Chapter 31

A week after their trip to Smithfield Market, Torie woke up to her husband trailing kisses over her face. "No session at the

House this morning," he whispered. When she opened her eyes, Dom asked a silent question that she answered by wrapping her

arms around his neck and then her legs around his hips, because they'd discovered that tilting her pelvis at a particular

angle was...

Well.

"I thought I might show you the painting I'm working on," she said, once they were lying beside each other, sweaty and panting.

"Later." Dominic leaped out of bed. Making love invigorated him, whereas it made her want to sleep.

They took luncheon with the children, and when the twins departed for their daily visit to Green Park—although the mother

rabbit had so far declined to show herself—Torie brought Dominic to her studio. She felt foolishly shy. He'd seen her work,

after all. He thought it was meticulous, which was high praise from him.

She had begun a new study in her series on time. Rather than Persephone's dead flowers, she had chosen a black bowl full of

pink-tinged Malmaison roses. In her painting, one rose was toppling from the bowl, its petals barely touching the table. In

another moment, it would fall, but she was trying to suspend that moment in time.

"I know it's just a bowl of flowers," Dominic said, "but it seems to be a particularly eloquent depiction, if you could say that about roses." He turned to Torie. "Was that a stupid thing to say? I apologize."

Torie's heart was too full for words. "I'm no good at talking about my work," she managed, before she went up on her toes

and pulled him close.

"Because—"

He broke off.

Even though he'd become quite skilled at disrobing a lady, they were in too much of a rush for that. Dom stopped kissing Torie

just long enough to bend her over the settee, throw up her skirts, and slam inside with desperate force. She squealed with

inelegant pleasure, bracing herself, pushing back against his thrusts.

After the first urgent coupling, Torie found herself sitting on her husband's lap, riding him with languid grace, silk skirts

billowing around them. They made love slowly but greedily as Torie pressed kisses on his eyelids, his cheekbones, his lower

lip.

For days, she'd been fighting her instincts, telling herself all the love she felt couldn't be real. It was merely lust. The love she felt for Leonora and Clara was so very different.

She was madly possessive about Dom. Not that she was demanding to know where he was at all hours...

Though she would like to know where he was.

Yet she trusted him. In the dark of night, they had even discussed Gianna, his tempestuously creative mistress. "She was not

faithful to me," he told her laconically.

Torie drew the bedside candle toward the edge of the table, letting the circle of golden light fall on his face. It turned

his cheekbones into blades but didn't hide the disinterest in his eyes.

"You didn't mind?"

"I was actually proud of her."

"What?"

"It's not that we didn't take pleasure in each other, but I was a job, wasn't I? I thought she deserved a lover of her own."

Torie rolled closer, tracing his mouth with her finger. "Is this like you thinking that I had the right to jilt you?"

"No. Because I was desperate to stop you, and I didn't care what Gianna did. I did hope that she'd find a different protector,

but she enjoyed the notoriety of being my mistress."

Could it be love that made her admire Dom so much? Made her think that he was the most ethical, fair man she'd ever met—the

antithesis of her father?

It couldn't be love.

And it wasn't, because Monsieur Eustache-Hyacinthe Langlois arrived the next day, ushering in a week that culminated in Torie's

realization—once again—that her husband was an arrogant, condescending ass.

Not precisely unlovable, but she refused to consider the matter further. The smolder in his eyes when they sat at dinner together?

The sweetness of his kisses? His muscled thighs? The way his sweaty chest heaved after he rolled onto his back beside her?

She loved all those things.

But the man himself?

Absolutely not. Not if she wanted to keep her self-respect.

When Flitwick came to her studio and informed her that Dominic was at the House of Lords and unable to greet their new tutor, Monsieur Langlois, Torie pulled off her pinafore and hesitated.

Perhaps she ought to go to her chamber and put on an elegant gown rather than a plain dimity. She'd met French painters. They

were debonair, Gallic in their effusiveness and their elegance. At Royal Academy exhibitions, they were invariably clothed

in satin, their buttons embellished with gold leaf and their lips with red salve.

They firmly believed that English ladies were not only inept painters but inelegant to boot. Given Langlois's aristocratic

father, his breeches were sure to be silk and his hands free of paint.

Monsieur Langlois had been hired to teach the wife of an aristocrat and two schoolchildren how to paint "anything other than

rabbits." He would be roguish and nimble-fingered, likely to be even more patronizing if she didn't head off some of his criticism

by appearing as well-dressed as a French lady.

No matter how condescending he became, she had to keep in mind the rule she'd made up as a child: she could learn from anyone.

Each and every conversation offered an opportunity to learn something.

Given that it was easier to learn when one's teacher wasn't entirely scornful, she had to do a grand toilette . "I have need of Emily," she told Flitwick. "I must change my gown. Please escort monsieur to the nursery to meet the twins."

She paused. "Does he appear to have particularly fine sensibilities? Hopefully his English is somewhat deficient, and he won't

understand everything they say."

Flitwick's eyes crinkled with amusement. "I could not speak to his command of the language, my lady, but I judge Monsieur Langlois able to take the young master and miss in stride. My understanding is that the French are less devoted to decorum than we English, even finding outright vulgarity to be extremely humorous." He smirked. "The same is not true for our Queen Charlotte, of course."

"Certainly not," Torie said.

An hour later she was clothed in a gown of thick, lustrous white silk, with a transparent gauze overskirt embroidered with

an enchanting assortment of forget-me-nots. The bodice was low, with puffed sleeves fashioned from the same gauze that also

formed a curious roll at her neck, rather like an informal ruff. With it she wore her emerald ring and a pair of emerald earrings

that she had inherited from her mother.

"You are exquisite," Emily declared. "Would you like me to accompany you, my lady?"

Torie was perfectly aware that her lady's maid wished that she would dress elegantly every day, paying calls to everyone in

polite society so that her costumes and grooming could be admired. Esteem from a Frenchman was better than nothing.

"That would be very kind of you," Torie said. "I would be grateful if you could carry my reticule and fan, Emily. I'm worried

I'll rip this overdress as we climb the stairs." She carefully plucked up the translucent gauze and headed down the corridor

from her bedchamber toward the nursery stairs.

Now that she was properly attired, Torie was prepared for anything, from a testy Parisian who would have to be flattered into

his tutoring duties to a standoffish maestro who offhandedly threw out pearls of wisdom.

When she and Emily entered the nursery, the twins were standing by the window, focused on their easels. Langlois apparently wanted to start with fundamentals; they were scribbling with charcoal on foolscap. The Frenchman stood between them, looking intently at the twins' efforts. He was young, with a distinctly leonine yet careless beauty: tawny eyes and hair of the same hue, tied back in a simple queue.

Their new nanny rose, holding a pair of Valentine's breeches that she was mending, and dropped a curtsy. "My lady."

Torie smiled. "Nanny Grey, I do hope those are not the breeches that visited Smithfield Market."

"I'm afraid that I had to send those to be burned in the furnace, my lady. Master Valentine's velvet coat was salvageable,

but Miss Florence's went to the furnace as well, along with her gown and boots."

"I'm amazed you could save anything," Torie said.

Emily and Nanny Grey exchanged nods and smiles as the two highest-ranking women in the household after Mrs. Flitwick, who

held pride of place. Torie left them to have a comfortable gossip while she joined the artists.

Monsieur Langlois had turned from the easels to greet her. He was dressed without any pretensions to fashion. So much for

her prediction about silk breeches. His cravat was no more than a carelessly tied length of cloth; his shirt had no frills;

Torie couldn't smell any perfume, though she had to admit that Oddie's ability to produce over two hundred pellets a day—as

counted by Florence—overpowered other scents in the nursery.

"Lady Kelbourne, it is a pleasure to meet you," Langlois said, bowing.

She curtsied. "How kind of you to join us, Monsieur Langlois. I am much looking forward to your instruction."

"Come look," Florence called from the window.

Torie tottered across the room, irritated by the darling shoes that matched her gown. The heels kept tipping her forward;

a lady foolish enough to alight at Smithfield Market in these shoes would be stuck in the mire until rescued.

The Frenchman caught up with her at Florence's easel. "The children have put the cart before the horse, trying to paint a

rabbit before they are capable of forming a circle," he explained with impeccable English. "We shall begin with charcoal and

progress from there. They must develop an eye."

"An excellent plan," Torie said.

Valentine was intently drawing circle after circle before rubbing them out with a piece of toweling.

"I can't get them right," he growled, sounding suddenly like his uncle. "They are all lopsided."

"It may take quite a while," Torie said consolingly, stepping over to look at his efforts. "I expect you're already better,

and if you practice every day, you'll surely achieve a circle."

"I gave up," Florence said, pointing to her easel. "Instead I drew a ghost traipsing through a churchyard after midnight.

Do you know traipse , Torie?"

"I do," Torie said. "What are those black streaks?"

"Branches being wrenched from the trunks of trees by the howling of the wind. I'm going to do another one with a girl like

me exorcizing a ghost."

"How will she do that?" Torie asked.

"She'll firmly instruct him to go away," Florence said.

Just then, Oddie emerged from behind the sofa. In the last week, he had shown himself to be a friendly sort who liked to be part of the family.

"Come here, Oddie!" Florence called.

He obediently hopped in her direction while Monsieur Langlois jumped back with an expression that resembled a startled hare.

" Sacre bleu !" he hissed under his breath. He shot Torie an apologetic look. "In France, such creatures live in hedgerows and never in

a house."

Valentine looked up from drawing yet another lopsided circle. "Oddie is a member of the family."

Oddie halted to expel several pellets.

"Master Valentine, it's your turn to clean up after the rabbit," Nanny Grey said placidly from the side of the room. "Please

don't forget to use soap when you wash your hands."

Monsieur Langlois cleared his throat. "Perhaps you could tell me something of your technique, Lady Kelbourne?"

"My technique?" Torie had been distracted, reminding herself to thank Flitwick for finding such an excellent nanny.

"Your painting technique. Though perhaps you too are beginning in the art? Do share with me your goals for my tutorship, my

lady. Would you like to create watercolor landscapes? I do not know the fashionable art of painting on glass, but I am certain

we could work it out if you would like to follow the newest fashion."

Florence giggled, but Torie met her eyes and shook her head.

"I should like to know more of your practice," she said, leading him over to the sofa.

Which was where they were when the viscount came home.