Page 8 of Temptation and the Artist

By the time she left Basil to change for dinner, she had resolved simply to enjoy the evening. Her heart, after all, had always taken care of itself.

In the passage, a faint, curiously familiar scent, caused her to pause and turn. Slight as it was, it drew her, searching for the root of its memory. She followed it to the staff staircase. Opening the doors, she found the smell grew a little stronger. It drifted down from upstairs.

The memory jolted into place. A similar bare staircase in Paris, an unknown, never seen man, whom she had betrayed.

She whisked herself away, letting the doors fall back behind her as she swept along the passage to her own rooms. She shoved aside the guilt she had learned to live with. It had been many years ago, after all, and the unmistakable smell of oil paints and turpentine came not from a rickety Paris tenement, but the comfortable hotel room of Stephen Dornan on the edges of London.

She had not brought a huge variety of evening gowns with her, so the choice was hardly taxing. She refused to spend too much effort on her toilette, for she was no young girl seeking to impress her chevalier. Still, Burton, her maid, announced her approval, and so did Basil when she swept back along the passage to say goodnight to him before dinner.

“I’ll look in on you on my way back,” she promised as she left him with the nursemaid, Ellen. She walked unhurriedly downstairs to the dining room, aware her heart was beating too fast for the occasion. Looking neither to right nor left, she crossed the foyer. From the sofa nearest the dining room, a male figure arose, and her heart turned over.

In evening dress, Stephen Dornan was stunning. She had known that, of course, from their stay at Dearham Abbey at Christmas. But now she noticed smaller, endearing qualities, like the speck of paint on his wrist and the unruly curl of hair to the left of his temple. His melting dark eyes focused on her entirely as he advanced, and, defeating her utterly, he smiled, deluging her with sunshine.

Chapter Three

Sir Oliphant Dornan was swaggering across the grand foyer toward his youngest son, his elder two on either side of him when a dazzling woman swept past them from the direction of the staircase.

Stephen, of course, being a perfect little gentleman, rose and bowed, though he was well beneath the notice of such a diamond. However, shockingly, the diamond stopped and gave the boy her hand. He smiled at her, placing her hand on his arm.

Sir Oliphant stopped in his tracks, throwing out both hands to force his sons to a halt, too. Before their eyes, Stephen and the beauty walked together into the dining room.

“Good Lord, has little Stephen made a conquest?” Clive, Sir Oliphant’s eldest, said in amusement.

“She’d eat him whole for breakfast,” Gordon, the younger, said contemptuously. “For some reason, she’s taken pity on him.”

“You’re missing the point,” Sir Oliphant growled, tugging their arms to haul them back the way they had come. As one, they retreated to the group of chairs near the front door and sat down in a huddle.

Sir Oliphant glared from one large, handsome son to the other. “I know he’s not a normal Dornan, but he is a man. And hardly as used to female attention as you two. Would you give up a woman like that to immure yourself in the country?”

“God, no,” Clive said fervently.

“Then is Stephen likely to abandon the chance?”

They regarded him with consternation.

Gordon said, “We’ll beat him into it.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Sir Oliphant scowled. “You are not children anymore. Neither is he, despite his namby-pamby hobbies. You won’t get his cooperation by beating him. You can’t even frighten him anymore, judging by the last time we all met.”

“What, then?” Gordon asked sulkily.

“Well,” Sir Oliphant mused, “he’s not going to walk away from her, is he? So, she must be induced to walk away from him.”

Clive snorted. “That shouldn’t be difficult. She’ll be off after dinner.”

“You always underestimate your brother,” Sir Oliphant observed, although he had been guilty of that same mistake. “She is the one who needs to be scared away.”

*

Dining with Stephen Dornan took her some time to get used to. Being the focus of such intense attention, without the relief of his sketch pad and pencil, almost overwhelmed her. Her heart fluttered continuously, as though trying to play with the butterflies in her stomach. She had never in her life felt so unsure, so…unanchored.

Only gradually, exchanging impersonal remarks about the food and the decoration of the dining room, did she begin to relax, recalling other residences, other dining rooms in her considerable travels. By the end of the fish course, they were exchanging amusing stories, and she was almost growing used to seeing him smile, even laugh.

Not that he was one of life’s chatterers. He had talked more while sketching her, which she guessed now had been to make her talk. That had been to do with his art, his profession. This was different. And she liked it even more. To have his entire attention was…intoxicating.

It was also a voyage of discovery. The man she had imagined living his life in quiet artistry in England, never journeying further afield than Scotland, turned out to be exceedingly well-traveled. He knew many of the same places as she in France, Spain, Italy, and central Europe. They had heard the same musicians in different cities at different times and admired the same art and architecture.

“You were studying your art?” she said once.

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