Her face flamed again.
She looked at his face last, which was the choice she had been putting off, and found him watching her with an intensity that made her want to whimper.
Because it reminded her of the kiss…of the feel of his mouth against-
Stop it.
“The line of your left shoulder is wrong,” she said, because it was true and because it gave her something specific to focus on. “You’ve dropped it. Both at the same height, please.”
He adjusted. “Better?”
“Much.” She began to mix, and the familiar smell of linseed oil rose from the palette. She breathed it and felt her body settle.
This was the one activity in which the world’s opinion of what she should be doing became irrelevant because the canvas was simply more interesting.
“You look different when you paint,” Anthony said, after a while.
“Do not move your face,” she said, even though her heart continued to batter against her ribcage.
The Duke of Wynford is naked. Anthony is naked.
The thoughts were a litany in her mind. She was not sure how her cheeks had managed not to explode with embarrassed heat just yet.
“My face is not moving. My mouth is moving.” He pointed to each body part in turn.
“Those are adjacent.” She worked along the angle of his jaw, translating it into something the brush could say. “Different how?” She asked, unable to rein in her curiosity.
He hummed, as though taking his time to think through it. “You look as though you’ve forgotten to be cautious,” he finally said.
Caroline snorted then. “Do you suppose I would be here with a naked Duke if I remembered to be cautious, Your Grace?”
Where she found the gall to joke about such a topic with him, she did not know, but she found that she did not think it improper.
He chuckled. “You make a good point,” he conceded.
She considered this for a moment, without stopping her brush. “But is that not simply what concentration looks like?” She rerouted to the point they were discussing.
“On other people, perhaps.” He paused. “On you, it looks like relief.”
She did not respond to this immediately. The brush moved, and the shape of him emerged on the canvas, rough and immediate; the way a person was present before their name arrived, as weight and form and angle.
“Does Lewis know you paint?” he asked, after a moment.
“He knows I sketch,” she said. “He thinks it is a suitable accomplishment. He has not seen the paintings.”
“Why not?” This was a question, but he did not phrase it so.
Demanding now, was he? But she found she did not mind very much. After all, he was…nakedin front of her right in this moment.
She thought about this. Outside, someone laughed in one of the other rooms; a broad, genuine sound that passed like a wave and then receded.
“Because some things are mine,” she said. “There are not many of them. The painting, the Latin I learned from Aunt Judith’s books without telling her, the opinions I have about things Ihave not been invited to have opinions about.” She added a touch of umber to her mixture. “The list.”
“The list,” he echoed, and his voice had something in it she chose not to examine.
“It sounds trivial,” she said, before he could say anything further. “I know it sounds trivial. A list of things.”
“It doesn’t,” he said. “It is the opposite of trivial.”