Read Online The Truth About Love by Stephanie Laurens - Free Book Online

her lips slowly curved. Swinging around, she started strolling back toward the drawing room. “If you’re half the painter you believe yourself to be”—she glanced over her shoulder, caught his eye, then faced forward and strolled on—“then, yes, I’ll sit for you.” Her words drifted back to him. “Papa chose well, it seems.”
    He watched her walk away, aware to his bones of her bold yet veiled challenge, and his response to it. Deliberately, he fixed his gaze on her exposed nape, then let it slide caressingly down her back, tracing the line from shoulder to hip, to ankle…then he stirred, and followed her.

3
    H e spent a restless night and was awake and out on his balcony to see the sun rise over the gardens.
    And consider Jacqueline Tregonning.
    She was so very different from what he’d expected. They were closer in age than he’d anticipated, although in terms of worldly experience, his was far greater. Regardless, there had to be some experience, some incident in her life to account for the steel he sensed in her. It wasn’t simply strength of character, latent and unrecognized, but mature inner strength that had been tried, tested and found true; she possessed the inner fortitude of a survivor.
    Which begged the question: What had she survived?
    Whatever it was, did it also account for the shadows in her eyes? She might be self-confident and strangely assured, yet she wasn’t lighthearted; she was definitely not carefree, as by rights she ought to be. It wasn’t precisely sorrow he sensed coloring her world, nor yet simple sadness. She wasn’t of a maudlin or morose disposition.
    Hurt? Perhaps, but something, certainly, had caused her reserve, her distancing from those about her. It wasn’t her nature but a deliberate choice—that’s why he’d noticed it.
    What had happened to her, and when, and why did its effects still linger?
    Compton arrived with his washing water; Gerrard quit the balcony to shave and dress. On his way downstairs, he remembered the other nagging question his evening’s interlude with Jacqueline had left circling in his brain.
    What had she meant by saying she, and her father, needed the portrait to show what, specifically what, she was?
    Inwardly frowning, he walked into the breakfast parlor. Courtesy of his room being all but at the end of the farthest wing, he was the last to arrive. He inclined his head to Lord Tregonning, at the table’s head, nodded to Millicent and Jacqueline, then headed for the sideboard.
    Treadle deftly lifted the lids of the chafing dishes. After making his selection, he returned to the table and took the chair next to Barnaby—opposite Jacqueline.
    His gaze drifted over her as he sat. She looked…the word he needed was ravishing, no matter he normally recoiled from such flowery language. She was delectable in a gown of ivory muslin sprigged with tiny oak leaves in golds and greens. The scooped neckline again did justice to her charms; the bodice was gathered beneath her lovely breasts with a spring-green ribbon.
    Shifting in his chair, he reached for the coffeepot.
    Barnaby grinned at him, but said nothing, returning his attention to a plate piled high with ham and kedgeree.
    Unlike dinner, breakfast was a relatively mundane affair. Mitchel, seated beside his employer, spoke in an undertone about crops and fields.
    Across the table, Millicent caught Gerrard’s eye. “I trust your room was comfortable?”
    “Perfectly, thank you.” Gerrard swallowed a sip of coffee. “I was wondering if you and Miss Tregonning had time this morning to show myself and Mr. Adair about the gardens, at least enough for us to get our bearings.”
    “Yes, of course.” Millicent glanced at the blue skies beyond the windows. “It’s a perfect day for it.”
    A second of silence passed.
    Gerrard had learned enough to be careful. “Miss Tregonning?” When she glanced up, plainly at a loss, he politely inquired, “Will you be free?”
    She met his eyes, then