To Love and to Loathe (The Regency Vows #2)(62)

He arched a brow. “Are you, then?” he murmured.

Diana resisted the urge to blush, of all things. “I feel that it’s the least I could do.”

“Ah,” he said, leaning forward again so that their foreheads touched once more. “All out of a spirit of charity, then?” He angled his head so that his lips brushed, whisper-soft, against her temple, and gooseflesh rose along the back of her neck immediately in response. “No personal gain whatsoever?” He ducked his head and pressed another featherlight kiss to the underside of her jaw, and she felt the hair along her arms rise. “How positively saintly of you, Lady Templeton,” he murmured, one of his hands moving on a steadily upward course toward her breasts.

“I just…” she began, with no clear idea of what she was going to say, and he slid away from her, all traces of seduction gone, and raised an inquiring brow.

“Yes?” he asked politely.

“I…” Her mind felt as though it could not hold two thoughts in it at once, so distracted was she by his proximity, the heat of his body, the scent of his skin. It was maddening—it made her feel positively itchy.

And was causing other, entirely unmentionable sensations.

“I would like you to let me paint you,” she blurted out. She was momentarily pleased with herself for accomplishing the Herculean task of stringing together a grammatically correct sentence in a reasonably calm tone, until she realized what the actual content of the sentence had been. She could not think what had possessed her to admit such a thing—it felt entirely too intimate, as though confessing her wish to paint him also laid bare the manner in which he had come to consume her thoughts.

Hastily, she added, “That is to say, you have a—a pleasing form.” She sounded like her great-aunt Mildred, who had lived to the ripe old age of eighty-eight, never wed, was always clothed in a prim gown of an indeterminate shade of dark blue, and had pursed her lips at anything even slightly suggesting carnal relations or physical attraction. To draw such a comparison, even in the privacy of her own mind, was somewhat lowering.

“A pleasing form,” Jeremy repeated.

“Yes.” She nodded briskly. “I think it would look rather well on canvas.”

He gave her a sort of scrutinizing look she didn’t like one bit, but she raised her chin and met his gaze steadily.

“I thought you didn’t paint portraits.”

“I don’t terribly often,” she admitted, “which is all the more reason for me to practice. I don’t like having such an obvious weakness.”

“You wouldn’t,” he muttered, but before she could respond to that, he barreled on. “And you’d like to use me as your… test subject?”

“Isn’t it rather in keeping with the theme of our current relationship?” she asked. As soon as she said it, though, she knew it wasn’t true. She didn’t want to paint him to practice her portraiture, though she certainly needed practice; rather, she wanted to paint him because he was beautiful, and far more complicated than she had ever given him credit for in all their years of acquaintance, and the thought of trying to capture even a fragment of that complexity was an almost irresistible challenge to her.

And neither was it accurate to reduce their entire relationship to one of physical experimentation with a willing partner; to do so felt entirely inadequate, a complete failure to encompass whatever this complicated, undefinable feeling was that seemed to grow between them whenever they were together.

However, she would rather have died than admit any of this to him at the moment. A week ago, she would have assumed he’d laugh in her face; now she knew him a bit better, but she thought that whatever his reaction would be—most likely born of pity—would still be more than she could bear.

“I suppose so,” he said in response to her question, and it took her a moment to recollect what she’d said. His tone was surprisingly hesitant, and hesitant wasn’t an adjective she normally associated with Willingham. Before she could respond, however, an expression of alarm crossed his face. “Wait a moment. The two things wouldn’t be… related, would they?”

Diana frowned. “What do you mean?”

Did her eyes deceive her, or did the Marquess of Willingham actually blush? He appeared to be struggling for words. This just kept getting better and better, really. “I mean—that is to say, I don’t wish to assume anything—I’m not trying to imply that you’d be in the habit of doing this—”

“Out with it, Jeremy,” she said calmly.

“You wouldn’t expect to be painting me, er, au naturel, would you?” He could barely meet her eyes; Diana wished she kept a diary, merely for the purpose of recording this entire conversation.

“Willingham,” she said in a voice of deadly calm, “are you asking if I intend to paint you in the nude?”

“Yes, damn it!”

She burst out laughing. It was not the laugh she usually employed at a social event—light and carefree—or the one she used when flirting with a gentleman—coy and throaty—but the honest, open laughter she tended to share with Violet, Emily, and her brother, and no one else. After a moment, she realized he was looking at her oddly, as though he had never properly seen her before, and it made her feel as naked as he’d been imagining himself in this hypothetical portrait sitting.