He stepped back and yanked at his buttons, lest he start shouting. She wasn’t asking him to temper any winds of anything for her, and she never would.
She stood there, her cloak hanging open and his scarf adorning her shoulders like some bishop’s stole. “That’s why you’ve taken me to task so much over my painting? You’ve carped and criticized because you think that’s what awaits me in Paris?”
The daft woman was smiling as if he’d given her some sort of holiday present.
“The French regard criticism as sport, Genevieve, and none are immune. Your gender, your birth, your looks—nothing will preserve you from their verbal violence if you cross the wrong Frenchmen in the wrong mood. They are utterly democratic in the sense that no one, not they themselves, not the masters of antiquity, and certainly not English aristos are spared when inspiration strikes—”
She stopped his ranting with two chilly fingers pressed to his lips. “Get your coat off, and let us find Eve’s present.”
So calm, and yet humor lurked in her green eyes. He was mad with worry for her, and she was amused. He pitched her cloak and his coat onto hooks, tossed his hat onto a sideboard, and let Jenny lead him through the gloom.
“This is a pretty little place. Was it part of your sister’s dowry?” And why, even when barely heated, did it have to smell so wonderfully of pine, cedar, and something else, something comforting—lavender?
“It was. Our grandmother thought, as the youngest, Eve might be older when she settled down, having to wait for her sisters to wed first. Eve got property, and the rest of us got competences, which have been invested for us. Westhaven has agreed to continue handling my finances for me after…” She started up a wooden stair. “After the holidays.”
Elijah followed her, resisting the urge to tackle her on the landing and make her say the words: After I leave everyone who loves me, and every comfort I’ve ever known, because I must be a martyr to my art.
She led him down a dim hallway then opened the door to a peculiarly cozy guest room.
“Ah, there it is.” Jenny crossed the room and picked up a little box done up in green velvet with red ribbon. “Eve was beside herself. Whatever this is, Deene had best appreciate—why are you staring at me like that?”
He closed the door and stepped closer. The room was unusual, built with a small balcony overlooking a conservatory that might have been added as an afterthought, hence its relative warmth and humidity, and the lush scent of foliage blending with all the other fragrances wafting through the house. “Looking at you like what?”
“Like… you just lost your best friend? Won’t it be wonderful to go home to Flint Hall, Elijah?”
Elijah was better than my lord, and because she seemed to need it, he lied for her. “Wonderful, indeed. Have you told your parents yet that you’re going to Paris?”
He had the sense she was waiting for him to leave Morelands first, unwilling to have his support even tacitly.
“Not… not yet.” She set the perfect little gift down. “Louisa says I must, and she grasps tactics with an intuition I can only admire. I wish…” Her gaze went to the elegant little parcel. “I wish…”
While Elijah watched, Jenny lost some of that distant, preoccupied quality that had characterized her since they’d finished their paintings. She gazed on that parcel as if it held secrets and treats and even a happy ending or two.
Once they completed the twenty-minute walk back to Morelands, they’d have no more private moments ever. He’d leave for London at first light; she’d sail for Paris, probably before the New Year.
“What do you wish, Genevieve?” Because whatever it was, he’d give it to her. His heart, his soul, his hands, passage to Paris—passage home from Paris. How he wished she’d ask him for that, but passage home was something she could only give herself.
“Will you make love with me, Elijah? You’re leaving tomorrow, I know that, and I shouldn’t ask it. I shouldn’t want it, but I do. I want you, so much. Please?”
Sixteen
Not touching Elijah Harrison over the past days had been the hardest thing Jenny had asked of herself, ever. Harder than admitting her mistake with Denby, harder than giving up Antoine’s instruction, harder, even, than watching her siblings find true love, one by one.
She blinked at Eve’s gift and expected to hear the sound of the door slamming. A lady would never proposition a gentleman, especially a gentleman who’d gently, even kindly, already rebuffed her advances.
A lady would never run off to the Continent and abandon every notion of familial support and love.
A lady would never curse, though if Elijah stalked away, Jenny was going to curse loudly and at length. Also weep, damn it.
A hand settled on her shoulder, bringing warmth and ineffable relief. “Woman, you will send me to Bedlam.” He turned her into his embrace, just like that.
“You’re always warm, Elijah. I love that you’re warm.” She also loved that he was never in a hurry—usually, she loved this—but she could not allow him to deliberate his way out of the last lovemaking she might ever experience. “You will indulge me, then? I didn’t plan this, not even when I realized the staff—”
He cradled the back of her head in his palm and urged her to rest her cheek against his chest. She felt his mind come to a rest, felt him give up on common sense and gentlemanly scruples, felt him relinquish for a time the struggle of being both protective and proper.
“I will pleasure you. We’ll let everybody think we traveled the lanes, and take our time with each other here instead.”
“We left tracks.”
“The wind and weather will obliterate them easily.” He spoke so gently, Jenny felt tears threaten yet again. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly and thanking the powers who looked after wayward spinsters that Eve had left her gift behind.
Jenny kissed him first, unable to tolerate the emotions washing around inside her. She wanted him, for Christmas, for herself, for her memories; this one last time, she wanted him.
And she wanted this stolen pleasure to last, so she kissed him slowly and gently, the way he often kissed her.
Gradually, his arms tightened around her. His fingers tunneled through her hair, and Jenny felt the solid, incontrovertible proof of his passion rising against her belly.
“Bed, Elijah. On the bed, please.”
“Not please.” He growled the words against her mouth. “You don’t have to beg, only ask. Never beg.”
With that, he heaved her up, boots and all, and deposited her sitting on the edge of the bed. This was fortunate, because Jenny had abruptly become breathless and a little stupid with the fruits of her boldness. She ran a hand over Elijah’s damp hair as he knelt at her feet. “I’m only being polite.”
Foolish words, but they made him smile, and Jenny knew then that this interlude, this purloined hour of passion, was going to be wonderful.
“You’re being insecure, rather, and you’ve no need to be.” He eased a boot off her foot then started on the other. “France will be good for you. French women do not suffer fools. They know how to enjoy themselves without guilt and hypocrisy, and French men—”