Dark Obsession

She stepped into the masculine environs of dark wood walls and forest green draperies. Though unoccupied, the room breathed Grayson’s familiar scent, a heady mingling of the earthy outdoors and genteel grooming, entirely masculine, vaguely unsettling and undeniably arousing.

To her right stood a bureau, wide and high, its top littered with Grayson’s personal effects. She couldn’t help running her fingers over a comb and brush, his silver pocket watch. A cravat lay coiled beside his watch. She picked it up, the fine linen leaving traces of dampness across her fingertips.

‘‘How odd.’’

‘‘Indeed.’’

At the sound of the rumbling baritone, Nora yelped. Her gaze searched the dusky corners; at first she didn’t see him. But she felt him. Oh, she felt his presence filling the room and surrounding her like a physical embrace.

He stood in the dressing room doorway, taking shape from the surrounding gloom like an apparition materializing from thin air. A full day’s growth shaded his jaw in baleful reflection of the shadows beneath his eyes. His clothes, a white shirt lying open at the neck and tight breeches tucked into riding boots, seemed to adhere to his body like a second skin. She saw a scratch at the corner of his eye, another across the bridge of his nose.

Had he been brawling?

As he returned her stare, his nostrils flared and his stark blue eyes simmered with . . . anger, displeasure . . . desire? Whatever it was both chilled her and lit a smoldering fire inside her . . . and made her want to defy her fears and go to him. Go to him and kiss the scrapes on his face, soothe the wounds in his heart.

He pushed forward into the room. ‘‘Good afternoon, Lady Lowell. Perhaps you’d care to explain what the blazes you’re doing here.’’

‘‘Allison Chase’s
Dark Obsession
dishes up a wonderful story in a charming, romantic tradition, complete with a handsome and tortured hero, real conflict, and a touch of mystery! Anyone who loves . . . a well-written historical romance will relish this tale.’’ —Heather Graham

‘‘A compelling and exquisitely written love story that raises such dark questions along the way, you’ve no choice but to keep turning the pages to its stunning conclusion. Allison Chase is a master at touching your heart.’’ —Jennifer St. Giles, author of
Silken Shadows

‘‘Intriguing! A beguiling tale. Moody and atmospheric.’’

—Eve Silver, author of
Dark Prince

‘‘A haunted hero and a determined heroine create sparks in
Dark Obsession
. With a nod to Daphne du Maurier, this sexy story weaves together irresistible romance and ghostly warnings that lead to the truth hidden in a wounded heart. Filled with adventure and danger, deception and desire, this is a book you won’t forget.’’

—Jocelyn Kelley, author of
Kindred Spirits

SIGNET ECLIPSE
Published by New American Library, a division of
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First published by Signet Eclipse, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, May 2008

Copyright © Lisa Manuel, 2008

All rights reserved

SIGNET ECLIPSE and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to my editor, Ellen Edwards, and my agent, Evan Marshall, two extraordinary members of the publishing industry who have inspired me to look closer and dig deeper to produce my best work. Your enthusiasm and encouragement are appreciated more than you can know.

Heartfelt thanks to an incredibly talented group of authors whom I am especially lucky to call friends: Zelda Benjamin, Nancy J. Cohen, Sharon Hartley, Karen Kendall, and Cynthia Thomason. You have all kept me going through times when it might have seemed easier to quit.

And special thanks and my love to Paul, who has shown me and continues to show me in countless ways what being a real hero is all about.

Today promised to be a day of singular distinction— indeed, the fiinest day of Honora Thorngoode’s life. In a few short moments she would fiinally step out from behind her parents’ long and admittedly awkward shadows and become her own person, recognized and possibly even admired by those who had discreetly snubbed their noses at those ‘‘upstart Thorngoodes’’ all her life.

Best of all, she would achieve the one thing she’d craved for as long as she could remember, a thing she dreamed about and rehearsed, alone in her bedchamber, since she was a little girl. Yes, today would be her triumph.

Upon arriving at the Marshall Street Art Gallery, however, the upsurge of anticipation that had buoyed her while dressing that morning and prevented her from eating so much as a morsel at breakfast ebbed liked the seaward tug of the Thames.

Two strides in and she sensed an appalling lack of everything she had envisioned for this moment. There should have been exclamations, applause, glasses of champagne. . . .

The gallery should have teemed with admirers of Signore Alessio di Paolo’s masterpieces. Oh, the
ton
had arrived en masse, to be sure. Yet the Italian master’s oils proclaimed his genius to empty air, while a veritable throng stood crowded into a lone corner of the gallery, the huddled figures concealing from view the single artwork that had so utterly captured their attention.

An abrupt and deadening silence blanketed the room as the street door closed behind Nora and her parents. As thick as cheese, that silence, as heads turned and stares fell like tumbling dominoes upon her face.

Oh yes, something was very wrong indeed.

As the seconds ticked by, she scanned the faces for a smile, a wink of encouragement. She found none, only an awful gawking that scalded from head to toe.

Surely her
Portrait of a Southwark Madam
, the one Alessio had promised to include in the viewing, could not have engendered so much controversy, so much . . . enmity. But even as the thought formed, the horde of judgment across the room stiffened and, seemingly as one, took a decisive shuffle backward, as if to put as much distance as possible between it and her.

Was her painting as wretched as all that?

She darted a glance to her right. Her mother’s expression held its usual mingling of self-satisfaction and simpering opportunism. Millicent Thorngoode had never approved of Nora’s connection to Signore Alessio. For years now she had bemoaned Nora’s dabbling in a man’s occupation, as she’d put it, and disdained with wearisome sighs the paint that always found its way beneath Nora’s fingernails. Still, Mama had hoped today might present her daughter in a more fashionable light. Might even, with a bit of luck, entice some eligible young bachelor to offer for her.

At the moment Nora wasn’t feeling particularly fashionable, nor did a blessed one of those glares seem in the least bit enticed.

Her father, flanking her left side, perceived it too, or his rough-hewn features would not have realigned so instantly from a moue of indulgent pride to one of icy challenge, as if daring the first insult to fly.

‘‘Where on earth is Signore Alessio?’’ Her mother’s query jarred the stillness. A speculative fluster fanned through the crowd.

Where indeed. Alessio should be here to greet his guests and admirers, and to unveil the painting he had praised as Nora’s first true masterpiece. What manner of ill fortune would have kept him away today of all days?

She had one choice—only one. Proceed with chin held high across that gallery and learn what everyone else so obviously knew, or at least apparently agreed upon.

The assemblage parted at her approach, slowly opening a narrow path that lengthened with each step she took. Her parents trailed behind. Ahead, through the spreading crowd, the colors and shapes imprinted on a rectangular canvas began to take form—a form categorically
not
that of
Southwark Madam
.

The madam’s portrait contained no sweeping expanses of crimson, nor did its colors fade into dark, velvety oblivion at the painting’s edges as this one’s did. Within the scarlet tones of this work, strokes of fairest rose blended with smoothest ivory. A sheen of gold added luster to a swath of rich chestnut. . . .

‘‘He’s a dead man!’’

Zachariah Thorngoode’s shout drowned out Nora’s strangled cry, an outpouring of dismay that left her mouth agape. Eyes aching in their sockets, she gawked—like her audience—at a portrait depicting, in mortifying detail, her very self sprawled on satin bed linens, as naked as the day she entered the world.

Horror bloomed, ran riot within her. The images seared like molten lead that solidified in the pit of her stomach. Good gracious, the thighs were parted, breasts exposed. . . . One hand cupped her private parts. . . . The other arm—long and slender like her very own—stretched behind her head, fingers tangled in locks of hair. . . .