His Mistress, His Muse, and Other Madness: Steamy Historical Romance (Art of Love Book 3) by Charlie Lane

Author:Charlie Lane [Lane, Charlie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-10-01T16:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

He’d done it again, shown her in the most abrupt way possible that she was a hindrance, not someone he delighted in being around, but a burden he would be glad to be done with in ten or so days’ time.

Needing something to do with her hands to hopefully distract her from the roaring in her ears, she picked up the pencil and drew useless lines across the paper—up and down, back and forth, over the bumps left behind from her drawing on the paper above it. Which now resided in his pocket. How could he look at her as she sometimes caught him doing, hold her as he had this morning, and then stride away from her as if she were no more to him than … than a stranger on the street.

The pencil’s tip snapped, and she tossed it to the sofa cushion and buried her face in her hands with a tiny, almost silent groan. She knew she should not want him, shouldn’t want to be wanted by him, but he’d turned her inside out. She stood, tired of being alone in the room full of partners, tired of feeling like a burden, and—

Tripped over his satchel.

She cursed, steadied herself, and yanked the satchel off the floor, threw the pencil and notebook inside, and slung it over her shoulder as she stormed from the room. Where had he gone?

“Theo!” she cried out as she marched down the hall. “Theodore Bromley!” She poked her head into the three rooms on the right side of the hall, called his name again, without the honorific, again, so he knew where he stood with her. Then she moved to the other side and threw open the first door there. “Theod—oh. There you are.”

He sat in a chair by the window, slumped low, legs spread wide, one booted ankle crossed over his knee and his arms slung across the chair’s arms. He lifted his gaze above the edge of the book. What simmered there?

He snapped the book shut. “You were looking for me?”

She threw the satchel at him, and it landed mere inches from his foot. “You left that.” She held out her hand. “Give me my drawing back. I must have it to win the prize.”

“No.” He kicked his satchel under a nearby table.

She clutched her hands in her skirts. She could tackle him, pull the drawing from his pocket. A temptation, indeed. But she was a lady. Still. Somehow, after all this time. So she relaxed her hands and pulled a chair to face him, stole the notebook and pencil— No, it was broken, and she did not feel like mending it to a point. She grabbed the box of charcoal instead and laid everything out on the table next to her.

“Stay still,” she demanded. “If you will not give me that drawing, I will make a new one.”

He folded his hands together, studied her over his knuckles. “Few of the muses have any training in art. I doubt Pentshire will count having your work amongst mine against us.

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