Diamonds in the Rough. Portia Da Costa
Читать онлайн книгу.
opera figure, drenched in a wayward male glamour. Beside him she was the drabbest dark crow.
And yet...and yet the way Wilson was looking at her seemed to say otherwise. His blue-gray eyes, so pale and all-seeing, monitored every detail of her appearance even as she assessed his. And they were hot. Searing, despite their icy color, their devouring heat confirming what she’d felt at his groin.
How could he want her after what he’d said six months ago? And the way he’d scrupulously avoided any chance of being alone with her for seven years? He probably wanted any woman, and Adela had simply blundered unawares into his line of sight. Society talk—which she told herself was tedious and uninteresting, yet followed avidly—said that he and the famous Coraline had parted recently, so her randy cousin was probably just missing his regular quota of carnal pleasures.
Adela narrowed her eyes back at him, imagining her head clamped in place for a formal photograph. Wilson would not make her back down and look away.
“I see you haven’t improved your habits of dress yet, cousin.” She raked her glance from his toes to his shaggy head, schooling her face to not show the lustful feelings she couldn’t suppress. Far from a lady in that respect, she must not allow him to perceive her true nature, her dangerous secrets.
“I dress for rationality and comfort, Della, and to please myself. You should leave off your corsets and try it. You’d feel so much better.... Far less prone to fits of temper.”
Ah ha! How little you know, Mr. Clever Boots.
At home, Adela had abandoned her corsets. She’d happily embraced a rational form of dress, inspired not only by Mrs. Wilde and other lady aesthetes, but also by some of her free-thinking friends at the Ladies’ Sewing Circle. She’d joined the group just over a year ago, and found it a revelation, in ways she’d never have imagined. The loose, comfortable garments and lighter underclothing affected by some of the ladies were pure bliss after the restrictions of corsetry, and even better, through them she’d been introduced to a dressmaker whose charges were exceptionally reasonable. It was a lot less pricey to run up a lightly shaped “aesthetic” gown than it was to tailor a formal, fitted costume.
Adela was trussed up now only because Mama had insisted, even if it did mean that her only “presentable” gowns were those left over from mourning her father.
“Women wear corsets, Wilson. It’s simply what we do. They’re an aid to good posture and they create an elegant silhouette.” Damn him, why did he provoke her to lie? And behave badly... Why did the way he looked at her make her suddenly long to rip the whole lot off, corsets, petticoats, drawers and all, just to make those silvery eyes pop wide? “And pray tell me what’s so rational about the juxtaposition of that waistcoat with that dressing gown? It’s sartorial chaos, an assault to the eyes and to the sensibilities of anyone with even the tiniest appreciation of good style.”
“Ouch!” Wilson clutched dramatically at the offending waistcoat, even while his eyes still seemed to pierce her clothing and lasciviously view the body underneath. “But seriously, you don’t need a corset, Della. You have immaculate posture and a perfect silhouette without one...and I should know, having seen it.”
Curse the beast! Why had she ever even hoped that he wouldn’t refer to their “incident”? Their tryst. It had changed her more radically than any other event in her life, but a thousand what-ifs made it far too painful to reflect on often. And she didn’t want to discuss it or refer to it now. Not with the one other person on earth who knew it had ever occurred. Her closest friends from the Sewing Circle, Sofia and Beatrice, were aware that there had been a boy, in her youth...but Adela had revealed only the most oblique details. She’d never spoken of what still sang in her flesh....
“Well, I’d be grateful if you’d expunge that sight from your mind, Wilson, peerless as you claim it to be. The incident during which you saw it never happened. I thought we agreed to that?” She edged toward the door once more, then faltered, shocked by Wilson’s expression. He’d winced, pain in his eyes and the taut, high lines of his cheekbones. It lasted only an instant, then disappeared again completely, eclipsed by a narrow, wolfish grin.
“I’m not sure I ever agreed to that, Della. But if you say it never happened, then it didn’t...or did it?” Slowly, lasciviously, his tongue touched the center of his lower lip.
Her heart thundering like a runaway locomotive, Adela yearned to escape. But somehow her muscles just wouldn’t work. Just the simple task of opening the door and exiting the room was a mountain to climb.
“Don’t go, Della.” His sharply angled face gentled, the look on it conciliatory if not precisely pleading. “Please stay a little while.”
It was dangerous. He was dangerous. He was a colossal hazard to her peace of mind in a dozen different ways...and yet he was as irresistible to her as he’d been those seven years ago.
And retreat was cowardice, too, something she despised.
But what was better, a wise coward or a valiant fool? Despite his blandishments, Wilson’s attention was most definitely straying perilously in the direction of her portfolio now and again, and if he saw its contents, she’d never hear the end of it for the rest of this weekend, at least. What he saw could become a weapon to wield against her almost indefinitely.
Wilson was shrewd. Brilliant, in fact. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he was probably a genius, one of the greatest minds in the empire. Yet even the simplest male thinker would probably be able to put two and two together, based on the evidence of her portfolio and her presence in this room. Her cousin was probably a hundred steps ahead of that already, portfolio as yet unseen.
Why, why, why did I bring it? I should have come only to look, not to compare, then sketched afterward in private. It’s not as if I can’t remember what I’ve seen....
But there were certain drawings reputed to be in the earl’s collection, special items of which pastiches had been requested. It didn’t do to disappoint her more discerning and extravagant customers.
Though Wilson would go to town on her having “customers” at all.
“So, will you stay...or scuttle off?” His pale eyes were narrowed again, as if he’d read everything passing through her mind. “Running away seems to be a habit of yours.”
That did it. Adela’s fingers tightened, ready to wallop him about the head with the portfolio, but in a massive effort of containment, she resisted.
“I will stay. Just for a little while. But only because I want to.”
“Capital. Now let’s inspect this toy of yours, shall we? It doesn’t seem to be working very well.” With a swift, tight, insultingly faux little smile, Wilson swept back to the desk and the praxinoscope that had amused her before his arrival, his silk dressing gown fluttering in his wake. He hadn’t forgotten her portfolio, though, that was certain, and in one portion of his devious, extemporizing mind, he was no doubt still speculating on its contents with typical Wilson relish. Adela tightened her grip, just in case.
Watching him, she almost wished she’d powdered her cheeks a little, as Mama had begged her to do. The praxinoscope’s picture strip was a risqué item, especially inflammatory in motion, and with her nemesis beside her a blush rose inevitably in Adela’s face. She braced herself for the equally inevitable ribald comment.
But for Wilson the scientist, and tinkerer with all things mechanical, a close inspection of the mechanism proved irresistible, thankfully. Reaching under the drum, he probed for a moment, then lifted it clear. Removing the picture strip, he set it aside and turned the circular container over to study it closely before shifting his attention to the spindle on which it rode.
“Hmm...most interesting. Not a bad example. But obsolete, of course. The future of moving images is photographic, utilizing perforated celluloid film.” For a moment he seemed apart from her, his mind turning over, sifting through possibilities in his grand passion for technological innovation. “There have been some exciting advances.... It’s an area I’d take a crack at myself if I had the time,