Read Stroke of Genius for Free Online Page B

bear. The man had her insides fluttering like a hummingbird.
    Each time she closed her eyes she saw that sketch again. How easily he recreated the nude female form in minute detail.
    How many women modeled for him like that?
    Plenty , she decided, uncertain why that knowledge should tighten her belly.
    She had to think about something else.
    Sunlight was flooding the atrium now. Architecture was surely safe.
    “Your home is beautiful.”
    “Hmm… Oh, the house. Yes, thank you.” He glanced up for a moment, then bent back to his work. “It serves me well.”
    Grace rolled her eyes. Everything was about him. What she’d heard about artistic types was true. Narcissism was their true religion.
    “I was surprised to learn from your manservant that you purchased your house.” She wiggled her toes since she had to hold her fingers steady. “It was my understanding that the finer families of London lease their dwellings, in case the neighborhood should fall out of fashion and they need to move to one more in keeping with their standing.”
    Crispin snorted. “In case it’s escaped your notice, I am not counted among London’s finer families.”
    “But you’re well-regarded. You move in the highest circles.”
    “A crow may fly with eagles but it doesn’t brighten his wings,” Crispin said in a clipped tone.
    “But everyone speak so highly of your work—”
    “As they well might,” he finished for her. “The ton fears me because I can render them as gods or goats with equal facility and they know it.”
    “Is that your aim? To inspire fear?”
    “No, fear is an unworthy goal.” He bore down on the paper, shading and cross-hatching the sketch. “My aim is power. Every man aspires to power that he may live as he chooses.”
    When Crispin lifted his eyes to her, there was no deference in his gaze. He had no respect for her wealth or her gender. He said and did exactly as he pleased with no thought for the rules of man or God. That stolen kiss proved it beyond doubt. If she’d met him in the cramped little alley without knowing who he was, Grace might have feared him.
    “However, if fear is the path to power,” he said with a shrug, “I’ll take it where it is offered.”
    Grace sighed. “If only there was a path to power for a woman.”
    “There is. I have several delightful female friends who have managed to maintain control over both their person and their fortune.”
    “How?”
    One corner of his mouth lifted. “They are top-tier courtesans who’ve been very judicious in their choice of patrons.”
    Grace snorted. “I meant a respectable path to power.”
    He frowned. “Ah, yes. I’d forgotten how superior pure women are. Tell me, how many languages do you speak?”
    “Well, my French is passable and—”
    “Any courtesan worth her salt is fluent in three or four tongues and well-read in all of them. Have you entertained any crowned princes in that Boston brownstone of yours?”
    Her mother had hosted a tea for the mayor once, but she supposed that wouldn’t count for much when measured against a royal guest.
    “A courtesan must be able to converse wittily and intelligently with philosophers and statesmen. In my experience, ‘birds of paradise’ are possessed of exquisite taste and sensibility. I’m pleased to name them among my friends.” He moved to another position to sketch her hands from a different angle. “What about that seems unrespectable to you?”
    “But a courtesan must . . .” Grace bit her tongue. She would not allow him to goad her into indelicacy. “I’m not ignorant of the world, you know.”
    “I’m relieved to hear it. But if that’s the case, why haven’t you recognized that you are already on the ‘respectable’ feminine path to power? You are pursuing it even now through my services.”  A cynical smile cut across his face. “The word about town is that your father’s fortune will buy you a titled husband. That is as powerful as a respectable woman can