4. Chapter Four

‘You aren't thinking about that attic, are you?'

Blythe startled, then drew her attention back to Yvette, seated beside her in the opalescent beauty of the ballroom. ‘Yes,' she stammered. ‘I mean, no. I mean…' I was, but not in the way you might imagine.

‘Are you going to be this insufferable once you start your position?'

‘Unlikely. I imagine I will revert to the same old bore you met months ago.'

Yvette bumped against Blythe's side and smiled with warm comradery. ‘You are far from a bore. You have been an inspiration to me. I am going to miss you so much.'

‘An inspiration?' An awkward chuckle loosened and bubbled from Blythe's lips. ‘I am nothing special.'

‘Of course, you are. You move in a man's world with the type of quiet confidence that reminds me of the queen. You erode the old rules, not with a sledgehammer, but with your brushes and sponges. You think it's nothing, but to go out into the world alone, and forge an independent path, is extraordinary.'

Alone. After tomorrow, she would be. Of course, she would have Yvette when she came to town, and the friendships of the other women in the boarding house. But that sense of family and belonging that had been lost to her when her uncle died—would she ever find that again?

The Duke of Northumbersomething bowed before Yvette. ‘Miss Ashford. May I have the pleasure of the waltz?'

Yvette flipped out her dance card, shaped like a fan, and scanned its segments. ‘Unfortunately, I am already promised to Mr Bertram. But I have a vacancy for the polka?'

The duke fidgeted. Blythe stifled a giggle. Yvette regularly made such statements just to watch the men squirm. She knew they all detested the polka. ‘I would be so honoured,' he gritted out, then bowed, before retreating to the cluster of men by the tables.

‘It is insufferable having to wait to be asked to dance. To never be allowed to initiate,' Yvette said.

‘If you could approach anyone, who would it be?' Blythe asked.

Yvette scrunched her skirts, then, with a slight wistfulness, glanced across to the far side of the room, and with a heavy sigh, said, ‘Lady Lewellyn.'

As Blythe looked to where the bright young debutante decorated the wall with a couple of friends, she understood the weight of Yvette's confession. After all, she lived in a women's boarding house. It was not unheard of, at least in her world.

‘Maybe you should ask her anyway?'

‘You know I cannot.'

Blythe placed her hand against her friend's cheek. How she would miss her once she left. ‘Is dancing only for ballrooms? Is there nowhere in this ridiculously huge house where one could waltz?'

Yvette placed her hand over Blythe's, then leaned in close. ‘And if you could ask, who would you dance with?'

Blythe made a show of scanning the dancefloor, determinedly avoiding Julian. ‘Rembrandt is not in attendance. Nor is Titian. No-one here fascinates me.'

Yvette patted her hand. ‘Liar,' she said, then gathered her skirts and made for the other side of the room, to the wall flowers, and to Lady Lewellyn.

Blythe watched her friend for long enough to see her initiate a cautious conversation, then turned her attention back to the ballroom, no longer bothering to hide from herself that she sought Julian. In their almost identical uniform of black tails and white shirts she was unable to spot him amongst the other gents.

She fingered the embroidery of her second-hand dress. Yvette had helped her adjust it to a more modern cut, gathering the ample skirt into a bustle and lifting the train so that she felt at ease when she walked. She had bought it from a second-hand dress merchant in Haymarket and had spent long hours examining the patterns and scrutinising the stitching, all while imagining the hem sweeping the floor at Almacks, long since closed, or gracing the carpet at Queen Charlotte's ball, or entertaining the Duke of Wellington.

A shame she'd have to sell it when she returned to London. But she really couldn't afford to keep it, as even with a salary, she would have limited funds. And where would she wear a dress like it, away from here?

After the loss of her uncle, Blythe had become used to the realisation that her future would be one of work, so had applied for positions and done her best at private consignments, working diligently at the few opportunities she'd been given. And touching paint applied by masters, ensuring their legacy, had brought its own reward, although not one that filled her belly. Before now, she'd never really been quite so acutely aware that her work gave, but also took. Julian had loosened something in her, and her imminent departure felt less and less like opportunity, and more like sacrifice. Why could she not have affection, and her work? Why did she have to be so torn? She'd never much thought of children, but that didn't mean she wouldn't want them in her life, as an auntie or a friend. She wanted her career, more than that, she needed it, like air. She'd as soon be able to sever an arm as to abandon that part of herself. But why was the price of that solitude? Why did she have to be sentenced to a life where she could love her work, or another person, but not both?

‘Miss Flintwood, would you like to dance?'

Yvette had warned her that she could not refuse an invitation, but as Blythe looked at the manicured hand before her, and followed the elongated arm, over the broad chest, across the perfectly presented face to find Julian's sparkling blue eyes, she felt her stomach wilt, even as her heart lurched. She wanted to say no. And she wanted to say yes. He was wedged in her, a splinter in her psyche. She'd have to draw him out eventually, and in doing so, she'd bleed before she could start to heal.

But right now? She still had her beautiful dress. She still had her fake protector. She could dance in the illusion. Reality would rumble her stomach soon enough.

Julian swept her in a wide arc, before pulling her against his chest. His palm flexed against her waist, and she rested her gloved hand on his shoulder, like she'd practised with Yvette. Blythe knew how to dance—small gatherings at churches and halls dotted her few moments of leisure—but never had she waltzed like this. Her slippers, bought from the same second-hand merchant, were just a little too big, and one scuffed against the parquetry as Julian stepped forward, and she staggered back, pinching her toes to stop it from slipping off.

At the local dances, she felt deeply connected to the ground. Feet stomping, chords thrumming, the ground vibrating with movement and music. But in Julian's arms, she floated. The strings didn't do anything so intrusive as disturb the floor, and with her skirts billowing into the movement, they buoyed her.

Candles, lights, everything gleaming, Blythe savoured his insistent gaze, glorying in his focus, and while she wanted to look away, she forced herself to drink him in, like he was a masterpiece removed from storage and would soon be returned lest the light make him fade. Her shoe slipped again, and she muddled the next step. Julian braced her against his chest as she swayed. His hand snaked tighter, lifting her so that only the tips of her toes met the ground, like he might raise her from the floor and flip her through the motions like a rag doll.

‘Why are you dancing with me?' she asked, pointing her toes to find the floor. ‘I am no good at this.'

‘You are my daughter's friend. No one has asked you to dance all night. To leave you unattended would be to suggest I don't value you. When I do.'

Duty? Obligation? Or control? His answer gave no resolution, and the jumble of contradictions in her swelled. She craved the press of his chest, but then, hated its smother. Her body keened for his, all of her tingling in remembrance of his exquisite touch, but then he twisted her into a glide with more force than needed. She tried to keep her slipper anchored, but it came off completely and skidded a few feet away, turning in a graceless half circle on the parquetry. He pressed on, oblivious.

‘Julian, stop it.' She leant away to try and retrieve her shoe, but he caught her.

‘I'm just trying to help,' he said, tugging her tighter.

‘I don't need your help!' Her anguish roared with suppressed ferocity, and she pulled back and shoved his chest. He staggered. Around them, the chatter of the ballroom lulled to a hush, and eyes turned on them. Her breath caught, its loss squeezing her lungs and forcing her voice to a whisper. ‘I'm better off alone.'

She could have run to her room, with its sumptuous four poster and feather down mattress and heavy blankets, and all the comfort she would never know again, but her feet refused to walk that path. Instead, she thundered up the stairs, over the crisp floral runners, then over the slightly more worn carpets, the impossibly shabby rug that led to the library, to the bare wooden stair that led to the landing before the attic door.

Inside, she scrabbled at her bodice, her fingers still ridiculously steady and sure as each button slipped free. She threw it to the floor. Spinning her skirt, she tugged at her waist, not caring at the buttons that bust and popped under thinning thread, and she tugged at the ties and bows of the goddamn bustle and petticoats and layer upon layer of expectation and pretension. She clutched and clawed to rip it all from her body, yearning for her rough spun skirt that had been made by her mother and the comfort of lost days.

She hadn't ever wanted this; the attention, the dancing, the lust and longing. All she wanted was to care for struggling paintings, to work, but every day she had to teeter along a fine line between lewd looks and condescension.

Finally free of her dress, she flopped against one of the covered tables, exasperated.

Would Vermeer have treated her so?

Likely.

The door snipped close, and with her veins still pulsing with anger driven assertion, she looked up to find Julian standing just inside, his face lit by a candle that he sat on an old chair. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. This is all so unfamiliar, so…' His chest still heaving, he dragged his hand through his hair, the silver threads slightly more luminescent in the moonlit room. ‘That was the most extraordinary undressing I have ever seen in my life.'

She pushed herself from the table, and he propelled himself from the door, their collision in the middle of the room abrupt and sparkling. He kissed her face, her neck, her decolletage. She drank his breath, sucked his fingertips and grasped a handful of hair. She thirsted after his recognition of all her parts, of the woman who caressed a palette swipe of oil paint and stroked a quivering muscle with the same hand, whose mind could appreciate the artists lusting and the gifted brush, the combination of brain, and body and heart and mortality that was every inch her being. Julian tipped her back with all the gentle grace of a dancer, but rather than sweep her from her feet, he dragged his flat palm down her neck, over her chest, before pressing firm over her breast, where her heart beat for him, for her dead artists and for the connoisseurs and art lovers of the future.

‘Show me,' she gasped as he rubbed the rough cotton of her chemise between his fingers and with tense, steady agony, dragged his nails over her skin. ‘Everything. Show me everything.'

She untied his cravat, he worked at his trousers, she pushed his waistcoat and coat from his shoulders as he stumbled while removing his socks and shoes. She licked the line of his jaw, kissed him, nipped him, and when finally stripped to nakedness, he buried his face in her chest and inhaled with abandon. She scratched the restraint from her hair and burrowed out every last pin and comb and let them fall to the floor. She made to pull at her corset tie. Julian clasped her hand.

‘Would you stay like this?' he asked. She still wore her stockings, chemise and corset. ‘I may not survive all of you. And you look so decadent. So perfect. In fact…' He moved between the furniture, lifting heavy swathes of fabric and peering under them. Then he grasped the edge of a lushly draped stretch of white linen and threw it back to reveal a tall mirror with an ornate gilt frame. Grey spots lined its edges where rust was beginning to corrode. He rummaged some more, then dragged a settee from beneath an uneven jumble of furniture, its claw feet scraping against the wood with a light shriek. ‘You should see the masterpiece you are.'

Blythe went to his outstretched arms, expecting him to lower her to the lounge. Instead, he stilled her and guided her to stand before him. ‘Kneel,' he said. ‘On the cushion. Face the mirror. Do you see your perfection?'

Herself? She could scarce raise her eyes, and instead focused on the gilt trim.

‘Look. See your beautiful lines. The soft curves of your skin. The way it creases and holds your sweat and scent. You are a promise of heaven. If I could paint, I would pose you like this.' He pressed his body against hers, his rigidness between her cleft, his chest firm warmth along her back. He nuzzled into her neck, his arm bracing and when she wanted to melt and lie back, he held her in place. He gripped her chin and forced her eyes level with her reflection, as his other hand slipped between her thighs, pushed up her chemise to burrow into her triangle of hair. With slow deliberateness, he began to stroke. Blythe leaned back against him and groaned, shuffling her knees wider. ‘Look,' he demanded. ‘Or I will stop.'

She met herself in the mirror. With its speckled edges, and lacklustre gilding, it seemed the perfect frame for her, worn down thing that she was. One stocking ribbon had loosened and fallen, while the other slip of yellow still held its thin bow around her thigh. Her breasts pushed against her corset, and her mussed hair hung in thick, curvy waves. When Julian buried his finger inside her, she watched fascinated, almost as an onlooker, as her expression contorted into a type of tortured bliss. She wanted to hold the moment and watch forever but also wanted to swoop headlong into its embrace.

‘What will we call the masterpiece that is you? The delicious deflowering of Blythe? The innocent corrupted?' He half growled, his rumble rippling through his chest, and into her. Small slips of him showed behind her, a skerrick of his muscled thighs, a stretch of his chest. Tantalising snippets of his naked beauty, and although she stood central to the frame, she felt his energy and his direction. She was the model, yet he was the artist who sculpted and brought her to creation. His long dormant desires flaming for her alone.

She leaned back in his arms and tilted to take in his rapture, and his lust. She kissed him, full mouthed, completely uninhibited. ‘I think, the reawakening of Julian.'

‘Don't take your eyes from me.' He shuffled against her, and his cock penetrated her with tantalising slowness. She held his gaze in the mirror until an ache, at first mild, then more biting, rippled through her, smothering the ecstasy she had felt just a moment before. As she gasped, he groaned, pushed harder and held her still. Her face twisted with the slight agony, even as his melted into bliss. Then he withdrew with the same breathtaking slowness until just his tip teased at her, before re-entering her with languor. Again and again, he moved with the same steady pace, until her little gasps of pain became more throaty growls of pleasure, and when she cupped the back of his neck and pulled his lips toward hers, he began to move faster.

The energy, the connection, the overwhelming saturation of the feeling seeped into her every part. His teeth scraped her neck, and he nipped her earlobe. ‘You are so tight,' he rumbled against her, and his words sent an unexpected shiver through her, her cry a partner to his. ‘So wet. So goddamn ready for this, weren't you? Are you still sore, my fake mistress? Do you want me to stay slow, or would you like more?'

‘More, please,' she said, not even quite knowing what more might mean, but knowing that more of this couldn't be bad, in fact, it would be stupendous. More of Julian, of his hunger for her, his attention, she wanted to store it up and lock it into a new place, a special cavity within herself, one made just for him so that she could draw on it forever.

Julian grasped her hip, then placed a splayed hand on her back, between her shoulder blades, and with a guiding firmness, pushed her down, and slightly away from him. Her grasp caught the edge of the seat before she could topple, and with his next thrust, he filled her much deeper than before. He half howled, then caught her by the waist and thrust again. His thighs slapped the back of hers, indecent skin on skin, their bodies all animal instincts and half human desire. When she craned her neck to find him, he still held her gaze, and she whimpered at the terrific beauty of their coupling as reflected in the mirror, her body rocking in sync with his, her corseted chest catching air, his hands gripping her hard. He stroked her back with his palm, then followed the curve of her hips to bury his hand between her thighs, until he found that delicious little place there and stroked. She wanted to find words, find eloquence and structure to define the tumult, but her mouth shaped nothing but a whimper, and her brain screamed nothing but more, more, more.

It came on as a roar, a terrific shimmer that began where their bodies met and it seemed unfathomable that those small little places of connection could create such a fury not only inside her where Julian pressed his body into hers, but at every place where they touched. The lightening jiggered and raced, from her sex to her hips to his fingers stroking her. He pulled her upright so that their bodies aligned. He showered open mouthed kisses over her shoulders. Touch, sensation, all of it so blindingly good it bubbled into every extremity.

‘Let the feeling take you,' he breathed in her ear. ‘Let it dominate you. And let me watch.'

She held his stare for as long as she could, meaning to watch him as her body surrendered to the sensation, but the pull became too loud, too captivating, and Blythe let it draw her down. She still felt his body where his hands held her, where his cock thrust and where their skin touched, but she also fell into a heaven that was just her, all comfort and ecstasy, a magnificent, selfish throbbing that smothered everything. Stretching one hand behind her, she caught Julian by the back of his neck, and gripping to give her greater balance, she demanded more kisses, more of his passion and attention. Completely in his focus, she was central, the masterpiece, the star exhibit, and between the shuddering that overtook her in waves and waves of energy, her vision blanked and flickered, and she caught snatches of his expression as it morphed from lasciviousness to something softer. To wonder. To enchantment, and even rapture. And as the thrumming began to fade, she caught herself, face flushed, eyes bright, and she saw freedom, abandon, and while it should have terrified her, she also saw love. A love she knew she could not keep but still she held it and let it infuse her. No longer cold and scared, her love for him made her feel human, and vulnerable, and terribly alive.

Julian hitched her closer, and she bent again for him, with her head tilted slightly so that she could watch the moment of his release. The candle flickered, and with the shifting shadow, his fa?ade fell, and as he thumped into her, grunting, he said nothing but her name, Blythe, and maybe a curse. He pulled out, straightened, and pumped his cock, then he arched with a throaty roar as he spilled his seed over her thighs.

The yellow glow from the candle washed with the milky white from the moon, and the only noise in the attic was their raspy breaths. Julian slowly opened his eyes and caught her watching in the mirror. He took a slow inhalation and smiled. Not the friend. Not the fake protector. A lover. An equal, who both took and gave.

He mumbled something like stay there while I clean this up, searched through his pants and returned with a kerchief. Once finished, he slid onto the settee and caught her in his arms, pulling her against him. She curved into him, bracketing his body and resting her cheek against his chest.

‘I feel like a cad,' he said as his breath slowed. ‘A complete rogue. That is not how one should take a virgin.'

‘You know, I can't tell if you are admonishing yourself, or a little bit proud,' she said.

He planted a kiss on her forehead. ‘You see through me, Blythe. You see all of me. No one ever has made me feel so transparent before. Not even…'

She heard the bite in his tone as he pulled back a memory. ‘You can say her name. I won't be jealous.' She stroked his cheek with her thumb, then brushed a kiss onto his chin. ‘We all carry our dead. They don't have to be heavy.'

He said nothing, just pulled her tighter, and when she chanced a glance in the mirror, the old conflict had returned. Julian stirred. They dressed.

‘Would you like to leave first?' he asked, not quite meeting her eye.

‘You go,' she said as she gestured to the frames. ‘I would like to say goodbye.'

His silent kiss on her cheek warmed her after he had left. She took a breath and held his smell—leather, woodsmoke and grief—then exhaled.

She took up the candle, half spent, and scanned the room.

It was time to get to work.