Portrait of a Scandal

by Annie Burrows

  * * *

  Amethyst opened her eyes to find him standing over her with a tray bearing glasses, some cheese, some fruit and a hunk of bread.

  Wearing nothing but a lazy grin.

  ‘Refreshments, my lady,’ he said, putting the tray down on the bedside table and perching on the edge of the bed. ‘Cannot have you fainting away from hunger on your way home.’

  And she would have to get up and go home soon, she realised. She wasn’t sure how long she’d dozed, but they’d already spent several hours in this bed.

  ‘When can I see you again,’ he asked, as he poured wine from a carafe into one of the glasses and handed it to her. ‘Soon, I hope?’

  The eagerness in his voice soothed some of the sting that his less-than-subtle hint it was time for her to leave had inflicted.

  ‘Tomorrow evening, I should think. I shall tell my...friend, Fenella, that since we won’t be staying long in Paris, you need to work on my portrait as often as possible.’

  He frowned briefly, turning away to pull some grapes from their stalk.

  ‘I had hoped perhaps we could meet during the daytime, too,’ he said, popping one into her mouth. ‘I should like to show you something of Paris. The real Paris. Not the one your hired guide will show you. The one that the citizens inhabit. And tomorrow is Sunday.’

  He turned back to her, an eager, open expression on his face that reminded her of when they’d both been so much younger and they’d talked about...anything and everything.

  ‘I could take you outside the barrière, perhaps to the Jardin de la Gaieté. The locals get paid on Saturday and they tend to go outside the barrière to spend their money, where goods don’t incur Paris custom dues. It’s like a huge open-air party, with feasting and dancing all day.’

  Something seemed to turn over and flip inside her. He had no idea how wealthy she was. He’d looked at her clothes, listened to her story, which had made it sound as though she and Fenella were pooling their resources, and come up with an entertainment that would make what little money he supposed she had go as far as possible. It meant he really wanted to spend time with her.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said, surprised to find that refusing his invitation really had caused her a pang of regret. ‘But I have already made plans.’

  ‘You could break them.’

  Yes, she could. The trouble was that she wanted to do just that far too much. It felt wonderful to have him look at her like that as he asked her to spend the daylight hours with him, as though he really wanted to be with her. But then he’d made her feel like this when she’d been younger, too. And just look how that had ended!

  No, it was more honest to just limit their relationship to what it was truly all about. If they started to behave like a...well, like a courting couple, then she might start to slide into feeling something for him besides the physical fascination she couldn’t deny he exerted over her.

  ‘No. I don’t break my word,’ she said firmly. Besides, it would be much healthier to spend time with her friends, friends who would still be there for her when this affaire with Harcourt had burned out. As it surely would. By all accounts he was incapable of sticking to one female for much more than a week.

  ‘What about the evening, then? I have an invitation to a soirée you might find amusing. We could go together.’

  She frowned up at him. ‘I’m not sure that would be a good idea.’ She didn’t know what kind of circles Nathan moved amongst these days. It was just possible she might get introduced to one of the merchants with whom she was trying to do business. And then if they spotted her with Monsieur Le Brun, who was acting for her, they might put two and two together. It was only a slight possibility, but still...

  He sucked in a sharp breath. ‘You want to keep our affair secret. I can understand that.’ He shrugged, and smiled, but it was a cynical smile that made her sorry she’d spoken so sharply. ‘But you will come to me again?’

  Oh, that was better. Much better. He found her so irresistible that he would accept any terms she chose, so long as she returned to his bed.

  * * *

  She had hugged the sensation to herself all the way home and woken up the next morning with a smile on her face.

  She wasn’t unnatural and unfeminine, as her father had decreed she must be, for preferring to stay with her aunt and work at her ledgers rather than crawl home to the vicarage and...stultify. She was a desirable woman. Nathan Harcourt, the man who had once spurned her, wanted her. Her.

  Without knowing a thing about her fortune.

  She stretched her arms above her head, wincing as she felt the pull of muscles left tender from all those hours of lovemaking.

  No, not lovemaking. She wasn’t going to mistake his enthusiasm for her body as affection, not this time round. Nor was she going to fall for him, or anything silly like that.

  He wasn’t anything special. He was just here. At a time in her life when she was ready to explore new possibilities. To find out what she really wanted from life. She’d known it wasn’t the cloistered, cramped existence that was all Stanton Basset had to offer. She’d wanted to break free of its petty restrictions, it’s narrow-minded parochialism. And she’d thought visiting Paris would do it.

  She’d been wrong.

  Taking a lover had been what she needed.

  They would say she was wanton, if they knew what she’d done last night, the town tabbies. And wicked, to boot, for turning down Harcourt’s guilt-induced proposal.

  It had surprised her, that proposal. It was the kind of thing an honourable man would do and she’d long since ceased to think of him as anything more than an out-and-out scoundrel.

  But he wasn’t all bad. He had wanted her, truly wanted her, when he’d been a young man. And if he’d been the villain she’d believed, the rake that the scandal sheets had branded him, he could have taken her virginity then and left her sullied as well as broken-hearted.

  But he hadn’t bedded her when she’d been a girl. He might have cut her out of his life quite harshly when he’d decided to marry for gain, rather than...well, she hesitated to use the word love, but it really did look as though he had felt something for her. But he had left her in such a way that she could have married someone else.

  If she hadn’t been so shattered.

  If her parents hadn’t added to her misery by heaping all the blame upon her.

  If her aunt hadn’t swooped down and taken her under her wing. And fostered her poor opinion of the male species until she, too, had grown to dislike them all on principle.

  Well, that was all water under the bridge now. It was Sunday and, instead of trudging to church and listening to the moralising of plump and priggish Parson Peabody, she was going out on an excursion of pleasure. Monsieur Le Brun had organised a carriage to drive them out to the Bois de Boulogne. It sounded rather tame, she sighed as she got out of bed, in comparison with the all-day ball that Nathan had invited her to attend. But as she washed and donned her clothes, she reminded herself that it wouldn’t do to let him monopolise her time. He was already monopolising her thoughts.

  He would have to be content to have the access to her body that no other man had ever known.

  Listen to her! Planning to keep her lover at arm’s length. She giggled at her newfound confidence in her attractiveness. Oh, if only she’d known how good making love would feel, she would have taken a lover years ago.

  Or at least she might have considered it.

  Though...actually, she hadn’t ever felt the slightest curiosity about what it might have been like to so much as kiss a man, until she’d run into Nathan again.

  But then, she hastily reminded herself, she hadn’t been in Paris, either.

  She had just about convinced herself that it was something about the revolutionary atmosphere lingering in Paris that had given her th
e courage to defy all the rules by the time she went through to the main salon.

  And got the shock of her life.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Dare I ask,’ said Nathan when he strode into her salon that evening, ‘what made you change your mind about accepting my invitation to the Wilsons’ soirée?’

  ‘Not here,’ she said darkly. ‘Wait until we are in the carriage.’ So saying, she swept out of the front door and into the street, where the hired carriage he’d come to collect her in was still waiting.

  ‘You look divine, by the way,’ he said as he handed her in.

  He made her feel divine, too, the way his eyes devoured her as he climbed in beside her.

  She was glad she’d succumbed to the urge to dress up for him. She’d briefly wondered whether he would feel more comfortable if she dressed plainly, the way she usually did. But she hadn’t been able to resist putting on the prettiest of her new gowns. And tucking the diamond—or possibly crystal—aigrette into her hair had been an act of pure self-indulgence. Just once, she wanted to look her best and have him look at her exactly the way he was looking at her right now. As though she was beautiful. Desirable.

  ‘You look quite...appealing yourself,’ she murmured, looking him up and down with appreciation. It was a relief to see he still had some clothes fit to be seen in, in any company. In fact, they looked as though they’d scarcely been worn at all. He must have had quite an extensive wardrobe when he’d been married to his wealthy, well-connected wife. And he clearly hadn’t pawned it all yet.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, taking her hands and kissing first one, then the other.

  Her toes curled up with pleasure. Oh, but she had been right to seek the solace that only he could give her tonight.

  ‘So what is it that has driven you from your friends this evening? And made you hint at some mystery? I am all agog.’

  ‘I could not stomach one more minute of their billing and cooing, if you must know. And I heartily regretted my decision to turn down your invitation to spend the day with you not half an hour after departing for the Bois de Boulogne. At least if I’d been dancing with you, you would have noticed I was there!’

  ‘Billing and cooing? The stringy Frenchman and the mousy widow?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said in disgust. ‘Though they do say that love is blind, I had never before considered how very accurate that statement is until today.’ She shot him a sharp look. ‘But Fenella is not mousy. She is elegant and poised. Perhaps she is a touch reserved, but—’

  ‘Nondescript,’ he said dismissively. ‘The kind of woman you barely notice. It amazes me that she managed to produce a daughter so vibrant as that...’

  ‘Sophie,’ Amethyst supplied. ‘Oh. So that is why you asked about her father.’

  He didn’t contradict her.

  ‘I’ve often thought Sophie must take after her father, myself.’ She smiled up at him. He couldn’t return her smile. Her pleasure in assuming they were of like mind about the girl made him feel so guilty he couldn’t even look at her.

  ‘Because Fenella is a quiet person, though neither nondescript, nor mousy. I always think she is a perfect lady, actually.’

  ‘She is not perfect,’ he said bluntly. ‘She pales into insignificance when next to you. When first I saw you here in Paris, I hardly even noticed she was at the table. But I could not get you out of my head, no matter how hard I tried. I thought of you practically all day. And even in my dreams, there you were, your wonderful hair spread across my pillows, your naked—’

  ‘Did you?’

  She loved hearing him say things like that. And even if it was merely the practised patter of a seasoned rake, it was close enough to what she’d felt to be convincing. She hadn’t been able to stop her thoughts returning to him either. And he’d infiltrated her dreams too.

  ‘But I am being remiss,’ he said. ‘To distract you from whatever it was you were going to tell me about your friends. You were so annoyed with them you looked as though you really needed to make a clean breast of it.’

  His gaze dropped to the bodice of her gown. And all of a sudden she could imagine him baring her breasts, right there in the carriage, and suckling on them the way he’d done the night before.

  ‘It was all your fault,’ she said resentfully. She had decided to get out tonight and risk taking a peek at the glittering whirl that was Parisian society after all. But one heated look and all she wanted was to tell the coachman to take her to his studio, remove every stitch of clothing, slowly, while he watched, and then have him do all the things he’d done to her last night.

  Over and over again.

  ‘Mine? I cannot be held responsible for every love affair that springs up in Paris, just because I happen to live here.’

  ‘Oh, that’s not what I meant. It was what you said, last night. About, the man who calls himself Monsieur Le Brun. I’ve always thought there was something suspicious about him.’ That was not quite true. It was more that she was suspicious of all males as a matter of course.

  ‘But this morning, only he was in the salon where we gather before going out. And although we have been in rooms on our own before, he just looked so...uncomfortable. He could not meet my eyes. Well,’ she huffed, her eyes narrowing, ‘naturally not, the sneak! It turns out he—’ but just then the carriage lurched to a halt. They had arrived at the hôtel hired by the minor politician who was throwing tonight’s informal rout.

  ‘He what?’

  ‘Are you not going to open the door and help me alight?’

  ‘No. I want to hear what the sneak has been getting up to.’

  ‘I will tell you inside.’

  ‘But anyone might overhear.’

  ‘So? I care not. Besides, if we just sit here with the door closed, people will think we are...’

  ‘So?’ He grinned at her, echoing her own words. ‘I care not.’

  ‘You have to be the most annoying man I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Worse than Monsieur Le Brun?’

  ‘Far worse,’ she said darkly. ‘Because I suspect you annoy me on purpose.’

  ‘You should not look so utterly captivating with your eyes flashing fire, then.’

  ‘Captivating? Don’t you mean shrewish? That’s what most men say.’

  ‘Ah, but I’m not most men. And you warned me about your prickles before you let me get too close. If you were really a shrew, you wouldn’t care whether you hurt me or not.’

  He leaned forwards, and planted a hard kiss on her lips just as she was parting them to give him a piece of her mind. He kissed her until she’d forgotten what she’d been going to say to him. And then, just as she relented and started to kiss him back, he pulled away and sprang out of the carriage.

  Only to lean back in, extending his hand to her with a broad smile, which she somehow found herself returning.

  ‘You are incorrigible,’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘That’s me,’ he agreed cheerfully. ‘But you wouldn’t have me any other way, would you? You’ve needed to find a man who is strong enough not to bleed when you try to sharpen your claws on him.’

  ‘And you think you are that man?’

  ‘I’m man enough for you,’ he husked into her ear, just at the moment when a footman stepped forwards to take her coat. Which made her blush. And want to do something to make him squirm, the way he’d just made her squirm. Only she couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t make her look a fool as well.

  ‘God, will you just look at this place?’ Nathan tucked her hand into the crook of his arm almost absent-mindedly as he stared up at the queue of people snaking half-way down the stairs. ‘They must have rented the whole building, not just one floor.’

  She took note of the disdainful twist to his mouth. In spite of growing up in exalted circles, in spite
of having married into another wealthy family, it looked as though he didn’t like people flaunting their wealth either.

  ‘So...’ he jerked his eyes away from the marble pillars, the ornate chandeliers, the liveried, bewigged footmen, and turned his attention back to her. ‘You were about to tell me what your French hireling said when you told him you knew he wasn’t being honest about his name.’

  Was she? Oh, yes. She’d been really annoyed about it too.

  ‘That was what started it,’ she agreed. ‘But then he had the nerve to demand I tell him who had been talking about him, rather than just give me an honest answer.’

  ‘What cheek,’ said Nathan with mock horror.

  ‘Yes, it was, actually. He acted as though I had no right to question him, when I am employing him in a position of considerable trust. And I was just pointing out that if he wished to remain in my employ he had better come clean, when Fenella burst into the room and flew to his side. Saying it was all her fault. Well, he tried to silence her, saying that I didn’t know the truth, but she just said she couldn’t keep it a secret from me any longer and it all came tumbling out. Not about his real identity, not at first, but about how she and Gaston were going to marry as soon as we return to England.’

  For one terrible moment she’d thought they’d hatched up some plot to swindle her. After all, they had spent so much time together poring over the correspondence from French firms it would have been easy. The thought of Fenella betraying her trust in that way had felt like a knife-blow. Like her sisters all over again. She’d wondered why it was that no matter how much she did for people, nobody had ever stood by her.

  It had been a tremendous relief to find out that what they were hiding was merely a romance.

  ‘But why,’ he said as the queue shuffled further up the stairs, ‘did they need to keep their betrothal a secret from you?’

  ‘It was because he’d seduced her,’ she told him grimly. ‘The very first night we arrived in Paris. Oh, Fenella said it was all her own doing. She’d had too much to drink and was lonely. And they’d become such good friends during the voyage and had so much in common. And then she said she had missed the kind of closeness a woman can only find with a man. Which, by her blushes, I took to mean in bed.’