Page 10 of Temptation and the Artist

She set her napkin on the table. “Thank you, but no. I promised to look in on Basil, and if you must begin painting so fiendishly early, I shall need my beauty sleep.” Was she making too many excuses? Babbling?

If so, he didn’t appear to notice, merely stood and held her chair for her to rise. She took his arm and they left the dining room, crossing the foyer to the stairs. Conversation had dried up once more. The silence was charged, yet not unpleasantly so, which was curious. There was a great deal of the curious about Stephen Dornan.

They walked along the passage, and she stopped outside the door of her rooms. “Thank you for a wonderful dinner and a delightful evening, Mr. Dornan. I shall wish you goodnight and see you bleary-eyed in the rose garden at first light.”

“These are your rooms?” he asked in surprise. “I thought you would be at the end of the corridor, with Basil.”

“I came to hold a card party. I couldn’t have him disturbed by the noise, could I?”

Mr. Dornan’s lips curved. “Of course, you could not.”

She offered him her hand, though she had meant not to, just to keep the parting light. He took it and bowed, though to her surprise, he raised her hand to his lips in the European style and kissed her fingers. The touch of his mouth was light yet thrilled every nerve in her body.

“Good night, Princess. Sleep well.”

Her hand was free, and he strode back toward the staircase. Blinking, she took the key from her reticule with her tingling hand and opened the door. And walked into carnage.

Dornan had already walked away, but from old habit, she closed the door to prevent anyone from seeing. Only when it vanished into a sea of calm, accepting despair, did she recognize her main emotion of the evening had been a strange, unjustified hope.

But here it was again, the intrusion of her old life, some part of it at least. It seemed that would never be over.

“Burton?” she called to her maid. If whoever had done this had hurt Burton… She could not even think of Basil yet or she would go to pieces. The rooms were silent, but she had to know what she faced before she sought her son.

Going through the motions, she turned up the lamp and replaced the key in her reticule. At the same time, she took out a slim, efficient little dagger, more than half-hidden in her hand. Picking up the lamp, she took stock as she moved through the sitting room, stepping over a fallen chair, books and clothing, and packs of cards pulled from drawers. The doorway to her bedchamber beyond was strewn with clothing, hairbrushes, and even pins glistening among it. But she could feel or smell no other presence, not even Burton’s. She could hear no breathing other than her own.

Still, she kicked the clothes away from the doorway and shoved the door hard with her elbow. No one cried out or slid down the wall. The bedchamber was empty.

Nevertheless, she checked beneath the bed and inside the wardrobe before drawing the curtains and leaving in a swirl of skirts. Since the corridors were always dimly lit from the occasional wall sconce, she abandoned the lamp in her own room. But she held the little dagger firmly behind her reticule as she swept down the passage to Basil’s room.

That it was locked was some comfort. She knocked once, and the door was opened almost at once by Ellen. Here, everything was tidy and normal.

“Good evening, madam,” Ellen said. “He’s in his bed, but not asleep. I think he was waiting for you.”

Aline slid the dagger subtly back into her reticule and breathed again. She was able to smile quite genuinely at her son as she hugged him and kissed him good night. For whoever was responsible for ransacking her rooms had been attacking her, not Basil.

“Shall I send Miss Burton to you, madam?” the nursemaid asked.

“No, that won’t be necessary. You may tell her I won’t need her until morning. Good night, Ellen.”

With the worst of her fear relieved, there was nothing to do but return to her own rooms and start clearing up.

*

“You look tired.”

Not the words one most wants to hear from the man who thrills one with a single look.

“What am I to say to that?” she retorted. “I could not sleep for thinking of you?”

In the early morning light, he had already set up two easels and a little trestle table covered in paints, brushes, palettes, and small bottles. He wore not a smock but a larger shirt that hung over a pair of old breeches. He looked clean and fresh, though, endearingly, he seemed to have forgotten to comb his hair, which was a trifle unruly and flopped forward over his forehead.

“I would be flattered if you did,” he replied mildly, “but only if you meant it. Would you sit here?”

He picked up a folding chair that had been propped against a massive rose bush, unfolded it, and placed it for her on the grass. She sat since it was what she had come for. Then he touched her, adjusting the position of her head, and her breath caught.

His lips quirked. “Sorry. Bad habit.”

“Don’t apologize, I have never been stage scenery before.”

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