Beyond Seduction (30 page)

"Please," she begged, "please let's go to Venice."

He slid his palms from the bend of her elbows up her arms. Merry bounced with impatience. "Goodness." He smiled. "You can't mean you want to leave this instant?"

"No," she said, her voice gone husky and suggestive, "this instant I want to go home."

She heard his breath catch, a small, flattering sound. His eyes darkened, and then his mouth took hers. It was a kiss so raw, so powerful, it literally made her forget everything but him. He crushed them together from chest to knee, his hands tight on her bottom, his arousal a burning ridge beneath his clothes. He rubbed it against her, groaning his pleasure into her mouth.

She could not doubt he was happy with her decision.

"Now?" he asked, a smoldering rasp against her cheek.

"Yes," she answered and tugged him toward the alley door.

He did not suggest they get their coats, nor say good-bye to Mr. Tatling. Nic was a creature of the flesh. When they emerged into the icy air, he simply laughed and began to run.

*  *  *

Nic Craven's painting disturbed the Duchess of Monmouth more than she could express, like something soft and wet being dragged across her skin. It was too aggressively sexual to view without a wince, its very beauty an affront. Horrid, she thought, though one couldn't say that without having heard the judgment of one's peers. They might decide such a stance was unsophisticated, and where would that leave her? Realizing her hands were clutched together at her waist, Lavinia forced them to relax.

Whatever she did, she must not cause a scene.

Even then, she could not tear her gaze away. Dimly, she was aware of the chatter that surrounded them. This picture, slyly titled "Godiva's Ride," was causing a sensation. Well-dressed men and women chirped with titillation or disgust. Or both. It was "Ruskin said this" and "Craven said that" and "Did you hear what Tatling is asking? I doubt even the prince would pay seven thousand!"

Beside her, her husband jerked at the sum. "Seven thousand
pounds
?"

Lavinia barely heard him. A tide was rising inside her that took all her strength to contain, a fury that bubbled up from her very core.

How dare Mr. Craven suggest women could live like this hoyden, this Godiva, and be the better for it? Lavinia knew for a fact they couldn't. Her one fall from grace haunted her even now.

A woman's sins were never forgotten.

Only men escaped reprisal.

Behind her, Ernest Althorp shuffled closer. She'd asked him along in order to share the news from Merry's latest letter—in the expectation, of course, that he'd relay it to his father. Merry was softening. Anyone who read her words could see it. Lavinia had been grateful for the alacrity with which Ernest accepted her invitation, not to mention his willingness to see, as she did, much cause for hope.

Now, however, his blocky masculine presence made her want to scream.

Men were swine. This stupid, lascivious painting merely proved it.

"Hm," said Ernest, peering thoughtfully around her, "looks a bit like Merry."

Lavinia turned her head to gape at him while a sensation like a hundred icy spiders crawled up her spine.

Ernest flushed beneath her stare. "Er, I mean, around the hair a bit and maybe the, er, nose. But of course it isn't her." He stood straighter and filled his chest. "Merry would never pose for a thing like this."

"No, she wouldn't," said Lavinia, her tone chill. She wasn't even sorry when he flinched.

Merry wouldn't. More importantly, Merry couldn't. Merry was in Wales. With Isabel. They'd received

a letter just this morning. So that couldn't be Merry's nose or Merry's hair or the mischievous glint in Merry's eye. Lavinia's daughter was no siren. She was a horse-mad tomboy. A
freckled
, horse-mad tomboy ...

Who'd ridden astride as often as she had sidesaddle ...

Who'd been more than angry enough at her parents to do something truly rash ...

Who'd depended on Isabel to cover up pranks before.

Good Lord.

The spiders skittered back down Lavinia's spine. She was breathing too quickly but couldn't seem to

stop. Some time had passed since she'd studied her daughter's knees but, unless she was very happily mistaken, Godiva's knobby joints were a shocking good match for Merry's.

She took but a second to decide what she had to do.

"I'm buying this painting," she announced, her voice too high but level.

When her husband widened his eyes at her, she lifted her head and spoke with even more authority.

"It's a masterpiece. Worth every shilling."

"I agree it's good..." Geoffrey hedged, but she hadn't the patience to hear him out. If Ernest was right, if this was a naked portrait of her daughter, she couldn't afford to let it sit here another minute. Even if it
wasn't
Meredith, she couldn't afford to. Someone else might remark on the resemblance. The duchess's situation was too precarious to weather the slightest breath of scandal.

She had to buy it and she had to buy it now.

"I'll pay for it myself," she said, shocking Geoffrey to a blank and blinking silence, "out of the estate my mother left me."

With the air of supreme entitlement she'd known how to draw on all her life, she took the portrait by its carved and gilded frame and lifted it from its perch. She heard the seam under her sleeve rip as she did, but cared no more for that than for the buzz of exclamations spreading around the room.

"Let me help you," said Ernest. He reached for the frame but she ignored him.

"Where's Tatling?" she called above the noise. "Tell him I'm offering eight."

The painting banged against her ankle as she carried it through the crowd, heavier than she expected and quite unwieldy. Lavinia cursed the thing in her mind. It couldn't be Merry, simply couldn't.

But if it was, she'd make bloody damn sure no one ever found out but her.

*  *  *

"Care to explain why you made such a spectacle of yourself?" asked her husband, once their coachman dropped Ernest off.

His tone was calm but his arms were crossed over his chest and a muscle beat like a pulse beneath his beard.

Lavinia tugged her gloves farther up her hands. Her heart felt like a bird trapped in her throat. "I can't imagine what you mean."

"Can't you?"

"No, I cannot. I wanted that painting and I bought it. With my own funds, I might add."

"I'm not concerned about the money, Lavi. I think you know I'm happy to buy you what you wish.

What I don't understand is your behavior. You haven't been yourself since Merry left."

"Don't be silly, darling. Who else would I be if not myself?"

Her airy laughter did not convince him. "Whatever is wrong, I wish you'd tell me."

"All I did was buy a
painting
."

He stared a moment longer, a shadow of worry behind his eyes. Before he could voice it, she turned away. She hated lying to him—truly, she did—but better a lie than seeing her world destroyed.

Too easily she remembered Althorp's grip around her neck.

Thirteen

It was Nic's idea to make a sea voyage. Trains were dusty and cramped, he said, and unreliable on the Continent. According to him, a week on the
Mediterranean
, on a comfortable commercial yacht, could not fail to entertain her.

No doubt this would have been true if Merry hadn't proved an ill-starred sailor. To her supreme mortification, no sooner had she stepped on board than her stomach began to lurch. By the time the gleaming ship had steamed into the Channel, she was a miserable, retching heap.

She could hardly imagine anything less entertaining— not to mention less romantic—than holding one's lover's head over a chamberpot.

She half wished Nic would neglect her. Instead, he took her condition in surprisingly good-natured

stride, even joking they ought to steam for Egypt instead of Venice, since he'd heard the streets of

Cairo were very dry.

"I am so sorry," she said, during a jelly-boned lull on the second day. Too weak to stand and too nauseated to lie down, she sat on the floor of their small but elegant cabin with her back propped

against the lower bunk. She wore only her chemise and drawers, since Nic had stripped her dress

some time ago.

Now he opened the porthole to admit a blast of chilly air, then tucked a blanket around her shoulders. "No need to be sorry," he said. "It's not as if you're doing it on purpose."

"But I'm never sick. Never. I feel awful for making you take care of me."

"I can tell." With a faint smile, he wiped her brow with a cotton cloth. "You shouldn't worry. I've

nursed my share of sick people."

Merry felt unaccountably better when he lowered himself to the floor beside her; she was comforted somehow, as if his presence alone was strengthening. The thought made her nervous. She knew she couldn't afford to become dependent on a man like Nic.

"Hard to imagine you as a nurse," she said.

"Oh, ye of little faith." He lifted her hair and spread it on the bed behind her. "I assure you, I'm a

regular Florence Nightingale to my friends. When I first came to London and fell in with Sebastian and Evangeline, neither could hold their liquor, nor judge which glass should be their last. I can't count the number of hangover potions I've prepared, or the hours of moaning and whining they forced me to endure."

"I haven't whined, have I?"

He kissed her temple. "Not even once, love. You're the best-behaved sick person I've ever met."

Merry sighed in relief, then wrinkled her nose. "It's still disgusting."

"Well, yes," he admitted with a chuckle, then hugged her gently closer. "But look at it this way. I've

seen you at your worst. From here on in it can only get better."

"One hopes," she said and succumbed to the urge to lean her head against his chest.

Most likely she shouldn't have let it happen, but the steady thump of his heart lulled her to sleep.

*  *  *

The next day Merry felt better but couldn't bring herself to eat for fear she would not keep it down.

She hated being weak, especially in front of Nic. Even this he seemed to understand. He assured her

he didn't think less of her and bullied her into drinking sips of peppermint tea. Merry loathed the stuff,

but ever since their conversation of the day before, she'd been determined not to complain. That, at

least, she could control.

On the fourth day, she tried to get out of bed and immediately lost her balance.

Nic turned almost as pale as she was. "That tears it," he said as he helped her back into bed. "I'm

seeing if there's a doctor on this ship."

"Nic, I hardly think I need a doctor."

"You do, damn it." He huffed and pointed his finger at her chest. "I brought you onto this bloody tub. What happens to you is on my head."

"Fine," she said, too tired to argue, "but I promise not to blame you if I die."