She observed all this in a heartbeat before Alec drew her closer still and kissed her.
The touch of Celia’s lips spun Alec out of his fury. The thoughts of the enraged Highlander shattered and vanished.
She was like cool water on a searing day, soothing after a ride through hell. Alec needed her coolness, the peace of her.
Alec Mackenzie would never have peace, but being with Celia could give him a taste of it. Her lips were soft and sweet, fine to lick. Alec nibbled one, liking how she started, how her body moved against his. She tried to catch his kiss and return it, but she was clumsy, having no idea how.
The arrogant duchess might pretend her daughter was a wanton, but Celia was no whore. She was innocent, but interested, and Alec would be her instructor.
His blood went incandescent at the thought. He slid his hand under her hair in its modest knot, sleek, neat. Alec wanted to loosen her hair from its pins, pull it free, let it cascade over him.
He settled for pulling her closer, slanting his mouth over hers, encouraging her to part her lips.
When he dipped his tongue inside her mouth, she jumped again, another fine crash of body against his. Alec touched the corner of her mouth with his thumb, teaching her to open to him.
She caught on, if hesitantly. Alec flicked his tongue over hers, wanting to laugh when she gave the barest flick in return. He swept inside, pulling her up to him, hope rising when she relaxed, her body surrendering even if Celia herself didn’t understand why.
Alec had been living like a monk since he’d left France, in spite of Lady Flora offering to send him to discreet ladies for satiation. He’d been too caught up with worry about Will to care about physical needs, and he could not trust himself to remember who he pretended to be in the heat of the moment.
But maybe he should have had a few dalliances, because he wouldn’t now have a heavy cockstand while kissing the innocent daughter of an English duke.
Celia rested her hands on his shoulders and then slid them around his neck, holding him. Alec drank her in, tasting sweetness mixed with the sherry she’d sipped. She grew bolder, moving her mouth against his, opening more.
Alec coaxed her into him, showing her how to caress without devouring. Devouring would come later, when he took her to his bedroom, locked the door against all comers, and tumbled down to his bed with her. He’d look upon this beautiful woman and be eased.
Celia drew back and turned her head, her cheeks brilliant red. “Please,” she whispered. “I can’t breathe.”
“Well, you’re not to hold your breath, lass.” Alec laughed softly as he smoothed the moisture from her mouth. “Kissing would never have caught on if we all dropped dead from it.”
“I cannot … I …” She pressed her hand to her stomacher, her breasts rising under her fichu.
Alec tucked his arm around her and led her to a ridiculously small settee with a curved back and legs. There was barely enough room for both of them to sink down, Celia’s brown and yellow skirts spreading over Alec’s thighs. Alec cupped her cheek.
“Better?”
Celia’s eyes were wet, candlelight shimmering on the green-brown of them. “I don’t know.”
“That’s the trouble with kissing. Ye sometimes forget where ye are—who ye are. Because it no longer matters.”
Celia’s lips parted as though she contemplated this. “Yes, I see what you mean.”
Alec forced down his laughter. She was a joy, and he hadn’t found joy in such a long time. “Shall we try it again, love?”
He rested his arm across the back of the settee, leaning into her. In this position, his cock could stay hidden and not frighten her.
“We should not.” Celia’s lips barely formed the words, as though her heart was not in the protest.
“No, we should not.” Alec gave her a gentle kiss. “But should doesn’t come into it. Only wanting.”
Celia nodded, her smile shy. “I think you are correct.”
Alec leaned closer, but Celia drew back in sudden apprehension. “My mother did not put you up to this, did she?”
“T’ have you caught kissing a defeated, vagabond Highlander? No, lass. This is all my own doing.”
“My mother has very odd ideas. I would not be astonished by anything, these days.”
“Poor lass. To have your trust taken so young.”
“I’m rather old, she would say. Nearly twenty-two and still unmarried.”
Alec smoothed her cheek. “Such a terrible thing.” He gave her another soft kiss, and then another. “Your husband will be lucky.”
Celia copied his brushes of lips, her response rousing Alec’s blood. “I shall not have a husband. I’ve given them up.”
He touched his forehead to hers, his heart light. “Good lass. They’re nothing but trouble. My brother’s wife will tell you so.”
Celia smiled into the next kiss. Alec smoothed her hair, dislodging her cap, letting his imagination soar. He pictured her in his bed, her hair spread across his pillow, her face softening as she drew him down to her.
Alec wanted that with a power he hadn’t felt in years. What was this young Englishwoman, a hated aristocrat’s daughter, his family’s enemy, doing to him?
Celia had certainly enchanted him. Alec kissed her again, then moved to lick the shell of her ear. He closed his teeth around her earlobe and suckled.
Celia made a warm sound, and then Alec felt her tongue on his neck.
Into the fire that roared in his ears, he heard the rasp of a latch and the cutting voice of Lady Flora.
“For God’s sake.” Heels clicked on the polished floor. “Not now. Celia, your mother is searching high and low for you. Cease kissing … Mr. Finn … before she bursts in here and finds you.”
Chapter 9
Celia jumped, tried to rise, and fell back to the settee in a flutter of skirts. Alec caught her, stifling his laughter as he helped her up and steadied her on her feet.
Bless the lass. Celia had driven away some of the hatred in his soul and returned Alec the painter, Alec the ardent lover. For that he’d be forever grateful.
Lady Flora’s icy stare flowed over them. “Mr. Finn, you will make yourself scarce. I suggest the back stairs. Celia, remain here and compose yourself. And straighten your cap. It is awry.”
After snapping her commands like a battlefield sergeant, Lady Flora swung away and strode out the door, the slam of it rattling the gilt-framed paintings on the walls.
Celia planted her hands over her face, her cheeks reddening, her eyes wet. But she wasn’t crying, Alec realized after a moment. She was laughing.
He caught her around the waist and pulled her down to the settee once more. Celia landed half on his lap, her laughter ringing out.
She had a beautiful laugh. Alec gathered her against him, basking in the vibration of it.
She smelled of sherry and spice, clean silk and linen. Alec kissed her neck, inhaling her beautiful scent. Celia made a soft sound in her throat, her hand on his shoulder relaxing.
Alec nuzzled the line of her jaw, kissed her cheek, and resisted kissing her lips. If he began that, he’d wrap her in his arms and never let her go.
“Lady Flora is right,” he said, brushing a kiss to her cheekbone. “Let’s have you neat as a pin before your mum finds you.”
“Botheration to the lot of them.” Celia jumped to her feet, no falling or fluttering this time. “I am a pawn, Mr. Finn, in my mother’s games and whatever Lady Flora is currently plotting. Do not look so amazed—Lady Flora is always plotting something. Well, I am tired of being a useful but easily discarded piece on their chessboards.”
Alec rose with her, her vehemence exhilarating. He’d worried for a moment that she knew about Alec’s and Lady Flora’s plans but then realized she spoke generally. Lady Flora was always scheming—it was how Will had come to know her.
He tugged Celia’s cap straight and tucked a stray lock of hair beneath it. “A pawn can bring down a king,” he said into her ear. “
Remember that.”
Celia slanted him a look, her eyes so near. “His royal majesty is in no danger from me. Even Lady Flora can not make me cross the line of treason.” She flushed. “Oh, I did not mean—”
“I for one am happy King Geordie remains on the throne. I was only a reluctant Jacobite, to protect my asinine brothers, little good it did me.” Alec gave her cap another tug and straightened her fichu on her shoulders.
He lingered as he touched her skin beneath the lace, and he couldn’t stop himself leaning down to brush her lips with the briefest kiss.
Celia’s mouth was pliant and warm. The kiss threatened to turn deeper, and only the hiss of a guttering candle reminded Alec not to lose himself.
He released her with reluctance. Celia’s lips parted, moist and pink, and her eyes held a quietness Alec needed. He longed with all that was within him to draw her into his arms and answer her silent plea for more kisses, but he forced himself to step away.
“I’ll leave ye now, lass. I humbly thank ye for your help. Come to lessons tomorrow, and I’ll have something special for you.”
Celia blinked, popping her mouth closed. “You are still willing to teach me?”
“Of course. I told you—ye have talent. It just wants bringing out.”
Celia took a step closer to him and lowered her voice. “Are you truly an artist famous throughout France?”
“Oh, aye. Commissioned by Madame du Pompadour herself to paint a rhinoceros for her.”
More blinking. “I beg your … Did you say a rhinoceros?”
“I did. Haven’t ye heard of her? Clara is her name. Brought back from India by a Dutch sea captain, and now she’s having a grand tour of Europe. I was commissioned to seek her out and paint her portrait for the royal collection. Louis is trying to bring Clara to Versailles, but I was sent forth in the meantime. Haven’t caught up to the beast yet.”
“I see.”
Her tone told Alec Celia did not quite believe him, but he spoke the truth. Clara was all the rage on the Continent and already had sat—or rather, stood—for several portraits. She’d even been modeled in porcelain at Meissen.
Celia shook out her skirts, sending a wave of brocade over Alec’s shoes. “Well, I must decide whether teaching a duke’s daughter is one step up or down for you from painting a rhinoceros.”
“Ye ponder that all ye like,” Alec said. “I already know what I prefer. Come tomorrow at the appointed hour, and see what you will see.”
“Not a rhinoceros, I take it?” she asked lightly then her eagerness returned. “Actually I’d quite like to see her. Do you think Clara will come to London?”
“I have no doubt. When she does, we’ll visit her, and I’ll fulfill my commission for the King of France’s mistress. She’s been installed less than a year and already wields more power than any queen.”
“The famous Madame du Pompadour?” Celia asked. “Or the rhinoceros?”
Alec did not contain his laughter. “Ye are good for me, lass. Ye keep me on this earth. I’ll be leaving ye now, before I kiss you again, because I very much want to. I doubt your mother would try to force you to marry me if she caught us.”
“Of course not. I’m only to fall for rakes if they are highborn and have grand estates.”
Alec moved himself to the door but for some reason, he couldn’t turn the handle to open it. He was highborn and from a grand estate—but he was also Alec the itinerant painter as he now pretended to be.
“God bless you, lass,” he said quietly, and finally made himself leave her.
His last glimpse of Celia, watching him with her hazel eyes, her hands in fists, her lips awaiting another kiss, did nothing to calm him. Alec took the vision with him up the back stairs to his chamber, kept it next to him after he kissed his sleepy daughter good night, and let it sustain him in the dark loneliness of his bed.
Celia’s hammering heart would not ease for the rest of the salon, so much that she feared she’d need a tonic. Just when she thought she’d calm, she’d feel anew the sensation of Alec’s mouth on hers, his tongue sweeping past her parted lips, and the hammering would begin again.
The Marquess of Harrenton’s disgusting kisses had been wet and intrusive. Alec’s were strong, warm, practiced. A man who knew how to kiss so a woman enjoyed it, how to make her feel beautiful and wanted.
Celia longed to hug herself, laugh, and spin around the room. She restrained herself with difficulty until the interminable salon was over, then again as she rode in the carriage the short way home.
Her mother had been annoyed at Celia for slipping away—apparently no one had noted her leaving, being too caught up in their own conversation. The duchess believed her explanation that she’d been overly warm and also distressed at the topic of discussion. Her mother agreed such subjects were too violent for a young lady, but it was Celia’s own fault for throwing away her innocence, and so could no longer expect to be protected from them.
Celia let her mother run on, paying little attention. Her thoughts were all for Alec, her Highlander. He’d worried her with his rage—she’d been certain he would slay every gentleman in Lady Flora’s drawing room—but his kisses had been tenderness itself.
Alec was a paradox. Celia had glimpsed the dangerous man inside him, but she wasn’t wrong when she concluded him a good father, with kindness in him. But then, his fury at the salon’s heartless conversation had revealed an untamed man barely contained.
Celia kept her speculations about what he’d show her at her upcoming lesson at bay during supper but let them run rampant when she lay alone in her bed that night.
For her first lesson, he’d bared his torso and dared her to draw it. Would he do such a thing again? Or perhaps more?
She shivered in warm hope. Alec’s body was a fine thing, all tightness and exact proportions. He’d had scars on his arms, deep ones, and now she understood why. He was a fighting man, one who had suppressed that urge to act as a drawing master to earn money for his daughter.
The Highlanders were to be reduced to dire poverty, she knew from listening to her father and Uncle Perry. She’d heard Uncle Perry go on about the Act of Proscription being worked up to take away their language, the plaid cloth that was their national dress, their customs, their land. Uncle Perry had spluttered that some fools in Parliament thought it too harsh. We need to bring those traitors under our thumb for once and for all, he’d snarled. As a younger son, Uncle Perry had no seat in the Lords, and when he’d stood for Commons, he’d lost, despite Celia’s father’s help, and so he was left to helplessly criticize other MPs and badger the duke.
But such measures would never take away the Scots’ pride. Alec had an arrogance that couldn’t be quelled, a power that would never be quashed. Celia recalled the brusqueness in Alec’s voice when he’d chided Lady Flora about his daughter’s nurse. Celia had been perplexed at his presumption, but now it was explained—he was used to command.
Regardless, Lady Flora’s capitulation was curious. Celia would simply have to watch and listen and find out everything.
Celia stepped out of the chair at Lady Flora’s at ten minutes to eight the next morning. She’d expected to feel embarrassed and worried after kissing Alec so heartily, but her stomach only fluttered in anticipation. Embarrassment was far from her mind.
The flutter increased when she entered the studio high above to find Alec already there.
He straightened from bending over a box about three feet long and one and a half wide on a stand in front of a window, though what was in the box, Celia couldn’t see. The large easel with a blank sheet of drawing paper pinned to it obscured whatever he was doing.
Lady Flora’s footman silently laid Celia’s portfolio on a table and withdrew, closing the door behind him.
Celia rested her hand on her stomacher, a silk concoction of blue with yellow ribbons woven through it. Her maid had tried to dissuade Celia from wearing the bright gown, its deep blue overskirt revealing a gold underskirt embroidered
with green vines. Celia’s mother expected her to make do with dark and unobtrusive garments now that she was in disgrace, but Celia had wanted to look well for Alec. Another reason for leaving the house early was so her mother would not see what she wore.
Alec barely glanced at her. “There ye are, lass. Come and see.”
Celia rustled to him, straightening the lace at her sleeves. What a peacock she was, wishing to strut before him.
Alec stepped aside to reveal the large wooden box on its stand. A flood of sunshine poured in through the tall window, warming the air.
Celia was no more enlightened about the box now that she could see it clearly. And to be honest, Alec was far more enticing to look at. He might dress in plain breeches, linen shirt, and dull brown frock coat, but the man inside the clothes held grace and sinewy strength. He was far more decorative than the dandies at Lady Clara’s salon in their bright velvets and gaudy jewels.
“What do you think, love?” Alec asked, watching her with amusement.
Celia started at the word love then tried to compose herself. “I think nothing. I mean—what is it?”
“My surprise.” Alec opened the box’s lid to show the back half of an empty chamber. The front of the box had a hole in it, which Alec had positioned to face the window.
Celia peered inside curiously. “Did it escape? I assume it wasn’t a rhinoceros. You’d need a bigger box. And it would need a larger hole.”
Alec’s rumble of laughter filled the air. “It’s a camera obscura. Have ye never seen one?”
“Truly?” Celia peered at the box with more interest. “I’ve heard of them, but no, I’ve not seen one.”
“Then let me introduce ye.”
Alec turned to a low table and opened a smaller box with velvet-lined compartments. He removed what looked like a telescope lens and fitted it into the hole in the box’s front. He took a rectangular mirror from the velvet box and positioned it in the back half of the camera obscura, slanting it to catch the light from the hole and throw it to the open top of the box. Then he fitted a frame with glass to the camera obscura’s open top.