A Passion for Pleasure(56)
A sudden and sharp ache of tenderness constricted Clara’s chest. She averted her gaze from him and tried to focus on the painting.
Lock your heart lest you give him the power to damage it.
And with Sebastian, Clara knew, the damage would shatter her beyond repair.
She hurried to fall into step beside her uncle as they left the gallery and went back outside. The sunlight was beginning to dim and the shadows to lengthen by the time Mrs. Fox remarked that she ought to be returning home, and Granville summoned a cab for her. After she’d gone, he glanced at Sebastian before turning a worried gaze on Clara.
For whatever reason, her uncle’s concern eased Clara’s own apprehension. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d wed an ogre. Quite the opposite, in fact. She became acutely aware of Sebastian beside her, his tall, quiet presence comforting rather than fearsome.
She kissed Uncle Granville’s cheek. “I’ll call on you tomorrow, yes? I’ve still the sewing to finish for your dancing couple, and I’d like to start on the adornments for the next birdcage.”
“You needn’t—”
“I’ll be there at ten.”
Sebastian stepped aside to open the door of another cab. Granville squeezed Clara’s hands in farewell. Before Granville entered the cab, Sebastian lowered his head and spoke to the other man.
A breeze whisked the words from Clara’s ear, but Granville nodded with what appeared to be satisfaction, then clapped his hand firmly on Sebastian’s shoulder in a gesture of approval.
“What did you say to him?” Clara asked when Sebastian returned to her side.
“That I’ll contact your father tomorrow to discuss the matter of Wakefield House,” Sebastian said.
“Already?”
Sebastian nodded, brushing a coil of hair away from her forehead. “My brother’s solicitor has already started to draw up the papers. I told him to do so the day you proposed.”
“What if I hadn’t found the plans?”
A warm, wicked light flared in his eyes. “Then I would have devised another way to make you my wife.”
Darkness fell. Clara watched the curve of the moon melt against the sky. Her pulse shimmered through her veins, settling into the nervous beat of her heart. She slid her hand across the worn, wooden box resting on the table beside her and unfastened the catch. The tangle of ribbons inside gleamed incandescent, like a pearl embedded in an oyster.
Clara lifted the ribbons from the box, pooling them in a colorful mass on the table. The door clicked open behind her, and then she was no longer alone.
She turned. He wasn’t looking at her. His dark head was bent, a swath of thick hair covering his forehead, his attention on the knot of his cravat as he tugged at it with his left hand. His right hand remained at his side, the fingers curled toward his palm.
Clara allowed her gaze to wander over him—the breadth of his shoulders and length of his strong legs, the way his waistcoat hugged his lean torso, the drape of his coat, which had managed to collect numerous wrinkles over the course of the day.
A slight smile pulled at her mouth. Good thing she hadn’t expected him to deck himself out in all sorts of finery for their wedding night.
Not that she had, either. Until this moment she hadn’t considered he might expect her to wear a fashionable peignoir of silk and lace. Unnerved, Clara tugged her dressing gown more securely over her plain cotton shift and waited.
He twisted the catch of the pin holding his cravat in place. The fastening gave way, allowing him to tug again at the knot close to his throat. As the folds of cobalt-blue silk spilled into his hand, his eyes met hers. He pulled the silk from his collar and dropped it to the floor before approaching.
“From the studio?” He scooped the ribbons into his left hand and let them stream through his fingers.
“They were my mother’s. She had very beautiful dark hair and she loved to wear colorful ribbons.”
A cherry-red ribbon trailed from his hand as he held it against her burnished hair. “Do you wear them?”
“Sometimes. More often when I was a girl.”
She remembered that her mother had liked to tie the ribbons into Clara’s hair as well, how perfectly she was able to shape the bows. Clara cupped her hand beneath Sebastian’s, catching the tangle of fabric as it fell from his fingers. She dropped the ribbons into the box and closed the lid.
Sebastian’s dark gaze swept her from head to foot and back, lingering on the neckline of her gown, which exposed a shallow curve of bare skin. He was close enough that she could see the gleaming dampness of his hair, his smooth, clean-shaven jaw that she wanted to stroke with her lips.