Scandalous Brides

by Amanda McCabe

  “What a surprise, Evelyn,” he said coolly, his dark lashes sweeping down to cover his dismay. He raised her jeweled hand, barely brushing the knuckles with his lips. “I would never have expected to see you in Italy. What can Lord Deake be thinking, to let himself be without your charming presence for so long?”

  “You have not heard?” Evelyn fluttered her lacy fan and smiled her pointed cat’s smile at him over its edge. “Dear Arthur went to his eternal reward last spring. Right in the very midst of the Season. Inconsiderate to the very end.”

  This explained the silvery gray of her gown. Evelyn used to favor the brightest reds and blues to be found in any modiste’s. “My condolences. I had not heard. I was in Paris in the spring.”

  “Yes, so I heard. Political aspirations? Or merely wreaking havoc among all the little mademoiselles?”

  Nicholas just bowed, as she trilled over her own wit.

  “And now you have turned to the signorinas,” she continued. “I suppose all the London beauties are wise to your charm now, Nicky.”

  Nicholas’s gaze wandered over her shoulder to the handsome Venetian youth who stood a few feet from Evelyn, his Italian eyes practically smoldering with jealousy. “I see Italy is agreeing with you, Evelyn.”

  She threw a laughing glance at her escort. “You mean Alfredo? Yes, he is diverting. I am enjoying my stay in Venice enormously.”

  Nicholas forbore to point out how very mild the “scandalous” antics of Elizabeth and Georgina were in comparison with blatant dalliance with smooth-faced boys. “So you will be staying here for a time?”

  She laughed again, that silvery artificial laugh that so grated on him. “My dear, I have purchased a house here. The Ca Donati. It is absolutely charming, if a trifle old, and, as you said, the Italians are treating me very well. I may never go back to London. Are you here for very long?”

  Nicholas shrugged. “Only for a brief errand, I fear.”

  Evelyn pouted prettily. “How sad. I was so looking forward to renewing our acquaintance.”

  That would be when Venice sinks into the sea, he thought, but he said nothing and only swung his quizzing glass by its ribbon and watched her.

  “But perhaps we can find time for a small tête-àtête before you depart,” she said.

  “Can I confide a seceret in you, Evelyn?” he asked, his voice low and intimate.

  Evelyn swayed toward him. “Oh, yes, darling,” she breathed. “I do so love secrets!”

  Nicholas smiled inwardly in satisfaction. The queen of the scandal-broth had not changed a bit. “I am here incognito. On a wager.”

  “A wager? Oh, darling, how too delicious!” Evelyn giggled, obviously planning the many letters she would fire off to her friends back in England. “Can you tell me the particulars?”

  “Not at present, I fear. But I do need your assistance.”

  “Of course, darling!” Evelyn put her hand on his arm, drawing so near that he was made nauseous by her sweet perfume.

  “You must not divulge my identity to anyone. It would make the wager null and void.”

  He could almost see her mind spinning, longing for a glimpse of the betting book so far away in White’s. “Do you mean no one in Venice knows your true identity but me?”

  “No one but you, Evelyn.”

  “Not even Mrs. Beaumont and her little sister?”

  “No.” Especially not Mrs. Beaumont and her “little sister. ”

  Evelyn laughed again. He gritted his teeth and smiled.

  “Marvelous, Nicky! And of course you can count on my discretion. Only do tell me one thing.”

  “What?” he asked warily.

  “Which sister is it? The widow or the little gypsy?” Then Evelyn’s gaze shifted, her smile turned sly. “Never mind, darling. I believe I can hazard a guess.”

  Nicholas looked back to see Elizabeth in the crowd, watching them, poised for flight. Her shocked face, openmouthed and wide-eyed, was at such odds with her daring gown that he almost laughed.

  Almost.

  “Hell and damnation,” he muttered, and ran a shaking hand through his black curls. With a swift farewell, he broke away from Evelyn’s grasp and rushed after Elizabeth’s swiftly disappearing figure.

  Evelyn’s violet eyes narrowed as she watched him go.

  Chapter Six

  Elizabeth could not forget the image of Nicholas deep in conversation with the blond woman, their heads bent close as she looked up at him with dewy eyes and stroked his sleeve with her be-ringed hand.

  Elizabeth had fled the opera house in confusion, leaving him behind in her mad dash to find a gondola to take her to the ball.

  The princessa’s ball was delightful. She did indeed have living statues, though artfully draped in loin-cloths rather than completely nude, and there was an abundance of champagne. Georgina and Stephen had left off their arguing by the time they caught up with her, and all her artist friends were there and bombarding her with questions about her coveted Katerina Bruni commission. Nicholas, who had at last shown up on his own, was quite attentive, bringing her delicacies from the supper buffet and dancing with her awkwardly on his stiff leg.

  It should have all been quite perfect, and would have been if she could have forgotten about the woman at the opera house, ceased wondering who she was, what they had been discussing so intimately.

  She was not jealous. She wasn’t. How could she possibly be? She did not even really know Nicholas. He was her employee, her secretary. A very tall, very attractive secretary, to be sure....

  Perhaps therein lay the difficulty, a tiny voice whispered in her mind. She did not really know Nicholas, and she wanted to. Very much.

  All she truly knew was that he was English, and, by his voice and manners, not of a lower class. An impoverished or adventurous younger son of gentry, perhaps.

  She had no idea of what his past held, how he had really come by his scar, what had driven him to seek employment in their eccentric household. He could be a criminal, though she sensed this was not so.

  Elizabeth wanted to know all these things. She wanted to pierce the armor of his reticence, see past his dark eyes, know his secrets. She had always been deeply curious, and he was by far the most intriguing mystery she had ever encountered.

  But knowledge could come with a high price—the revelation of her own secrets. That she was a runaway, a murderess. And that was a price she simply could not pay, not even to satisfy that burning curiosity.

  What a conundrum! She almost wished she had never seen him at all, never been faced with this dizzying jumble of jealousy, curiosity, excitement, lust, fear. She had been happy before, traveling and honing her craft, and not feeling so lost and lonely as she had in England. Yet if she had never met him, she would never have heard his laugh, seen his dimple when he smiled, or watched the admiration in his eyes when he looked at her work.

  Elizabeth buried her face in her hands, the music and champagne and confusion making her head ache abominably.

  “Lizzie, are you ill?” Georgina laid her cool hand against Elizabeth’s brow. “You feel overly warm.”

  Elizabeth managed a small smile. “I am just tired, Georgie. Truly.”

  “Pauvre petite! You have been working too hard, and here I have dragged you about to too many parties this week. Shall we go home?”

  “No. You are having such a good time, I could never forgive myself if I took you away so early.”

  Georgina bit her lip. “I’ll fetch Nicholas to take you home, shall I?”

  “No! Not Nicholas. He is dancing with our hostess, see? I can go alone. It is not far.”

  “Alone? In Venice? I should say not!” Georgina tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I shall get your fussy old Stephen to see us both home, then, and I will come back when you are settled. Yes?”

  Elizabeth nodded in relief. She was aching for her bed, for dreamless sleep, for a cessation of the mad whirl of thoughts in her head. “Yes.”

  But their escape was not to be so easy
. As they prepared to step into the gondola that would carry them home, a silvery voice called...

  “Yoo-hoo! Oh, are you going toward the Giudecca Canal? May we ride with you?”

  Elizabeth groaned and shrank back into the hood of her cloak.

  It was the golden-haired woman Nicholas had been speaking with at the opera, and with her a glowering, beautiful young Venetian man. The woman was waving and coming toward them. It was all far too much a coincidence—Elizabeth had never see this woman before in her life, and now here she was twice in the same night.

  And Georgina was smiling and saying that that was precisely the direction in which they were going.

  Lady Evelyn Deake was just the sort of English abroad Elizabeth most disliked encountering. And not simply because she had been seen in intimate conversation with the all-too-alluring Nicholas, either.

  Their journey home, though not a great distance, was made longer by crowds of vessels filled with merrymakers. The shouts and screams and loud music were causing Elizabeth’s head to throb, and Lady Deake’s conversation was only making the situation worse. Even Georgina, usually so adept at deflating British pomposity, was only able to stare at Lady Deake in amazement while occasionally rolling her eyes in Elizabeth’s direction.

  Lady Deake had apparently been in Italy for several months, since the death of her “dearest Arthur,” and found nothing to be to her exacting standards (except, to all appearances, for the sullen-mouthed Alfredo, whose hand never left her leg). She chattered about her home in London, which was ever so much larger and brighter and grander in every way than the crumbling old Ca Donati, which she recently purchased from the very disagreeable Marchese Donati. The servants in her London home were also a great deal more efficient than these lazy, dark Italians, who lounged about all day doing absolutely nothing to earn their wages. Italian food was so very upsetting to the digestion, and Italian women knew nothing about fashion (this said with long glances at Elizabeth’s and Georgina’s gowns), and some of them could not even speak English....

  Elizabeth gradually drifted from the vivacious stream of complaints, leaning back on the cushions and studying the masked and costumed figures of the other groups, who were unfairly having fun. She had heard similar opinions many times, from English travelers from Milan to Messina, and now she merely smiled at Lady Deake while not hearing a single word she was saying.

  She longed to, just this once, lose her temper and snap, Cease your prattling at once, you silly woman!

  Unfortunately, she was no longer Lady Elizabeth Everdean, sister of the Earl of Clifton. She was Elizabeth Cheswood, scandalous artist who had to earn her bread. And she had heard of the Veronese fresco cycle in the Ca Donati, which was in dire need of restoration. Rumor had it that the new owner—now revealed to be Lady Deake—was looking for an artist to complete the task. It was a plum of a commission, and Elizabeth had wanted it.

  Truth be told, she still wanted it.

  She was quite aching to get her brushes on the Veronese, and that was the only thing that kept the prattling Lady Deake from plunging headfirst into the canal at Elizabeth’s hands. That and her curiosity about Nicholas.

  “... do you, Miss Cheswood?”

  Elizabeth blinked at the sound of her name, floating back down into the reality of their overcrowded gondola and the overpowering scent of the other woman’s perfume. “I beg your pardon, Lady Deake?”

  Evelyn tittered. “Lost in some artistic rapture, no doubt, Miss Cheswood!”

  “Um, quite.”

  “Venice is so full of scope for the imagination.”

  Elizabeth somehow doubted that Lady Deake’s imaginative scope had ever gone any further than matching bonnet to redingote, but she merely nodded and tried to look romantically artistic.

  Evelyn continued. “I was just asking what you, as another Englishwoman, have found most intriguing about the Italian... landscape.”

  Elizabeth thought of Nicholas’s velvet dark eyes, and blurted, “The men.”

  Evelyn tittered again, running one polished fingertip along Alfredo’s arm. “Oh, yes, I quite agree! Englishmen have nothing to the mystery of the Italians.” She smirked. “Most Englishmen, that is.”

  The gondola at last bumped to a halt before the looming shape of the Ca Donati, and they were soon on their way again, sans two passengers, amidst a trilled “Ciao!” from Lady Deake. Elizabeth was not sure if she was profoundly relieved or rather disappointed. The conversation had just been growing interesting.

  Georgina burst out laughing as soon as the great brass doors shut behind Evelyn and her Italian. Elizabeth fell against her in helpless mirth, the two of them chorusing “Ciao!” under Stephen’s bewildered gaze.

  “I thought she was very... vivacious,” he said.

  That only made them laugh louder, the gondola swaying with the force of their hilarity.

  “Oh, the mystery of Italian men!” Georgina simpered. “Not as tidy as Englishmen, of course, and so dark, but what eyes, what hands!”

  “What backsides!” Elizabeth crowed. “But, Georgie, you were the one who let her accompany us. This is all on your head.”

  “Someone at the ball told me she was the new owner of the Ca Donati, and I wanted to hear about her Veronese. But alas, the woman is too silly to realize what she has.” Georgina sighed. “Lady Deake quite reminds me of why I left England in the first place. How do those London misses ever tolerate it, Lizzie? All that money—all that lack of sense.”

  “I never was a London miss, Georgie, just a country mouse. After you left Miss Thompson’s School to run away with Jack, I never had any excitement at all. The same people, the same parties, all the time.” Elizabeth closed her eyes, listening to the soft slap of the oars in the water, the laughter all around her. The sweet-sick smell of the canal, smoky torches, perfumes, and flowers was thick in her throat and nostrils. She was suffused with Italy, and England, the place of secrets and silly people like Lady Deake, seemed quite far away.

  Or perhaps too dangerously close.

  Elizabeth inadvertently cried out, pressing her fist against her mouth.

  “Lizzie!” Georgina cried, reaching for Elizabeth’s cold hand. “What is it? Are you feeling ill again?”

  “No, no, nothing like that.” Elizabeth tried to smile reassuringly. “It is only... oh, Georgie, promise me we will never leave this place! Never go back to England.”

  “Dearest, what has brought this on? Is it merely Lady Deake and her prattling? Or ... have you heard from your brother and you did not tell me?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “I did not mean to alarm you, dear. I simply love our life here so. I like not having to be so careful all the time of what I say or do, for fear of being censured by some dowdy old duchess. I like wearing gowns like this one instead of fusty pastels, and drinking champagne, and painting all day. I ...” She broke off in a sob.

  “Lizzie! Shh!” Georgina gathered her into a hug. “It will not change. We will never go back. Even if we did return to England, as we very well may one day, it would not be like that again. We are different. We will always be free.”

  “Promise me?”

  “I promise. Why do you think I ran away with Jack all those years ago?”

  Elizabeth sniffed, and gave a watery smile. “His dashing red regimentals?”

  “Well, yes. But more than that, he offered to take me away from the tedium of Miss Thompson’s and away to Portugal. You were the only bright spot in that gray cloister, Lizzie, and I was soon to finish and leave you anyway.” Georgina patted her hand consolingly. “It is only that silly Lady Deake upsetting you. But you are safe here, Lizzie.”

  “Safe,” Elizabeth whispered. “Yes.”

  That night, for the first time in many months, Elizabeth dreamed of Clifton Manor. Of Peter.

  It was hardly surprising, since she had been dwelling on England and the past so much of late. Not even a glass of warm milk liberally laced with brandy had been able to help tonight, and all thos
e memories came flooding up from where she had so firmly pressed them down and down.

  In her dream, she was eighteen again, filled with youthful passion for her art, wild dreams of escaping Derbyshire and running off to a Parisian garret (as soon as Boney could be persuaded to quit the country and make its garrets safe for Englishwomen). The countryside was dull, there was no one to talk with but their neighbors, the giggling spinster Misses Allan and old Lady Haversham, and Peter always seemed so angry with her. Angry, and cold, and beautiful as an ice storm.

  In the beginning of this dream, he came to her again in her makeshift studio, sunlight all around them from the high, unshuttered windows. His long fingers were hard on her arms, biting into the soft flesh bared by her puffed-sleeved gown, but she hardly felt it. His voice, rough and low, unrecognizable from his usual patrician tones, came to her as if from a very far distance.

  “I cannot bear it any longer.” He gasped. “You were put here just to torment me, Spanish harlot. The way you look at me, the way you talk.” His eyes swept over her. “Just as she did.”

  She stared up at him, at his familiar features distorted in almost-painful passion, at the way the sun turned the silver gilt of his hair to a halo. She was shocked, numb, utterly stricken. She wanted to scream, to cry, to run, but she was paralyzed. She could only stand there in his grasp.

  His hands pulled her against him, raising her on tiptoe so that his watch chain pressed into her tender belly. His breath was warm as his lips trailed across her cheek.

  “No!” she cried out, her voice dismayingly faint. “No, this is wrong. You are my brother!”

  “What new trick is this? Your brother?”

  And she knew then that he did not see her, Elizabeth. But she did not know what it was he did see. She broke free, running behind her easel, her breath bursting from her.

  “Then you will have to marry someone else,” he murmured, almost to himself. “You must go away from here, because I cannot look at you anymore.”