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

Mincemeat on the table and pudding between the ears, that’s their thought, though for my own part I haven’t found them to be cooks of any great sort. I myself prefer a brown-haired lass. They may not be the beauty of the room, but one can have a reasonable conversation with them. Ten years can seem ten lifetimes without that. But men like your cousin …” He shook his head and al owed himself a contented smile. “They can only spark to fire.”

Mertons blinked. “My cousin?”

15

Nel squealed behind the changing screen. “Oh, my Lord!

Look at the peacock feathers in this lining! It’s stunning!”

Cam was swinging the phone wildly in the air. If she could get three bars in the Carnegie’s lead-lined basement, why couldn’t she raise at least one bar in the seventeenth century? She was practical y pressed to a window, after al .

“I agree. They did a beautiful job.”

“Where do you go?”

Oops.

“You wouldn’t know it. It’s … it’s … in Bremen.”

“I never thought the Germans would come up with peacock feathers and silk. They’re more in the burlap-and-ironed-creases line, if you know what I mean.”

A knock sounded at the door.

“Come,” Nel cal ed without checking, and Cam yanked her dressing gown closed.

Peter stepped in, more diffident than he’d been earlier, and bowed. Cam thought she saw a flush on his cheeks.

There real y was something quite charming about him—

when he wasn’t being an ass.

Nel peeked over the screen. “Has the dragon departed?”

Peter smiled. “With Saint George at her side. Nel , about today’s sitting—”

She popped from behind the screen stil wearing Cam’s dress. “Peter, no more today. I’m tired of posing. Lend me one of your men. I want to have this dress sketched out for my dressmaker.”

“Wel , I suppose we can manage something for you. Ask Stephen to pass the word for Francis. He has a crack hand at that sort of thing.” He fiddled absently with a large green-stoned ring on his finger.

“Um …” Cam drew the dressing gown more tightly around her.

“You don’t mind, do you, Mrs. Post?” Nel said. “I know you mentioned something about posing earlier. Perhaps you can take my session.” She gave Cam a wink and sashayed out.

“Posing? You are interested in posing yourself ?” Peter’s brows rose. “I understood you to want a consultation on a landscape.”

Now it was Cam’s turn for flushing. “I-I—” She hadn’t real y thought much about it when she’d said it, and she certainly hadn’t thought she’d be here long enough for it to matter. What she wanted was a chance to return to the models’ room.

“Did I? No, ’twas a portrait of me I wished to discuss. I was imagining myself as Athena.”

At this his eyebrows nearly jumped off his head, though he quickly concealed his surprise. “Indeed?”

She had no intention of posing as Athena or anyone else, but the look on his face was enough to remind her why she’d never brought up the subject of posing to Jacket. She didn’t fit the mold of a classical beauty, and the inspiration she could provide from a creative standpoint was limited.

“Aye,” she said cool y. “I believe I saw a shield and sword in the adjoining room. Might we conduct our conference there as I try them out?”

“If you wish.”

She snatched her bag from under the chaise, and he led her wordlessly into the hal .

The models’ room was abandoned now, undoubtedly cleared during the duchess incident. When they entered, Peter paused. “Before we go on, I should like to thank you for your help. It was a daring action. Very spirited. I am most grateful. Though,” he added with a smal smile,

“smacking the duchess was perhaps a touch more spirited than I could have wished.”

“She cal ed me a—”

“Countess. I remember she was quite definitive.’”

“That wasn’t the word she used.”

“Aye, wel , we’re lucky the king has an appreciation for the absurd.”

“Oh, he’s a regular Mark Twain.”

“Who?”

“Er, my sister Shania’s son. A right comic lad, that one.”

His gaze flicked briefly to her now bare shoulder. Even with careful monitoring, the luxurious weight of the dressing gown’s fabric was making it hard to stay covered.

“I apologize,” he said. “You were kind to al ow Nel to borrow your dress, but you do not have to spend the wait in a dressing gown. I’m sure you must be cold. May I offer you

…” He looked around the room. In addition to the shield, spear and clubs, there were