Scandalous Brides

by Amanda McCabe

  It was quite the longest speech Elizabeth had ever heard him make. She felt the tickle of tears on her eyelashes, and turned away to fumble for a handkerchief. “Oh, Stephen, I do seem to have become such a watering pot since I returned to England! You are quite the sweetest man I have ever met, and I am truly blessed to have you for my friend.”

  He smiled grimly. “But you are refusing me.”

  “I must. I think it is the only sane thing to do. Do not think I’m not tempted by your offer, because I am, terribly. I quite long for the Italian sun on my face again.”

  “Then why not accept me? We enjoy the same things in life; we have the same friends. I could give you a comfortable home. We could be content together.”

  “Content, yes.” Elizabeth had a sudden vision of the two of them, doddering old artists wielding brushes and palette knives in their palsied hands, never speaking to each other because there was no need. She almost laughed. “But never truly happy. I had a truly happy day once, and I know how that can be. I could never ruin your life by depriving you of the chance to find that; that would be poor repayment indeed for your friendship.”

  “Is it your secretary, then? Nicholas?”

  She felt the tears beginning in earnest, and ducked her head into the lace ruffles of her bodice. “I did love Nicholas once, yes. In point of fact, I strongly suspect I love him still.”

  “Then ...”

  “No! It is of no use to even speak of it. I do not even know where he is, and if I knew I am not sure what I would do about it.”

  They sat together quietly, listening to Miss Haversham finish off Mozart and a Miss Julian begin a Handel sonata. Finally, Stephen took her hand in his very gently.

  “Are you certain I cannot persuade you?” he said.

  “Quite, quite certain.”

  “Then, dear friend, I hope you will still call for me if ever you require assistance.” Then he pressed a kiss to her fingers and left her, winding his way through the milling crowd to take leave of their hostess.

  Elizabeth dabbed at her eyes and smoothed her skirts. She very much wanted her own fireside and a glass of brandy, but unfortunately a tedious evening still stretched endlessly before her.

  “If only I could hide here in this alcove all night,” she mused aloud.

  “That would be insufferably rude,” Peter said from beside her.

  Elizabeth spun around. “Really, Peter! Must you creep up on me so?”

  “I was merely coming to tell you that Lady Haversham requires a fourth at her whist table.”

  “You know I dislike whist.” Elizabeth hated the querulous tone of her voice, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. It had really been a most trying evening, and her head ached. The façade had become so heavy.

  Peter observed her flushed cheeks and overbright eyes through his quizzing glass. “You and that sculptor were having a most . . . involved discussion, my dear.”

  “Yes, we were. Fellow artists are quite rare in Derbyshire, you know.”

  “And perhaps you knew him before? In Italy?”

  Elizabeth’s frayed temper snapped. “If I did, it is hardly any of your affair! And now, if you have no objections, I must join our kind hostess.” She wrapped her Indian shawl over her shoulders and turned her back on him, stalking away across the drawing room in obvious high dudgeon.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The next day, Elizabeth went for a very long walk.

  She ended up on her favorite seat, a large, flat rock atop the crest of a hill, placed fortuitously in the shade of a tall oak. From this vantage point she could see the house and fields of Clifton Manor spread out before her.

  It was a lovely, peaceful place in which to be alone to think. She had quite forgotten how beautiful England could be when one was solitary in its cool, green prettiness.

  And she had a great to deal to think of. Such as Stephen’s surprising appearance in Derbyshire, and his even more surprising proposal of marriage.

  It would have been a most convenient solution, to marry him and resume her career. With such a successful sculptor as her husband, she could even attract more patrons, have the possibility of joining more professional societies.

  If only she loved him, or even felt more than a sisterly fondness for him. But he could not make her laugh until her ribs ached; he did not make her very toes curl with just the thought of one of his kisses. The only time he had kissed her, once in Rome, it had been distinctly lacking in finesse and passion.

  Unlike Nicholas’s kisses.

  “I do miss you, Nicholas,” she whispered. “Was I wrong to go away from you?”

  She had been plagued by doubts all through the sleepless night. Did she give in to Peter’s demands too easily? Should she have given Nicholas a greater chance to explain his actions?

  But what explanations were there? He had lied to her for weeks, about his feelings, his very identity.

  “Just as you lied to him, you foolish girl,” she said aloud, her voice thick with bitterness at that flash of self-realization. She had lied to him, as he had to her, for their entire acquaintance.

  “Talking to yourself, Elizabeth?”

  Elizabeth looked up with a gasp to see Peter leaning negligently against the tree. He was dressed for riding, and his horse was tethered nearby.

  She had been far too preoccupied with her musings to even hear his approach.

  “You are always creeping up on me so!” she answered. “And, no, I was not speaking to myself, I was talking to that sheep over there.”

  “Hmm. May I join you, then, or is this a private moment for you and the sheep?”

  She hesitated, then nodded and slid over to make a space on the rock.

  “Lady Haversham tells me she asked you if you would paint her portrait,” he commented, as he took the proffered seat.

  “Yes. We spoke of it last night over the whist table. She wants a new portrait to present to Lord Haversham on their anniversary.”

  “Will you accept?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps. I am rather out of practice.”

  “I think it would be a very good thing for you to work, perhaps lift you out of these doldrums.”

  She laughed shortly. “I was working, until I came here.”

  A heavy silence fell, broken only when Peter said, “Would you care to go to Town for the Season?”

  Elizabeth blinked, certain she had not heard correctly. “London?”

  “Yes. That is the only Town I know that will be commencing its Season in a fortnight. I received an invitation to Lady Ponsonby’s ball.”

  “But ... you detest London.”

  Peter shrugged. “Detest is surely too strong a word. I prefer the country, certainly, but I have been spending more time in Town of late. It has many diversions I am sure you would enjoy—balls, theater, lectures, museums, and galleries.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. “Why? Is there someone there you wish to betrothe me to? Some ancient duke or marquis?”

  Peter clicked his tongue. “How very suspicious you have become! I merely thought you might enjoy a broader society. You may even secure some commissions. London is certainly full of people who have nothing better to do with their time than sit about having their portrait painted.”

  Elizabeth was still suspicious. London did sound tempting, full of more of the amenities of civilization that she had come to enjoy while on the Continent. And she could seek out new patrons, as Peter had said, try to build a new career. If only she were certain of Peter’s motives.

  “Perhaps,” was all she said.

  “Elizabeth,” Peter said slowly, “I do not want you to be unhappy, as I see you have been.”

  “I am not unhappy. Merely at ... loose ends.”

  “Nonetheless, I want you to feel as if Clifton were your true home. I also wish you could forgive me.”

  “Forgive you?”

  “Yes. You were fond of me once; could we not try to rebuild something of that?”

  She rose
to her feet, almost shaking with disbelief. “Peter, you treated me shockingly when you came home from the Peninsula. You forced me to become engaged against my wishes. Then, when I had found a life, a happiness of my own, you snatched it away.”

  “Elizabeth, be reasonable ...”

  “No! You men—you think you can do the most outrageous things and we will just forgive you, smile, and go on as if nothing had happened. Well, no. It does not work this time. It simply cannot.”

  “This cannot go on!”

  Elizabeth didn’t even look up from the sketchbook she had propped up beside her plate of toast and marmalade, though inside she was thoroughly shocked. In the days since their scene on the hillside, Peter had never burst out in such a fashion, or even spoken to her of anything but the weather. Their meals had been silent, her days in the studio solitary. Elizabeth had even begun to bring her drawing to the table.

  Apparently, this breakfast was to be different.

  “Cannot what?” she asked quietly.

  “You know what I am talking about, so do not insult my intelligence by pretending otherwise.” Peter threw his crumpled napkin down beside his untouched plate. “I am speaking of this spoiled, childish attitude you have been exhibiting since I asked if you cared to go to Town.”

  “Spoiled! Childish?” Elizabeth dropped her pencil and exchanged glare for glare along the polished length of the table.

  “Yes. You drift about like a wraith in some bad novel, walking the fields all hours of the day. When we do go out, you insist on shocking everyone with your language and your gowns. You are even refusing to show basic table manners and converse politely.”

  Elizabeth could only gape at him, astonished. Where had her cool, distant stepbrother vanished to?

  “You used to speak with me at breakfast,” he continued. “You would tell me all you did with your days.”

  “That ... that was years ago, when I was just a prattling girl. Much has happened since then, and I prefer quiet in the mornings. And, in point of fact, you are the one who has been lacking in conversation these past days.”

  He had the grace to blush a little at the reminder of all that had happened since the days she would chatter through all their meals. He held up a sheaf of invitations for her perusal. “Then if you are so unhappy in this house, why not come to London? We have already been invited to many routs there.”

  Elizabeth snorted. “I do not feel in the least like being gaped at at balls and card parties more than I already am! If I go to Town, it will be on my terms, and not to go to parties at the Havershams’ town house, as if we were still here.” She could feel her face turning scarlet, could feel all her loneliness, her anger at the men in her life, rushing up to the surface from the place she had so carefully pushed it down to.

  “And,” she continued, “if you wish to talk about childish behavior, let us talk about you. Because I refused to live my life according to your dictates, you chased me down. No, worse, you sent a spy after me. You took me away from my friends, my work, and to what purpose? To have your own way? That is childish, not to mention morally reprehensible, Peter Everdean.”

  Her temper at last spent, Elizabeth was utterly mortified to feel tears spilling onto her cheeks. She gathered her sketches up in her arms, and turned away. “Now, if you will excuse me ...”

  “Elizabeth,” Peter called out softly, “please wait.”

  She paused with her hand on the door, but did not turn back. “What is it?”

  “I did not bring you to England for some petty revenge, though it may have seemed so to you. And even to myself.”

  “No? Then what was the reason?”

  “I ... I wanted to make amends toward you for my beastly behavior after I returned from Spain. I needed to make you understand that I ...” He broke off, his own eyes suspiciously bright.

  Peter, crying? Elizabeth was utterly bewildered. “To make me understand what?” she asked, her voice gentle. He was seeming more like the brother she recalled from years ago, the brother she had thought long dead. “Tell me, please, Peter. I feel so overturned by this whole affair, but I want so desperately to understand.”

  “Come with me,” he said, pushing back his chair. “I want to show you something.”

  Elizabeth followed him to the library, the one room where she was never allowed, and watched with wary eyes as he unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk. She saw the flat case that held her own miniature, the one painted on her fifteenth birthday, which Peter had carried with him to Spain. She also saw another box, which he removed from the drawer.

  “Come and look,” he said, opening the box and carefully laying out a bundle of ribbon-tied letters, another miniature portrait, a dried gardenia, and a woman’s ruby earring. “Here are all my secrets for your perusal, Lizzie.”

  Still unsure, she reached for the miniature, cradling it in the palm of her hand as she examined the portrait painted on the ivory.

  It was a girl, a woman, of great beauty. Elizabeth’s artist’s eye instantly envied her high cheekbones, her delicate jaw. The pale oval of her face was crowned by a heavy mass of black hair; her dark eyes seemed to flash and laugh. Swinging from her ears, peeking from loops of her dark hair, were the ruby earrings.

  “She is very lovely,” Elizabeth managed to say at last.

  “You look very like her.”

  She looked down again at the dark lady, and shook her head. “No. We both have dark hair, but my face is much rounder than hers. She is so much more ... exotic than I ever could be.”

  “I thought, when I returned from the war, that you resembled her very much indeed. In some of my less lucid moments I thought you were her. And I took my rage out on you, since she was beyond me forever.” He fell silent, twirling the earring absently through his long fingers. “When you fled under those horrible circumstances, I was shaken to my senses. I longed to tell you, had to tell you how much I loathed myself for what I had done. I wanted to make amends to you, but you were not here to listen to my apologies. For two years I lived with the knowledge that I had failed you, after our parents entrusted you to my care.” He looked up at last into her pensive face. “Lizzie, my dear sister, can you ever forgive me? For everything? It is no excuse, I know, but I was not myself.”

  Elizabeth did not answer. Instead, she held out the painting. “Who was she?”

  An odd half smile curled at his lips. “Carmen. She was a wealthy widow from Seville, but she worked with the partisans against Napoleon. She was a spy for us—until she betrayed us to the French, and your Nicholas was almost killed in the resulting battle. She died, as well.” Peter tossed the miniature back into its box. “She was also my wife.”

  Alone at last in her bedroom, Elizabeth stretched out on her bed to turn Peter’s words over and over in her mind. Her entire world had tilted yet again, and she couldn’t yet hold on to the idea that Peter was not exactly the villain she had thought him to be for so long. He was not yet her beloved brother again, either. She was not certain what he was.

  Except that he was a widower.

  “Another love gone awry,” she murmured. “Can love never be right in this family?”

  For the first time since coming back to Clifton Manor, she remembered the utter magic of her time with Nicholas, untainted by what had come after. She remembered lazy luncheons at Florian’s, boat rides in sunshine and starlight that she had never wanted to end. She remembered how they would laugh together, how interested he had been in her work; how they had kissed. She even remembered how he would trail after her in galleries and churches, trying not to yawn and whispering delicious bon mots into her ear to make her giggle.

  She remembered that the sound of his laughter was the only thing in all the world that could rival the joy of a blank canvas and a palette full of paint.

  She also remembered the portrait, hidden away in her studio, that she had begun that sunny day in the Italian countryside. The portrait she had never wanted to see again.

  Barefoot, she
padded up the stairs to her studio and searched through the carefully crated canvases Georgina had sent her until she found the one she wanted. She propped it on an empty easel and stepped back to study it.

  There, with vineyards and their white villa in the background, was her Nicholas. Not the Old Nick of the scandalmongers, or the Captain Hollingsworth of Peter’s regiment, but Nicholas. His shirt was open at his throat, baring a delicious V of golden skin and the merest hint of dark, curling hair; his black hair was tousled in the wind. He was laughing at her, the laughter she had always smiled foolishly at hearing. None of that had been a lie.

  She did love him. Her heart had not been whole since the day she left him. She needed him as she needed air, water, and art. It was not a choice. And now she saw that she had been a fool to turn her back on that love, even if she had been so angry.

  Peter’s stories of life in Spain, which he had spun for her into the small hours of the night, had made her begin to see what had made Nicholas go to Italy in the first place. Nicholas owed Peter his life—his life.

  So, in a fashion, Elizabeth owed Peter her life, as well.

  She went back to her room, and took out writing paper and pencil from her desk. After an hour of contemplative nail-biting, she began:

  “My dearest Nicholas ...”

  She labored over that letter all night, crossing out lines, trying to sound forgiving and friendly, but not so very forgiving that she became maudlin.

  It was a very difficult task, and the fire burned merrily with discards before she at last had a version she was content with. She addressed it to the lodgings she had found among Peter’s papers, sealed it—and promptly lost all her nerve. She stuck it hastily into a drawer amid her silk stockings, and went to bed to sleep and try to forget her folly.

  Nicholas was probably far away from England by now. And he more than likely did not remember her or what they had shared. It had been too long, and she had been too silent.

  And, after all, what chance could there really be for them, after all that had happened?