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are just mud and blood for the blokes who must fight them. In this sketch, you’ve hit upon what war truly is—failure and loss and utter stupidity. Whatever you do, Your Grace, you must finish this work.”
    “I can’t,” she said. “You inspired it.”
    “I inspired failure and loss and utter stupidity?”
    Against her will, he drew another laugh from her.
    “There, you see,” he said. “If we can laugh together, we can work together.” He held the sketch up for her to see. “This is important, madam, more important than how little esteem you have for me. This says something about war that no one else has had the courage to say. If you fail to see it through, this vision will haunt you for the rest of your artistic life.” He handed the sketchpad to her. “Isn’t that worth putting up with me for a little while longer?”
    The problem wasn’t that she had too little esteem for him, but rather too much. She’d have to learn to control her response to him if she was to make this work. Still, he was right about the sketch.
    “Very well, Mr. Doverspike. Kindly remove your robe and assume the position. The sun will not wait.”
     
     

Chapter 8
     
     
     
    Her Mars groaned and shifted slightly.
      “Don’t move,” Artemisia ordered. “You’ll change the way the light strikes your upraised arm.”
    “If I don’t move, my upraised arm is like to fall off,” he complained.
    She glanced at the mantel clock. “We have been at this for better than an hour,” she conceded. “Very well. Let’s take a break. The tea should still be hot and I asked Cuthbert to bring round some extra scones. You’ll find them under the silver tray.”
    Thomas Doverspike rose to his feet and donned his robe before helping himself to the offered pastries. Artemisia draped the canvas to keep dust from settling on the fresh paint. With countless coal fires burning, London was ever so much dirtier than Bombay. She poured out two cups of tea, laced his with an extra lump of sugar just as she’d learned he liked it and poured a smidgeon of cream into hers.
    “How’s it coming?” he asked between cramming bites of the flaky scones into his mouth.
    “It’s taking shape.” Artemisia blew on her tea to cool it before she sipped. She slipped a hand around to massage her lower back. Life models weren’t the only ones who suffered muscle cramps.
    “Can I see it?”
    “Not until it’s finished.”
    She’d made amazing progress on the painting in a few short days. This was going to be an important work. She could feel it in every stroke.
    Her paintbrush fairly flew, but she was a stickler for detail and while parts of the figure leaped off the canvas, other portions were still flat and two dimensional. Thomas Doverspike’s lean musculature was a delight to duplicate and his skin glowed with buoyant health, but she’d left his groin area fuzzy and indistinct. She considered draping him there. A judicious sash or fig leaf would solve the problem, but her artist’s heart damned her for a coward. He was beautiful in all his parts. Even in defeat, Mars was still a virile male. It would be less than courageous if she covered him just because the sight of his willy tied her knickers in a knot.
    He still experienced rampant erections, but she refrained from direct comment on them. She never tired of looking at him though, the skin over his enraged phallus tight and straining, dark with engorged blood, his ballocks drawn up in a snug mound. She found herself wondering what his shaft would feel like. Would it be smooth in her hand? Warm? The thought made her cheeks burn and something primitive flared to life in her belly.
    She had to think of something else. “Now that you’ve had a bit of time to get used to it, are you finding your job easier?”
    “Why do you ask?”
    “A while back it sounded as though you found serving as my model demeaning,” she said. “I hope you’ve changed your thoughts on that.”
    He shrugged.