Sinful. Charlotte Featherstone

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ ordered her to bring their hands to her face.

      “I don’t understand what this will prove.”

      “I want to paint you in my mind.”

      He found the soft curve of her chin, and traced his trembling fingertips over the downy skin. In his mind he saw unblemished peaches-and-cream skin. His fingertips skated over the bridge of her nose down to her lush mouth. She turned her head when he reached the corner of her lips. Despite his coaxing words, she held herself away from his touch.

      “Let me touch your mouth.”

      “No.” She tried to move away, but he held her to him and brought her forward, capturing her mouth with his. It was a soft, lingering kiss, just lips brushing, and his soul stirred.

      She pulled away, his lips kissing the air. “We can’t do this, Matthew.”

      “Why? Is there another?”

      “It doesn’t matter, does it?”

      He smiled and reached for her once again. “No, it really doesn’t.”

      “Matthew, stop.”

      “What color is your hair?”

      There was hesitation before she answered, “What does it matter what color it is?”

      “Because I want to know what color to visualize when I’m dreaming of you and your hair spilling over me.”

      “Please,” she whispered, “do not say such things.”

      “Why?” he asked, the fog from his fever lifting, giving increasing clarity to his thoughts. “Did I shame you by forcing your hand to pleasure me?”

      “You did not force me.”

      “But I did shame you?”

      The accusation hung heavy and he heard Jane leave the bed and walk to the corner of the room, her heels clicking against the floorboards.

      “Why do you run, Jane?”

      “I do not run.”

      “Aye, you do. Every time the rope that is wrapped between us pulls you closer to me, you pull away, untangling us.”

      “There is no us, Matthew. You’re confused. Febrile.”

      “There could be an us,” he replied, hating the desperation he suddenly felt flare in his breast. “Jane,” he whispered, “come away with me.”

      He knew he had caught her attention when he heard her movements stop altogether.

      “When I leave here, come with me. Let us explore this…this…whatever has brought us together. Let me paint you, pleasure you. Be my muse,” he added, tossing in anything that might persuade her to come to him.

      “Your muse?” she questioned.

      “Yes. I’ve done nothing but paint you in my mind with nothing but my fantasies. Let me see you with my own eyes. Let me paint my fantasies.”

      The door opened, and the sterile odor of Dr. Inglebright flowed around them. “Jane, the carriage is here. I ordered it ’round early. You’ve had a long night.”

      Hatred fused his thoughts. Was Jane the doctor’s lover? Wife? Bloody hell, he had not thought of her as anyone but his.

      “How very kind of you, Dr. Inglebright, but I will stay to finish my shift.”

      There was no feminine welcome in that tone. No gratitude, either.

      “I insist, Jane. There will be no argument.”

      “Very well,” she muttered, and Matthew heard the clicking of her heels on the floor once more. This time they belied her true thoughts. She was not happy to be ordered about by the good doctor.

      “Jane,” he called. “Sleep well. And you might do me the favor of reflecting on my offer.”

      The door swung shut, and Matthew sensed the doctor staring him down where he stood at the foot of the bed.

      “Lord Wallingford,” Inglebright growled, “you’ll be leaving us now, returning to your side of the city.”

      “Why didn’t you tell her?” he asked, feeling his heart sink back into the black depths of his chest.

      “Tell her what, that you’re a licentious rake who feeds off women and discards them when your amusement fades? Amusement, I have been told, that is rather dark, and decidedly not the sort of entertainment that Jane would find amusing.”

      Matthew growled, “Yes, why didn’t you tell her I’m a soulless bastard?”

      “Because it would have made you all the more attractive. Now then, my lord, your father has sent a carriage around to fetch you. The night men will make a litter for you—”

      “The hell they will. I will walk out of here on my own two feet if it’s the last damn thing I do. And the last thing you’re going to do, Dr. Inglebright, is give me Jane’s direction.”

      Chapter Six

      “Lord Raeburn to see you, milord.”

      Matthew looked up from his easel and over to the paneled door where his aging butler peered at him with rheumy eyes. The man’s fingers, gnarled with arthritis, gripped the edge of the door as he pressed his frail frame against the wood for support. He really was going to have to see to pensioning off the old retainer, and soon by the looks of it.

      “You may send him in, Thomas.”

      “Very good, milord.”

      “I had to come and see for myself, days holed up in bed, and without anyone for company. It must be the end of the world.”

      Paintbrush poised in the air, Matthew arched his brow in annoyance as he watched Raeburn, breeze into his studio. “I am well, as you can see. Nothing untoward after my brush with death.”

      “I do see. Incredible the way you can reconstitute yourself. Are you certain you’re human and not a vampire?”

      Matthew grumbled and motioned to the settee by the window. “Trust me, I would need more than blood to sustain me. Just toss the papers onto the floor. I haven’t the heart to ask Thomas to clean up in here. He and the rest of the staff are working themselves ragged.”

      “Slave driver, are you?” Raeburn chuckled as he lowered his tall frame onto the settee. “Working them to the bone?”

      “Had my father not decided to cut back my living expenses by nearly twenty-five percent, I would not be forced to run my household on the barest-minimum requirements. Hence, the servants may thank my father. It is his fault they have had to work their fingers to the bone.”

      Raeburn grinned and gazed into the hearth. A small fire burned in the grate, dispelling the chill in the air from the rain that had not СКАЧАТЬ