‘No, thank you. I’ve had enough champagne for one day.’ She needed her wits clear. Decisions would have to be made and soon. The sooner the better. She’d let this linger far too long as it was. She should have ended this in Seasalter.
‘You did it, Artemisia, you’ve dazzled them,’ Darius toasted and drank anyway. ‘This is your day. I’ve already had offers for five of the paintings. Boscastle’s friend, the Duke of Hayle, wants two for his hunting box.’ She smiled but the words did not excite her as they might have earlier. Of course Boscastle’s friend wanted a painting. Isn’t that what Gray had suggested would be the case?
‘You are not pleased.’ His smiled faded and he drew her into an alcove. ‘What’s wrong, Artemisia? Did Gray say something to upset you? I should have come over sooner when I saw him with you. The man’s a cad on the best of days.’
‘Nothing I haven’t heard before. I can handle the likes of Sir Aldred Gray.’ Artemisia shook her head in dismissal. ‘It’s just that this show is all you, all your effort.’ She would be honest with him, he deserved that and more. ‘This is not my doing. This doesn’t prove anything has changed.’
‘How can you say that when it’s your paintings that are getting all the attention?’ Darius replied.
‘But I didn’t bring the people in. You did that.’ She had to make him see this was an artificial victory.
‘Does it have to be you or me? Can’t it be us? Can’t we be a team, Artemisia? A seamless team where it’s not clear where one begins and the other ends?’
That was when she knew without a doubt she had to let him go. He would not make the decision to leave her. She would cost him everything. The Academy would not forgive him again, nor would his family if he became a seamless extension of herself. She reached for the curtain and drew it across the alcove. ‘Kiss me, Darius.’
It would be a goodbye kiss. As long as she stayed, Darius would be pulled in two directions, forced always to give up something he loved. She would not put him in that position again. It had to be her. She had to be the one to leave and she would, tonight. While he was celebrating at the exhibition, she would pack her things and go.
She would take one last piece of him with her and then she would take her leave. It would break her heart to do it, but she had years and years ahead of her to mend it and miles to put between them. The miles would help. Where she was going, he was unlikely to follow her. That would be to the good. He’d been far too persuasive up until now. Perhaps it was for the best. She still had her own dreams, her own ambitions, and they could be realised in other places, just not here.
Chapter Twenty-Four
She wasn’t here. Darius sank on to the sofa in Artemisia’s studio, trying to tamp down on the panic that threatened to run away with him. But it was hard and he was losing the battle. Artemisia was gone in a very absolute way. The room felt different. The blankets and sheets had been picked up and folded away from their tangled camp by the fire. The hearth was cold and swept. Most telling, though, was that her brushes were gone, the turpentine was gone. Her blank canvases were gone. Her smock was gone. Artemisia went nowhere without her paints and she didn’t intend on coming back.
It was the last that had him dumbfounded and panic erupting. Why wouldn’t she come back? The thought seemed so extreme that he couldn’t truly bring himself to accept it. He should have come last night. He’d been busy with sales. He’d sold four more after he’d told her about Boscastle. There’d been a bidding war for the pintail duck. It had gone to an avid fisherman whom Darius didn’t know particularly well. He’d thought Artemisia would like that, a sale that wasn’t directly connected to one of his acquaintances.
There’d been money to handle and to watch over, quite a lot of it, even though the paintings would remain on display until the show concluded at the end of May. He’d had some misguided romantic notion of bringing the money to Artemisia and pressing it into her hand as some kind of proof of the self-sufficiency she valued above all else. She had earned this, no one else. His champagne and cold shrimp hadn’t earned it, just her paintings.
He was too late and that knowledge recast the way he understood yesterday afternoon. Where he’d seen resounding success, she’d seen reliance on another, she’d seen another validation that men got what they wanted. She’d not seen or had not accepted her part in that victory. She’d not accepted that they were a team. Had it been that which had set her sour? Did she not want to be a team? Had he misunderstood that in some way? That cut him deeply, not only because it would mean he’d misread her, but because he’d misread what their relationship was based on. He’d thought they were a partnership, taking on the institution of the Academy together. But she’d only been in it for herself.
That couldn’t be right. That wasn’t the Artemisia he knew. She liked her self-sufficiency but she wasn’t selfish. Darius rose and began to move about the room, looking for something, some sign that she hadn’t simply left him, that she would return. At the back of the studio an old easel stood draped in a holland cloth. He’d seen it already and paid it no mind. This time he caught the outline of a form beneath it.
Darius pulled off the sheet and stared at the painting beneath. It was him, that first night at the Crown, dripping from his bath. It was quite an experience seeing oneself represented naked on canvas. He wasn’t entirely sure he was comfortable with it, but it wasn’t the nudity that bothered him, it was the other things that she’d captured: the way his body was turned slightly away from the viewer, the way the exposed curve of buttock and thigh denied the revelation of more intimate parts. There was a shadow across his face, cast there by the firelight in the background, making his expression inscrutable and haughty, all the better to hide himself, not just his body but his thoughts, his soul.
The art critic in him saw the excellence in the work, each brush stroke reinforcing the narrative; even in his bath a lord dared not let down his guard. Responsibility and the need to put on a brave, impenetrable front remained always—even when naked, a lord was never truly naked, he couldn’t afford to be. Hence the need for not depicting his full extent. She’d seen all of him that night. If she’d wanted to tease him, or make an erotic painting of him, she’d have painted a different view. No, this one was meant for something more. If one saw his privates, he might appear to be too human, less lordly. Men were judged by such things. A man’s phallus size was his own private business and it was scrupulously guarded, not that he needed to be ashamed of his.
It was the message of the painting that mattered and his heart broke. She was letting him go, letting him choose responsibility, letting him choose to fulfil the expectations that life had placed in his path, letting him be the future Earl of Bourne—A Lord at His Bath.
How dare she? Anger filled the cracks in his heart, a stopgap against the emerging pain. It would not last, but he would take the reprieve for now. How dare she decide for him what was best? How dare she decide to sacrifice them. It was not for her alone to decide.
The door to the studio opened and he looked up, hope flaring. Perhaps she’d come back? It was only Addy. ‘Is she not here, then?’ Addy was pale, as surprised as he that Artemisia was gone.
He shook his head. ‘She’s taken her paints.’ Addy would know what that meant. ‘Did she not say anything to you? Did she talk about leaving?’ How long had she known she would go? How long had she hidden that decision from him? When they were making love at the Crown that last morning before he’d come to London? Sooner? Later? Had she decided last night? Or at the last moment at the show?
Kiss me, Darius. It had been a kiss for the ages, exciting and erotic in its intensity, knowing that discovery lay just beyond a thin curtain of fabric. He’d never thought it would be the last kiss. He pushed the thought away. He couldn’t think like that. It would not be the last time he kissed her any more than the night before last would be the final time he’d made love to her. They were just beginning. It was too soon
for last times.
‘No, she said nothing.’ Addy’s own betrayal showed plainly on her face. The sisters were close. It made him wonder what had happened that had caused Artemisia to hide her decision from even Addy. He wished he could think of something to say to take away Addy’s pain. Addy sagged on to the sofa.
‘I don’t understand it. Why would she leave? The show was a success, her reviews were good and she had you.’ She shot an accusing glance at him. ‘Did the two of you fight? I thought everything was going well between you, despite the papers’ gossip. Your father came by earlier this week and I thought it was a good sign, that perhaps you’d proposed. It would be like Artemisia to say nothing until everything was final, but why else would Lord Bourne call but to interview his future daughter-in-law?’
Darius was only half listening. His thoughts were still rooted back on the first sentence. ‘My father was here?’
‘Yes, didn’t you know? I thought you had sent him. Artemisia never did say how the interview went.’
‘I did not send him and, no, it was not a visit of matrimonial intent.’ At least not in the way Addy was thinking of it. He wasn’t surprised Artemisia hadn’t shared the outcome of the visit. His father had called to warn her away, perhaps even threaten her, although he couldn’t imagine threats carrying any weight with Artemisia. She cared little for what someone claimed they might do to her. Unless the threats weren’t against her, but someone she cared for—like him, like her family.
Darius began to pace, a fuller picture coming to him. His father’s visit. Aldred Gray’s visit at the show. His own mention of his father’s discussion. He’d not been overly specific with her, but she’d guess the gist of that conversation. Combine the content of those visits with the doubts he knew she harboured in her own mind and she’d begin to see obstacles and sacrifice. She would not see solutions because she didn’t want him to suffer for her. She didn’t want to wreck his family. She didn’t want to steal his life. She didn’t understand his life was nothing without her. It was tired and empty. She’d done it because she loved him. If there was a silver lining, that was it.
She loved him. Too much to let him suffer.
That was unacceptable.
‘Where do you think she went?’ Darius covered up the easel. It was like drawing a curtain over a part of his life, a part that was over now. ‘Did she go to Seasalter?’ But even as he said it, his gut knew she hadn’t gone there. There’d be too much pain, too many memories. It couldn’t be her refuge any more. Grief twisted in his gut. He’d ruined that for her. ‘If not Seasalter, then where?’
Addy shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Somewhere she can paint and not be found. Shall I close things up?’
‘No, go on. I’ll just be a few minutes.’ Darius wanted a moment to gather himself. It would probably take more than a moment. His world felt empty, shattered despite the success of the show. He might never be ‘gathered’ again. An abyss yawned before him, a life without Artemisia. He leaned his head against the wall, desperate to stop the darkness from swamping him. He did not know right now what that life looked like, or how he’d get through it. Maybe he didn’t need to know. Maybe he just took things one day at a time, one decision at a time. Maybe that was how he got through it. It was how he’d got through those first days at Oxford, the first days after setting aside his painting.
He made an impotent fist. His father had taken that from him, using his mother as a weapon, using the title, using a lord’s inherent sense of responsibility against him. His father had tried those same tactics again. Rage stirred in his darkness. His father had been here, had convinced Artemisia to give him up, just as he’d tried to convince Darius to give her up. But what had worked with a sixteen-year-old boy could not be allowed to work on a man with power of his own.
Arguing with your father won’t bring her back, it might even cause the very thing she left to prevent, his conscience argued.
So be it. Darius raised his head. He couldn’t bring her back, but that didn’t mean what his father had done should go unanswered. He had nothing left to lose. The woman he loved had left him. There was for him but darkness and despair. It was time to confront the Earl.
* * *
‘You went behind my back. You chased her away, the woman I loved, the woman I planned to marry.’ Darius faced his father from the marble fireplace of the Bourne town house drawing room. Morning sun slanted through the tall windows, catching the wisps of hot tea steaming from the porcelain service set on the low table where it sat untouched. One look at his face upon arrival and his mother had insisted a cup of tea could put anything aright. If his father’s weapon of choice was responsibility, his mother’s was tea. Tea was for peace, but there could be no peace, not this time. This time, his father had gone too far.
‘You look like hell, Darius.’ His father crossed an elegant leg over one knee, looking immaculate, clean-shaven and undisturbed by his son’s unannounced visit. Perhaps he’d anticipated this and Darius’s arrival wasn’t so ‘unannounced’ after all.
‘I feel like hell,’ Darius retorted. ‘I feel as if my life has been pulled out from under me, stolen from me. Most of all I feel betrayed by my own father, a man I admire, which makes it a double betrayal.’
‘You need sleep.’ His father shook his head. ‘You are distraught and since you cannot take out your disappointment on Miss Stansfield for her desertion, you are striking out at the nearest target.’
How like his father to make this his fault, as if by managing his own emotions better this would cease to be a problem. ‘Darius, this may come as a surprise to you, but she had no intention of accepting your proposal. I asked her and that is what she told me. Now, I can see that the news hurts,’ he began.
Darius interrupted. He would not believe that, never mind that Artemisia had made similar noises to him. He’d always expected to talk her out of them. He’d planned on using the success of the show to prove so much to her. Now, he would not get that chance. ‘What was she supposed to say? You ambushed her in her own home and put an impossible question to her.’
His father gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘I did it for your own good. You failed to see reason, so I went to the one person who would.’
‘My own good? Like giving up my painting? Was that for my own good, or yours?’ Darius kept his voice level, acutely aware that his mother sat pale-faced and silent on the sofa, looking nervously between her husband and her son.
His father’s voice raised fractionally. ‘That was for Bourne. Nothing we do is just for you or I.’ It was the first show of emotion his father had demonstrated. ‘You are my son, my heir, the future of the earldom. Your mother—’
‘No.’ His mother’s voice was stern in the silence. ‘Do not make this about me, not this time. I will not be leveraged against my own son.’ Darius had not heard his mother speak to his father so directly in years. ‘Our disappointments do not need to be repeated by him.’
His father glared at them both, his eyes landing finally on Darius. ‘You will let Artemisia Stansfield go because it is demanded of you. It is the right thing to do.’ His father gave a wry, cold smile. ‘Besides, why argue over it? What’s done is done. She is gone and you can’t bring her back. Why seek conflict that cannot be resolved?’ He made a peaceful gesture with his hands.
‘No.’ Darius hated the idea that his father might win by default. The pieces that had shattered inside him last night and jabbed at his broken heart until dawn quieted. Letting her go was not the right thing. Letting his father exert his power like this was not the right thing. For the first time since Artemisia had left, he saw a way forward.
He faced his father, calm settling over him. He was sure of his direction now even if the path to it was still undefined. ‘I will find her and bring her back and I will marry her, your opinion be damned.’ He’d rather do this with his parents’ support, but if not, he would do it alone.
His father’s eyes narrowed. He rose. ‘I see you cannot be reasoned with at the moment. I have other appointments to keep. We will discuss this later when you are more reasonable.’
There was a long silence after his father left the room. Darius exhaled into it, feeling a weight leave his shoulders. He’d declared himself. There was nothing left to do but the next thing. He had to move forward now. Any faltering on his part would equal victory for his father. ‘I am going after her,’ he announced to his mother.
She nodded. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘Possibly. I think she may be headed to Italy.’ The idea had come to him last night as he’d paced his rooms, thinking where she would go, where could she paint? He’d let his mind sift through all the conversations, all the walks on the beach, all the campfires and rainy afternoons in the farmhouse until he knew without doubt where she’d gone. He’d bet every pound note in his pocket she’d gone back to the beach where she’d learned to paint. She’d been happy there and in Italy she might have more freedom than she did here.
‘If I leave now I can race to Dover and catch the first ship, maybe even catch her. She might still be there if the shipping schedules aren’t amenable.’ He was only a day behind her, he would eventually catch up to her in Calais, or Paris, or somewhere on the overland road to Italy.
‘Unless she takes a boat the entire way,’ his mother offered cautiously. ‘I don’t mean to undermine the idea, Darius. It is a noble gesture. Perhaps the kind of romantic overture a girl dreams of, but it might not get you the results you’re looking for.’ His mother reached for the teapot and poured out two cups. ‘Come and sit, we need a better plan if we want to get better results.’
We. Such a small word and yet so powerful. Darius sat beside his mother and took the teacup. ‘Thank you, Mother.’ A little bit of hope flickered among the ashes of his rage and disappointment. He had an ally.
Portrait of a Forbidden Love--A Sexy Regency Romance Page 21
