Dark Obsession (6 page)

Oh, this itinerant Holbein constituted a missed opportunity of vast proportions.

The conversation drifted to other matters as the servants served dessert, and Sir Grayson spared her not another glance. No, he entered into a lively conversation with Lady Belinda, all traces of his former apathy vanishing from his expression. More than that, his stark eyes sparked each time Lady Belinda laughed or simply smiled, or when she briefly laid her hand on his coat sleeve.

Watching them, a burning sensation crept through her. Good heavens . . . jealousy? No. Resentment. Yes, for having to marry against her wishes, for finding herself saddled with an arrogant, disinterested creature of darkness who may or may not have murdered his brother, despite Papa’s claims.

Oh, may Signore Alessio’s oils harden to rock and his canvases crumble to dust for the fate to which he’d consigned her!

Grayson experienced diffiiculty in rising from his friend’s dining table upon conclusion of the meal, a predicament due to another and quite persistent rising that he attributed to Miss Honora Thorngoode’s influence.

They didn’t call her the Painted Paramour for no reason, for the woman was nothing if not bottled sensuality steaming for escape. A passion for portraits indeed. With her talk of overwhelming sensations and unique responses, she’d all but likened art to physical intimacy in a way that made his blood simmer, his appetites yearn.

Though she maintained her innocence throughout, he couldn’t help wondering if the famed Signore Alessio had been the victim, snared in a carnal web of Miss Thorngoode’s making.

He had tried seeking refuge in a conversation with Belinda, pretending to hang on her every word while his gaze shifted countless times against his will to Miss Thorngoode. To her pretty mouth, her delicate bosom, those graceful arms he’d very much like to feel wrapped around him.

Hence his present difficulty, and blast the other men for so blithely leaping to their feet and dispensing with the tradition of port and cigars following supper. That might have given him sufficient time to collect his composure and tame the beast even now straining for a good thrust or two with the lady in question.

But the women were about to stand, and that left him no choice. He eased to his feet, buttoning his coat and attempting to smooth it as well as he could, considering.

‘‘Sir Grayson, there is a small matter I should like to discuss.’’

He discovered her standing at his shoulder. His pulse spiked, though not so much due to her proximity as the fragrance she bore with her, sweet, heady, with a hint of something spicy. He couldn’t name the scent. He knew only that it danced through him like finger-tips over harp strings.

‘‘I thought perhaps the terrace . . .’’ She gestured toward the French doors at the far end of the room. ‘‘If you would.’’

‘‘A moment alone—a splendid idea.’’ Mrs. Thorngoode beamed, displaying a decidedly crooked front tooth. ‘‘You poor dears have barely exchanged a word all evening. Come. In the interest of propriety, I shall serve as your chaperone.’’

With a giggle the woman fluttered her hand at her husband, who stood waiting to return with the others to the drawing room. ‘‘Go on, go on. These children have some settling to do between them and they certainly have no need of an audience.’’ She cupped her hand over her mouth as if to muffle her next words, spoken nonetheless as audibly as the rest. ‘‘Don’t worry, Zachy, I shall be close at hand.’’

Willingly enough, Grayson followed the Paramour across the room. He was curious, really, as to what she could possibly wish to speak with him about. Theirs was a simple transaction, with little left to haggle over as far as he could see.

As they neared the threshold he slowed, caught by a familiar sight, one he’d grown so accustomed to over the years he typically paid it scant regard.

Until now.

To the left of the French doors, in a carved frame some four feet in length and three in height, hung an oil-color depiction of Blackheath Grange. It had been a gift from his parents to Chad’s many years ago. Now he found himself arrested by images of a summer morning so removed from present circumstances no one at the time could possibly have imagined them. How innocent they were then, how unaware of what would come.

The scene filled his gaze, then seemed to enlarge, breathing as if alive, stretching paint and canvas nearly to cracking as the view expanded to engulf him, absorb him. Birdsong wafted from swaying trees, a warm breeze ruffled his hair, a child’s voice beckoned from the house. . . .

Like the whisper he’d heard outside tonight.

A strangled oath rose in his constricted throat, fighting to push past his lips. He wrestled it back, but only just. He squeezed his eyes shut.

He opened them to brushstrokes on canvas and nothing more. As paintings were wont to do, this one tilted a bit to one side. He raised a hand to move it back in place, a task complicated by his shaking fingertips.

Miss Thorngoode swept to his side and grasped his hand. ‘‘This way, Sir Grayson, if you
please
.’’

Her warm touch anchored him firmly in the here and now while her impatience forced him into motion. He gladly abandoned the unsettling memories of his country home in favor of Chad’s elegant terrace, where nothing irregular, much less calamitous, had ever occurred.

Wine and too little sleep. Last night he’d tossed his way through countless restive dreams. Fatigue never mixed well with spirits. He must have consumed too much during supper, though he hadn’t thought so at the time. And there’d been that brandy earlier. Good thing they had skipped the port.

He expected Mrs. Thorngoode to follow them as they stepped outside, but the woman merely took up a position beside the threshold, hands folded at her waist, her sharp profile silhouetted by the lights behind her. He felt an odd sense of betrayal, as if she had been supposed to safeguard him but had shirked her responsibilities.

Not that he needed safeguarding from her daughter. He supposed he could handle Honora Thorngoode well enough, Painted Paramour or no. But what irked him, what tossed him so off kilter that he was hearing things and imagining paintings leaping out at him, was the loss of control over his life.

Because of the desperate straits he’d found himself in, he must now jump at every word spoken by these Thorngoodes and pretend he enjoyed it.

He dragged in a breath of night air and suppressed the rising anger—the futile, irrational, selfish anger he couldn’t help feeling despite his every effort not to. If only Tom hadn’t lost everything. If only he’d had better sense.

If only he were still alive.

With another tug, Miss Thorngoode propelled him beneath the sheltering overhang of a spacious walnut tree. He couldn’t help but notice how small and smooth her hand felt against his. What a comfortable fit it made. How the pressure of her fingers conveyed qualities both ingenuous and seductive, and had him simmering with curiosity as to the purpose of their sojourn.

Branches dripping with greenery blotted out the moon and effectively concealed them from her mother’s view. Apprehension tingled down his back, as so often happened in shrouded, shadowy places. But no, that was absurd. His peculiar visitations had surely been conjured from within, manifested by his grieving conscience.

A cool breeze stirred Miss Thorngoode’s curls and sighed through the filmy layers of her evening gown. She released his hand and faced him.

‘‘I wish to speak of this marriage we’re about to enter into. It will benefit you in a singular way, will it not, Sir Grayson?’’

Before he could reply, she revealed the rhetorical nature of her question by plowing doggedly on. ‘‘My dowry, not to mention the benefit of my father’s business acumen, will allow you to restore the Clarington fortunes for your nephew.’’

‘‘I can’t deny that it will, Miss Thorngoode.’’

She gave a brisk nod that sent a loose tendril of fine, glossy hair floating in her face. Were they not acting out the pretense of two well-bred young people about to embark upon a respectable life together, and were he still the man he once was, he might have reached out and tucked that tendril behind her ear.

From there he’d have allowed his fingertips to trail over the warmth of her nape, make contact with the tender skin of her neck, smoothing, caressing, fondling ever so gently, all the while drawing her to him. It was a game he’d enjoyed countless times with countless willing vixens. Such a long time ago . . .

‘‘Let us be frank, Sir Grayson. For me there is no such obvious benefit. In fact, I’ve yet to ascertain what advantage, if any, this marriage will render me.’’

She went on, but he heard only the prickliness of her voice. Good God, was he fated to marry a younger version of her mother and endure such harping the rest of his days?

His eyes narrowed, pinching her image between his lashes. ‘‘Excuse me, Miss Thorngoode, but there
is
the small matter of your reputation—’’

Her jaw dropped for the briefest instant. ‘‘The matter of my reputation, sir, is the result of incorrect assumptions formed upon a contemptible hoax.’’

‘‘Ah. I see.’’

Her eyes sparked venom; then she blinked. ‘‘Believe what you will. I’ve agreed to marry you to please Papa, but I refuse to live in any man’s shadow. I will not be shut away or give up my painting or—’’

‘‘As I’ve already said, if you wish to paint—’’

‘‘I do not need your permission for that, sir, thank you ever so much. What I
would
appreciate, the thing I am trying to negotiate if you’d let me slip a word in edgewise is—’’

‘‘A negotiation—good. Here is something I can appreciate, Miss Thorngoode.’’ Finally he recognized something of her father in her. And as he’d done with her father, perhaps they might shake hands in agreement before each went their own way, emotionally speaking, that is.

Of course, there would have to be the further pretense of the happily married couple. It had been part of his bargain with Zachariah. They must be seen together at the usual round of plays, symphonies and social events, all necessary to quell the gossip.

Then again, as Chad had so astutely pointed out, bedding this lusty morsel did not present a dismal prospect. He deserved some small compensation for his efforts, did he not? His eyes fell to her small though decidedly well-rounded bosom, snugly accentuated by the eager embrace of her shoulder-baring bodice.

When he’d first agreed to marry her, he had intended for them to live essentially separate lives. Once he fulfilled his role in raising the Painted Paramour from her fallen state, they would settle into happily divergent activities. He had planned to concentrate fully on his nephew’s welfare. His dear wife, he’d told himself, might do whatever it was that pleased her.

Now that he’d met her, seen her, he wasn’t as certain about that strategy.

‘‘Pray, name this negotiation you speak of, Miss Thorngoode. If it is within my power to grant—’’

‘‘Yes, yes.’’ A breath of impatience sent that loose tendril dancing about her impishly upturned nose. ‘‘Indeed it is quite simple, sir. I should like access to your Cornwall estate.’’

Wariness prickled his spine. ‘‘Blackheath Grange?’’

‘‘The very same. Particularly in the summer months, perhaps early autumn as well.’’

‘‘I am afraid the favor isn’t mine to grant.’’ His words were clipped, curt. ‘‘I merely manage the finances and upkeep. The Grange belongs to my nephew.’’

She dismissed this with a careless shrug. ‘‘It
is
in your keeping for now, is it not? I wish to establish a summer retreat for fellow artists—’’

‘‘My nephew lives there,’’ he ground out between jaws gone suddenly taut. He wondered—and for the first time cared—what she might have heard about him. Was she deliberately baiting him, using the one thing in his life still worth something—Jonny—for the sport of raising a reaction? ‘‘He does not take well to strangers.’’

‘‘Most children don’t.’’ Her voice rose on a note of vexation. ‘‘But that shall pass soon enough and he’ll undoubtedly benefit from the company of so many artistic individuals.’’

His shoulders tightened; a sudden pain lanced his neck. ‘‘Indeed he will not, Miss Thorngoode, due to the fact that not one of them shall ever set foot on the property. And neither shall you.’’

‘‘Why not?’’

‘‘Why not? Why
not?
’’ He suddenly wanted to grab her by the shoulders and give her a hearty shake to force some sense into her. No wonder she’d gotten herself into such a muck-mire; the poor woman simply couldn’t ascertain the obvious.

‘‘My dear Miss Thorngoode, if you and your artist cronies wish to hold riotous orgies all summer long, that is your concern. But I will not have you corrupting the mind of an innocent child.’’

Silence shivered between them. Her eyes opened wide, storm tossed, darkly shining. A bloodstained tide swept her indignant features. He felt a moment’s uncertainty. . . .

‘‘How
dare
you?’’ Her hand shot out, but before it swiped his face he caught her wrist. She yanked and tugged while expletives worthy of the saltiest old jack-tar flew at him.

‘‘Odd, but I don’t hear a denial in this otherwise colorful dissertation,’’ he said. Her other hand came up; he gripped it too. ‘‘Do you deny it?’’

‘‘Deny what? On which charge am I summoned to plead?’’

‘‘How many are there? Signore Alessio, Bryce Waterston . . . how many others have there been?’’

‘‘You’re insufferable.’’

‘‘That isn’t an answer.’’

‘‘You don’t deserve an answer.’’ She tried to pull free as a shocking round of adjectives described his person.

Enough. He tugged back and without warning her weight fell against his chest. With a step backward for balance, he grasped her shoulders, fully intending to give her that well-earned shake, but something else, something entirely unplanned, occurred.