Scandalous Brides: In Scandal in Venice\The Spanish Bride (16 page)

“Do not be very long. The light is just right for viewing the ruins.”

“I said I would be there directly! Be patient.”

“ ‘Tis twenty years till then!”

“You have been reading Shakespeare again!” She blew him a kiss from her fingertips, and withdrew from the window, closing it against his protestations.

“Such a rake.” She sighed and reached for the blue dress of Georgina’s she was borrowing for the day. Pausing only to button it up and reach for her slippers, she waved at Georgina and danced out the door to where Nicholas was waiting with their picnic hamper.

“There she is at last, my Juliet.” He lifted her by her waist, twirling her about and about until the sky tilted drunkenly and her skirts flew about her knees.

“You shall have to set me on my feet, Romeo, before I cast up my accounts all over your fine shirt!” She laughed, clutching at his shoulders in her dizziness.

“And we can’t have that, now can we?” Nicholas lowered her to the ground, his hands warm and safe on her waist. For a moment, he clasped her to him, so close and tight it was almost painful.

“Nicholas?” Elizabeth stepped back a bit, frightened that whatever had been about to be said last night was going to haunt their day again. “Is something amiss?”

He only smiled faintly, and wrapped a long strand of her black hair around his finger. He studied it closely, as if he had never seen such hair before. “Amiss? What could possibly be amiss, on such a day as this? I have apricot tarts in my hamper, and a lovely girl on my arm, and the Italian sky above me.” He laughed, and danced her around in a circle. “You see, dear, I have even begun to wax poetical today.”

Elizabeth laughed obligingly. “Byron need have no fears of his new rival, I think.” She linked her arm in his, and led him toward the pathway that went to the old Roman ruins. “It is a fine day, just as every day has been since we came here. I vow I have never stopped smiling, even in my sleep! I even have sweet dreams here.”

“Then we shall have to come here very often indeed.”

“Yes, we shall.” Elizabeth paused to examine an oleander bush. “But sometimes, Nicholas, I ...”

“Yes, dear? You.... ?”

It had to be said. “Sometimes I feel as if you did not completely share in this happiness.”

Nicholas was silent a very long moment. He held Elizabeth’s hand but he did not look at her. “Wise Elizabeth,” he said at last. “There is ... something. But you were correct last night in saying that this is not the place for such things. It is far too lovely.
You
are too lovely to have your holiday marred in any way. And what I have to say is not so urgent.”

“But you will tell me?” she whispered.
Just as I
must tell you.

Instead of answering, he raised her fingers to his lips. “We are being far too serious for such a day! This is a day meant for frivolity of the most blatant sort. Were we not going to view the ruins?”

Elizabeth looked around at the warm sun, the sapphire sky, the flowers just beginning to peek from the ground. It
was
a lovely day. Misgivings still lurked in her mind, but she shrugged them away and smiled. “I have a much better idea.”

“Oh? And what is that idea?”

“A swim.”

“Now?”

“This instant!” Elizabeth hurried off down the twisting pathway that led to the sparkling sea, tugging Nicholas by the hand behind her. “Or are you frightened?”

That was a challenge Nicholas had never been able to let pass by. “Scared? I was a champion rower at school, I will have you know. And I took more than one spill into the Thames, which was considerably colder than this little pond.”

“Good. Then perhaps you can keep up with me!”

They reached the shore, where gentle pale blue waves, tipped with white, lapped at the rocky sand. Elizabeth shed her shoes and stockings, and reached for the buttons of her gown.

Nicholas laughed at her utter audacity. “Are you going in the altogether?”

“Certainly not! I am a lady.” Her gown joined the pile of clothing, along with her single petticoat. “I will wear my chemise.”

Nicholas was utterly unable to look away as she turned and waded into the water, disappearing little by little until only her seal-dark head was visible above the waves.

Nicholas had seen her bare legs that night on the terrace in Venice, and her décolletage was revealed in many a ball gown, but that had always been at night, dark. In moonlight, Elizabeth was lovely.

In sunlight, she was incomparable.

Her legs were not long, but they were slender and white, her feet elegantly arched as they kicked behind her. He wished he had her skill with a paintbrush; then he could capture her forever, just as she was this moment. A mermaid frolicking in the Mediterranean surf.

“Are you not coming in, champion rower?” she called. “The water is cool, but wonderful!” She beckoned to him, revealing the enticing sheerness of her wet garment.

Nicholas, frozen in place for those long moments, suddenly sprang into motion. His clothes joined hers on the sand, and he swam out toward her until he could grasp her waist. He lifted her high against him, kissing the seawater saltiness of her lips until she gasped.

“I love you,” he whispered, staring up into her shining eyes, the sunlit corona of her hair. “I love you, and I wish that this day, this moment, would never end.”

“It won’t.” She pulled his head back to hers, kissing him in return. “We will not let it end. Ever.”

Chapter Fifteen

Venice

“S
ignorina! Signorina, you must wake up!”

Elizabeth burrowed deeper beneath the bedclothes, trying to escape from Bianca’s ever-more insistent voice. Since their return to Venice three days ago, when Nicholas had carried her, giggling, over the threshold, she had not retired once before dawn. She had been sitting on the terrace the night before, drinking champagne and gossiping with Nicholas and Georgina until the sun had been quite high. It felt as though she had only just fallen asleep, and she was loath to have her delicious dream interrupted.

“Oh, do go away, Bianca!” She groaned. “It is hardly morning.”

“But, signorina, there is a visitor!
Such
a visitor.” Bianca rolled her eyes.

“A visitor? So early?” Elizabeth groaned again. It was very likely some patron who was not happy with their portrait, or one of Georgina’s spurned suitors. All their artist friends would be still abed, as all sensible people should be. “Go and wake Georgina. Or Nicholas.”

“Signora Georgina is already downstairs, and Signor Nicholas is not at home.”

Georgina, awake and downstairs before noon? And Nicholas out already, after their late night? Very odd. “Where is Nicholas, Bianca?”

“I do not know. He said he had an errand, and would be back for breakfast.”

Elizabeth opened one eye to peer up at the maid. “And who is this caller?”

Bianca shrugged. “I do not know. He would not give his name, but he is
molto
handsome.”

“He?”

“Yes, and he is asking for you, but Signora Georgina, she says you are not to be disturbed and he must go away.”

Curiouser and curiouser. Elizabeth swung her legs out of bed and reached for her dressing gown. “What does this man look like? Aside from being
molto
handsome.”

“Oh, tall, as tall as Signor Nicholas. And golden. And very elegant.”

Tall, golden, and elegant. Could it be ... ?

Elizabeth turned quite as white as her sheets.

“I must be found out,” she whispered.

“Signorina?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Hand me my slippers, Bianca. I must greet our guest.”

As if in a daze, she brushed her hair and tied it back with a piece of ribbon, donned her slippers, and made her way down the stairs with Bianca fluttering behind her.

It was as she had feared, as she had dreamed on many a disturbed night. Georgina stood before the empty grate, still wearing her night rail, and brandishing a fireplace poker at the Earl of Clifton.

Peter
was
elegant, every bit as elegant as she remembered. He quite overpowered their rented room in his doeskin breeches and many-caped greatcoat. He stood behind her writing desk, his hat and walking stick resting atop some of her sketches of Katerina Bruni. His gloves slapped rhythmically against his thigh.

He quite looked as if he owned the place, and they were merely his recalcitrant servants. Two years might almost never have passed.

Except that
she
was different now. She no longer would stammer and blush and cry before his coldness. She was free. She was a woman who had made her own way in the world, and was no longer a little girl.

Was she not?

“Good morning, Peter,” she said coolly, as if it had not been so very long since they had seen each other; as if they might have dined just the night before. She took the poker from Georgina’s hand, placed it back beside the grate, and drew her glowering friend firmly to her side. “And what brings you to Venice at such a quiet time of year?”

“Why, the charming weather, of course.” He gestured with his gloves to the steady, silver rain outside the windows. “Such a vast improvement on English rain.”

“I am certain you will notice no difference when you have returned to England.”
Where you belong,
she added silently. “When will you be returning?”

“I shall be back beside my own cozy hearth very soon. When you have packed your trunks, dear sister, we shall be gone from here.”

Georgina surged forward. “Why, you bas ...”

Elizabeth grasped Georgina’s hand tighter, holding her back from scoring Peter’s golden features with her wicked nails. “I am afraid that is impossible,
brother dear.
My home is here now, and I cannot abandon my work.”

“Oh, I think not.”

A knot of ice slowly formed in Elizabeth’s belly as she watched Peter remove a sealed document from inside his coat. She watched in a haze as he laid the paper on the desk.

“I am still your guardian, Elizabeth. Until you reach your twenty-first birthday, which, if I am not mistaken, is almost a year away. Those were the terms of our parents’ will.”

“This is absurd!” Elizabeth whispered.

“Oh, my dear, it could not be less absurd. I have here a magistrate’s order, giving you into my care.” He glanced about their dim, dusty drawing room, littered with canvases and sketches. “And you obviously need my care, Elizabeth. No gently reared woman in her right mind would choose to live such a ... disordered life. If you do not come home with me now, your friends could be brought up on charges of kidnapping.”

“What?” Elizabeth cried, utterly shocked. All the times she had tried to imagine what would happen if Peter found her, she had never envisioned this, threatening her friends.

“No, Lizzie!” Georgina seized Elizabeth’s arm, and drew her into the empty corridor, whispering furiously, “You must not go with him. Who knows what will happen? Something quite dreadful, to be sure. He cannot be in his right mind to come here like this, barking unreasonable orders, taking over your life.”

“Georgie, I must. I have no choice. I would never see you in such trouble for my sake. The scandal could mean the end of your career. If I go away quietly, you can put it about that I am ill and have gone away to—to Switzerland or someplace, to recover.”

“Never! I do not care about all that. What are some old portraits I’m finishing to your safety? You are my own sister, Lizzie; I would die if any harm befell you. And you are not
safe
with that man!” Georgina shook her head fiercely. “I never liked him, even when all the girls at Miss Thompson’s were swooning over him. He was too cool by half.”

Elizabeth turned away and leaned her forehead against the wall, closing her eyes tightly. What to do, what to do? Of course she could not stay and see anyone arrested and put in clink on her behalf. Yet how could she simply pack her things and leave meekly with Peter? How could she leave her work, go back to Clifton Manor, where so many memories waited?

How could she go back to that staid English country life, after Italy?

She shuddered just to think of the old vicar, the Misses Allan, Lord and Lady Haversham with their deadly dull “salons.”

And, worst of all, how could she ever leave Nicholas?

Nicholas.

Elizabeth slowly opened her eyes and stared sightlessly at the white plaster of the wall as the worst, the most hideous thought fluttered through her mind like an insidious whisper.

No. Nicholas could have nothing to do with all of this. Simply because he had disappeared from the house the very morning Peter appeared...

But Nicholas loved her! Did he not? Those weeks in the country had been the most glorious of her life, and his adoring attentions had told her he felt the same. Surely his kisses, his sweet words, did not lie?

And then, how could he even know Peter? An artist’s secretary, a bastard son, would never have occasion to meet the Earl of Clifton, let alone conspire with him in such a way. Surely.

However . . .

How well did she truly know Nicholas, a tiny voice whispered in the back of her mind. She knew the feel of his arms, his kisses, how he moved with her so perfectly when they danced. He had told her of his father, but she did not know who that father was, how Nicholas had come to be in Italy, how he dressed so fashionably if he had to seek employment.

She sank onto the nearest chair, her knees suddenly too weak to support her, her head in her hands as these unwelcome thoughts chased around her mind. If she loved Nicholas, how could she even suspect him? She had given him her heart and her very soul; she could not be such a poor judge of character. No artist could be.

It all had to be a ridiculous coincidence.

But then how
did
Peter know where to find her? She had been so very careful all these years.

Apparently not nearly careful enough.

“It cannot be,” she whispered. “He loves me.”

“What did you say, Lizzie?” Georgina leaned over her. “Are you quite well? Shall I have Bianca fetch some brandy?”