The Sinner Who Seduced Me (16 page)

She wrapped her stubby fingers about the coins and hid them away in the folds of her skirt.

She disgusted Pettibone for the very reason that she was useful: Greed. Plain and simple. He wondered how far she would go for money, then stopped. He’d not sully himself with the likes of Daphne. After all, he would be moving up in the world soon enough, once he had Marlowe out of the way. His father would finally understand how valuable he was to the organization and give him the position he deserved. Or he would simply take it, years of being underestimated having left him with very little patience or humanity.

“Anything else?” Daphne asked, her Shropshire accent suddenly even more grating to Pettibone’s ears than before.

“You may go,” he replied, “but do let me know if you hear anything more.”

The maid executed a crude curtsy and hastily left the room, the coins jingling in her pocket.

The room still smelled slightly of vomit.

Clarissa held the jug of turpentine to her nose and breathed deeply. She supposed the lingering aroma was her fault.

She’d dismissed Iris nearly an hour before, the effects
of last night proving more powerful than the poor girl could stand.

“Poor girl,” Clarissa said, out loud this time, hardly believing that she’d even referred to Iris as such. Miss Bennett was neither poor nor a girl, with machinations and drive for such untamed adventures surely worthy of wanton women twice her age.

Clarissa reached for her brush and dabbed at the paint on her pallette. Perhaps she was being too harsh with Iris.

She applied the paint in one short stroke and stood back, surveying the line. She coveted Iris’s diamond and ruby earbobs just a tad too much. She had to admit that coveting, in any degree, was unacceptable, at least according to the Almighty.

Clarissa looked up to the ceiling and sighed. “Can you blame me?” she asked, then looked down at her painting smock and the drab, male clothing hidden beneath it. The little tailor in Paris had done an admirable job, but Clarissa was tired of the same colors and lines, day after day. She longed for a printed muslin gown or perhaps a satin pair of ball slippers. At this point she’d make do with a bonnet festooned with feathers, her mother’s preferred style. Something—anything that reminded her of who she really was.

She stepped back toward the painting and dipped the brush into the turpentine again. She was becoming someone else. She’d watched her mother transform overnight when her father had betrayed them. And now, it appeared, it was Clarissa’s turn.

It was all due to James. Les Moines terrified her; her mother’s imprisonment, for lack of a better term, chilled her to the bone. But it was James’s reappearance in her life that had shaken Clarissa’s very foundation. Her outrage at his reappearance had turned into manageable unease with their alliance. Lust and a long unanswered
longing had turned to hurt and confusion. Even for an emotional creature such as herself, Clarissa knew that she could not keep up such a pace, nor was there anything to be gained from doing so.

She squinted at the canvas, seeing exactly where each line and shadow, shade and texture would shape the finished portrait. Clarissa understood that she needed to do the very same thing with herself. Look to the day when she would be reunited with her mother and figure out just who she needed to be in order to get there.

The ride with James had proven successful. Clarissa had been horrified at the thought of venturing out yet again with Iris, but she had agreed and kept her mouth shut. His insistence that she apologize to the silly, spoiled girl nearly found Clarissa using her crop on James rather than Winston. But she’d kept her wits about her, Clarissa thought, rubbing distractedly at her aching jaw. She’d even enjoyed the horseback ride, though she wasn’t about to tell James that. The dreary breeches did provide at least one convenience that a gown could not.

She swished the brush back and forth in the turpentine and considered her palette. The Clarissa she’d been on the ship was too fiery a character for the remainder of her stay at Kenwood House. Such high emotion and underlying anger, while keeping her heart safe from James, would prove confusing at best to the Bennetts. And at worst? Suspicion, as James had made clear on their ride, was something they could not afford to induce.

She dipped the sable brush into a muted tone. St. Michelle thought such a practice wasteful, most artists choosing one utilitarian shade for their first sketch of the subject upon the linen canvas. Clarissa needed the portrait to be whole, from beginning to end. She undertook a broad stroke that outlined the edges of Iris’s background,
the snap of the bristles as she broke the contact between brush and canvas satisfying.

No, she mused, the Clarissa from their Channel crossing would not do. “Very well,” she said to herself. The Clarissa who had ridden out onto the heath it would be. Surely self-restraint would come more easily to one the more it was practiced. And she would grow used to her impersonal interactions with James. After all, she didn’t have a choice. If she expected to keep her emotions contained enough so that she would survive this ordeal, she could not—would not—engage him in such a manner again. His ability to turn from her with such ease was terrifying.

Perhaps St. Michelle had been right all along. She needn’t completely quench her fiery personality in order to achieve some measure of success in the art world. Perhaps she simply required an equal measure of pragmatism—something she’d always feared she couldn’t wish into existence. On the contrary, if her experience thus far had proven anything, it was that she did possess the necessary skills. It was simply going to be a matter of taking control of the situation—something Clarissa felt sure she’d master in a relatively short amount of time.

“Am I interrupting?”

Clarissa startled at the low voice, dropping her brush to the floor. She discovered Pettibone had entered the room and now stood no more than half the room’s length from her easel.

“I apologize,” Pettibone began, strolling toward Clarissa and turning his head to view the canvas. “I did not mean to frighten you.”

Clarissa wanted to tell the man if that were the case, he should not have embroiled himself within a murderous organization bent on threatening both her and her mother, but bit the inside of her cheek instead. “Startled, yes. Frightened, not in the least,” she said confidently,
sensing that she needed to establish a firm footing with Pettibone from the start.

He smiled as if it pained him to do so. “Good. I see you’ve begun.”

Clarissa knelt to retrieve the brush, using the edge of her smock to wipe at the drops of paint. “Well, yes, in a sense. Of course, the sketches took some time.”

It was an odd sensation, standing there with him. He was dressed as a footman, and his appearance gave no indication whatsoever that he was anything but a servant. As an artist, she was a footman’s superior. To the Bennetts, Pettibone existed to serve St. Michelle’s needs. Therefore, the prick of irritation his comment inspired in her was not at all unusual.

But Pettibone was not a footman—a fact Clarissa would be wise to remember.

“Naturally,” he concurred, looking about the room. “He’s told you there is very little time?”

“Marlowe? Yes, of course. But paint dries only so quickly, Pettibone.”

He chuckled. It was a thin, uninspired sound that made the hair on Clarissa’s neck stand up.

“And Marlowe. Tell me, what do you think of him?”

Clarissa could not fathom what the man was playing at, but she didn’t like it one bit. Still, she’d only moments before decided upon a course of action that precluded clouting the man with her tools. She wiped the brush one last time across her smock before setting it in the jug of turpentine. “I don’t think of Marlowe,” she replied in a controlled, even tone, turning to face Pettibone. “He is one of your kind. That is all I need to know.”

Pettibone looked at the canvas one last time then turned to meet Clarissa’s gaze. “I am sorry for all of this,” he began, gesturing about him. “When I received news of St. Michelle’s unfortunate fall, I insisted that we
abandon the scheme. But Marlowe, well, he convinced our superiors that you—and your mother—were our only hope.”

“My mother?” Clarissa asked, careful to control her breathing. “What do you mean?”

Pettibone’s face fell. “You did not know? It was Marlowe who suggested that we take your mother to ensure your cooperation.”

Clarissa abruptly turned her back to Pettibone and plucked the brush from the jug. “No, I did not know—until now.”

“This must be upsetting for you. I apologize,” Pettibone offered in a low tone. “But it is why I asked after Marlowe. You see, I do not entirely trust the man.”

Clarissa bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. “Isn’t that the nature of your work, Pettibone? I wouldn’t think that it would be wise to trust anyone.”

“
Touché,
” Pettibone replied, his fetid breath brushing hot against her ear. He’d moved markedly closer. “Though there is truth in what you suggest, men in my vocation find it necessary—essential, even—to rely on others.”

“And Marlowe does not inspire such confidence?” she managed evenly.

“In a word?” Pettibone asked, “No. He is rather new to the organization. This assignment is meant to be his final test before being given more substantial responsibilities.”

Clarissa couldn’t endure the man’s nearness one more moment. She suddenly twisted about, catching Pettibone by surprise. “I’m not sure that I understand. He wants to prove himself and ascend to a higher rank. Surely this makes perfect sense to men of your ilk. It is the reason that you do what you do—out of loyalty to Napoleon, yes?”

“I suppose so,” Pettibone said, his reptilian smile surfacing once more. “But a woman masquerading as a world-famous painter? It seems a bit reckless, as though he wishes to fail.”

Clarissa’s mind was spinning. She desperately wished Pettibone would leave so she might have a moment’s peace to try to unravel the gravity of all that he’d shared.

“I assure you, Pettibone, I haven’t the faintest idea—nor interest, to be quite honest. I am here to paint a portrait, that is all. I’ll leave the nefarious goings-on to you and Marlowe.” She smiled with as much charm as she could muster and gestured toward the door.

Pettibone bowed low, his obviously rigorous study of English customs perhaps the only thing Clarissa could find to recommend him. “Good day, Lady Clarissa.”

“Oh, one more thing, Pettibone,” she added.

He rose and waited patiently for her to continue.

“I require a cat.”

“Is that all of them?”

James, Clarissa, and the poor groom who’d had the misfortune of assisting Clarissa with Winston the Thoroughbred the day prior stood in the small room just off the north end of the barn. Normally used to store oats, the room had been taken over by three cats.

At least, that was as many as James could see at the moment, though he suspected there were a number more lurking out of sight.

“Yes, Monsieur St. Michelle—at least all that we could catch,” the groom answered apologetically.

“
Excusez-moi
, but why, exactly, are we here?” James asked, watching as a large male marked the leg of a rickety wooden stool.

He’d not seen Clarissa since their ride yesterday, which had suited him perfectly. Her demeanor had thrown him, though it had been exactly what he’d
needed. Leave it to Clarissa to do the unexpected, he thought dryly.

Clarissa eyed the tabby with obvious disappointment and approached a gray female perched on top of a barrel, her back arched in the most impossible of poses. “I require a cat.”

The gray hissed vehemently and Clarissa stepped back. “Though not that one.”

“If it’s mice you’re worried over, Chester here’s your boy. Best mouser in the barn.” The groom pointed to the corpulent orange cat now napping in a bit of stray hay. “Don’t let his size fool you. He’s quite the springer—but with it being morning and all, he’s a bit tired, I suspect.”

Clarissa assessed the big tomcat with little enthusiasm. “
Oui
, well, he’s handsome enough, but hardly looks to be a good companion.”

James gave the groom an apologetic look.

Clarissa saw him and glared. “Are you not aware of the long tradition of studio cats, monsieur?” She paused, trying to remember the groom’s name.

“It’s Thomkins, monsieur, and no, I’m afraid I know very little of art.”

“Is that so?” Clarissa asked, feigning disbelief. “Well, Thomkins, cats are prized by artists for many reasons. Their calming presence, their intelligence—many have become their master’s muse.”

All three looked again at Chester, his long fur sticking out at impossile angles while his sizeable stomach gently expanded and contracted as he breathed.

“And the mice,” Clarissa added, aware that Chester had done little to help her cause. “What of this one?” she asked, squatting down to peer into the opposite corner.

The groom stepped over and squinted into the dark. “Oh, that’s Ink.”

“Ink?” Clarissa repeated, her displeasure evident.
“Well, we’ll find you a more suitable name, of that you can be sure,” she addressed the cat as she pulled him from his hiding spot.

James couldn’t understand just what she’d found so disagreeable about the cat’s name. He truly was as dark as ink, his black coat glossy despite the layer of dust settled upon it.

“And what is your story?” she inquired of the cat as she held him in her arms.

The groom hesitated, then looked to James for reassurance.

James sighed resignedly. “Though it is entirely possible that St. Michelle expects the cat to answer, I do not.
S’il vous plaît
, regale us with Ink’s history.”

“He’s a bit long in the tooth, this one. Got into a scrap with a badger, oh, couple years past now, and still has the limp to prove it. And he’s skinny, seeing as he’s not the mouser he once was, but he gets by.”

The tomcat looked far from comfortable in Clarissa’s arms, his tail twitching back and forth with serpentine speed. But he did not hiss nor scratch her arms, so James couldn’t see why he wasn’t the perfect cat for her.