The Wicked Baron Read Online Free PDF Page B

ladder. ‘I want to see you in your eyrie.’
    She felt the platform shake as he began to climb and she quickly collected up her palette and brushes out of the way.
    ‘So this is where you work.’ He crawled onto the platform. ‘Good God, how do you manage?’
    ‘It is a little cramped, to be sure. There is no room tostand and one has to work crouching or lying down. But it is easier for me, because I am so much shorter than you.’
    He pointed to the large roundel in the centre of the ceiling. ‘Is that your father’s work?’
    ‘Yes.’ She giggled as she watched him twisting his long frame around, trying to look at the fresco. ‘It is easier if you lie on your back, only you must not, of course. You will make your coat dirty.’
    Ignoring her warning, he stretched himself out on the platform. ‘Ah, yes, I can see it much better now. A god and his attendants.’ He shifted his position. ‘And the other roundel, the smaller one at the far end?’
    She slid down beside him and gazed up at the ceiling. ‘I painted that one. You are still too close to see it all properly; it will look so much better from the ground.’
    ‘It looks wonderful to me now,’ he said. ‘I am impressed.’ He rolled over and propped his head on his hand, smiling at her. ‘Now, when will you come down?’
    The frescoes were forgotten. His face was only inches from her own. What if she was to reach out to him, to take his face in her hands and pull him down to her, to kiss him ? The urge to do just that had been so strong she shivered. Such wicked thoughts!
     

    ‘Carlotta.’
    She jumped. No longer was she lying beside Luke Ainslowe on the high scaffold at Malberry; she was ambling through Hyde Park on her docile little pony. The rest of her riding party had moved ahead and, to her dismay, she found Lord Darvell was beside her on a sleek, long-legged bay. Her cheeks grew hot—had she conjured him with her musings?
    She had not expected him to seek her out after her performance at Prestbury House. She thought she had made her feelings perfectly clear, but here he was, smiling at her and causing her heart to flutter in the most foolish way imaginable.
    ‘We had no opportunity to talk, the other night,’
    ‘There is nothing I want to say to you, my lord.’
    She urged her mount to a trot, wanting to catch up with her party, but Luke’s hand shot out and caught her bridle.
    ‘Not yet, Carlotta. Allow me to enjoy your company for a little while.’
    She stiffened. ‘I did not give you leave to use my name.’
    ‘No? I told you I would do so. At Malberry, do you remember?’
    She hunched a shoulder. ‘I have no wish to remember Malberry.’
    ‘No?’ he said again, his slow smile slicing through her defences. ‘Why should you not—did you not enjoy our time together there? Have you forgotten that I commissioned you to paint me?’
    She stared ahead of her. Of course she remembered. She remembered every word he had spoken to her. She realised she would very much like to paint him, not posing statesman-like in a studio, but as he had been at Malberry Court, relaxed and reclining on the grass. For his brown hair she would use a base of raw umber and add fine brushstrokes to represent the blond sun-streaks—mixing in a little Indian yellow, perhaps. And his eyes—it would not be difficult to recreate their colour, like polished hazelnuts, but could she capture the smile that lurked in their depths, or the way his mouth quirked into a smile?
    Carlotta looked away suddenly. This was too dangerousa game—she was only a memory away from crying. She assumed a haughty look and raised her brows at him.
    ‘You would commission me, my lord? But it is well known you have no money.’
    ‘That will not always be the case.’
    She curled her lip at him. ‘But it is irrelevant, since I shall not be painting you. Indeed, I have no need to do anything, now.’
    ‘Perhaps not, but I thought painting was your passion.’
    She managed a tinkling