The Lost Duke of Wyndham Page 0,72

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.

He looked up at Grace. She was staring at the painting. He thought - he hoped - she might be growing aroused.

"You've never seen it before?" he murmured.

She shook her head. Barely. She was transfixed.

"She was the mistress of the King of France," Jack told her. "It was said that the king saw one of Boucher's portraits of her - not this one, I think, perhaps a miniature - and he decided he had to have her."

Grace's mouth opened, as if she wanted to comment, but nothing quite came out.

"She came from the streets of Dublin," he said, "or so I'm told. It is difficult to imagine her obtaining the surname O'Murphy anywhere else." He sighed in fond recollection. "We were always so proud to claim her as one of our own."

He moved so that he might stand behind her, leaning over her shoulder. When he spoke, he knew that his words would land on her skin like a kiss. "It's quite provocative, isn't it?"

Still, Grace seemed not to know what to say. Jack did not mind. He had discovered that watching Grace looking at the painting was far more erotic than the painting itself had ever been.

"I always wanted to go see it in person," he commented. "I believe it is in Germany now. Munich, perhaps. But alas, my travels never took me that way."

"I've never seen anything like it," Grace whispered.

"It does make one feel, does it not?"

She nodded.

And he wondered - if he had always dreamed of lying between Mademoiselle O'Murphy's thighs, did Grace now wonder what it was like to be her? Did she imagine herself lying on the divan, exposed to a man's erotic gaze?

To his gaze.

He would never allow anyone else to see her thus.

Around them, the room was silent. He could hear his own breath, each one more shaky than the last.

And he could hear hers - soft, low, and coming faster with each inhalation.

He wanted her. Desperately. He wanted Grace. He wanted her spread before him like the girl in the painting. He wanted her any way he could have her. He wanted to peel the clothes from her body, and he wanted to worship every inch of her skin.

He could practically feel it, the soft weight of her thighs in his hands as he opened her to him, the