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implored. “If we watch her and just let her touch him for a few moments. She wouldn’t do him harm, I’m certain of it.”
    She looked so anxious, that it broke his heart. “She won’t even remember holding him.”
    “Marcus, I would like to try.”
     
    Oh, the man was a disobedient scoundrel!
    Venetia tossed her paintbrush into the water glass and slumped back in her chair. She fixed the canvas—and her recalcitrant hero—with a scowl.
    “You are supposed to be a blond war hero! Dressed in scarlet with a lethal sword at your side and an even more magnificent weapon between your thighs. You are not supposed to be a raven-haired earl with a wicked smile!”
    Goodness, she was raving at a two-dimensional man. And like the Earl of Trent, he was not listening to her.
    Her lips still burned from his kiss. A kiss he’d used to prove her innocence, a kiss that had shaken every fantasy she’d had about a love affair. She couldn’t forget it. Or him. Was this what lust did to a woman?
    Venetia balanced her elbows on the desk, taking care not to dip them in wet paint, and dropped her forehead against her hands. Four pictures started and in each one the male looked exactly like Trent. She’d even attempted a drawing of two voluptuous, randy courtesans exploring each other’s succulent breasts, her heart pounding as she drew, her throat tightening, but suddenly, in the background, a portrait of the sensual earl had appeared.
    She’d tossed and turned in her bed all night. Imagining him in her bed—without a stitch—kissing her, moving over her, parting her thighs—
    Her elbow hit her teacup. It tottered and before she could catch it, it tipped in the saucer. Tea sloshed over her picture. But what did that matter? Her career was over.
    Out of habit, she had come to her studio, picked up her brush, and painted to ease her confusion, to give her time to control her whirling thoughts. She had no choice but to forfeit her independence, but she didn’t want to give it up!
    It was more than just the money. She would have to slink back to the country. And do what? Become an eccentric spinster doing good works for the church? If she was a guest of the country gentry she could always peruse their libraries to see if they had copies of her books.
    She could marry. At twenty-four, she was on the shelf by London standards, but if she were very fortunate, a widower might consider taking her on. There was one in Maidenswode who had offered—he was fifty, fat, had eight children, and drank.
    To return to the country would mean hiding her paints in the stables, sneaking out to the woods to draw…
    She would have to paint in secret once more. After her mother had found that first portrait—of a nude male statue—painting had been forbidden. Her mother feared that it was the artistic temperament that made Rodesson so licentious. Olivia Hamilton had been horrified to discover her eldest daughter had been compelled to sketch naked men.
    Venetia stroked the ivory handle of her brush. What was he doing now, the roguish Lord Trent? Was he asleep, curled up with a woman or two in his bed? She could envision the threesome, with him sandwiched between, his groin pressed again a bottom just as it had pressed into hers, and the other woman would press her breasts and privates against his backside. His beautiful, sculpted backside—
    The ache wasn’t only in her quim—for some reason her heart ached too.
    If she were in his bed, in his arms, she could reach out and touch his bare back. Boldly trace the line of his spine down to his tight buttocks, to those iron-hard muscles she’d loved having beneath her palms.
    What if she’d dared to explore more?
    As though compelled, she bent and opened the lowest, deepest drawer of her desk. She should just shut it now. Instead, she lifted the first book from the stack. The rippled leather caressed her bare fingertips. Gently, she set it on the middle of the desk, so it wouldn’t make a sound.