by Susanna Ives
The girls shot her a nasty possessive look and hugged their treasured magazines to their chests.
“I’ll give you my last toffee for a peek,” Lilith beseeched. “A tiny peek. Please. What must I do? This means the world to me.”
The redhead reluctantly relented and snatched up the offered toffee. Lilith opened to the first page. The Redemption of the Sultan by Lilith Dahlgren. Illustrated by the Marquess of Marylewick.
What!
Her heart thundered. Her head was so light she could scarcely hold on to her flying thoughts. She flipped the pages, reading the words she had written, yet drawn through George’s amazing mind.
The illustrations were intricate and detailed. He saw Colette’s world with more depth than she could ever have imagined it. Tears blurred her vision. She wiped them away and continued to a stunning full page illustration of Colette and the sultan in the garden. The sultan and Colette kissed against a background of lovely intertwining flowering vines. The image could have been mistaken for a romantic sketch by Rossetti or Millais. The caption beneath it read, “This can be your home, full of beauty, for the rest of your days. I love you. Consent to be my wife. Marry me.”
Lilith gasped. She was certain she didn’t write those last sentences. They weren’t in the story. Why had he added them? Was he telling her that he loved her? “I must…I must go to him.”
She blindly thrust the magazine at its owner and ran to the train station. Clothes, toiletries, her Keats book—she didn’t need such trivial things. She scrambled into the great hall where the news of the sultan echoed in the high ceilings. “Lord Marylewick, the sultan, illustrated the story!” “I always knew he wasn’t the villain!”
She used all her restraint not to push ahead in the long queues waiting for tickets. For God’s sake, turtles could crawl to London faster than this line moved.
“I need to get on the next train to London,” she cried, when she finally reached the ticket window. “I have no luggage. I have nothing. I need to get to London as soon as possible. I’m desperate.”
The ticket agent was a young, unamused man with a critical gaze. “It leaves in thirty minutes,” he said. “Nine shillings.”
She opened her valise and dug deep into the folds and crevices searching for every last coin. Oh, had she not bought that toffee! “All I have is eight shillings and three pence. Is that enough? Please say yes.”
The ticket agent shook his head. “Sorry, miss.” He beckoned forward the somberly dressed elderly man and his wife in line behind her.
Lilith spread her arms and grabbed the counter, refusing to leave. “Oh, please, please, you must let me on that train. My life, Colette’s life, all depend on it. I’m Ellis Belfort…Lilith Dahlgren. I wrote Colette and the Sultan. I wrote it! I have to get back to Lord Marylewick. I really hurt him, you see.”
The ticket agent was getting that weary look in his eye, as if he were dealing with a made-up sob story from someone trying to board a train without paying full price.
“I’m not lying!” she cried. “I didn’t tell Lord Marylewick about Colette and the Sultan until it was too late. After I had fallen in love with him. He’s not a villain, he never was. I was the villain in a way, because I couldn’t see the truth.” The entire story tumbled out in an incoherent tangle of words, starting from Lilith’s father’s death and ending with the horrible night of the ball, leaving out, of course, the more intimate details. The others in the queue inched up to listen, as did the people in the next two lines. “So I ran away so he could have the life he wanted,” Lilith concluded. “But now he’s illustrated the entire story for everyone to see. He told the world that he loved me through his art. My God, man, is that not the truest, noblest love? I must tell him that I love him with all my being. He is my truth and beauty. Please give me a ticket. I beg you.” She was ready to climb over the counter and snatch away his tickets and stamper.
“I’m sorry, miss, the ticket remains nine shillings,” replied the heartless man. “I don’t set the rates. Perhaps you shouldn’t have run away from the marquess and caused all this trouble.”
“What!” Tears burst in Lilith’s eyes. “You cruel, unfeeling—”
The elderly man behind her set a shiny florin on the marble counter. “Young man, people in love don’t always act rationally.” He patted his wife’s arm. “One day you will learn that lesson. Now allow this young lady on that train.”
The people in line burst into applause.
* * *
George painted in his study as he waited for a word, any word, from Lilith. Beatrice sat quietly by a lamp reading a book, while Penelope took turns about the room. He scratched his chin where his beard was growing in, sipped black coffee, and then mixed in a little white paint to lighten the flesh tones along Lilith’s forehead. “It’s getting dark,” he said aloud to his sister as she paced by the window. “Are they still there?”
Penelope drew the curtain slightly and peered out. Even through the thick lead, he could hear a female cry, “I saw the curtain move. It’s him! It’s him! The sultan!” A chorus of female squeals rang out. The crowd of women had been gathering throughout the day, waiting for him to leave or open a window. Wild for any glimspse of him. No doubt the neighbors were not amused with the special edition McAllister had printed.
“I think there may be three dozen now,” Penelope marveled. “You’ve gone from a feared, dastardly villain to a desired hero in a matter of hours.”
Capital. Now if he could only attract the one woman he desired. If he could be her hero.
Penelope read his anxious thoughts. “It was published not twelve hours ago. Give her some time.”
“I can think of multiple scenarios to detain her,” said Beatrice in that cool, rational manner of hers. “She could be on the continent and a magazine won’t arrive there for another few days and then, perhaps, she won’t go to a store with English papers for a week or—”
“Thank you, Beatrice,” said Penelope. “I’m not really fond of that scenario. Let us try another.”
“She is in London and has seen the paper and decided not to come.” Beatrice closed her book and clutched the edges. “That is not a very good scenario either.”
“Why don’t we all go to bed early,” suggested Penelope. “It is no use to stay up fretting. Maybe tomorrow we shall awake to find Lilith here, sharing breakfast with us in a ludicrous ensemble just to raise George’s ire.” Her small chuckle turned hollow and bittersweet, like remembering a funny story of someone dearly departed.
“Yes, yes, sleep,” said George. “A grand idea.” He set his brush down and wiped his hands with a damp cloth. In truth, he wanted to be alone with his worries, fears, and aching heart. He began herding the ladies to the door. “‘Sleep that knits up the raveled trouser leg of care’ or whatever Shakespeare said. Lilith would know.”
“Sleeve, not trouser leg!” corrected Beatrice. “‘Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care.’ It’s from Macbeth.”
“Very good,” he said. “You must know these important scholarly things when you go to Oxford, young lady.” He kissed her cheek. “Now off to bed. Let me do a little more work and then I shall follow suit.”
Penelope hugged him. “Don’t worry, brother. She will come. She loves you.”
She hurried and caught up with Beatrice, linking arms as they strolled down the corridor to the stairs.
He returned to his study, hung his head, and released a low stream of breath. What had he done by publishing that story? He had opened himself up to all of England for ridicule, yet she hadn’t come. No one would take him seriously anymore. He didn’t know if he could even take himself seriously. He glanced at the correspondence that his secretary said required his attention waiting on the desk. He couldn’t wallow in this pathetic hole of self-pity anymore. He had to put some semblance of order back into his life. He just couldn’t muster the
strength at the moment.
She hadn’t come.
After he had told the world he loved her. After he had humiliated himself by letting out his artistic secret. He still couldn’t shake off the shame of his work. His father’s words and the slash of a leather whip echoed too strongly in his memory, and Lilith wasn’t there to silence them.
She hadn’t come.
Unthinking, he picked up his brush and added another dab of paint to Lilith’s forehead. If this painting had a name, it would be A Fading Memory of an Afternoon in the Park. He was already beginning to lose her precious details. He remembered the glorious sunlight dappled through the vivid leaves and the sensation of her sadness as she said that all she wanted from a husband was loyalty, kindness, and a home. But he didn’t recall how the sadness rested on her features, only that he’d felt it as she clutched her book to the bodice of her lavender dress, which dulled her earthy coloring. He had the oddest desire not to draw her face at all but leave it as a blur of emptiness and hurt contoured with harsh black lines. He cleaned his brush, dipped it in the black paint, and poised it a half inch from the canvas.
“I knew you would be a wonderful painter,” a familiar voice reverberated in the room. He hadn’t heard the door open, or footsteps. He didn’t move, afraid to turn and find she wasn’t there, that he’d imagined her voice.
“It’s beautiful and expressive,” she said.
“Lilith,” he whispered, still afraid to look.
“I remember that day.” The swish of a skirt and she was beside him. Her citrus and vanilla scent filled him, bringing back memories of holding her. He trembled, afraid she would disappear like a ghost. “I remember that I felt betrayed because Edgar and Frances had left me. But you saved me and forced me to walk in the park to lift my spirits. I was angry, but that was because I didn’t understand you then. I didn’t realize you were trying to take care of me as best you could. Or maybe I was taking care of you. Either way, that day in the park we, the sultan and Colette, struggled with so much we couldn’t fathom. See her faceless face.” She gestured to the picture. “And the vivid world around her, but she can’t see it, for she has no eyes to see outside herself. How you captured me then.”
He laced his fingers between hers. They were trembling.
“Poor Colette running from the very man who could save her.” Lilith lifted his hand and caressed it to her cheek. Her eyes sparkled with tears. “She didn’t realize…” Her voice broke.
“No, my love.” He kissed her falling tears, stopping them in their tracks.
“She didn’t realize that the man she despised, the most narrow-minded and starchy of men, saw the world deeper and vaster than she could imagine in her meager words. Inside him were beautiful palaces and lush gardens.”
“And a terrible secret he kept hidden in a box high in an attic under a chamber pot.” He kissed her chin. “And here was that heinous, unfathomable secret: that Lilith, the woman who infuriated him and drove him to distraction, and he were kindred spirits. For that crime, he couldn’t let her near. He couldn’t tell her that he loved her, because he was afraid she would tear his world apart. Ahh, but the flimsy thing fell on its own and then he punched Lord Charles.”
“Wait, you really punched him?” she asked, breaking the precious moment of heartfelt confession. “That rumor was true and not some sensational story for a rag?”
“I punched him three times and in the middle of the annual Marylewick house party ball.”
“That’s perfect!” She pressed her hand to her mouth and giggled, then turned serious again. “I guess that ended hope for your bill.”
He shrugged. “I suppose so.”
“What about going insane, is that true? Or that Lady Marylewick, in a rage, burned down Tyburn Hall? Or that Penelope vowed to divorce Fenmore and run away with a French lover?”
He gently finger-combed her hair from her face. There were many dark times in the last days when he’d entertained the terrible thought that he might never be able to hold her again or have that little mischievous smile light up his senses. Now she was back, filling up his eyes and heart. He would never let her slip from the safety of his love.
“Well, I have gone insane, that is true,” he quipped, letting his fingers trail down her jaw and along her neck. Oh, to touch her! “Insane and lovesick. My mother is in a rage, but my secretary received a letter yesterday concerning a roof leak in the fortress wing, so I assume Tyburn is still standing. Penelope is getting a divorce but not running away. I don’t think she has a lover, French or otherwise. And Beatrice is going to Oxford, provided she is let in.”
“Truly?” Lilith caught her breath. “Truly?”
He nodded, marveling at how he felt her joy as if it were his own.
“Such wonderful news!”
“I have more to tell you.” He cupped her face in his hands and gazed at her. “I’m relinquishing your grandfather’s money to you. It’s yours. You were right. I didn’t know it at the time. I controlled you with the trust to keep you near me. You are free now. All I have to offer is my love, if that is enough for you?”
She closed her eyes, her shoulders shook, and she broke into sobs.
“No, Lilith.”
“I’ve been so miserable,” she cried. “I’ve been trying to have Colette commit suicide. I could only imagine the most horrible of endings for that love we made. And then your story arrived. Please, please tell me this is forever and that it won’t disappear.” She clutched his arm. “I never want to feel the excruciating pain of parting from you again.”
His lips brushed hers. “I am going to hold you close to me for the remainder of our lives, my muse. My love.” He groaned and relaxed into her kiss, drifting in the soul-settling peace of her body pressed against his.
She drew back, smiled, and gingerly touched his chin.
“My beard, or the beginning of one. Does it bother you?”
“I adore it. It’s perfect for the artist that you are. Don’t you dare think of shaving it or not painting.”
“Very well, then, but you, my beloved, better get busy writing. What am I going to read now that you’ve finished Colette and the Sultan? You know I adore Colette. In fact, I’m thinking of taking her as a mistress.” He winked.
“Oh, there will be all new stories to tell. Many exciting, exotic mistresses for you from all over the world. A whole harem of mistresses. You won’t be able to keep up. In fact, I hear my muse calling.”
“Your muse must wait.” He drew her back into his arms. “You’re in my thrall now. No imaginary mistresses for the moment, only one loving, intelligent, spirited, beautiful Lilith. She outshines them all.” Enough with soul-settling peaceful kisses, time for scorching lovemaking. They had so much time to make up for, after all.
The door flew open and the impassioned lovers jumped apart as Beatrice and Penelope scurried in, their robes flapping about their ankles. “It’s true!” Penelope cried. “She is here.”
“Sisters!” Lilith rushed to meet their embrace, their laughter ringing about the room.
Their hug turned into a simple dance. They circled, arm-in-arm. Lilith, flushed with happiness, held out her hand, beckoning George to join. A profound sense of well-being rested in his heart. All the lines and colors of his life were coming together to form a beautiful new picture to be painted: The Maryle Family Dancing.
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in the Wicked Little Secrets series
Wicked, My Love
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Available now from Susanna Ives and Sourcebooks Casablanca
1847
Stuke Buzzard, England
Isabella lifted a delicate, perfectly coiled tendril of hair in the “luxurious shade of raven’s wing” from the Madam O’Amor’s House of Beauty package that she had secreted into her bedc
hamber.
Her black cat, Milton, who had been bathing his male feline parts on her pillow, stopped and stared at the creation, his green eyes glittery.
“This is not a rat,” Isabella told him. “You may not eat it.”
Unconvinced, the cat rolled onto his paws, hunched, and flicked his tail, ready to pounce.
The advertisement in last month’s Miroir de Dames had read “Losing your petals? Withering on the vine? Return to your full, fresh, feminine bloom with Madam O’Amor’s famous youth-restoring lotion compounded of the finest secret ingredients, and flowing tendrils, puffs, and braids made from the softest hair.”
Isabella typically didn’t believe such flapdoodle. But at twenty-nine, she was dangling off the marital cliff and gazing down into the deep abyss of childless spinsterhood. Now she finally had a live, respectable fish by the name of Mr. Powers, her bank partner, swimming around the hook. After he walked her home from church on Sunday, she had decided not to take any chances and had broken down and ordered Madam’s concoctions. Even then, a little voice inside her warned, “Don’t lie to yourself. Who would want to marry an abnormal, cracked, freakish girl?” All those things Randall had called her years ago. Strange that words uttered so long ago still had the power to sting.
After making excuses to loiter about the village post office for almost a week, Isabella had been relieved when her order had finally arrived on the train that morning, just in time to restore her full, fresh, feminine bloom before Mr. Powers called on bank business. Little did the poor gentleman know that for once she couldn’t care less about stocks and consuls. She was hoping for a more personal investment with a high rate of marital return: a husband.
Standing before her vanity mirror, she opened the drawer, drew out a hairpin, and headed into battle. Her overgrown, irrepressible mane refused to curl tamely, held a fierce vendetta against pins, and rebelled against any empire, Neapolitan, or shepherdess coiffure enforced on it. She secured the first tendril and studied the result. It didn’t fall in the same easy, elegant spiral as in the advertisement, but shot out from behind her ear like a coiled, bouncy spring.
