Page 19 of Real Earls Break the Rules

“Brandon.” The name flowed smoothly from her lips as if she were powerless to resist his charm.

He smiled. “See? It’s simple.”

That was the problem. Using his Christian name was a level of intimacy she wasn’t sure they should share.

“Please sit.” He motioned to a pair of armchairs before the fireplace. “Let’s talk first.”

She chose one of the leather chairs. He occupied the one opposite and stretched out his long legs. She dared a look at his muscular thighs before shifting in her seat and meeting his amused gaze.

Her blood pounded and her face grew warm. Had he caught her looking at him? She forced herself to breathe and compose her features.

“Smithson delivered the rest of your supplies. You needn’t worry about discovery. I trust Smithson, and he’s good at keeping what I require secret from my family,” Brandon said.

“Why would you need to keeps secrets from them?”

She was getting to know his sisters, and Helen and Caroline seemed like wonderful, progressive women to her. The dowager, on the other hand, intimidated Amelia. She might be four inches shorter than Amelia, but Amelia felt like a child being scolded whenever the woman glanced in her direction.

Brandon arched a dark eyebrow. She realized her question regarding his family sounded ridiculous. “Pardon. I didn’t mean to pry.”

Of course, he wanted to keep things hidden. From what she’d heard during her years at the print shop, all gentlemen of the ton kept mistresses. Hadn’t Vale’s own great-grandfather installed the very passageway she’d just walked through for that reason?

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” he said. “Smithson doesn’t help me keep courtesans or wild orgies secret, but rather my business dealings that the females in my family wouldn’t be interested in anyway.”

“I see,” she said, even though she didn’t believe him. Why would he need to keep his business dealings secret? Amelia recalled Lady Caroline’s fascination with the print shop they had owned for five years. Perhaps Caroline would be able to help her brother, not hinder him.

“Let’s settle our own business first.” He reached into his coat pocket, withdrew a letter, and handed it to her.

Amelia unfolded the foolscap and read. “It’s from Samuel Stirling himself. He’s agreed to five sessions upon my return to London.”

Her hand trembled with excitement as she stared at the letter in her hand. Stirling’s messy handwriting only added to her excitement. Her eyes lowered to his signature, and she recognized the distinctive swooping S’s from when he signed his own artwork. She was still awed by his offer to teach her.

“Just as I promised,” Brandon said.

She looked up and bit her bottom lip. His gaze lowered to her mouth. She felt an immediate sweeping pull low in her stomach. The excitement of the letter combined with the virility of the man sitting before her made her breath catch.

“It’s what I’ve always desired,” she breathed.

His eyes darkened a shade to a deep moss.

She looked away. This wouldn’t do at all. She hadn’t drawn a single charcoal line and already she was craving the forbidden. She cleared her throat and stood. “I often work on more than one painting at a time and plan on painting the Cuyp landscape and your portrait simultaneously. I thought to start with your portrait tonight. Have you given any thought of how you would like to pose?”

He rose to his feet. “What is your professional opinion as an artist?”

A reproduction of Michelangelo’s statue of David she had once seen in a museum rose in her mind. Magnificent in its naked splendor, the statue’s muscles and sinew had portrayed a beautiful male form. Her pulse beat in her throat, and she tried to assume an ease she didn’t feel as she faced him. She had been raised unconventionally in an artist’s household. Her father’s studio contained all types of art, including nude drawings and sketches, and she had studied them in order to sketch realistic people in her works. The print shop also had a vast variety of prints and paintings for sale, some of nudes or half-dressed subjects. But she shouldn’t be thinking of that artwork now. Not when the strikingly handsome Earl of Vale was staring at her and waiting for her response.

Her hands, hidden from sight, twisted nervously in her skirts. “Do you prefer any of the portraits of the prior Earls of Vale you had shown me?”

“I thought I discussed not wanting to look like them.”

Oh, you could never look like them. Not if she was the artist.

She was distracted when he reached up to unbutton and remove his jacket, then drape it across the armchair. Next, he shed his waistcoat and tossed it to join the jacket. Broad shoulders strained against the fabric of his shirt. She could make out muscles and a narrow waist where his shirt tucked into his breeches.

“What are you doing?” she asked, alarmed.

“All my ancestors are dressed formally. I don’t want to be remembered as earlish, remember?”

Had she ever used that term to describe him?