Enticing Benedict Cole. Eliza Redgold

throat above her collar was her cameo necklace tied with a black-velvet ribbon, a large stone, black and white, the carving in relief exquisite. But her elegant, obviously expensive boots were the biggest clue. And her ankles, which he’d been unable to ignore as she sat on the armchair, were equally elegant, with the delicate lines of a purebred filly.

      She was no orphan girl turned out on the street. Certainly there was a strength to her he’d noticed immediately, a determination that suggested an ability to survive, but there was also a vulnerability he found himself unable to define.

      The story she had told him. His mouth lifted at the corners. It had so many holes, that story, yet she struggled on, trying to convince him she was a girl who had no choice but to be an artist’s model. How did she expect him to believe her when her voice held no hint of the streets? True, she explained that by saying she’d been taken in by a genteel lady, but it hadn’t added up.

      At his easel he idly picked up a paintbrush, running it through his fingers. Explanations played in his mind. Nothing she told him made sense. Yet she intrigued him, captivated him. He hadn’t been able to believe it when she had lifted off her bonnet and eased the pins from her long black hair. As each silken strand was liberated, his heart had drummed faster and faster.

      He’d found her. He’d begun to think it wasn’t possible, that he might never discover a model for the painting of his dreams. Yet there she was, standing in front of him, slender yet strong. And her eyes. Shaded beneath her bonnet, they had looked grey or blue outside the door when he had first met her. In the light of the studio he’d discerned they were the rare shade of purple he had searched for.

      He’d already painted the background of the portrait in painstaking detail. It had been frustrating beyond belief to have an empty space at the centre of the canvas, waiting for the model to appear in order to complete the work.

      His grasp tightened on the paintbrush as he visualised her. It would be all too easy to respond to her as a man rather than a painter. Not only did the quickening of his body tell him of his instant attraction to her physically, but also the curious vulnerability he saw in her eyes had touched him. She was no hardened model.

      He laid down the brush and ran his fingers though his hair. ‘Trouble,’ he said aloud. ‘That’s what you are, Miss Ashe. Trouble.’

      A knock came at the door. Was she back again to elaborate on her story? He hoped she wasn’t planning to cancel the arrangement. With a frown, he realised just how much he didn’t want that.

      It wasn’t his mysterious new model standing there.

      A familiar husky female voice greeted him. ‘Hello.’

      ‘Maisie. You’d better come in.’

      She entered the studio with the sensual walk that so enticed her many admirers. It was a shame such a movement evaded capture on canvas, he often thought, though its sensuality had long ceased to tempt him. The appeal of Cameo Ashe’s awkward self-consciousness, on the other hand...

      Loosening the thick cream-coloured shawl she wore, Maisie dropped it lazily on the chair by the fire to reveal her blue dress, cut low at her full breasts. Her thick, corn-coloured hair curled. He’d painted her as Demeter, the Greek goddess of the grain, with her arms full of wheat. The ripe epitome of plenty was young Maisie. But as an artist he knew hers were the type of looks that faded quickly.

      Miss Ashe’s face flashed into his mind. Hers was a beauty that would stay the years, for it was in her bones and in her bearing. Puzzlement hit him again. Just who was she? And what had led her to him?

      ‘I came as soon as I heard you’d been looking for someone for your new work,’ Maisie said. ‘Why didn’t you come straight to me? Didn’t you want me to model for you?’ Her arms looped around his neck, giving him a full view of her luscious flesh. ‘No one else is as good as me.’

      He unlooped her clinging arms. ‘You’re not right for this painting, Maisie.’

      She pouted. ‘I want to come back.’

      With a smile she traced a teasing line from his chest down towards his trousers.

      ‘You walked out on me, remember?’ Benedict reminded her. More accurately, her affections had wandered, he recalled drily as he removed her hand, to another man who’d shown her more attention. Clearly that hadn’t worked out.

      Maisie moved her shoulders with a flounce. ‘Only because you’re always painting, painting, painting. It drove me mad. I wanted you to take me out once in a while.’

      ‘Painting isn’t just what I do.’ He’d tried to explain it to her many times before. ‘It’s who I am. I paint the way I breathe.’

      ‘But it’s so boring sitting here all day!’

      ‘Well, you’ve been spared that. I’ve found the model for my next work.’

      From the flare of jealousy in her eyes he judged she didn’t like that news. ‘Who is she? Annie? Jenny?’

      ‘It isn’t anyone you know. It’s someone quite new.’

      Maisie thrust out her chest like an indignant chicken. ‘Why’s she muscling in on our patch?’

      That was indeed the question, Benedict brooded. Just why did Miss Ashe want to be his model?

      ‘Never mind.’ He picked up Maisie’s shawl and gave it to her. ‘I have to work.’

      ‘What a surprise,’ she snapped crossly.

      At the door she turned and let the shawl fall away from the front of her dress. ‘You know where to find me, Benedict.’

      The door closed behind her and Benedict let out a sigh of relief.

      Models. He’d not let himself fall into a relationship with one again. When an artist painted a woman posed before him, he created an idealised version of her and, sometimes, that ideal enticed him into bed. But he wouldn’t be tricked that way again. He needed to concentrate, stay focused. He smiled inwardly. It was easier to paint without live models, but he was no landscape artist. Views weren’t enough for him.

      Yet Miss Cameo Ashe, with her mysterious mix of spirit and beauty, stayed in his mind. He picked up his pencil and began to draw.

      * * *

      Cameo lit another candle. The flame flickered, sending shadows dancing on the walls of her blue-and-white bedroom, newly papered in a flowered print, for her mama liked to keep up with the times. Just recently she had installed a water closet down the hall, exactly the same as Queen Victoria’s.

      It was the window seat in her bedroom Cameo loved most. The blue chintz curtains were open tonight, letting in the cool air. Through the windowpane a full moon outshone the fog, silvering the dark grey trunk and slender boughs of the ash tree outside. Sometimes, she heard the call of a nightingale in the square as she sketched through the night. Trying again and again, always aiming to improve. Attempting to make her hand recreate what was in her mind, in her heart. It was so hard, working alone. There was no one to share it all with, the triumphs and the failures. No one who understood that hidden, passionate part of her. No one who sensed the heat of her flame. Now, at last, even though it was a secret, she had a chance. To watch and to learn from a real artist.

      From Benedict Cole.

      She clasped her pencil. As his model she would spend hours in his studio, watching him as he worked like the apprentices of old and yet he had no idea of her true identity. There was so much she’d be able to learn, incognito.

       So you’re at my mercy.

      The sense of danger returned as his words reverberated in her brain. He suspected her, but she had to take the risk.

      Taking up a fresh sheet of paper, she stretched. She’d sketched for hours perched on the gilt chair in front of her dressing table with her blue-and-white china jug and basin, silver hairbrushes and bottles of scent pushed impatiently aside.

      A muffled