Flirting With Forever by Gwyn Cready (new books to read TXT) 📕

beyond that obviously required more than her three-DVDs-a-month Netflix account was providing. Thank God for Natalie and her Latin temper. Cam hadn’t understood anything else, but that coño had been as clear as a bel .

Nel poked her head out of the adjoining room. “Al clear?”

“Ugh.”

“You smoked ’er!”

“I don’t think she was entirely persuaded. Though I suspect the newspaper across the snout wil keep her from trying that a second time. At least, it always did with my dog.”

Cam could hear the sounds of the royal entourage dispel ing into the distance. Sex, betrayal, the capricious powers of a king. It was a tale that would fit with ease into any book, and she wondered if she could reasonably refashion it for hers on Van Dyck.

The door cracked. Peter stuck his head in, looked from Cam to Nel , who was doing little twirls in Cam’s gown, gave Cam a hurried but grateful smile and closed the door again.

Cam eyed her bag, tucked careful y under the chaise.

There was no way she was going to be checking the phone with company around.

“You are not the first to pursue him, you know.” Nel grabbed a handful of the gray silk, admiring the drape.

“I am not pursuing him.”

“Many before Ursula and many after.”

Typical artist, Cam thought, though with a pang. He probably keeps a little black quarto somewhere.

“But none so much like Ursula,” Nel said. “Your hair is just like hers. Has Peter unpinned it?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“If you haven’t posed for Peter, I recommend it heartily.”

She dimpled. “There’s something about the way he looks at you when you’re lying there, swimming in silk. There’s simply no word for it.”

“Ogling?”

“What? Oh no. Not Peter. Peter would no more be moved by a pip than a sailor by water. He’s like a medico, he is. No, it’s what you see when he’s looking at your face.

You just feel so … so …”

Panty free? she thought fliply, but wondered if the real answer was scared.

“Exalted.”

“Exalted, eh?” Cam worked the image around in her head like a piece of mental bubble gum, but when it came to painters she had seen too many women abandon their common sense and then their clothes to find this pronouncement credible. Bewitched, perhaps. Exalted?

Unlikely. “I don’t suppose you ever posed for Van Dyck …

?”

“Davey Van Dyck, the theater manager at the Drury Lane?”

“Never mind.” This was getting her nowhere. She’d irritated a minor painter, crossed wits with Nel Gwyn, pandered her dignity in order to mol ify a king one mustache twirl shy of a Central Casting lech and smacked a duchess. Unless she was planning to write the Restoration version of Fawlty Towers, she’d done nothing that would take her closer to sexing up the Van Dyck biography.

Cam sighed and stood. “I guess we ought to exchange gowns.”

“Are you sure?” Nel gave her a mischievous smile. “

’Twil be far easier for Peter to get you out of that one.”

14

Peter waited until the king’s carriage disappeared into Bow Street, then turned and took the stairs two at a time, those stray ringlets of cinnamon and marigold playing a prominent role in his thoughts. He didn’t give a farthing about what he had scheduled or what Mertons would say.

Al he wanted was to return to that spirited flame-haired visitor who had saved his skin and find out more.

Mertons stood, Cossack–like, at the top of the landing.

“Peter—”

“I am official y done for the day,” Peter said as he brushed by. “Tel Stephen to cancel the Danish general. If the author arrives, my compliments, and he—and you—

may cordial y hang fire until the morn—Oh, Stephen, there you are. Do you hear?”

Stephen, who was deeply relieved to be keeping his position and had twisted poor Moseby’s ear until tears ran down the lad’s face, said, “Aye, sir. What about Nel ’s sitting?”

“Move the appointment to Friday,” he cal ed. “I shal finish the painting then.”

“ ’Tis an interesting thing,” Stephen said, watching Peter’s disappearing form, “the impact of color.”

Mertons frowned. “Pardon?”

“Hair. Some men favor