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“Claud isn’t you,” she said. “And he’s not John Keats either.” She drew her legs up onto the sofa and knelt beside him, their faces level.

“We all die,” she said softly. “But love gives life fullness. No matter how brief. We don’t any of us know how much time we have. We should—”

He kissed her like she was his next breath. She fell back, circling him with her arms, dragging him with her. His heaviness pressed everywhere. She had no air in her lungs. They were extracting what they needed to survive from each other, with their tongues and their teeth.

They were still kissing when a cry rang out.

“There you are!”

Nina was slow to understand. Alan’s tongue was gliding over hers, most distractingly. She held a fistful of his hair, and her other hand had somehow traveled beneath his coat to better knead the frankly nonmalleable muscles of his hard, wide chest. As for the placement of Alan’s hands, one entire arm was up her skirt, fingers fanned between her legs. His visible hand was groping her breast.

He turned his face to the side and growled. “Holroyd. Do you ever knock?”

Kate—she’d insisted Nina call her Kate—bounded across the threshold.

“I beat down doors from time to time,” she said. “Does that count? I hate to interrupt, but a certain old windbag is maligning your intelligence in the studio.”

Alan sighed, tugging down Nina’s skirt and doing up her buttons with unnerving facility. He rose to sitting, and Nina scrambled up too, less composedly. Her hair was a mess. Her limbs were trembling.

“I thought you should know.” Kate folded her arms.

“Now I know.” Alan gave her a pointed look.

“You’re missing an opportunity.”

Alan raised his brows in answer. Nina almost choked. Neither he nor Kate seemed remotely abashed.

“I respect your priorities.” Kate grinned and tipped her head to Nina with the barest suggestion of a wink. “I’ll be going. I’ll let you drive her home, then.” Kate slanted a smile at Alan, who ignored her.

“Right,” she said. “I was going, wasn’t I?”

She went.

“I want to take you home,” said Alan softly as the door clicked shut. “Unless”—he spoke more softly still—“you want me to take you here.”

“We can split the difference.” Nina’s voice was too hoarse to carry the joke. “The carriage?”

His eyes glowed like falling stars. A flare, and then darkness as he claimed her mouth.

At last, they were moving down the blue hallway. When they reached the door to the studio, Alan paused.

“This won’t be but a moment,” he promised.

The crowded room went silent when he rapped his cane on the floor, except for Kate, who gave a victorious yawp from the sofa. Nina edged away from him, out of the sight lines of the eager guests.

“I have something to say, regarding the pictures you acquired for South Kensington.” Alan addressed Lloyd Syme, who stood in the middle of the floor, snifter in hand, mouth screwed up as though filled with lemon juice.

“More tripe.” Syme had a deep, carrying voice. “From a man who confuses art criticism with criminology.”

A few titters here and there. Holroyd’s hiss. Then, again, a silent expectancy.

Now was the moment for Alan to whip out her ledger—Jack’s ledger, he’d have to say. Syme would crumble. Kate would yawp. Alan would bask in glory.

But a moment, he’d said.

She’d fade into the background. He’d want more than a moment, certainly. To revel.

He turned his head. He looked at her, not Syme.