Reckless in Red

by Rachael Miles

  As the light struck her position, she slipped out the door and ran.

  * * *

  She’d almost reached the end of the Rotunda yard when a tall figure stepped from the shadow of the alley. Strong arms pulled her back. She bit back her scream, not wanting to draw the other men from the Rotunda. Instead, she raised her heel and rammed it hard into the man’s instep.

  “Ouch. Lena.” Clive let her go. “What’s the matter?”

  She started to tell him, about the men, their threats, but the confession died on her lips. She walked swiftly out of the view of the Rotunda. He followed.

  “Lena! Stop!” As they reached the street, he grabbed her arm, pulling her back to face him. With her free hand, she slapped him across the face, hard.

  “I want nothing to do with you, Clive Somerville.” She took advantage of his surprise to pull out of his grasp once more. But Clive caught her elbow, herding her toward a waiting carriage.

  She looked back into the Rotunda yard. The men hadn’t yet left the building. If she wished to get away quickly—to get Clive away quickly—her best option was the carriage. So be it. She could both save his life and have her say.

  She pulled her elbow out of his grasp, and forgoing the stairs and Clive’s help, she pulled herself into the coach. Clive didn’t interfere.

  * * *

  “How could you?” She sat as far from him as the coach seat would allow. “I trusted you. I . . .” She sputtered to a stop, finding no words to convey the depth of her anger.

  “You have me at a disadvantage.” Clive watched her face. Somehow the ground had shifted between them. The expression on Lena’s face, angry and belligerent, suggested no hint of affection or even of friendship. The realization made his chest tight. “What have I done?” Clive spoke cautiously, testing his words against her emotion.

  “You lied to me.”

  “Only when it was necessary.” A misunderstanding, but Clive knew her too well to be relieved.

  “Then you admit it.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m surprised.”

  “Admit what?” He hadn’t felt so helpless since his childhood. “I told you from the first that I was conducting an investigation. I wasn’t at liberty to give you every detail.”

  “I’m not talking about your investigation. I’m talking about her. Your mistress . . . in the very suite we shared together.”

  “If I have a mistress in that suite, it would be only you.” Somehow his world had tilted on its axis, and he needed to right it, but how?

  “I saw you—with her.” Her voice was trembling with anger. “I will not be a member of your harem.”

  “Don’t let an old scandal ruin . . . this, us.”

  “An old scandal? That places it in the past. But I saw you with her only this morning. Don’t deny it.”

  “But I must, Lena.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “Caroline and her sisters never come to town—it is far too dangerous.”

  “Then who was that dark-haired woman you were kissing in the guest wing?” She shook her head and tightened her lips.

  “You are the only dark-haired woman I have kissed. There’s only you.”

  “More lies.” Lena crossed her arms tight over her chest. “I wish to go to the African’s Daughter. After that, I wish never to see you again.” She looked out the window. A part of her hoped that he could offer some reasonable explanation, but she knew it was impossible. She’d seen the kiss with her own eyes, and no explanation could erase her betrayal.

  “I will take you to the African’s Daughter.”

  His agreement stung, a confirmation of her every accusation.

  “Excellent.” She refused to look him in the face. All that mattered was getting him far away from the Rotunda. She might not wish to see him anymore, but she didn’t wish him dead.

  “But only on one condition: you must give me ten minutes to prove that I haven’t lied to you about Caroline, her sisters, or any woman.”

  “You can’t convince me to reject what I saw.” She was lucky he’d betrayed her. It made leaving easier.

  “But I can give you cause to look again. Ten minutes, and if I haven’t convinced you, I’ll have Fletcher deliver you to the African’s Daughter and never trouble you again.”

  She stared at him hard, then agreed with a curt nod.

  * * *

  They rode in silence to the duke’s residence, and once there, Clive settled her in the main drawing room. “Remember: you promised me ten minutes.”

  Near the window, a pile of books sat on a writing desk, and she picked the top book up, rubbing her thumb down the spine.

  A few moments later, Clive returned, wearing the clothes he’d been wearing when she’d seen him embracing his lover. The door closed behind him.

  “You came all this way to change clothes?” She laced her words with hostility.

  “Clive tells me that I’ve caused a rupture between you.” He shrugged half apologetically and ran his hand through his hair.

  “Clive does, does he?” She flung the book, hitting his chest. She threw another. He stared at her with surprise.

  “Wait!” He held out his hands in submission. “I’m not Clive.” He looked over his shoulder at the closed door. “I neglected to tell anyone I was in the house and with company.”

  “You admit it then.” She flung another book, this time barely missing his head. “Why do you waste my time?”

  “Apparently my brother wishes for me to suffer.” Dodging the fourth book, he strode to the door. “Come in, you devil. It’s not fair to make me bear her wrath alone.”

  A second man—identical save for his clothing—stepped into the room. The only difference between them was their clothing and the part of their hair. Lena studied the two men’s faces, their hair, the set of their shoulders, the lines of their bodies. They submitted patiently to her examination, even when she poked each man in the chest, as if to test if he were real.

  “You are a twin,” she said flatly.

  Clive nodded apologetically. “My brother Edmund concealed his arrival in order to address some business that he keeps entirely to himself. He chose the Rowan suite for privacy, as we did, without asking if anyone else might already be in residence.”

  “You aren’t Clive.” She pointed at Edmund, dumbfounded and relieved in the same breath.

  “Are you satisfied?” Edmund waited until Lena nodded. “Then I must ask my brother to accompany me briefly. My own lady will not be satisfied with throwing only books.”

  Lena watched the two brothers leave, even their strides identical. Learning that Clive had a twin left her dissatisfied. Certainly, he hadn’t betrayed her with another woman, but how could he neglect to mention something so fundamental as having a twin? She’d been a fool to trust him, but the truth was that she’d wanted to, and now she loved him. With every fiber of her being she loved him. His calm kindness had soothed her soul in a way she’d never expected, and never imagined possible. When she was with him, she had no desire to wander, and she’d never felt anything that could soothe her wanderlust.

  But she was a danger to him, somehow, even if she didn’t understand why—and she had to remember that. If she told him of the threats, he’d feel obligated to remain by her side. The duke would send men to protect them, but for how long? And from what enemies? Eventually they would chafe at the restrictions, then one or both of them would die. If her heart ached now at the prospect of living without him, how much more would it break if he were to die for being her lover? But if he stayed away from her he might live—that’s what the men said.

  Breaking it off with him would have been easier, cleaner, if he had betrayed her. Instead, she would have to destroy any hope they might have of a future together.

  He returned all too quickly.

  “I assume you pretended to be each other when you were young.” She tightened her shawl around her shoulders.

  “I’m not terribly good at dissembling.” He grinned, clearly th
inking that all was resolved. “But we once had a dancing master—a Mr. Quince—who believed we were the same boy for almost a year. We never tried to deceive him; we would simply alternate who attended the lessons. It quite confused him because I prefer my left side, and Edmund prefers his right.”

  “How did he discover?” She paused, extending their remaining pleasant moments.

  “Father invited him to a family dinner. He glared at us until Father asked if he had indigestion.”

  “I would have received a worse punishment than a glare.”

  “If you are a possible heir to a dukedom, no one, other than your parents, dares punish you. We boys had to learn for ourselves how unbridled self-interest leads only to cruelty.”

  “If you had no teacher but your father to guide you, how did you learn?” she prompted. Now that their minutes were numbered, she wanted to learn as much about him as she could.

  “Our eldest brother was a textbook in cruelty. Aidan and Benjamin bore the brunt of his misuse, but none of us escaped.”

  “Benjamin? You mentioned him before.” She regretted the question almost immediately, as his expression turned inexpressibly sad.

  “My second eldest brother, lost in the wars. I still miss him.”

  She resisted touching his arm. She couldn’t afford any motion that might appear affectionate.

  * * *

  At the tender expression on Lena’s face, Clive shook off his sad memories. Sophia was right: he was in love. In love with her strong will, her creativity, her intelligence, her kindness. In love with her. Thanks to Aidan’s blessing, that love was no longer in conflict with his duty to his name or to his family. He could—if she would have him—remain with Lena for the rest of his life. The realization buoyed his spirits. The misunderstanding with Edmund had almost ruined that future, and he was no longer willing to risk it.

  “I quite enjoyed you throwing the books at Edmund. He richly deserves it, and not just for today. He’s a scamp, though not a scoundrel.” He closed the short distance between them. “Would you like to know an easy way to tell us apart?”

  She stepped away. “Other than the part of your hair and the way that you walk?”

  “Yes, other than those things.” He stepped back as well, giving her whatever distance she required.

  “The hair on your crown curls to the left. You have a slight scar beside your right earlobe, and your left eye crinkles more than your right when you smile.”

  “As I have no fear of any further confusion with my brother, I must ask you another question.” He felt the pressure of his heart increase. His blood pounded so loudly that he heard it as a tide. His knees felt as if they might fail him. “It is a question vital to my happiness as I hope it will be to yours.”

  He paused, but she said nothing, merely stared at him with a look that seemed equal parts affection, pity, and regret.

  He rushed forward, forgetting the words he had planned. “I can’t offer you the wealth of a duke. Unlike my brother Seth, I have no interest in business, so I’m unlikely to become an industrialist. But I’m well settled, thanks to Aidan and Judith’s management of the ducal estate. I wish only to do my researches and have you beside me.”

  “Clive, no. Our affair . . .” She held up her hand to stop him, but he took it and held it against his heart.

  “I don’t want an affair, Lena. I want to marry you, if you will have me.” He kissed her palm, watching her face as she weighed the question.

  “You don’t know me.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she pulled her hand away. “You can’t want to marry me.”

  “I can, and I do. I know it hasn’t been long since we met, but sometimes love takes no time at all. I know you will consider my proposal from every angle, just as you considered every task at the Rotunda. We are alike in that.” Something was wrong: the way she bit the inside of her lip revealed confusion, not delight. “But I don’t wish to marry you because we are alike. We notice the same details when we look at an object, but we put those observations together in marvelously different ways. We complement one another. We . . .” He stopped, realizing his words had somehow gone astray.

  She looked away, as if she were blinking back tears. Her voice when she spoke was filled with regret. “I’m not who you think I am, Clive.”

  “I know your heart, your mind, your courage. I love you, Lena, or Helen, or whatever you wish to be called . . . as long as it’s also Lady Clive Somerville.”

  She folded her arms over her chest, holding herself tight. She closed her eyes for a moment, as if weighing a heavy decision, then, sighing, she looked him directly in the face. “Remember when I told Lilly that she should practice painting like other painters, learning their techniques?”

  “Yes.” He felt his heart grow tight.

  “I studied with Le Brun for almost a decade. But when she retired from Paris to her country estate, I stayed behind, living in the house of a well-connected patron of the arts, an Austrian count named Remberg, decades my senior. The lure of the Musée Napoleon—all those shapes, colors, materials, and textures—was irresistible, and I spent every day, morning till night, there. It became my whole world.” She looked into the distance.

  He stood silently, knowing that at the end he would discover her reason for rejecting him, and he prayed he could convince her it didn’t matter.

  “Eventually, Tenney—though he went by a different name then—invited some of us students to compete against each other. I was the only woman he invited. Each week, we received canvas, paints, and a masterwork to copy. But, to judge us fairly, Tenney insisted that we paint in exactly the same dimensions of the original canvas. I was intent on becoming known for my skill, not my sex, and soon my copies were almost indistinguishable from the originals.”

  She sat down on the couch, as if exhausted, and he sat beside her, wanting to pull her into his arms, but knowing it would be unwelcome.

  “You became a forger.”

  She nodded. “I believed it was a competition until I found my pieces on sale in several gallery windows, and I discovered that others had already been sent to Gravelines.”

  “Gravelines? To be smuggled to England?”

  “There was then, as there is now, a steady trade in contraband between Gravelines and Kent. I begged the count for help, and, though I hadn’t expected him to, over the next several weeks, Remberg bought all my copies, even those already intended for the English market. When I tried to destroy them, he stopped me, saying he saw in the paintings a heart that could not otherwise be his. I realized he loved me, and when he asked for my hand, I did not refuse.”

  “You are married.” His heart collapsed into his belly. He’d imagined she loved him, but he was wrong.

  “I was grateful. The paintings could have destroyed my career before it began, and he bought them simply because I asked.” She shrugged, lifting her palms in a sort of penitence. “He was to travel to Austria that week, but he insisted we marry before he left. He even invited fifty of his friends to the ceremony.” She shook her head sadly. “He was a kind man. His only fault was in loving me.”

  “Was? Is he dead?” Clive hated that he hoped her husband was dead.

  “After he left, I returned home to find the house ransacked and the paintings gone. One of the smaller paintings ended up in the hands of the police, accompanied by a note accusing Remberg of the forgery. When they stopped him at the border, Remberg admitted to the crime to protect me. He was executed before I knew he’d been arrested.” She looked into the distance, wiping away her tears. Her voice was flat, as if she were confessing to a crime she’d committed long ago.

  “Within days, rumors began to circulate that Remberg’s English wife arranged his arrest and execution. I had to flee. I sold his property and all his things, and to honor him, I used the funds to purchase the Rotunda.”

  “This means that attacks on the Rotunda could have nothing to do with the resurrection men.” Clive followed her story to one possible conclusion. “
One of Remberg’s friends could believe you deserve to be punished.”

  “Don’t I? I should have known the competitions were staged. Then later, I could have let the paintings be sold—my name wasn’t on them—but I was afraid they would surface in the future and thwart my ambition to be a painter to the royal family.”

  “Or Tenney didn’t wish to let such an accomplished forger go. He certainly went to great lengths to remove you from Remberg’s protection. It seems suspicious that he would show up in London now—before you could open the Rotunda exhibition—and begin selling your forgeries.”

  “But I’m Frost here, not Le Givre, and I only used Madame Remberg for a few weeks. Everything for the Rotunda is billed to H. Calder and Company.” She sighed. “But you see, Clive, why marriage to me is impossible?”

  “What if I don’t see that?”

  “Then let me make it perfectly clear. Elene Remberg caused the death of her husband and stole his money. Lena Le Givre is a criminal, a forger whose paintings were intended to be part of the contraband that travels from Gravelines to Kent, whose sins are even now pursuing her to London. Helena Winters destroyed her own reputation. She traveled in a gypsy caravan, begged on London’s streets, then lived in France during the wars. I am as wholly unsuitable to marry you as any woman alive. I’ve already lost one kind man. I will not lose another. I cannot marry you and I will not remain your lover.” She rose. “I promised you ten minutes, and we have taken almost an hour. Would you please call Fletcher to deliver me to the African’s Daughter?”

  “I’ll escort you.” He rose as well.

  “I would prefer if you didn’t.”

  “If we are dissolving our liaison, you can hardly refuse me a twenty-minute drive across town.” His voice broke as he spoke, and he made no attempt to cover it. He loved her. He’d told her, and she’d rejected him, but at least she would not be able to lie to herself about his feelings.

  Her chest fell. “If you wish.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  They sat far apart on the same seat, neither speaking. Occasionally she would steal a glance at him, and each time she found him watching her intensely. She could tell from the slope of Clive’s shoulders that she’d hurt him, and her own heart hurt to see him so dejected.