Beyond Seduction (14 page)

"I didn't know you were in town," she said to James, tilting her cheek up for his kiss.

"Just for the day. Lissa's got a bee in her bonnet about this cradle she saw at a shop in
Mayfair
. Says it's been preying on her mind and I simply have to buy it." He grimaced. "You'd think the child was due to pop out tomorrow."

"Well, it is her first," Lavinia soothed and patted his hand. "I was just telling Peter we got a letter from Merry in the morning post."

Startled, Peter looked up from his plate. He hadn't heard a word. Again, she felt that tiny screw of hurt. She knew her children didn't share her interest in fashion or society, but she hadn't realized they blocked out everything she said. Or was she being too sensitive? Clearly, Peter had other things on his mind.

James set down his plate and took the seat next to his brother. "How is our little devil?"

"Fine," she said. "Apparently,
Wales
is rainy this time of year."

James grunted at this intelligence and tucked into his food.

"Are you going to write back?" Peter asked.

She strove to answer lightly. "I planned to this afternoon. Shall I send her your regards?"

"Better send her Ernest Althorp's," said James. "I saw him at the club yesterday. Looked all pale and stoic. Barely unclenched his jaw enough to say 'hello.'" He stuck half a biscuit in his mouth and chewed. "Damned if the fellow isn't in love with her after all."

"He couldn't be," Lavinia gasped, setting her
coffee down
with a clink.

Peter gaped at her. She realized she had not sounded very motherly.

"I only meant I'd be surprised," she said more mildly, "because Althorp is so sensible. Reining Merry

in will be difficult enough without letting sentiment cloud his mind."

"Maybe he can't help himself," Peter said. "Merry's a good egg and not half as plain as you make her

out to be. I don't see why he couldn't love her."

Lavinia's throat tightened at the challenge in his voice. Did he really think she regarded his sister as unlovable? And if so, was he right? Had she come to believe the lies she'd been whispering in people's ears?

If she had, she'd sunken further than she'd known.

"We all love her," she said firmly enough to make James glance up from his food. "I was simply

pointing out that Ernest Althorp is not a man known for passion."

"Got that right." James chuckled around a bite of ham. "Not like Peter here with his danseuse." He switched his voice to falsetto. " 'Oh, James, she's a little doll!'"

At that, whatever disapproval Peter harbored toward his mother was forgotten in his attempt to shove

his brother off his chair.

Their tussling brought back memories of other mornings. Once upon a time, they'd sat around this table every day. Merry, the boys, her husband. What a noise they could make, like a flock of starlings—especially Evelyn, who'd never lost his habit of speaking on top of everyone else.

One day soon only she would sit here. Or she and Geoffrey would, when he didn't leave early for his club.

Lavinia pressed her lips together. It wasn't like her to be maudlin. She spent time with her family, more than she cared to on occasion. Certainly, there was more to her life than a noisy breakfast—far more.

At the moment, however, she could not think what that was.

*  *  *

Nic's moods had taken a turn for the worse.

Merry should have been grateful, she supposed. He hadn't so much as flirted with her in days. Unfortunately, the reprieve came at a price. He frowned more, snapped more, even threw his brushes across the room. Their workday grew shorter and what work he did seemed listless. Nothing she said could cheer him.

One morning, she woke not to his impatient rap but to the sound of someone beating rugs off the

balcony down the hall. She stumbled into the corridor, half fastened and panicked she'd overslept, to

find only the maid and the eternally scarf-wrapped kitchen lad. Though he tended to scurry out of sight

as shyly as a barncat, this morning his hands were too full of dusty carpet to escape. He did, however, hunch his presumably hideous head into the wool.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Close on
noon
," said the sturdy maid. "We're sorry for waking you, but Mr. Farnham said we had to

get this done."

"
Noon
!" Merry pressed her hand to her bosom. She never slept till
noon
. Nic mustn't have come by

at all. "What happened to Mr. Craven?"

"One of his black fits," said the maid. "Likely sleep till dinner, then drink hisself back to bed."

Merry's throat tightened. "Is he ill?"

"Not ill, miss. Just ill-tempered from his work not going right. Makes him crawl into his hole like a prickly badger." The maid laughed. "Mr. Farnham says a whack on the rump'd do him more good than sleep."

Merry was accustomed to servants knowing their master's business. As a less than dutiful child, she'd often used their intelligence to her advantage. This maid's bluntness shocked her, but she supposed the staff considered her too close to their level to guard their tongues. Though the sensation of being taken

for one of them was odd, it was not unwelcome. Clearly, her ruse was working.

"Maybe you could jolly him out of it," the maid suggested, slanting a smile at her. "The master likes

his bit of skirt."

The kitchen boy released a muffled cough that did not sound amused. When Merry looked at him, the skin above his scarf had flushed the color of a plum. He was beating the carpet so hard the dust he

raised threatened to engulf them all.

"I'll see if he's hungry," Merry said, tearing her gaze from the boy who so obviously didn't want to be seen. "Maybe Mrs. Choate will have something to tempt him."

But Merry didn't have to see the cook. Mr. Farnham shoved a tray at her as soon as she reached the landing on the stairs.

"Here," said the frazzled butler, "see if you can pry him out of bed."

Nonplussed by the order, Merry took the tray and headed toward Nic's door.

"Don't knock," Farnham advised. "He'll just ignore you."

With some trepidation, she took his advice. She wasn't at all sure she was ready to encounter her employer in his bed. Hand shaking, she reached for the knob.

Once it was open, she simply stood and looked around. His room was different from the rooms she had grown up in, simple and uncluttered. He'd hung no paintings here, not even his own. Her curious gaze found white walls and dark wood trim and on the ceiling a plaster rose from which descended a lovely blown-glass chandelier. The carpet was old but good, its colors so dark she could barely make out a pattern.

And then she took in the bed. Nic lay in it, a long, blanket-covered lump. His sleeping presence was enough to warm her face. More than that, though, the bed was huge. Japanese, she thought, from the pattern of squares and circles that formed the frame. No hangings draped it. Instead, six slim posts supported an elegant wooden roof. The structure resembled an open cage, as if Nic were a circus animal no one thought was very dangerous.

That, of course, was patently untrue.

Feeling very much as if she intruded, she noisily cleared her throat.

The lump in the coverlet moved. "Bloody hell," Nic swore. "Can't you keep your nose out of anything?"

Ignoring the sting this inspired, she set the tray on his bedside table and stood between him and a beam

of sun. This was a trick she had learned from her occasionally hard-drinking brothers.

"Mr. Farnham is worried about you," she said.

He jerked at the sound of her voice, but did not emerge. "Just want a rest. Till my brain starts working again. Would have done it before, but then you came. Bloody Godiva."

Merry ignored this accusation just as she had the first. "One of the servants suggested a whack on the rump might do you good."

Nic's head surfaced from his cocoon. Though his eyes were clear, he gave every appearance of having been in his cups. His skin was pale and his hair hung over his face in a tangled mop. "You try it and

you'll be sorry."

She smiled at the threat. She'd heard that from her brothers, too. "Perhaps if you shared what was troubling you, you'd feel better."

"No, no, no," he groaned, rolling onto his back with the pillow clutched to his face. "It's my picture

and my problem, and I'll solve it my way."

"By hiding under the covers like a two year old?"

The pillow whumped her in the chest. Before she could catch her breath, Nic bolted up and the blankets slipped down. Her eyes widened. He wasn't wearing his Indian pyjamas. In fact, he wasn't wearing anything. She could see the halves of his bottom, smooth as cream, and between them the faintest down of black rising to lick his spine. A hollow shadowed the flesh behind his hip, evidence of a muscle as strong as it was spare. Merry swallowed hard before looking up. Nic pointed toward the door as if his

arm were made of steel.

"Out," he rumbled, his voice as suited to anger as seduction, "before I give
you
a whack on the rump."

The words were comical but she sensed he meant them. Apparently, she could not dismiss his threats the way she did her brothers'. She goggled a moment, then backed away. Merry hadn't been spanked since she was ten and, given how hard Nic had thrown that pillow, she suspected she wouldn't enjoy it.

She sagged in relief as soon as she closed his door. How peculiar he was, threatening to beat her just because she wished to help! And how different he seemed from the considerate man he'd been before. The change had to be more than artistic temperament. From what she'd seen, his work had been thoroughly acceptable. Perhaps this painting didn't have the depth of her father's portrait, but it hardly warranted him retreating to his bed.

Hard as she tried, she could not understand. Nic was successful, respected. His creations hung in the finest homes. Surely he couldn't doubt his talent. Why wasn't he satisfied? What drove him to seek perfection? Was that what genius was: a search for something no one else could see?

In spite of everything, she yearned to go back and ask. To soothe his brow perhaps, and reassure him he'd find his way.

Fear kept her from it, but not fear of failure. No, she was stopped by her all-too-vivid memory of his sleep-warmed body rising from those rumpled sheets. If she gave in to the urge, she feared his brow would not be all she soothed.

*  *  *

Nic pulled the blanket back over his face.  He told himself he was glad Mary left. He'd only have been brutish if she stayed. The old fury had him in its claws: at himself, at life, at the stupid blobs of oil and pigment that could not catch the magic in his brain.

What had any of it been for if he couldn't paint? He didn't fool himself that his sacrifice had been the greatest. That honor belonged to the boy and Bess. Her life. Cristopher's happiness. All so Nic could

learn to make his little daubs.

He had nothing to offer them. Not then. Not now. He was a mere pleasure seeker, a pitiful excuse for

a human being. The only value he possessed was in his hands. If they failed him, he might as well rot

in this bed forever.

Caught in the downward spiral, he let himself think of his boyhood friend. The way she hummed when she worked. The way the sun streaked her golden hair. By God, Bess had been young. Seventeen.