He placed one hand on his chest, the dramatic gesture somehow restoring his equilibrium. It was easier to play the jester. No one expected as much from fools. “I am wounded,” he proclaimed. “I promise you, I was not going to say that my favorite subject was seduction, or the art of a kiss, or the proper way to remove a lady’s glove, or for that matter the proper way to remove-”

“Stop!”

“I was going to say,” he said, trying to sound beleaguered and henpecked, “that my favorite subject of late is you.”

Their eyes met, but only for a moment. Something unnerved her, and she quickly shifted her gaze to her lap. He watched her, mesmerized by the play of emotions on her face, by the way her hands, which were clasped together atop the table, tensed and moved.

“I don’t like this painting,” she said quite suddenly.

He had to look back at the book to see which image she referred to. It was a man and a woman out of doors, sitting on the grass. The woman’s back was to the canvas, and she seemed to be pushing the man away. Jack was not familiar with it, but he thought he recognized the style. “The Boucher?”

“Ye-no,” she said, blinking in confusion as she leaned forward. She looked down. “Jean-Antoine Watteau,” she read. “The Faux Pas.”

He looked down more closely. “Sorry,” he said, his voice light. “I’d only just turned the page. I think it does look rather like a Boucher, though. Don’t you?”

She gave a tiny shrug. “I’m not familiar enough with either artist to say. I did not study painting-or painters-very much as a child. My parents weren’t overly interested in art.”

“How is that possible?”

She smiled at that, the sort of smile that was almost a laugh. “It wasn’t so much that they weren’t interested, just that they were interested in other things more. I think that above all they would have loved to travel. Both of them adored maps and atlases of all sorts.”

Jack felt his eyes roll up at that. “I hate maps.”

“Really?” She sounded stunned, and maybe just a little bit delighted by his admission. “Why?”

He told her the truth. “I haven’t the talent for reading them.”

“And you, a highwayman.”

“What has that to do with it?”

“Don’t you need to know where you’re going?”

“Not nearly so much as I need to know where I’ve been.” She looked perplexed at that, so he added, “There are certain areas of the country-possibly all of Kent, to be honest-it is best that I avoid.”

“This is one of those moments,” she said, blinking several times in rapid succession, “when I am not quite certain if you are being serious.”

“Oh, very much so,” he told her, almost cheerfully. “Except perhaps for the bit about Kent.”

She looked at him in incomprehension.

“I might have been understating.”

“Understating,” she echoed.

“There’s a reason I avoid the South.”

“Good heavens.”

It was such a ladylike utterance. He almost laughed.

“I don’t think I have ever known a man who would admit to being a poor reader of maps,” she said once she regained her composure.

He let his gaze grow warm, then hot. “I told you I was special.”

“Oh, stop.” She wasn’t looking at him, not directly, at least, and so she did not see his change of expression. Which probably explained why her tone remained so bright and brisk as she said, “I must say, it does complicate matters. The dowager asked me to find you so that you could aid with our routing once we disembark in Dublin.”

He waved a hand. “That I can do.”

“Without a map?”

“We went frequently during my school days.”

She looked up and smiled, almost nostalgically, as if she could see into his memories. “I’d wager you were not the head boy.”

He lifted a brow. “Do you know, I think most people would consider that an insult.”

Her lips curved and her eyes glowed with mischief. “Oh, but not you.”

She was right, of course, not that he was going to let her know it. “And why would you think that?”

“You would never want to be head boy.”

“Too much responsibility?” he murmured, wondering if that was what she thought of him.

She opened her mouth, and he realized that she’d been about to say yes. Her cheeks turned a bit pink, and she looked away for a moment before answering. “You are too much of a rebel,” she answered. “You would not wish to be aligned with the administration.”

“Oh, the administration,” he could not help but echo with amusement.

“Don’t make fun of my choice of words.”

“Well,” he declared, arching one brow. “I do hope you realize you are saying this to a former officer in His Majesty’s army.”

This she dismissed immediately. “I should have said that you enjoy styling yourself as a rebel. I rather suspect that at heart you’re just as conventional as the rest of us.”

He paused, and then: “I hope you realize you are saying this to a former highwayman on His Majesty’s roads.”

How he said this with a straight face, he’d never know, and indeed it was a relief when Grace, after a moment of shock, burst out laughing. Because really, he didn’t think he could have held that arch, offended expression for one moment longer.

He rather felt like he was imitating Wyndham, sitting there like such a stick. It unsettled the stomach, really.

“You’re dreadful,” Grace said, wiping her eyes.

“I try my best,” he said modestly.

“And this”-she wagged a finger at him, grinning all the while-“is why you will never be head boy.”

“Good God, I hope not,” he returned. “I’d be a bit out of place at my age.”

Not to mention how desperately wrong he was for school. He still had dreams about it. Certainly not nightmares-it could not be worth the energy. But every month or so he woke up from one of those annoying visions where he was back at school (rather absurdly at his current age of eight-and-twenty). It was always of a similar nature. He looked down at his schedule and suddenly realized he’d forgotten to attend Latin class for an entire term. Or arrived for an exam without his trousers.

The only school subjects he remembered with any fondness were sport and art. Sport had always been easy. He need only watch a game for a minute before his body knew instinctively how to move, and as for art-well, he’d never excelled at any of the practical aspects, but had always loved the study of it. For all the reasons he’d talked about with Grace his first night at Belgrave.

His eyes fell on the book, still open on the table between them. “Why do you dislike this?” he asked, motioning to the painting. It was not his favorite, but he did not find anything to offend.

“She does not like him,” she said. She was looking down at the book, but he was looking at her, and he was surprised to see that her brow was wrinkled. Concern? Anger? He could not tell.

“She does not want his attentions,” Grace continued. “And he will not stop. Look at his expression.”

Jack peered at the image a little more closely. He supposed he saw what she meant. The reproduction was not what he would consider superior, and it was difficult to know how true it was to the actual painting. Certainly the color would be off, but the lines seemed clear. He supposed there was something insidious in the man’s expression. Still…

“But couldn’t one say,” he asked, “that you are objecting to the content of the painting and not the painting itself?”

“What is the difference?”

He thought for a moment. It had been some time since anyone had engaged him in what might be termed intellectual discourse. “Perhaps the artist wishes to invoke this response. Perhaps his intention is to portray this very scene. It does not mean that he endorses it.”

“I suppose.” Her lips pressed together, the corners tightening in a manner that he’d not seen before. He did not like it. It aged her. But more than that, it seemed to call to the fore an unhappiness that was almost entrenched. When she moved her mouth like that-angry, upset, resigned-it looked like she would never be happy again.

Worse, it looked like she accepted it.

“You do not have to like it,” he said softly.

Her mouth softened but her eyes remained clouded. “No,” she said, “I don’t.” She reached forward and flipped the page, her fingers changing the subject. “I have heard of Monsieur Watteau, of course, and he may be a revered artist, but-Oh!”

Jack was already smiling. Grace had not been looking at the book as she’d turned the page. But he had.

“Oh my…”

“Now that’s a Boucher,” Jack said appreciatively.

“It’s not…I’ve never…” Her eyes were wide-two huge blue moons. Her lips were parted, and her cheeks…He only just managed to resist the urge to fan her.

“Marie-Louise O’Murphy,” he told her.

She looked up in horror. “You know her?”

He shouldn’t have laughed, but truly, he could not help it. “Every schoolboy knows her. Of her,” he corrected. “I believe she passed on recently. In her dotage, have no fear. Tragically, she was old enough to be my grandmother.”

He gazed down fondly at the woman in the painting, lounging provocatively on a divan. She was naked-wonderfully, gloriously, completely so-and lying on her belly, her back slightly arched as she leaned on the arm of the sofa, peering over the edge. She was painted from the side, but even so, a portion of the cleft of her buttocks was scandalously visible, and her legs…

Jack sighed happily at the memory. Her legs were spread wide, and he was quite certain he had not been the only schoolboy to have imagined settling himself between them.

Many a young lad had lost his virginity (in dreams, but still) to Marie-Louise O’Murphy. He wondered if the lady had ever realized the service she had provided.