Page 32 of Miss Devoted
Michael Delancey stood in the doorway to Psyche’s bedroom, his hair sticking up on one side, his feet bare. Jacob’s banyan was draped loosely about his shoulders, and his cheeks were shadowed with new beard.
“You let me fall asleep again. Mrs. Fremont, I am appalled.”
Psyche slogged to the side of her bed and stood, though leaving the warmth of the covers took fortitude. “You are an early riser. I am consoled to know you have at least that fault. I tried to rouse you last night, but there’s a look about a sleeping man that a model cannot achieve when awake. Then the hour grew so late I was unwilling to bother the staff to bring the coach around. Do not tell me you could have walked home. More snow fell last night, and your boots need new heels.”
He looked disgruntled, sleepy, rested for a change, and luscious. Wicked in the best possible way. “What time is it?”
“Early. You will not be late to work at Lambeth, but you will take the coach, and you will have some breakfast.”
He ambled into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. “Add to your list of faults that you are managing and devious.”
“Thank you. Hot wash water is on the hearth, and I’ll have breakfast served in my parlor. I can scare up Jacob’s shaving kit if you like.”
He rubbed a hand over a bristly jaw. “I cannot appear at the palace looking like a ruffian.”
The sight of Psyche’s flannel nightgown apparently discommoded Michael not one bit, though she admitted to a touch of self-consciousness.
“Ruffians will be in great demand among the ladies if they start resembling you, sir.”
He took Psyche’s dressing gown from a peg on the bed poster and held it open for her. She suspected he was trying as hard not to smile as she was.
“You need not feed me, madam.”
“Don’t presume to tell me what I need and need not.” She found the arms of the dressing gown, and he settled it around her shoulders. “I will extend the same courtesy to you.” She tried to flip her braid free of her clothing, but it caught on a button or crease or some such.
“Hold still. A thread is looped around…” Michael extricated her braid and stepped back. “I don’t want to impose.”
Even half dressed and with his hair sticking up, he exuded a certain gravity. Psyche smoothed that hair into a semblance of order with her fingers.
“I suspect it’s more the case that you don’t want to trust me, only to be disappointed when I fall short of expectations. One sympathizes with the dilemma, Mr. Delancey, but breakfast and the loan of a coach hardly bind you to me for life.”
Now he did smile, a half grin that went with his dishabille and attempted surliness. “Michael. If I’m barefoot in your bedroom when you scold me, you might as well use familiar address.”
Psyche rummaged in the drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe. “Jacob’s shaving kit,” she said, passing Michael a rolled-up length of chamois. “I’ll fetch the rest of your clothes from the studio.”
She left him holding the fancy shaving kit that Jacob had purchased in Berlin and stood for a moment in the chilly expanse of the studio. The first rays of morning sun would soon slant through the east-facing windows, a hard illumination that would be made brighter for all the new fallen snow.
The opposite of candlelight at midnight. A pitiless light, but good for revealing visual truths.
Psyche gathered up Michael’s clothing, allowing herself a sniff of his waistcoat. A hint of pine came through, and closer inspection revealed the need for some mending on a side seam. His boots would not last until spring without new heels, and tramping around on the worn variety had to be uncomfortable.
Left heel slightly more worn than the right. Jacob had pointed out to her that a gent never wore his heels down symmetrically, something her artist’s eye should have noticed.
She returned to the bedroom and found the banyan and Michael’s shirt draped over her reading chair. The man himself was behind the privacy screen.
“I’ll add your coat, cravat, and stockings to the pile on the chair,” she said. “I’m for breakfast in the parlor, and if you want so much as a cup of tea, you will not tarry over your toilette. Borrow the toothpowder if you’re so inclined.”
Michael stepped around the japanned screen, half his face covered in lather. “Steal the last cup of tea, and it will go hard for you. I have my limits.” He shook the razor at her in an admonitory fashion and returned to his shaving.
“I have my limits as well.” Psyche snatched the waistcoat back from the pile and made for the parlor, her mind awash in confusion.
She’d seen Michael without his shirt any number of times—without a stitch, in fact—but then he’d been Mr. Smith, a specimen recruited for life classes. Now he wasMichael, who had little patience with holy hypocrites and who teased her when half his face was covered in shaving soap. He did not shy away from her embraces and confidences, and he expected nothing from her but the coin he’d earned.
“The problem,” she said, shoving her feet into a pair of slippers and getting out her sewing basket, “is that men and women are not supposed to be friends.” Hazel propounded that view, while Michael longed to emulate his parents, who’d apparently been very good friends.
Allies, partners, lovers. No bargain other than to love and be loved. The mind boggled.
“Have you stolen the last cup?” Michael asked, closing the bedroom door behind him. “Somebody purloined my waistcoat… And there sits the thief herself. What are you doing?”
