A Scandalous Proposal. Julia Justiss

Her eyes narrowing, she gave the maid a sharp look.

      “Paella? How delightful,” Evan said.

      “’Tis Madame’s favorite,” Francesca confirmed, ignoring Emily’s pointed stare. “Also the beef with rosemary, potatoes and minted peas, and the fine rioja.”

      “Francesca, I’ll want a word with you later.”

      “Aye, mistress.” With a curtsey and a saucy wink at Evan, the maid withdrew.

      “You mustn’t scold her,” Evan said. “I asked her to fix your favorites this evening.”

      “You gave her money,” Emily said flatly.

      “Of course. I would rather dine with you than anywhere else in London, but I can hardly expect you to regularly feed one large, overgrown male.”

      “If you are my guest, I can provide for you. Perhaps not paella, rare beef and the finest of riojas.”

      “Please, Emily, don’t pull caps with me. You do a wonderful job providing for your household. Your company gives me such—” he caught himself before uttering the word joy “—enjoyment, I wanted to do a little something to express it.”

      “A little something?” she echoed, exasperation in her tone. “My lord, you’ve already chased away an abusive villain and saved me from being blackmailed a tidy sum monthly for the indefinite future. I think that’s quite enough.”

      “Do you place limits on the gifts you give a friend?”

      Lips open as if to pursue her argument, she paused. “No, I suppose not,” she admitted after a moment. “Unless necessity compels it.”

      “Then will you not permit me the same luxury? Please. You have worked diligently for so long. How can it be wrong for a friend to indulge you?”

      Seeing that wary look coming back in her eyes, he changed tack. “As for work, I’m impressed by the exceptional quality of your sketches. Did you not say you’d painted portraits while in Spain? Why did you choose not to continue painting here?”

      She took a sip of wine. For a moment, he thought she’d ignore the question. Finally, looking away from him, she said softly, “’Twas different in Spain, among strangers. My father was a—a wealthy man. He sent me to an exclusive school. Some of those who would commission portraits here might be his colleagues or acquaintances. Or former classmates of my own.”

      She didn’t need to say more. All at once he had a searing vision of what her life must have been. Cast out of the privileged world of bourgeois wealth because of her runaway marriage, unacknowledged by her husband’s apparently aristocratic family, upon that soldier’s death far from friendly lines, she’d found herself utterly alone in a foreign land with nothing but her talent and wits between herself and starvation.

      For an individual who had vanquished the dangers she must have faced to return and work as a servant for those who were once her equals would have been intolerable. Small wonder she’d chosen, despite her undeniable talent, to abandon portraiture.

      That she had managed to amass enough capital to return to England and begin a business was nothing short of astounding. Stirred initially by her beauty, he found himself even more fascinated by the resourceful, courageous character beneath.

      “Will you be offended if I express my admiration for how cleverly you’ve built a successful business?”

      “How could I be? When one lives solely by her own labors, she cannot help but feel gratified that a man praises those efforts rather than her sparkling eyes or raven tresses.”

      He stowed that tidbit away for later use. “I cannot recall ever knowing a woman so completely in charge of her own life.”

      She shrugged. “One does what one must.”

      “Was your break with your family that complete?”

      “It was absolute.”

      “Do you not think they might reconsider, were they to know you are home now, and widowed?”

      She laughed shortly. “My father could not tolerate being crossed. When he realized I had defied him and run away, he was—ungovernable. He forbade my mother to contact me, had my letters to her returned unopened. That he disowned me is certain; I don’t doubt he left orders in his will that even after his death, no member of the family attempt to communicate with me. Though, quite typically, he rendered such an order superfluous.”

      Her lips twisted in a bitter smile. “I chanced upon a distant connection in Lisbon a few years ago, and she was astonished to see me. It seems my father told everyone I’d died of a fever the summer I turned sixteen.”

      For a moment she stared sightlessly past him. Her voice, when at last she spoke, was a whisper. “I would have starved in the streets of Lisbon before I would have begged him to reconsider.”

      Then the intensity left her and she smiled faintly. “But enough of that. Can I not pour you some port while I…get ready?”

      Instantly the image that phrase conveyed sent the blood pounding to his temples and set his body aflame. Desperately he tried to reel back the passion he’d been riding all evening on the tightest of checkreins. “Th-there’s no n-need to r-rush,” he stuttered.

      Her purple eyes deepened to smoke. “Is there not? I find myself rather—anxious.”

      She leaned up, and the rest of his noble intentions shattered at the first touch of her lips. With a groan, he gathered her close and tangled his fingers in her satin hair, combing out the pins as he deepened the kiss. Her tongue met his, mated with it, then pulled away to caress every surface of his mouth. His hands slid down to her back, to the buttons on her gown, and jerked frantically at them. The soft sound of renting cloth finally stopped him.

      Heartbeat thundering, his breathing a harsh gasp, he made himself push her away. She looked up at him, her lips still parted and her eyes so passion glazed he almost lost control again.

      Hands gripping her shoulders tightly to hang on to his dissolving willpower, he dredged up a ragged smile. “S-sorry! I’m about to take you again like the gr-greenest of saplings. I expect you can’t credit it, but I used to account myself a rather slow and skillful lover.”

      She smiled, smoky, intimate. “Oh, but you are.”

      “Don’t!” He cupped her startled face with both hands. “Don’t say pretty things you think I want to hear. Tell me what you truly think and feel, or nothing. Promise me?”