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To her horror, she found herself blinking back tears. Anthony was looking at her with something very like horror in his own eyes.

“You thought I meant dine at table,” he said. “Lucy, you know that would be beyond madness. After my birthday, after I inherit, of course . . .”

“Things will be different.” She interrupted him with a bright, false smile. He looked agonized and paced a few steps, back and forth.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said. Then he swore, lifted the whiskey bottle, and caught her gaze.

“That will be different, at least,” she said. “You will be able to drink at your table.”

Awareness prickled over her.

“Ah,” she said softly. “Is that why you wanted to dine with me here?” She was looking at the bottle.

How could she make this mistake? Her mother’s mistake. How could she choose him when he chose that?

“No.” He shook his head. The glasshouse dimmed, a cloud running across the lowering sun.

“I wanted to dine here because . . . it’s the only place we can be.” He loosed a breath. “Jesus. Maybe that didn’t come out right either.”

“Regardless, it’s an important reminder.” She began to move briskly, tidying away her supplies, setting her brushes to soak. The days left to paint her submission were dwindling. She couldn’t afford to waste them. Whereas he was simply marking time until his birthday.

“Reminder? What reminder?”

She would not make her mother’s mistake. She would not allow an affable, handsome, woefully damaged man to become the center of her life. Not when that man was a black hole into which she could pour her love, her talent, until she had nothing left. Not when she already knew what it was like, the particular hell of feeling lonely in company.

“There’s nowhere we can be.” She kept her voice level. “You can be here with your whiskey; I can be here with my painting. Let’s not confuse the issue. Elsewhere, well, there’s no confusion at all. You are a duke, and I am . . .” She curled her lip, baring her upper teeth.

She’d achieved nothing. Could claim nothing. Artist. Seamstress. Niece.

“Lucy.” He spoke into the sudden, brittle silence. “Dine with me. Here, this evening. I’m not drunk, for Christ’s sake. Don’t punish me.”

“Poor Anthony. Punished by all. How do you endure so much hardship? We should send the little children of Shoreditch to learn fortitude at your knee.”

His face shuttered. She’d hurt him. Good, she’d intended to. Better they distance themselves from each other now. When he was thirty and could drink wine at dinner in glittering company, then sip cognac with fellow lords in a smoke-filled sitting room, he was hardly likely to remember the woman who’d provided a bit of distraction in his hideaway.

“I believe my aunt is making a stew,” she said. “But thank you for the invitation.”

He let her walk past, the bottle still in his hand. It wasn’t dramatic, no. It was just a soap bubble bursting. Her heart gone flat.

Chapter Fifteen

Lucy and Kate gripped each other as they stepped into the hall of Augustus Burgess’s studio-house on Holland Park Road. Every surface glowed with ornament: gilt, porphyry, and glass dazzling the eye. His vast painting studio was at the end of a dark blue hallway lined with life-sized panels of dancing girls, arms upraised, dark robes flowing against the gilded background. Kate had to tug Lucy past them.

“It’s Gwen,” Lucy murmured, pointing to one of the painted figures, dark-haired and oval-faced. Kate bestowed only a brief, dubious glance. Lucy knew what she was thinking. The uninhibited posture hardly screamed Gwen Burgess. When they entered the studio and spotted her in the flesh, Lucy was tempted to think she’d been mistaken. The girl stood, stiff and unsmiling, at the edge of a rowdy, laughing crowd. She did not come forward in greeting. Instead Augustus Burgess himself broke off and welcomed them. Slight and dark, with hair falling to his shoulders and a face dominated by startlingly bright blue eyes, he looked the part of celebrated artist. When he extended his hand, Kate shook it forcefully, so Lucy followed suit, blushing furiously. The Augustus Burgess! He was far friendlier and more animated than his sister. His gaze strayed back to Kate and he studied her for a long moment, taking in her silk knee britches and velvet jacket, before grinning his appreciation. He ushered them into his circle of guests, among whom Lucy recognized several Academy students, including—her brow knotted with annoyance—Maude and Susan.

Kate had seen them too.

“What are they doing here?” she whispered, indignant. Augustus Burgess’s salons were exclusive, attended by famous painters of note and rising talents. Nobody would guess that, perusing this merry little assembly. Laughter pealed. Champagne flutes tinkled. Why, it might as well be a Society soiree! Three of the girls, at least, hailed from the Lower School of Painting. Had Gwen issued invitations in mockery? Where were the models? They were here to draw, were they not?

Several easels lined the wall at the far side of the room, and two others flanked the bookcase. Two men stood arguing in front of one of them, pointing at different corners of a large canvas. Not a sheet of drawing paper or stick of charcoal was anywhere in evidence.

Kate’s expression held all the perplexity Lucy felt and more.

Redcliffe Davis waved at Kate languidly. He was slouching against the ebonized mantel of the massive fireplace with Thomas Ponsonby, whose vibrant hair went perfectly with the design on the chimneypiece, a floral motif picked out in red and gold.

“I want a rematch,” he called to Kate. “You’ve been hiding from me.”

“The hell I’ve been hiding from you.” Kate glared at him. “You owe me five quid.”