d been sitting the previous day.

      She sat in a chair as if that moment of touching had never happened. ‘Where do we begin? Do we discuss how to depict Cleopatra?’

      Jack murmured, ‘It seems a good way to start.’

      She poured the tea and handed him his cup. ‘What did you think?’

      ‘Of Cleopatra?’

      ‘Yes.’ She lifted her tea.

      He placed his cup on the table. ‘I was struck by her political ambition. I had not remembered the play that way from my school days.’

      She smiled. ‘Perhaps you were too romantic as a boy.’

      He laughed drily. ‘I dare say not, but I understand more of life now. Antony was motivated by passion, but Cleopatra was motivated by ambition.’

      She nodded. ‘I do agree. She betrays Antony twice. And I doubt she killed herself out of love for him.’

      He moved his cup, but did not lift it. ‘But his love for her led to his death.’

      ‘And to hers,’ she reminded him. ‘One could say she was a woman alone merely trying to make her way in the world and that his passion for her led to her downfall.’

      He thought of his mother’s situation. ‘The world has not changed much.’

      ‘Indeed,’ she said with a firm tone.

      He glanced into her face, remembering it was Tranville who played the role of Antony in her life, not he. The sun from the window shot shades of red through her auburn hair. The look she gave him in return was soft and companionable.

      Jack had to glance away. ‘It is an odd play. More a history than a romance.’

      She laughed. ‘It is a good thing. There is enough romancing from Mr Kean in the play as it is.’

      He glanced at her in surprise. ‘You do not like Kean as your leading man?’

      She shook her head. ‘Not at all. He smells of whisky and he is too short.’

      ‘The celebrated Mr Kean?’

      Her face puckered as if she’d eaten a lemon. ‘I dare say he shows more favourably in the theatre boxes.’

      Her frank tone made him relax and pushed thoughts of Tranville out of his mind. He felt as if they’d returned to Somerset House.

      They began discussing how Cleopatra might be depicted and if she should be seated or standing. Jack was impatient to draw her.

      She put down her teacup and sat on the edge of her chair. ‘Shall I pose now? Perhaps as Cleopatra on her throne?’

      She straightened her spine and raised her chin, instantly transforming herself into a haughty queen who looked down on the rest of the world.

      He was intrigued. ‘Hold that pose.’

      He moved his drawing table closer to her chair and placed a clean sheet of paper on its angled surface. He sketched quickly, using charcoal and pastels, not thinking, allowing the image to come directly from his eye to his hand.

      She remained very still, almost like a statue.

      He put that sketch aside and replaced it with a fresh piece of paper. ‘Stand now and move.’

      ‘Move?’

      He twirled his hand as an example. ‘Move around in front of me. Like Cleopatra would move.’

      The natural quick and graceful movements that had entranced him heretofore were replaced by a regal step, back and forth.

      He sketched hurriedly.

      ‘I feel a bit silly,’ she said as she crossed in front of him.

      ‘You do not look silly,’ he responded. ‘This is precisely what I need.’

      He tried her in other poses, seated and standing, producing ten pastel drawings that gave him ideas of how a final painting might appear.

      He looked through them.

      ‘May I see?’ She walked over to stand beside him at the drawing table, bringing with her the scent of rose water. She examined each drawing, one after the other.

      ‘Remarkable!’ She looked through them again, setting three of them side by side. ‘You were drawing so fast, I never dreamed you could make them look so much like me.’

      He sorted through them again. ‘They are still not right. I am not sure why.’

      He’d set his earlier sketches of her on the floor next to the drawing table. She saw them. ‘What are these?’

      She picked them up and went through them. When she came to the ones he had done after Somerset House, she looked up at him with a puzzled expression.

      ‘Some sketches I made earlier,’ he replied, deliberately vague.

      ‘These are different from the others.’ She stared at them. ‘I look…’ She paused. ‘Alluring.’

      He did not respond.

      She broke into a smile. ‘You drew these after the exhibition, did you not?

      He would not lie. ‘I did.’

      ‘I like them,’ she said simply and he felt himself СКАЧАТЬ