Page 124 of The Muse of Maiden Lane

“Should I move higher?”

Color crept into his face, burning across his cheekbones. He nodded tersely.

She moved her hands further up his thigh, working the spasmed muscle with single-minded attention. She went no higher than the top of his drawers. She wouldn’t have dared. But she grew bolder as she continued her massage, helping herself to more salve, and switching to his other leg without asking permission.

Jennings stood back, arms crossed over his chest.

“Leave us,” Teddy said.

“But, sir—”

“Close the door on your way out,” Teddy added with a harsh rasp. Stella’s hand was still on his thigh. “I’ll call if I need you.”

The manservant grudgingly withdrew, uttering one last grumble of complaint before shutting the door behind him. His boots pounded down the hall, echoing toward the back of the house as he went outside to retrieve Teddy’s canvas and art supplies from the stable.

“You’d think he’d want the evening off,” Stella remarked, continuing her massage.

“He fears you’ll displace him entirely,” Teddy said.

“That’s hardly possible.” Stella could never summon the strength to lift Teddy from his chair. As for the rest of Jennings’s duties…

“How often is he obliged to do this?” she asked, running her slick hands over Teddy’s leg.

“Not often. Only when the weather changes, and I’ve been too long exposed to the damp.”

Her conscience twinged. “We shouldn’t have gone to the river. Not if this was to be the result.”

“A small price to pay for seeing you as you looked standing on the bank.”

She smiled slightly at his attempt at levity. But glancing up at him, she saw that he didn’t appear to be teasing her. He was looking back at her solemnly, his eyes unsettlingly heavy lidded, and his voice gone gruff at the edges.

“You’re still in your starlight netting,” he observed.

“There’s been no time to change.”

“Do it now,” he said. “The worst is over. And even if it isn’t…you can come back to me after.”

Her heart thumped heavily. She sat back from him, hands still sticky with salve. “I shan’t have any need to go in the first place. All of my things are here now.”

An odd expression crossed his face. Had he already forgotten?

“What did you think the new wardrobe was doing here?” she asked, gesturing to the heavy piece of furniture across the room.

He scrubbed the side of his face, briefly at a loss. “These last weeks, I haven’t noticed much outside of my painting, to be honest. Your portrait has occupied the whole of my thoughts.”

Standing from the bed, Stella crossed to the basin. She washed the salve from her hands. “Just the portrait? Not me?”

“They’re essentially the same thing.”

Stella wasn’t so sure. She went to the wardrobe and opened it. Her embroidered silk dressing gown was inside, along with her night clothes, underthings, and several of her day dresses. The remainder of her belongings were folded safely in two steamer trunks and a large leather portmanteau that had been sent over from the Maliks’ house. Stella had yet to unpack them.

She withdrew her dressing gown, silently debating whether she would take the trouble to put on a nightgown or simply sleep in her chemise.

The latter, she decided. It would be less fuss.

She cast Teddy another glance over her shoulder. He was massaging his own legs now, kneading the muscles, first in his right thigh and then in his left one.

He caught her eyes. “Having second thoughts?”