The Notorious Countess

by Liz Tyner

  She stepped to the door and glanced over her shoulder at Andrew. ‘I suppose I should make sure I do not miss a copy of any scandal sheets in the future. I feel it isn’t the last time my family will be mentioned.’

  ‘Mother.’ He raised a hand to reassure her. ‘I am certain—’

  She cut him off. ‘Andrew. Do not make promises. And besides, you never know when I might decide to go to Drury Lane. There is also a tiny mention of Lady Riverton’s cousin, Tilly, and how she confessed to everyone she had painted that rubbish. But the paper scoffs at that. Everyone knows who really painted it. They are all jealous, Andrew. Jealous.’

  ‘I did not mean—’

  Andrew stared. His mother’s lips turned up into a smile he’d never seen before. ‘And your maid informed me your copies sold much quicker than Foxworthy’s—not that we are in any kind of competition. She said by teatime the drawings of you had all been bought and were looking tattered from being passed around. But Foxworthy’s were available much longer.’ She gave a quick double-blink. ‘And his were not tattered.’

  She walked out the door, still talking. ‘And I really do not wish to delve deeper into it, but the maid has also whispered to me that the servants are indeed proud to work in your household.’

  * * *

  Andrew looked at his desk. The sun had risen. The duke had visited. They had both survived, although it had not been a sure thing.

  The world continued on. But he missed the vermilion.

  He touched the tip of his forefinger to his thumb, set it against the pen, released it and the object skipped across the desk and on to the floor.

  No one ever needed to tidy his desk. Not once had it ever been straightened. He never left anything out of place. Never. He always put each item precisely where it belonged when he finished with it. He could not do otherwise.

  The chair had been built precisely to his specifications. He’d taken an old chair and put blocks under the legs until it fit his height exactly, and did the same with a desk. He’d spent hours working, readjusted the blocks many times until the heights of the furniture fit perfectly for him. He could work for hours without strain.

  He looked at the paper in front of him. The ink. The drying sand. Pencils. The pens. A miniature of his mother.

  The duchess had told his father that if Andrew wished for a castle, he should be allowed to have a small one in the garden, and she had hired a carpenter to work with him when he came home on school holiday and even put the stable boy to work for him. And Beatrice had turned him into a knight, of sorts. At least there was a discarded helmet in the background and some chainmail lying about—with the sword.

  He kept seeing Beatrice as he’d seen her last. The crown of brown curls and the blue eyes. And this time, the blue eyes didn’t sparkle with laughter, but with unshed tears. And the lips weren’t quirked up in laughter, but trembling with apology.

  He missed her. The wonder who could not quite manage a silent moment, but saw life as a rainbow of colours, and he would bet his life she didn’t own a white dress not splotched with paint.

  Standing, he made the trek upstairs.

  Unlocking the door, he went into the small room, knowing the space would soon become dust covered if he didn’t let a maid into it. He supposed he’d dust the room himself.

  The chamber housed the simple furnishings of a servant’s quarters and two pieces of art.

  He pushed back the window curtain, then turned to the parcel. He unwrapped the painting and put it beside the window. The thing took his breath away. He’d never seen so much of himself all at once even in a mirror.

  Beatrice. He could see the reflection of her spirit in the canvas. Then he took a deep breath, and just looked at the painting. The last painting Beatrice had added to the room at the cottage. The place where one could look and see what she really thought.

  His father had forgotten the most important thing in his life. His family. He’d let the weight of his fascination for the other woman pull him from what mattered most and he’d died, still clinging to his vision of an imagined life with a woman who did not want him, and left behind a woman who had. It was not the impulsiveness of his nature which had destroyed him, but his inability to see what he had in his own home.

  Andrew had placed the Boadicea painting with the nude. They belonged together.

  He turned to look at Boadicea. If only she’d known not to fight the battle uphill. If she’d only had better help in planning her offensive. A knight by her side. Perhaps history would have worked out differently.

  * * *

  Back in his library, Andrew slid the ink bottle closer, took the ink and dipped the pen. But this time he wasn’t working on renovations for a house, or plans to increase his holdings. He took a soft breath and began to draw. He entered the state in which his hand and his mind worked as one, and he didn’t think, or really feel, but lived the strokes of the pen inside the lines he drew and life outside sped on, but slowed within him. And the dimmed light of the sun setting roused him to light a lamp, but everyone knew not to ask him to eat, or sleep or move.

  He could caricature as well as Gillray. The skill had nearly caused him to be sent down from university, but he’d been saved by it, too. As punishment, Andrew had been instructed to draw every building on the grounds. He’d not minded. Used it as an excuse to stay in his room when his friends wanted him to follow along on a lark.

  When he finished the caricature, he smiled. His chuckle was silent and he stood, shaking his head. This would do well as an engraving.

  He left the room. If the sun rose in the morning, he would take that as a sign he had done the right thing.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Beatrice looked up to see Andrew standing at the doorway of her sitting room. Something inside herself changed. The world shifted and she could see nuances of colour again. The shadows which had overwhelmed her blossomed into...into the life that was Andrew. She let her eyes fill with the sight of him.

  ‘Beatrice.’ He leaned against the door, rolled newsprint in his hand. He tapped it against the facing. ‘I would have asked to be announced, but no one answered my knock.’

  Andrew’s eyes had a smile behind them and she knew, without asking, she’d been forgiven, at least somewhat.

  She let herself admire the wide shoulders. The riding pantaloons hugged the long legs and fit well on his narrow hips. The wide and narrow blended together perfectly. Eyes she could paint a thousand times and never grow tired of.

  She rushed forward, staring. His cravat still white, but— ‘Andrew. Your waistcoat is grey. Not black.’

  He smiled. ‘I have decided that I might increase the array of colours in my wardrobe. I ordered three new waistcoats.’

  ‘In all colours?’

  He shook his head, brows knit. ‘Just grey.’

  ‘I somehow expected you to say red,’ she said, ‘though I wouldn’t have believed it.’

  ‘You outshine even that colour, Beatrice.’

  She raised both brows, and put her fingers out, aware of the Prussian blue that had dried on her knuckles.

  She took the paper, their fingers touching briefly, and she had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from throwing herself at him. She’d missed him. She’d been alone—alone. And the feeling hadn’t been the same as before. With Riverton, she’d never minded. Appreciated the chance to paint. And if she’d needed activity, she’d visited her brother’s house, or spoken with her mother. But without Andrew around, the colours of her palette became very flat. Her creativity became forced. Nothing seemed the same.

  She hadn’t even wanted anyone to notice her, or look at her. She’d realised there was only one person in the world whose notice mattered. Whose opinion mattered. He had wanted to transform her, but he also respected her and cared for her. He had sat at her side during the theatre performance and encouraged her to stare in the faces of those who’d tormented her. When she hadn’t altered into someone demure, he’d still returned. He’d no
t faded away or added his voice to the detractors.

  Now he stood in front of her. He’d changed from his black waistcoat to grey.

  His life wasn’t like Riverton’s, but the opposite. His life was more than a puff of smoke and an imagined haze. He’d built a world around himself to stand the test of time. Her brother had told her that Andrew never had anything in his home he did not consider of the best quality.

  ‘What do you think of me?’ she asked.

  ‘I saw you in the Boadicea painting. Brave and exposed and ready to take on the world. Unafraid. You are a woman who is true. Who traversed her own path and did not fall into her husband’s mire, but remained true to her promise to him, even when she did not care if he lived or died. A woman who would fight any usurper to her home. A woman who stayed true to herself.

  She unrolled the paper, still smelling of fresh newsprint, and saw the drawing titled Eden. Adam stood, prudently covered at the waist by garden foliage and wearing a perfectly tied white cravat, and holding out a fruit to Eve. Eve, a rather curvaceous being—with a paintbrush tucked into curling brown hair and an easel in the background—looked hesitant about taking the heart-shaped fruit.

  ‘It’s my drawing, Beatrice,’ he said.

  Beatrice took the copy, examining it. ‘Your Beast is different from the others.’

  ‘I find her an appealing creature with big eyes and rather large fig leaves over the bosom—if you’ve noticed.’

  She laughed, holding the paper close to her chest. ‘She still has the tufts at the top of her ears. But you drew me as a much nicer Beast than the other engraver did.’

  He nodded. ‘My life without my Beast is incredibly dull.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you prefer?’

  ‘No.’ Again the darkness in his eyes. The face which appeared emotionless, but she knew was not.

  She looked again at the drawing. ‘If you can forgive me the painting...’

  ‘I can’t say I am thrilled with it. It is quite astounding, though.’

  ‘You’ve seen it?’ she asked, eyes wide.

  ‘I now have it. A gift from your mother.’

  ‘You have not destroyed it?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘It is art. One could not take a hammer to Michelangelo’s David and, while I do not care to have this on display for anyone else to see, I could never harm it. It would be hurting you.’

  He put his hand to her chin and tilted it up, and his own head down. ‘A man should not hide away his feelings though, Bea. Not from himself. Not from the people he cares about. I love you, tufts and all.’

  She gurgled a gasp.

  ‘I had made certain I could not get close enough to anyone,’ he said, ‘so I could not be overwhelmed by passion. But for your passion, I would be a knight. I would fight dragons so that I could be in your presence.’ He smiled. ‘A few words spread about by tattlers are easy to slap aside when one has Boadicea to love.’

  Pressing a light kiss to her lips, he stepped back, indicating the man in the drawing. ‘He’s offering her his heart and wants her to be his. If he had pockets, he’d have a ring in one to offer her, should she accept his marriage proposal.’ He ran a lone finger along the side of her waist and trailed her hip. ‘I do believe I have pockets, Beatrice.’

  His voice flowed into the room, creating shivers in her body and toasting them.

  She breathed him in and could smell his own scent, the woodsy one, and realised it might have a dash of spice in it.

  ‘Andrew, I did not know you could draw so well.’

  ‘I’m actually quite good with oils, too.’ His breath touched her lips. ‘I can pick up any skill I try rather quickly—given a chance to examine it.’

  Her mouth formed an O, then her thoughts just stopped and she looked at him.

  He smiled. ‘I am quite particular, Beatrice. I do not like to fail at any endeavour.’

  Epilogue

  Fawsett gave a last flip to the cravat knot and Andrew had allowed two loops, just to please the valet. The waistcoat was grey. The colour seemed to inflame Beatrice in quite the nicest way. Blue, oh, he was saving that colour for later. She’d quite purred in pleasure when he’d informed her of his order. He planned vermilion for their first anniversary, but he would not tell her that.

  ‘I am so pleased you have finally hired your own carpenter and decided to forgo such projects yourself for the time,’ Fawsett said. He leaned forward and whispered, ‘I have taken the liberty to have two bell pulls installed in the mistress’s chambers.’ He held up a hand and gave a brief imitation of a tug. ‘And they’re very sensitive—so you’ve only to tug the smallest amount should anyone need to be bandaged or untied.’

  He stepped to the door. ‘I want you to have the freedom to have a very adventurous wedding night.’ Before his hand touched the knob, he paused. ‘And as my wedding gift to you, you’ll find an advance copy of The Memoirs of Sophia Swift in your bedside table. It’s quite enlightening. But she did spell your name wrong.’

  Andrew blinked, then shrugged.

  Fawsett grinned at Andrew. ‘You scoundrel.’ He touched a hand to his chest and his eyes watered. ‘The other valets are begging me for tales of you.’ He reached to the points of his waistcoat hem and gave a sharp pull. ‘I have the most envied post in town. I am the valet, uppermost in all England.’

  ‘Andrew...’ The door opened in a rush, almost knocking Fawsett into the wall.

  His mother stood there, hand on the latch, eyes distressed. Handkerchief fluttering in her other hand. ‘We have lost Beatrice. Knowing her love for scandal, we fear she’s...changed her mind.’

  Andrew let out a breath. ‘I’ll find her. Don’t worry.’

  Sniffling, the older woman walked away. ‘I was hoping for Beatrice the Beautiful Bride in the scandal sheets, but now I’m concerned they’ll put The Beast Bolts.’ She turned back to Andrew. ‘Bring her over your shoulder if you have to and I’ll put my stocking in her mouth and we’ll have everyone rounded up and get this thing done before she knows what’s happened.’

  After his mother had seen the portrait, draped with a loincloth, she’d accepted Beatrice. His mother said she could see Beatrice’s love for Andrew in every brush stoke because—while Andrew was handsome—he was not quite the perfection Beatrice had created. But very close, she’d amended, and said no other woman would ever do for him but someone who could see him with such love.

  Andrew stepped from the room, walked upstairs and opened the door to the small room. Boadicea hung on the wall, but Beatrice stood staring at the companion painting, a brush in her one hand and palette in the other.

  ‘Do not worry yourself about it,’ he said, shutting the door.

  ‘I just wanted to make another adjustment on the hands.’ She looked at him, giving a tiny shrug before she made a few deft strokes on the oils.

  ‘After we are married.’ He reached, taking her arm and turning her towards him. ‘But we must be married—today. Now.’

  She looked up at him. He saw a smudge of fresh paint on her cheek.

  ‘You mustn’t keep using your mouth to hold brushes,’ he said. He reached up, first taking his thumb to rub away the smear, then the tips of his other fingers followed to wipe her cheek clean.

  He looked into her eyes. ‘No second thoughts?’

  ‘Yes,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve been working on the hands, but you must let me add the little scar. It is a part of you and I love every inch of you.’

  ‘Fine. After we are married.’

  ‘I never realised it before, but we each have had our share of misadventures—and you are in the Swift book.’

  ‘I checked with the publisher when I heard of the Memoirs being published to see what would be printed. Miss Swift must have confused me with someone else. Our encounter did not end with applause. She used her imagination to portray me as someone totally unlike myself, possibly because of the fame of the portrait. Nothing she wrote was the truth. It was much the same as the
painting. You used my face and an imagined body. She used my name and made up an imagined encounter. In truth, I left before any of the events she remembers occurred, my trousers still on.’

  And he’d been inordinately relieved that she’d not told the real story.

  Beatrice looked at him and her eyes twinkled. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Between you and Sophia, no one will ever believe the truth of who I am.’ He kissed the spot where he had wiped away the paint. ‘But notoriety is not all bad, I admit. I’m getting used to it. So be quick and let’s get married.’ He slipped the brush from her right hand and the palette from the other, and placed them on an old trunk. ‘I suggest we get the ceremony over with so we can move on to our future as a very staid, boring, respectable couple.’ He leaned towards her, knowing the words would be lost as soon as he said them. ‘Staid. Boring. Respectable.’

  Then she reached her arms around his neck and he felt her body press against his, and the huskiness of her voice tingled his body. She growled delightfully. He would never tire of the growl.

  The tender kiss they shared let him know he’d truly found the woman of his dreams and he reached around her, pulling her against himself. ‘You will have ample time to compare skin tones later, after the guests leave, if you wish.’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ purred his little beauty.

  Andrew spared a glance for the painting of Boadicea on the opposing wall, pleased to have them together. Then he took Beatrice by the hand and they stared into each other’s eyes before they walked downstairs to begin their vows.

  ‘Blast,’ he heard the duke hiss and he saw the quick, puzzled dart of the vicar’s eyes. Someone snickered—Foxworthy. Andrew’s mother whispered, ‘Hold your tongue. Anybody have any doubts about this marriage taking place?’