Chapter Six

Louisa had known it was Henry before he had ever spoken. The air had changed as he approached; her heart leapt in her chest, and her stomach flopped in acknowledgement. No matter what she felt, her body remembered the feel of his proximity.

As she glanced at his face, the breath left her lungs at the violence in his eyes. For a suspended moment, a thrill ran through her. The Henry she knew, always in control, never had aspirations of violence. He never hungered for revenge. Even when she had come to him with the news of Bolton's proposal and he had let her go, he had not been angry.

Yet here he was, cold the way ice burned. A shiver ran down her spine.

Mr Knight gave a thin-lipped smile and released her. Given the circumstances, there was nothing else he could do without causing a scene, and it was clear he did not want that. At least not yet—not until she had given in to his demands or made it clear she had no intention of upholding them. Until then, it behoved him to keep a low societal profile.

"Fear not, my lord," he said with a quick bow to Henry. "I have no aspirations in her direction." With a mocking glance at her, he departed, cutting through the crowd with unhurried ease.

Louisa turned her glare to Henry, who seemed not to notice as he picked up her arm, examining her glove as though he might find fingerprints there. "Did he hurt you?"

An unfamiliar feeling worked its way through her like a thorn, and she snatched her hand away. "Do all men consider it their God-given right to lay hands on me?" she demanded. "I decide who is to have that honour, Henry, and you forfeited your claim to it a long time ago."

Something flickered in the depth of his eyes, but she couldn't delude herself into thinking it was regret when he said, in an even tone, "I see you're perfectly well."

"Oh, stop playing the hero." She rubbed a hand absently along her arm. Knight's words played in her head, unable to put aside or ignore. Fifty thousand pounds by the end of the summer. Irritation prickled through her, both at Knight's presumption and now the lengths she would have to go to quash him before the rumours spread.

Henry watched her, a frown on his otherwise perfect face. Really, the expression was such a permanent one she might as well sketch it into being. Once, perhaps, he had known how to smile, but that time had long since passed if this encounter was anything to go by.

"Was he threatening you?" Henry asked, once again in a voice that promised violence. His gaze swept from her to the painting they stood before. Louisa held her breath as he glanced away, then frowned. Looked back. His eyes narrowed.

Confound it all.

She took hold of his arm and dragged him away from that godforsaken portrait and everything it represented.

"Now who is laying hands on whom?" he asked, but his tone was distracted, clearly still fixated on what he saw. Or what he thought he saw.

Of all the people in England to interfere, it had to be one of the few people left on this earth who could have identified her painting style.

She came to a window at the far end of the drawing room and released him. Outside, it was dark, and the glass reflected their watery likenesses back at them. Her brown hair and burgundy dress, blurred and smudged as though someone had rubbed their thumb across her reflection. She did not look at his.

"So," he said, returning his gaze to her. "Is this the moment you tell me you had everything under control?"

"Stop it, Henry. You know you had no right to interfere."

"Naturally. No right whatsoever. No doubt you were on the verge of removing his hands from you when I intervened."

She narrowed her eyes. "Jealous?"

"Not in the slightest."

"If he were one of my lovers, what then? Would you revoke your noble attempts to save me?"

She may have been mistaken, but it seemed as though he flinched. "It would not be the first time I've encountered one of your lovers," he said, face impassive once more.

"No doubt you disapprove."

"Just as I cannot guess your motivations, Louisa, you are not privy to my thoughts." His mouth pressed into a thin line, and she cursed the stroke of fate that had ever brought him into her life. For someone so unfeeling, he should have been painted in shades of grey. Instead, he had been sketched by a delicate, expert hand, the darkness under his eyes crafted to illuminate their brilliance, the starchy white of his cravat displaying the robust tan of his skin, his hair a rich brown in the candlelight.

His jaw clenched a fraction as he watched her, and she remembered Caroline's advice.

You should take another go at seducing him now, darling. Make him regret the day he ever slighted you.

Caroline had not doubted Louisa's ability to tempt him into bed, but the truth was, time had altered them. She was a widow, a trail of lovers behind her, and no longer the girl she had been. Regardless of how much he had wanted her then, she could not deceive herself into thinking he wanted her now.

Yet even so— even so— there was an urge inside her to take his face in her hands and press a kiss to his mouth, just to see if he would respond the way he once had.

A little breathless, she glanced down, paying attention to the burnished glow of his waistcoat buttons.

"Why was he threatening you?" he asked.

"That is my concern, not yours."

He nodded, a sharp gesture that felt like a punctuation, the end of something that had never really begun. He half turned as though to leave, then swung back to her and said, "Was it, by any chance, about the painting?"

Louisa gritted her teeth, narrowly suppressing the urge to do physical violence. "No."

"I see." He nodded once more. "I take it our host is unaware of its true artist?"

"Oh for heaven's sake ." Glancing around, she ushered him further into the corner and behind one of the tall navy curtains, shielding them from view. To her relief, the quartet broke into a lively jig.

Henry looked down at her, his face cast in shadow, and the past reared its head once more, her body remembering what it was to yearn for the feeling of his even before she knew how that might feel. She had wanted him so desperately, she had been half out of her mind.

His eyes glittered as though he remembered, too. It would have been so easy to close the gap between them. Her lips to his; her body against his; her will tangled with his.

If she did that, she would start a war that might never have a victor.

"If you must know, that is one of my husband's more famous paintings," she said, hands on her hips.

"Come now, Louisa." Henry's voice was low and his gaze didn't stray from hers. "Do you really expect me to believe that? I've seen your paintings."

"Ten years ago."

"And in that time, your style has remained the same, if a little more refined. And the way the feet point the same direction no matter where one stands—that is unmistakable." His nostrils flared as though a thought had just occurred to him. "Did Bolton force you into painting for him?"

"You of all people have no right to ask what my marriage did to me," she said, matching his intensity with her own.

Agony rippled across his face, though she must have imagined it, because the next moment, his expression was blank. "Does anyone except your illustrious friend know?"

"You are referring, I presume, to Mr Knight?"

He was silent, waiting for her to continue. The silence tactic was one she frequently employed, and it grated to have someone use it on her.

"No one else knows," she said through gritted teeth. "Even my mother is oblivious, though given her lack of interest in my talent, that is hardly surprising." The only thing her mother had done was mourn the lack of children Louisa had borne from her marriage.

"Presumably he is threatening you over it?" Henry sounded as though this was a foregone conclusion, and not a particularly troublesome one. Although there was still the hint of tension in his brow and across the hard line of his jaw, his words were matter-of-fact.

"Will you ?"

"Threaten you?" A hint of puzzlement entered his voice.

"Yes, Henry. Have you any intention of demanding something in exchange for keeping my secret?"

Disgust clouded his eyes. "What sort of man do you take me for?"

"To be frank, I no longer have any idea." She held his gaze, though it was like gazing into the sun. They breathed in tandem, breath mingling in the space between them. The ball was in full swing just feet away, but tucked away in their corner, she felt as though they existed in a different world, separated by a veil.

Just for a moment, she felt seventeen again, meeting a young man alone for the first time in her life and wondering with breathless anticipation what might happen if he tilted his head.

"Louisa," Henry said, his voice low, tortured, and she could bear it no longer.

"If you have no intention of threatening me, this conversation is over." Giving him no time to reply, she wiggled past him, her shoulder brushing his chest and her hand grazing his hip. He made no move to stop her, and she took another glass of champagne on her way past, tossing it back and wishing its effects would hit her immediately. Then she would not have to picture all the different ways that conversation could have gone.

Then she could forget that she had ever loved him, and that she still, despite all odds, wanted him.

If only she could learn to forget. But nine years of remembrance told her it would not be that easy.

Henry breathed through his nose, his head bowed and his back to the room. His body still pulsed with the awareness he had been at pains not to show, and even though she was gone, he could still imagine the faint outline of her in front of him, face upturned, eyes sharp and hard.

They weren't who they had been when they'd first met, young and foolish and so easy to tip into love. Time had crafted them into something different, and he no longer knew how to navigate this dynamic.

Complication . He had once used that term to describe her, not knowing at the time how true that would come to be. This was indeed a complication, and for more reasons than he could count.

It had been the work of a moment to identify the true hand behind the painting. Even if he had not heard Lord Bolton's name uttered in hushed whispers, he would have recognised Louisa's style from a mile away. She had tried to hide it, but it was alive in everything she did. Art was a living, breathing thing inside her, something he had never been able to understand, no matter what pains he had gone to.

That Bolton had taken advantage of this was his fault. If Henry had ever thought, all those years ago, that relinquishing her would have led to this, he would have acted differently.

The scope of what he had done, the full implications of it, were only now becoming plain. It was vile and he was, indirectly, responsible; he deserved to feel this crushing guilt just as surely as she hadn't deserved any of it.

But assisting in this was one thing he could resolve for her—a way of repaying the hurt he had caused. All he would have to do was exert enough pressure on Mr Knight that he retracted his threat.

Louisa would never have to know.

He had not saved her nine years ago. But perhaps he could save her now.