Page 3 of Temptation and the Artist

“I would not ask that of you.”

A smile flickered across her lips. It did touch her eyes, too, though its meaning was well concealed. She personified the mystery of womanhood, and that excited him on every level from the purely intellectual to the artistic to the basely physical. As for his imagination…

“Then I agree. When do we begin?”

“Now, if you wish.”

She blinked, and he gave her a rueful smile.

“Which is where the slight impropriety sneaks in,” he admitted. “I could begin my sketches here or in the gardens, but I think we would both be distracted by the curious. And if our conversation is easily overheard, I will never get to know you.”

“You want to get to know me?” She sounded startled.

“I need to. If I am to see you as you are.”

“Are all artists so thorough?” she asked at last.

He shrugged. “A fleeting expression can be enough. It depends on the project. For mine…the paintings will be a study rather than the capture of a moment. Is that a problem?”

“I don’t know.”

“I will not ask impertinent questions or pry. It is you I wish to know, not what you have done.”

“Are the two not connected?”

“Perhaps. But whatever you tell me is obviously up to you.”

“It is what you see without my telling you that worries me.”

“I never realized you were afraid.” The words were out as he thought them, and he could not take them back.

Her eyes flashed. Her chin lifted. But she said only, “Everyone is afraid. Of something. Aren’t you, Mr. Dornan?” She stood, obliging him to rise with her.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Then, on that understanding, we shall proceed. You may take me where you will.”

*

“You may take me where you will.” It was, of course, a stupid thing to say, but around Dornan, she always seemed to have an irresistible urge to shock. Or just to make him notice her. Today, such tactics were quite unnecessary, for he suddenly had noticed her—and above the bevy of beauties surrounding him earlier in the rose garden.

And in any case, he only offered his arm in his usual polite, patient manner and led her to the staircase. He was a man comfortable with saying nothing, and she refused to fill the silence with questions or small talk that might make her appear more nervous than she was. Not that she feared Stephen Dornan.

He led her along the second-floor passage and around the corner to where four steps led to the doors to the staff staircase. To the right of the four steps, was another door which Aline imagined led to a cupboard. But it was to this door he applied his key and ushered her inside.

On the threshold she paused. “Well, I did say take me where you will. Somehow, I never imagined it would be to your bedchamber.”

“Look on it as my studio,” he said. “If you don’t mind. Perhaps, if your own rooms include a sitting room, you might be more comfortable there.”

“They don’t.” She lied from instinct because it intrigued her to be here. She walked in, gazing around her.

The room was at the back of the hotel, in a column that jutted out from the main structure of the building, so that it had windows on three sides. Apart from the furniture—bed, bedside cabinet, dressing table and wardrobe, a small desk, chair, sofa, table—a trunk full of paints, canvases, brushes, and other accoutrements sat open under one window. Several easels were piled in the corner.

“You chose it for the light,” she guessed. “Even though you planned to be painting in the gardens.”

“I am always working on something.”

“I noticed that at Dearham Abbey.”

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