There was nothing to be done but paint on; he hadn’t thought to ask which room she’d been given. So he’d returned to laying the last layer of detail into the creepers and vines about the entrance to the Garden of Night.

Due to the appointment with Helen, he hadn’t been able to sleep for long this morning. Consequently, he was in no good mood to deal gently with the sort of feminine helpfulness with which he coped when necessary, but more normally avoided like a pinching boot.

He loved Patience, Minnie and Timms, but he didn’t need their “help” in this instance.

Helen blinked when they all trooped into her salon upstairs, but she recovered well. After he’d introduced her, she showed the four observers to a long sofa before the front windows, ordered tea and scones for them, then, with a smile, excused herself, Gerrard and Jacqueline, and whisked them into a smaller, more cluttered workroom.

“Better?” She raised a questioning brow at Gerrard.

He sighed, and nodded. “Yes, thank you. Are these the satins?” He picked up a stack of fabric swatches.

Jacqueline, Helen and he stood at her worktable; Helen and he discussed lines and made sketches while Jacqueline quietly listened, but when, design and drape agreed, they turned to choosing the fabric, she joined in with decided views of her own.

Her eye for color was as good as his, and she had a sound appreciation of what suited her. They all quickly agreed that a certain brassy bronze shot-silk shantung was perfect.

“See-with the drape, it’ll catch the light differently, so you’ll get all the curves highlighted, especially in lamplight.” Helen draped a long swatch of the material over Jacqueline’s shoulder, angling over her breasts to her waist, then stood behind her and pulled the material tight. “There.” Reaching forward, Helen adjusted the silk. “What do you think?”

Gerrard looked; his lips slowly curved. “Perfect.”

They made arrangements for fittings over the next four days, then Gerrard led Jacqueline out to join their now thoroughly bored supporters. In a much better mood than when they’d arrived, he ushered them out to the carriages.

He drove Jacqueline back to Brook Street, only to find an unmarked black town carriage waiting outside his house, with a too familiar groom in attendance.

“Her Grace?” he resignedly asked Matthews, one of Devil Cynster’s grooms.

Matthews grinned sympathetically. “The Dowager and Lady Horatia, sir.”

Heaven help him. He loved them all, but…

Beneath all else, he was just a tad worried that Jacqueline would find his female connections, especially en masse, too overpowering, and take flight. Yet as he squired her inside and into the drawing room, he reminded himself that this-her introduction to his extensive family circle before he asked her to marry him-was only fair. If she accepted him, she’d be accepting them, too.

He’d debated mentioning marriage before they’d left Cornwall, but he’d only just started his campaign to illustrate the benefits of matrimony sufficiently for the idea to occur to her before he broached it; he was perfectly sure she’d yet to start thinking along his required lines. The visit to the capital would provide both settings and circumstances to extend his campaign beyond the sensual-he intended her to see and appreciate what life as his wife would be like-but he hadn’t until now considered how she, used to being very much alone, would react to a family framework in which ladies were never alone, but part of a large familial group whose members frequently visited, openly shared experiences and were perennially interested.

In everything.

Evidence of that last gleamed in two pairs of aging but still handsome eyes as he guided Jacqueline to the chaise on which the Dowager Duchess of St. Ives and Lady Horatia Cynster sat, waiting to greet them.

“I am enchanted, my dear, to meet with you.” Helena’s eyes danced as, releasing Jacqueline’s hand, she raised her pale eyes to his face. “Gerrard-such a happy circumstance that Lord Tregonning chose you to paint this so important portrait, n’est-ce pas?”

He returned a noncommittal murmur; it was never wise to give the Dowager more information than strictly necessary. That was the rule the family’s males had learned to live by; unfortunately, there was very little the Dowager’s pale green eyes missed-and even less that her exceedingly sharp mind failed to correctly interpret.

Lady Horatia Cynster, Vane’s mother, the Dowager’s sister-in-law and most frequent companion, was less overtly intimidating, but almost equally dangerous. “I remember meeting your mother, my dear, many years ago at a ball. She was exceedingly beautiful-there’s much I can see in you that I remember in her.”

“Really?” Eyes lighting, Jacqueline sat in the armchair before the chaise. “Other than from Lady Fritham, our neighbor who was Mama’s childhood friend, I’ve never heard much of Mama before she married Papa.”

“Ah, I remember.” The Dowager nodded. “It caused quite a stir, that marriage-that she, such a diamond, chose to leave the ton so completely and retire to Cornwall. Horatia, do you recall…”

Between them, Helena and Horatia recalled a number of stories of Jacqueline’s mother during the short time she’d graced the capital’s ballrooms. Leaning forward, asking questions, Jacqueline eagerly absorbed all they said.

Gerrard found himself redundant. Found himself swallowing a certain surprise at how easily Jacqueline had found her feet with such ladies.

He wasn’t, of course, at all surprised by their eager embracing of her.

From the moment Barnaby had suggested visiting London, he’d known he’d have no chance of disguising his interest in Jacqueline as purely professional. Within the family, it wasn’t even worthwhile making the attempt; they’d see right through him, and laugh and pat his cheek-and tease him even more unmercifully.

It was bad enough when Horatia turned from the conversation to smile up at him, and say, “Dear boy, such excitement! The whole tale is so romantic. Of course, none of us will breathe a word, not until the deed is done and all settled, but you’ve certainly enlivened what was shaping up to be a deathly dull summer.”

Her eyes twinkled up at him; he inclined his head-she could have been talking about the portrait and his rescuing Jacqueline, or about his impending nuptials-it was impossible to tell. To his relief, sounds of an arrival heralded the return of Patience, Minnie and Timms, and spared him having to answer. They all bustled in, ready to tell Helena and Horatia about their visit to the unusual dressmaker-and even more eager to quiz Jacqueline on all that took place in Helen’s workroom.

The level of feminine chatter rose, blanketing the room. Minnie called for tea; Gerrard seized the opportunity to make his excuses and escape.

Before he could, Patience stopped him with a raised hand. “Dinner tonight,” she informed him. “Just the family.” She saw the look in his eyes and smiled, understanding, yet in no way relenting. “It’s so quiet at present, everyone is only too glad to have an excuse not to eat at their own board.”

By “the family” she meant any of the wider Cynster clan in town; during the Season, most lived in London, but during the summer, they came and went as business and family affairs dictated.

He could refuse, citing his work on the portrait, but…He glanced at Jacqueline, then looked back at Patience and nodded. “Usual time?”

She smiled, an all-knowing older sister. “Seven, but you might come a trifle earlier and visit the nursery. There have been complaints regarding your absence.”

The thought made him grin. “I’ll try.”

With a general nod, he turned away, and made good his escape. Within that circle, Jacqueline clearly needed no protection.

He, on the other hand, needed to protect his sanity. Climbing the stairs, he took refuge in his studio.

17

Later that night, Jacqueline stood in Gerrard’s studio, and watched him sketch her into the portrait. Everyone else had retired to their beds.

In the front hall when they’d returned from dinner, he’d explained the routine he intended to follow, working through the nights as the scene was set in moonlight, then sleeping through the morning before rising to reassess and prepare through the afternoon, so that at night he could paint again. His clear aim was to complete the portrait as soon as possible.

Everyone understood why that was desirable. On the journey to town, they’d discussed and agreed that while there was no need to bruit the purpose behind the portrait to society at large, it was necessary that Gerrard’s family understood both the urgency and importance behind the work. As he’d explained, their discretion could be relied on, and their knowing would ensure that no vestige of scandal attached to her because of her attendance in his studio, whatever the hours, regardless of the privacy.

Having met his family, she now fully understood. It was comforting knowing they were so supportive, indeed, so interested and determined that all would go well for Gerrard and their endeavor, and her, too.

He’d posed her beside a plaster column, her right hand raised, palm placed lightly to the column’s surface; in the portrait, the column would be the side of the archway that was the lower entrance to the Garden of Night. Her hand would be holding aside a piece of creeper.

He’d shown her what he’d done so far; she could see the effect he was aiming for. It would be powerful, evocative. Convincing.

All she needed the portrait to be.

She stood unmoving, her gaze fixed as he’d instructed, to the left of where he worked behind his easel; her mind roamed, to all else she’d seen and learned that day.