A Wedding by Dawn (15 page)

“India.”

She kept going, pretending not to hear him.

“India.”
He was right behind her now.

She stopped. Fear pounded in the base of her throat as she turned.

Nicholas...the French priest’s son? She stared at his face, desperate to look away but unable to.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded in a low whisper.

She swallowed and lifted her chin. “You know very well what I’m doing here,” she said as furiously as she could. “Just as I know very well what you are doing here—the same thing you’ve been trying to do all along. You can’t imagine I will believe your lies now, Mr. Warre. But know this—I’ll not allow you to bribe that priest into performing our wedding.”

“Our
wedding.
”

“You can’t fool me, Mr. Warre. Our marriage is worth too much money to you to let it go so easily.” Behind him, an aging priest came through the door and walked toward them, looking on with interest. And there was no doubt, in that moment, that everything she’d overheard was true, and that the priest standing there was Nicholas Warre’s father. “I did not believe that piddle about helping me with my
technique,
and I’ll not believe whatever tripe you may offer me now about your reasons for being in this church. But I shan’t go through with any wedding to you—not ever.”

He pointed behind him, his expression thunderous. “Were you listening outside that door?”

“All this lack of concern, all this proffered
assistance,
” she went on, ignoring the question. “You are a consummate actor, Mr. Warre. I am quite certain there is a special place in hell for men who force women into marriage. And for the priests who consent to it. I only hope he’s taken you for twice as much as the priest in Marseille did. But rest assured I shall be doubly on my guard now.” His chin was as far as she could make herself go toward looking him in the eye.

“Against a forced marriage,” he said.

“Precisely.”

She held her breath, willing him to believe her. His stare penetrated to the tips of her toes. Every pounding heartbeat chanted,
Bastard, bastard.

Finally he smiled—an indulgent curve of his lips that signaled a lie was coming. “Your capacity for misunderstanding is limitless, Lady India.”

“As is your capacity for deception, Mr. Warre.” When had those shadows appeared beneath his eyes? He looked exhausted. Weary.

“I have any number of business acquaintances in Paris that I plan to confer with before I leave,” he explained dispassionately, “in an effort to salvage at least part of this journey from being a complete loss. Père Dechelle happens to be one of them.”

The
business acquaintance
behind him smiled a little and turned away, moving toward the altar.

Do not
ever
call me your son.

She made herself scoff. “Very well, and as I have business of my own to attend to—I have a very important appointment tomorrow, if you’ll recall, for which I must prepare myself—I shall leave you to your...
business.
Good day, Mr. Warre.”

Outside, she practically ran back toward Auntie Phil’s.

She’d thought she knew everything that mattered about him. That she understood him. But she’d been wrong.

Very, very wrong.

“What happened?” Millie asked, following close on India’s heels. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

I may owe my birth to you....

“Why was he so angry?”

Nicholas Warre was not an earl’s son at all. Which meant... What? What did it mean?

Very little, if nobody ever discovered the truth. He’d been born within the bounds of matrimony. As far as the world was concerned, he
was
the Earl of Croston’s youngest son.

But he wasn’t. And he hadn’t gone into that church looking for a priest to bribe.

“India, slow down!”

India slowed a tiny bit.

“For God’s sake,” Millie said. “You’re acting as if he tried to drag you to the altar!”

“He would have,” India lied, hardly knowing what she was saying. He had to realize that she’d heard more than she admitted to. The way he’d looked at her, as though he could read her very mind...

As if he was caught in a torment of shame that nothing could ever remove.

And then, after less than a heartbeat, his expression had changed to anger.

“If I had stayed a moment longer,” she repeated, “he
would
have forced me to the altar.” Except that he probably wouldn’t have. Not just then.

“Bollocks. He expressly told you he was meeting with a business acquaintance.”

And that had been an utter lie. He’d been meeting with his father. His
father!

That ‘urchin laundress’ is my
sister.

And he had a sister, right here in Paris. A
laundress.

Had he known all this time? Did his family know? If they did know, they kept the secret very well. She’d never heard so much as a suggestion of scandal connected with Croston.

But if there
were
a scandal...

She ground to a halt right there, two houses away from Auntie Phil’s.

“Are you all right?” Millie gasped, out of breath.

If there
were
a scandal, Father would not want to be connected with it. Father hated anything shameful, and this was incredibly, irrevocably shameful.

More shameful than a daughter who couldn’t read.

If Father knew, he would undo his agreement with Nicholas and turn his back on him completely.

* * *

N
ICK
’
S
HEART
THUNDERED
as he watched her all but run out the church door.

Bloody
hell.

This was what his foolishness had gained him—the shame he should have left well enough alone, discovered.

There was no doubt she’d heard every bloody word he’d said to Père Dechelle. Perhaps she had followed him into the church thinking he sought to arrange their wedding, but by the time he’d caught her, she’d been thinking something else entirely.

Nicholas Warre is a bastard.

All that babbling about catching him in the act... She hadn’t looked him in the eye even once during that entire speech.

The India he knew
always
looked him in the eye.

He exhaled. Rubbed the back of his neck.

Devil
take
it. She knew everything. There was almost no doubt.

“Une amie?”
came Dechelle’s amused voice behind him.

“Go to hell,” Nick bit out, and headed for the door. No, India could hardly be called a friend. She was...an acquaintance. One who now knew that not only was he a debtor, he was a bastard debtor who didn’t deserve his own family name.

Even she, with all her hoydenish adventuring, did not carry
that
shame.

And there might have been desire in those eyes before, but it bloody well hadn’t been there just now. Instead, there’d been shock. Horror. Fear.

Fear, no doubt, of the consequences of being married to a French priest’s by-blow. He could only imagine what she must be thinking.

And since when have you cared what Lady India thinks?

He exited onto the street, looked to his right and left. There was no sign of her. Would she run straight back to her aunt with the news? Perhaps by the time he returned to his lodgings, there would already be a note waiting for him:
I must insist that you have no further contact with my niece.

But no note awaited him after his slow walk back to the hotel. And none arrived that evening or the next morning. Which meant...nothing had changed. Yet.

Except Lady India’s opinion of him. As if that could have sunk any lower in the first place.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

T
HE
ARTIST
’
S
STUDIO
was on the third floor of a building that apparently had stood since the earliest days of Paris. India started up the stairs, acutely aware of Nicholas a step behind her, and continued the chatter she’d begun in the carriage in the hope of making him believe she hadn’t heard what he certainly thought she’d heard.

“I shall warn you,” India told him breezily, not quite daring to glance over her shoulder, “this is bound to be tediously boring. ‘
Un peu au droit...au gauche...
Hold
still,
mademoiselle.’ That sort of thing. I hardly know how I shall stand it myself.”

“I feel certain you’ll manage,” he murmured, and nerves tangled in her belly.

A day ago, she’d thought he was someone else. Now...he almost seemed like a stranger.

A day ago, the surprise she had planned for him today felt triumphant. Now it felt foolish, which only made
her
feel foolish, because nothing had changed. He wasn’t a stranger. He was Lord Taggart—he was, wasn’t he?—and he was here. Escorting her to the portrait sitting, which he would have no reason to do unless he still planned to also escort her to the altar.

She should have told Auntie Phil what she’d learned in that church. Immediately, as soon as she and Millie had returned yesterday.

Instead, she’d pleaded a headache, shut herself away in her rooms and sat there like a ninny hugging a pillow and imagining she was holding
him,
kissing him, somehow easing from his face that awful expression that had etched itself into her mind.

It had only been the shock of the whole thing. She
would
tell Auntie Phil, and soon—perhaps just as soon as the portrait sitting was over.

They’d climbed halfway up the first flight when the door opened below and her surprise began to unfold.

“Mademoiselle India,” a man called up. “It would seem we are just in time.”

She turned to see the Comte d’Anterry and his friend, Monsieur Pisannes, two acquaintances of Auntie Phil’s she’d met last night at yet another soirée—where Nicholas had made a point of ignoring her.

Nothing has changed,
she reminded herself sternly, and smiled the way Auntie Phil might have done. “Messieurs. I am so pleased you could spare me a few moments of your afternoon.”

“You are too modest, mademoiselle,” the comte said, kissing her hand. “Nothing could have kept me away.”

“Nor I,” Monsieur Pisannes agreed.

The two of them bowed to Nicholas, who bowed in return with a perfunctory, “Messieurs.”

And then they continued up the stairs, with the comte and Monsieur Pisannes continuing a small debate that had apparently been interrupted when they entered the building, while Nicholas helped ensure she did not trip over her skirts. The maid she’d brought from Auntie Phil’s house trailed behind.

Already, butterflies threatened the satisfaction of seeing her invitation had not gone ignored.

“You’ve invited spectators,” Nicholas murmured.

“Oh, yes— Did I not mention it?”

“Perhaps you did,” he said mildly, “and I’ve merely forgotten.”

If she
had
told him—which she had not—he most certainly would not have
forgotten.
The question now was, how much clothing would he let her remove before he confessed his intentions and put a stop to everything?

“I believe you’re acquainted with most of them,” she told him. “What a blessing you will have company and conversation during the tedious wait.”

“Oh, I don’t intend to stay,” he said just as they reached the artist’s apartment, where the door stood ajar.

She looked at him. He didn’t?

“But I did promise your aunt I would see you safely to your destination,” he added, and then they were inside the studio, where two of her other invitees relaxed at a table by the window and a third conversed with the painter, who was busy setting out his brushes and paints, and there was a round of greeting and hand kissing and general admiration, and then the painter was guiding her toward a red chaise longue nestled against a waterfall of gold draperies, asking her a half dozen questions about exactly how she would like to be painted.

“Avec des fleurs?”
He added a vase of silk flowers to a small pedestal at the foot of the chaise, then whisked it away and stood back.
“Sans?”

Nicholas was leaving?

“Avec.”
Flowers seemed appropriate. But...she turned, only to find Nicholas standing right behind her. Across the room, the other guests were opening a bottle of wine, laughing at something the Marquis de Bravard was saying. It took all her willpower not to ask whether Nicholas really intended to leave. No doubt he
wanted
her to ask, which was why she couldn’t.

“If you are in a hurry, Mr. Warre, by all means go,” she said instead.

He checked his pocket watch. “I have a few minutes.”

The painter gestured for him to make himself comfortable in a nearby armchair. Nicholas made no move to sit.

“You said you have a costume I can wear?” India said to the painter.

“
Mais, oui. Oui!
Behind that screen, mademoiselle.”

“Oh, I do hope there is something exotic.” She surveyed the collection of portraits around the room—women who had reclined in this very studio. Some watched her with brazen,
Do you dare do as I’ve done?
gazes. Others posed with eyes averted. “Or perhaps I should choose something more traditional,” she added, noting a common theme of soft, draping robes. She laced her fingers together, more to hide a sudden trembling than anything else.

“Or perhaps you need not make a decision at all,” Nicholas said, nodding to a large portrait on the far wall behind the painter’s canvas. The woman in that one preserved her modesty with nothing more than gently bended knees and a hand resting in her lap.

“Mmm. An interesting possibility. But—” she looked up at him “—I worry you might regret allowing your wife to pose
entirely
nude in front of spectators.”

“Forgive me,” he said in a low voice, “has there been a wedding I’m unaware of?”

She beckoned the maid she’d brought and disappeared behind the screen, where she inhaled deeply. Twice.

Nicholas was acting as if yesterday had never even happened. Of course he was—what choice did he have? It wasn’t as if he could hide himself away in shame and embarrassment. Not and pursue his intention of maneuvering her into wedlock. And it certainly wasn’t as if he would allow her to glimpse such aching torment again.

The only reason she’d witnessed it at all was because she’d caught him by complete surprise. The depth of that pain was proving impossible to forget.

“Mademoiselle?” the maid prompted.

“Oui.”
India breathed deeply. She wasn’t here to think of
his
difficulties, but hers.

Likely he was amusing himself at this very moment by imagining that now she would make her excuses and explain that she’d decided to be painted fully clothed.

Have you learned nothing at all about me in these past weeks, Mr. Warre?

She fingered the variety of fabrics and costumes draped over the top of the screen and ignored the little voice reminding her what she had learned about him. If anything, the revelation should make her
more
determined to be rid of him.

She chose a soft blue wrap that looked like something from classical Greece.

The maid helped her undress and put on the wrap, draping it around her hips and over her shoulders. With nothing underneath, the wrap clung to India’s curves and slid sensuously across her skin. She unpinned her hair and shook it out, letting it fall over her shoulders and breasts. A few more tucks for security and a dozen strokes through her hair with the brush, and she was ready.

She felt nearly naked, and with the feeling came a fresh resolve. When Nicholas saw her like this, he would put a stop to their game. With his true intentions out in the open, she could set about recruiting Auntie Phil’s help to thwart them.

She took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the screen.

Nicholas was sitting in the armchair. And she knew, now, that he’d lied when he said he was leaving.

“Ah, mademoiselle,” the painter said, kissing his fingertips at the sight of her.
“Venez...”
He guided her toward the chaise. A low, appreciative noise came from the direction of the card table where the men were seated.

Nicholas’s gaze followed her impassively. He assessed her choice of outfit with a tiny furrow between his brows, the exact way she’d seen him assess a questionably aged roll at one of the inns where they had stayed on the road from Marseille.

She walked to the couch, conscious of her bare feet on the wooden floor, aware of every place the soft fabric whispered against her skin. Any moment he would stand up. Announce that the portrait would not be painted.

The
comte
and Monsieur Pisannes wandered closer, while her other three guests watched from the table by the window.

“Magnifique, n’est-ce pas?”
the
comte
said to Nicholas.

“Ravissante,”
Nicholas agreed.

India sat down. Uncurled her body across the chaise longue and draped one arm over the top like the women in the other portraits.

“Là,”
the painter said. “Just there.”

“Surely you will be late if you stay any longer, Mr. Warre,” she said.

The painter assessed her critically, ordering her to bend one knee, straighten the other, lean this way, then that way. Beneath the fabric, the tips of her breasts puckered. They jutted out visibly, and her cheeks warmed, but there was nothing to be done about it now. She looked to see if Nicholas Warre had noticed.

He was checking his pocket watch. “Not just yet.” He flipped it shut and raised his eyes, leveling them at her.

Butterflies collided.

The painter stepped back. “
Voilà.
Perfect.”

“What do you think, Mr. Warre? Perfect?”

“I shall defer to the artist’s expertise on that score.” He pulled a sheaf of papers from inside his waistcoat and unfolded them, leaned back in his chair and began to read.

“I shan’t,” the marquis said, sipping a glass of wine and observing her appreciatively from another chair nearby.
“Parfait.”

Nicholas wasn’t even going to
watch?
She fumed silently while the painter took his place behind the canvas. Her irritation went unnoticed as Nicholas studied his papers.

At the table by the window, the
comte
and Monsieur Pisannes exchanged cards with two of her other guests. They’d probably seen dozens of scantily clad women. Perhaps hundreds. Maybe Nicholas had, too. The marquis continued to sip his wine and observe her. She didn’t want to look at him—not now—but she needed to.

Devil take it, she needed to act as if reposing in a state of undress in front of these men was giving her no end of delight and was exactly the kind of thing Nicholas could expect from her for years to come. As if there was nothing she wanted more than to crook her little finger and have half a dozen gentlemen falling at her feet.

Of which Nicholas would not be one, because he would never fall at anyone’s feet, and—

Oh.
The room around her faded.

Because he wasn’t looking away anymore.

And she wasn’t breathing anymore.

And his eyes moved lazily across her torso, and her breasts came alive beneath his gaze, tingling, and suddenly she was more aware of herself than she could have thought possible. Other places stirred deeply—intimate places, ones that would never be painted. And now it was as if he was touching her again the way he’d done in that hayloft, except that he wasn’t touching her, he was only looking.

Admit that you want me, Nicholas.
The words winged through her mind out of nowhere—or perhaps not from nowhere. Because desire burned hot in those green eyes, desire and memories of what they’d done together.

And it was very, very clear that he
did
want her.