The Beauty Within. Marguerite Kaye

it by trying always to put you in your place. She is vulgar and brash and lonely, so she takes it out on you and your sisters. It is not excusable, but it is understandable.’

      ‘I hadn’t thought—oh, I don’t know, perhaps you are right, but I am not feeling particularly charitable towards her at the moment.’

      Cressie had been worrying at a loose thread of skin on her pinkie, and now it had started to bleed. Without thinking, Giovanni lifted her hand and dabbed the blood with his fingertip before it could drip on to her gown. He put his finger to his lips and licked off the blood. She made no sound, made no move, only stared at him with those amazingly blue eyes. They reminded him of early morning fishing trips back home in his boyhood, the sea sparkling as his father’s boat rocked on the waves. The man he’d thought was his father.

      With his hand around her slender wrist, his lips closed around her finger and he sucked gently. Sliding her finger slowly out of his mouth, he allowed his tongue to trail along her palm, let his lips caress the soft pad of her thumb. Desire, a bolt of blood thundered straight to his groin, taking him utterly by surprise. What was he doing?

      He jumped to his feet, pulling the skirts of his coat around him to hide his all too obviously inflamed state. ‘I was just trying to prevent—I’m sorry, I should not have behaved so—inappropriately,’ he said tersely. She should have stopped him! Why had she not stopped him? Because for her, it meant nothing more than he had intended, an instinctive act of kindness to prevent her ruining her gown. And that was all it was. His arousal was merely instinct. He did not really desire her. Not at all.

      ‘It has been a long day,’ Giovanni said, forcing a cold little smile. ‘With your permission, I think I would like to meet my subjects now, and then I will set up my studio. I will dine there too, if you would be so good as to have some food sent up.’

      ‘You won’t change your mind and sup with us?’

      She looked so forlorn that he almost surrendered. Giovanni shook his head decisively. ‘I told you, when I am working, distractions are unwelcome. I need to concentrate.’

      ‘Yes. Of course. I understand completely,’ Cressie said, getting to her feet. ‘Painting me would be a distraction too. We should abandon our little experiment.’

      ‘No!’ He caught her arm as she turned towards the door. ‘I want to paint you, Cressie. I need to paint you. To prove you wrong, I mean,’ he added. ‘To prove that painting is not merely a set of rules, that beauty is in the eye of the artist.’ He traced the shape of her face with his finger, from her furrowed brow, down the softness of her cheek to her chin. ‘You will help me do that, yes?’

      She stared up at him, her eyes unreadable, and then surprised him with a twisted little smile. ‘Oh, I doubt very much that you’ll be able to make me beautiful. In fact, I shall do my very best to make sure you cannot, for you must know that my theory depends upon it.’

       Chapter Three

      Cressie stood at the window of the schoolroom at the top of the house, and looked on distractedly as James and Harry laboured at their sums. The twins, George and Frederick, sat at the next desk, busy with their coloured chalks. An unusual silence prevailed. For once, all four boys were behaving themselves, having been promised the treat of afternoon tea with their mama if they did. In the corner of the room, a large pad of paper balanced on his knee, Giovanni worked on the preliminary sketches for their portrait, unheeded by his subjects but not by their sister.

      He seemed utterly engrossed in his work, Cressie thought. He would not let her look at the drawings, so she looked instead at him, which was no hardship—he really was quite beautiful, all the more so with the perfection of his profile marred by the frown which emphasised the satyr in his features. That, and the sharpness of his cheekbones, the firm line of his jaw, which contrasted so severely with the fullness of his lips, the thick silkiness of his lashes, made what could have been feminine most decidedly male.

      His fingers were long and elegant, almost unmarked by the charcoal he held. Her own hands were dry with chalk dust, her dress rumpled and grubby where Harry had grabbed hold of it. No doubt her hair was in its usual state of disarray. Giovanni’s clothes, on the other hand, were immaculate. He had put off his coat and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt most precisely. She could not imagine him dishevelled. His forearms were tanned, covered in silky black hair. Sinewy rather than muscular. He was lithe rather than brawny. Feline? No, that was not the word. He had not the look of a predator, and though there was something innately sensual in his looks, there was also a glistening hardness, like a polished diamond. If it had not been such a cliché, she would have been tempted to call him devilish.

      She watched him studying the boys. His gaze was cool, analytical, almost distant. He looked at them as if they were objects rather than people. Her brothers had, when first introduced to Giovanni, been obstreperous, showing off, vying for his attention. His utter indifference to their antics had quite thrown them, so used were they to being petted and spoilt, so sure were they of their place at the centre of the universe. Cressie had had to bite her lip to stop herself laughing. To be ignored was beyond her brothers’ ken. She ought to remember how effective a tactic it was.

      She turned her gaze to the view from the window. This afternoon, it had been agreed, Giovanni would begin her portrait. Thesis first, he said, an idealised Lady Cressida. How had he put it? A picture-perfect version of the person she presented to the world. She wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but it made her uncomfortable, the implication that he could see what others could or would not. Did he sense her frustration with her lot? Or, heaven forefend, her private shame regarding Giles? Did he think her unhappy? Was she unhappy? For goodness’ sake, it was just a picture, no need to tie herself in knots over it!

      Giovanni had earmarked one of the attics for their studio, where the light flooded through the dormer windows until early evening and they could be alone, undisturbed by the household. In order to free her time, Cressie had volunteered to take all four boys every morning, leaving Janey, the nursery maid, in charge in the afternoons, which Bella usually slept through after taking tea. Later today, Giovanni would begin the process of turning Cressie into her own proof, painting her according to the mathematical rules she had studied, representing her theorem on canvas. Her image in oils would be a glossy version of her real self. And the second painting, depicting her alter ego, the private Cressie, would be the companion piece. How would Giovanni depict that version of her, the Cressie he believed she kept tightly buttoned-up inside herself? And were either versions of her image really anything to do with her? Would it be the paintings which were beautiful or the subject, in the eyes of their creator? So excited had she been by the idea of the portraits she had thought of them only in the abstract. But someone—who was it?—claimed that the artist could see into the soul. Giovanni would know the answer, but she would not ask him. She did not want anyone to see into her soul. Not that she believed it was true.

      Turning from the window, she caught his unwavering stare. How long had he been looking at her? His hand flew across the paper, capturing what he saw, capturing her, not her brothers. His hand moved, but his gaze did not. The intensity of it made it seem as if they were alone in the schoolroom. Her own hand went self-consciously to her hair. She didn’t like being looked at like this. It made her feel—not naked, but stripped. No one looked at her like that, really looked at her. Intimately.

      Cressie cleared her throat, making a show of checking the clock on the wall. ‘James, Harry, let me see how you have got on with your sums.’ Sliding a glance at Giovanni, she saw he had moved to a fresh sheet of paper and was once again sketching the boys. Had she imagined the connection between them? Only now that it was broken did she notice that her heart was hammering, her mouth was dry.

      She was being silly. Giovanni was an artist, she was a subject, that was all. He was simply analysing her, dissecting her features, as a scientist would a specimen. Men as beautiful as Giovanni di Matteo were not interested in women as plain as Cressie Armstrong, and Cressie would do well to remember that.

      It was warm in the attic, the afternoon sun having heated the airless room. Dust motes floated