WORTH 50,000: DAY FOUR - Male nude at Academie Julian

[Source.]

It was going to cause a scandal, which William was heartily looking forward to. Word of his certain weakness of character had started to get around and with Edmund at sea it was getting harder to stand above the names and catcalls that people of much lesser status were starting to visit upon his person. It was high time he climbed back onto the pedestal he was born to. High time he looked down on people from above again. And if he happened to be nude at the time, well, that was just the cost of muddying the lurid, chatty waters.

They took up their pencils and they stared. He stared back, letting a morsel of contempt slip through his carefully neutral expression. Just a curve of his lip. Deniable, a trick of the light. One by one the young men got to work. The final one held William's gaze for a beat too long with an impertinent eyebrow creeping up into his shaggy hair.

There would be a dressing down for that later, and William could not wait to deliver it.