The Duke of Shadows (25 page)

"I did not want to see those things again!" She turned to him. "I couldn't destroy them; I tried, I did—"

"Why?
Why couldn't you?"

She shook her head. "A Mr. M. Colthurst has it now."

"Colthurst!" He ran a hand over his face, up through his hair. "Michael Colthurst. Of course he'd be a fan of Miss Ashdown. Lockwood sold your painting to that bastard?"

"Why? Should he not have done?"

He shook his head. "Emma, the letters must be gotten back. We must know what they're about. Who wrote them."

"Yes." She stared, unseeing, at the dog. And then, shaking herself a little, she said, "I must take him to Delphinia. Poppet, I mean."

"And I will find Lord Chad."

"What!" She looked up. "Are you mad? You cannot tell him! He's a member of
Parliament!"

"Because he'd fear for your life," Julian finished softly. "Emma, you can't display them anyhow, regardless of the scandal."

"No. I
must
have that exhibit." Her voice was unsteady; she could not help it. "It cannot be canceled now. It's the only reason I stayed. It's—look, I'll find the letters; I'll hand them to the authorities in secret. It can all happen very quietly; no one need know they're connected with the paintings. How many people can read Urdu, after all? Or think the lines are meant seriously, if they do read them?"

"Be sensible," he said curtly. "You have sold the frame in which you put them. You can't just go barging into people's houses to pry apart their artwork, much less Colthurst's. The man is not a … gentleman, shall we say. Lord Chad will be able to secure government dispensation for it, or he'll turn the matter over to the police—"

"The police!" She knew she was revealing herself most dreadfully, but she was beyond caring. "No! No one in the whole of England will even
glance
at my art if they associate it with something so heinous. I'll be finished! Utterly done with!"

"And you'll be alive," he said. "Dear God, Emma, you can't be putting those paintings before your life!"

She had never wanted to hit anyone so badly. How dare he make it sound so trivial, so small?
Those paintings.
This wasn't about thirty paintings! This was about her entire future as an artist—the dream she lived for, the aim which had kept her sane and helped her to survive when nothing else and no one else had. Least of all
he!

"And consider myself responsible when you get yourself killed?" he asked savagely. "Thank you, no,
Miss Martin.
I've suffered through that once, and I'm far too estranged from my conscience to go through it again."

"Listen to me! I
will
get the letters back. Even if I have to break into Colthurst's house to do it."

He stared at her for a long moment. And then his eyes suddenly narrowed. "So there is your passion, then. Dried into the paint."

"Yes," she said. "Very good; you are hearing me clearly at least."

His laughter was abrupt. "Your grisaille had better be damned good, then." She lifted her brow, and he said, "Dimensionality, my dear. How uncomfortable it would be, to have your love confined to two dimensions."

"But then I should never be out of my depth. Now tell me about Colthurst. Do you know the man? Are you certain he won't prove receptive to my inquiries?"

"I know him better than I would like. Do not call attention to yourself by contacting him." He turned in a tight circle, his hand pressed to his mouth. "All right," he said. "If you're determined to do this—he opens his house once a month. Tomorrow night, in fact."

"Excellent. If you will help me secure an invitation—"

"He does not accept lone attendees. We will go together."

It took a moment to gather her wits. "You want to help me? Thank you. I would be very glad of it."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that. You're going to need to modify one of your dresses. And a very heavy veil will also come in handy."

A presentiment prickled over her. "A—veil?"

"Yes." His mouth twisted into a smile. "You will pose as my paramour. At any rate, you're not bound to run into anyone in Colthurst's house that will know you."

To pose as his lover? She would not imagine what that entailed. "No. If you need a paramour, you must take Mrs. Mayhew."

"To do your dirty work?" His brow quirked. "To go skulking around the house, prying open paintings?"

She felt her cheeks warm. "Very well, yes, that's a stupid idea. So I will attend you. But not as your paramour. I will go as your…" Cousin? Ridiculous. Auburn was too well known to claim a sudden relation.

"Oh, what a difficult decision." His voice was suddenly all purring kindness. "Poor Emma. You cannot think of an alternative, can you? And you are wondering, how far might the act have to go? How far would you truly stoop for your career? Could you go so far as to let me put my hands on you, if the situation called for it?"

The contempt in his voice caught her off guard. Was it for her, or for himself? "I—it is—" Surely it was for her. The alternative was … too distressing to think upon. "You are right," she continued quickly. "I am being foolish. Of course I will do anything you think necessary."

Had he expected that? His face registered no reaction as he exhaled. He glanced down, and she followed his gaze.

"Poor thing," she said again. "Let me take him to Delphinia."

"Yes," he said. "And I will go make the arrangements for tomorrow."

"He won't be able to follow where we're going."

"That sounds ominous."

"It should."

She lifted the veil away to see him more clearly. He was dressed very formally, in a black tailcoat and starched cravat. "What sort of place is this?"

"A singular one."

"Do you care to elaborate? Or would you prefer me to be surprised, and give myself away?"

He shrugged. "It is a sort of informal club, for a faster set than your cousin could imagine."

"Debauchery, then."

"Yes. Don't touch the food or drink. Don't smile at anyone but me."

"Should I smile at you, then?"

"If the whim strikes you."

"How often would the whim strike your paramour, do you think?"

He gave her a long, unreadable look. "It depends on what sort of relationship we shared."

"I am thinking you would not bring a two-bit piece of fluff. It looks to be a formal affair."

"No, that's not what I meant." When she waited, he shrugged again. "Perhaps we are affectionate," he said. "But more likely than not, if Colthurst's is our destination, we share something a bit more … unusual."

"Again, you will have to be specific."

"The possibilities are rather broad."

"Name one."

He looked out the window. The amber light of the street lamps gilded his face, accenting the hollows beneath his cheekbones, and the firm slash of his lips. "None of them requires explication, Emma. You may smile at me or not, as you like."

A curious feeling took hold of her—amusement and sadness, all at once. Of all the people in the world, surely he should be the last to think she needed sheltering from something as harmless as antics at a party. "I have eyes, you know. And you've already taken note that I am very observant."

"All right," he said. "Your vice could be a preference for watching others."

"That seems fitting."

"Watching as they couple." His eyes cut toward hers. She could see the quirk at the corner of his mouth; he was ready to laugh at her, and that was the only thing that prevented her gasp.

"No," she said. "A definitive no."

"Then I expect you would not like to be watched, either."

Now she did exhale in shock. "I cannot believe Lockwood sold my painting to this man!"

"Yes, I plan to discuss that with him."

His tone took her aback. "It sounds as though Lockwood will not enjoy the conversation."

He said nothing.

"But you should not speak to him," she said. "I will do so, if I see the need. It doesn't concern you, Julian. You have no right to speak on my behalf."

"Or perhaps," he said, "your vice can be pain. It can be your particular talent, Emma—giving pain to your lovers. What say you? No? Or I can take that privilege with you, if you please. It seems that some people enjoy it a great deal. We could make it more interesting if we switched the roles occasionally."

"No," she managed. "Some things are squarely outside my ability to dissimulate."

His eyes were steady and hard on hers. "Do not underestimate yourself, my dear."

The sudden speeding of her heartbeat made air a difficult purchase. "Is this what you want, then? Shall I act very coldly to you?"

His smile was slow and somehow threatening. He looked wolfish suddenly. A stranger to her. There was nothing in her memories of this man. "Cold? No, that would not be to the point at all. Would it? Do you forget your very intentions?"

He was trying to scare her. She did not know how she knew it, but the certainty was there, inarguable and visceral. "You make no sense."

"Shall I demonstrate?" He leaned forward. She watched his hand cross the distance between them. Felt it slip under the veil's bunching and wrap around her nape. "You do not know your own mind," he said very softly. His thumb came around to the front of her throat, applying the slightest pressure, just enough to make her cognizant of the strength in the hand gripping her neck. She inhaled sharply. "It is all in the touch," he murmured. "Do you feel it? The idea of the game is to test yourself against it. Go ahead. It's all a very delicate balance. If you ask me to push too hard, there will be pain. If you ask me to ease off"—his hand slipped away—"you will feel nothing at all."

"That would be preferable by far."

He sat back. "For some purposes," he said. "Not for the ones we entertain. Do recall our goal."

"I have it well in mind, and I would remind
you
that I never
asked
you to do anything. You offered your help!"

"And you accepted the offer. But what does that have to do with what we're discussing?"

She pulled down her veil again, so he would not see how she flushed. "You are infuriating. I am done with these games."

"Ah, the perils of engaging with three-dimensional objects. If you ask a question, I may answer back."

"My mistake, clearly."

"Yes," he said after a moment. "Your mistake."

A few minutes passed. She contemplated the wet streets slipping by. Water was churning through the gutters, and the lights from the coach threw leaping reflections along the cobblestones. So strange to be here with him, like this. Only a month before, it would have seemed like the most absurd fantasy. Nor would she have been able to guess how it would be, between them. That it would hurt so much, and yet—she drew a deep breath—that it would also afford her such bittersweet pleasure. She had waited so anxiously for his arrival tonight. The need to retrieve the letters had only been part of it, she feared.

A touch at her skirts startled her out of her reverie. "My mother had a dress this color," Julian said. She looked down; her cloak had fallen open around her knees. "This exact shade of red."

She could not remember that he had ever mentioned his parents before. She should not want to know about them. Yet the words came out anyway: "Do you recall much of her?"

"Not enough, I suppose. I was very young when she died. Four, barely five."

That seemed to startle him. "Did I never tell you this?"

The question made her chest ache. "Never mind. It was idle curiosity."

"No, I'm game for answering. If not from me, then I can't believe you haven't heard it from someone else. The story used to be a London favorite."

"Would your paramour know it?"

"Yes. Most likely."

"Then you should tell me, I suppose."

A brief silence. Then he laughed softly. "Good God, Emma."

She turned back to the window. "Go ahead," she said curtly.

"Very well." Another pause. "As you know, my father died when I was very young. At the time, my grandfather had not made up his mind as to whether he should file for the title to be diverted to Marcus. Whether my parents' marriage had been valid and all that. So he left me with my mother. No plans of retrieving me."

"So you went to her family, then."

"Not at first. When my mother's mother married an English soldier, her family disowned her. But after his death, my grandmother reestablished herself in the native community. Her son, my uncle, married a Hindu woman. My grandmother lived with them. But my uncle did not like to remember his English blood, so the household did not acknowledge my mother or her English husband. My grandmother did not even know when my mother died."

"So the British took you in?"

"Idealistic of you, but misguided. You must remember at this point it was assumed that Lindley would have the title. I was only a skeleton in the closet to the Anglo-Indians."

She pulled up her veil to see his expression. "So what did you do?"

One shoulder lifted in a careless shrug. "I made do."

"Made do? You can't mean—"

"I was a street child for a bit. Had a devilish good time of it, actually. No lessons, no rules, just one long period of mischief and mayhem."

She stared at him. Living off the Delhi streets! She had seen the way those children lived—the way their clothes hung off their knobby limbs in strips, the hope in their eyes as they clustered around cooking stalls, hedging their lives against the kindness of strangers. "Your grandmother," she whispered. "She overrode her son? She found you and took you in?"

"Eventually. When word reached her of a street child with Sinclair green eyes, she grew suspicious. As you may well imagine, it's not the most common eye color in Delhi orphan packs." He chuckled at the memory. "She tracked me down and dragged me off. I was not so pleased to be civilized, but my uncle—well, he made sure I obeyed her, and in the process I think he also came to accept me. We all rubbed along rather well, until my grandfather came." His mouth pulled in a grimace. "By that time, I was not so eager to go."

She cleared her throat. "And did
he
treat you well?"

"I was his heir," he said.

That was not an answer to her question, but now he had turned to his own window, so she did not pursue it. "It must have been horribly difficult to come here. Knowing nothing but India, I mean."

"Difficult?" He sounded intrigued by the idea. "Yes, I suppose so. Relearning English must have been tedious. I can't clearly recall. I think I was too confused by everything to really consider whether I liked it or not. And then, by the time my head cleared, it was too commonplace to question. Children are remarkably adaptive in that regard. Ah," he said as the carriage came to a halt. "Here we are."

He reached across to take her arm, just above the cuff of her glove-his manner very casual, as if he had not just recited a tale that would make a person weep for him. "I will escort myself," she said, and reached for the door.

"Wait." He held out his hand. "You said you meant to do this. If you are going to change your mind, do it here. Once inside, turning missish will put us in a bad position."

She stared at his hand for a moment. Long, elegant fingers. He should be the artist, with fingers like that.

There must be a trick to it, she thought with sudden desperation. A paramour would be touched a great deal, in her lifetime. Surely at some point, it would all start to feel the same. Anyone's skin, not someone's in particular. And the incipient emotion, the stirring in the pit of one's stomach, the temptation to speak words better left unsaid—these responses would be dulled into nothing. The client would not mind it, if her emotions remained unengaged. He did not contract with a paramour in order to know her. He cared only for the pleasure her body might provide. What was the trick? She reached out and settled his hand onto her arm.

Anyone's.
Anyone's would tighten so, would press a warmth into her that seemed to slip down through her stomach, to wash down her spine and the backs of her knees. Give it a little time, and the novelty of the sensation would fade. "No," she said. "I will not be missish."