A knock came at the door into the hall. They both froze.
“Who the devil is that?” Panic in her face, she searched for her wrapper. “Oh, heavenly day, could Edwin have figured out that I’m in here?”
“It’s probably Damber,” he murmured. “The damned lad got done sooner downstairs than I thought. He can wait.”
“You can’t be sure it’s him.” She dragged on her wrapper. “Even if it is, you have to get dressed or he’ll suspect something.”
“He’ll suspect something when he finds you in here in your nightclothes,” he grumbled, but got out of bed to pull on his drawers and trousers.
A knock sounded again, this time louder. “Master?” came Damber’s voice through the door. “I’m done packing up downstairs.”
The infernal fool spoke in what he thought was a low volume, but a low volume in the streets where Damber had grown up was a high volume in the quiet halls of Stoke Towers. And Blakeborough’s room was on the same floor, damn it.
“I’m coming,” he growled at the door.
He turned to Yvette, only to find her heading for the servants’ door. “Wait! We’re not done talking about this.”
A shutter came down over her face. “There’s nothing to talk about. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Damn it, Yvette,” he began, but she was already out the door.
He considered going after her, but then Damber would really be suspicious. And since he hadn’t secured her hand in marriage yet, he dared not do anything that might compromise her reputation. Given her story about Ruston, Jeremy feared that Edwin trying to force her into marriage would only get her back up and make her refuse outright.
She mustn’t refuse to marry him. Even though he would be all wrong for her. Even though she could find better. None of that mattered any longer. He’d taken her innocence, so he would marry her.
Muttering a curse, he strode to the door and swung it open. Only after Damber stood there gaping at him did Jeremy remember he was shirtless.
“What are you staring at?” he barked. Standing aside to let the boy pass, he cast a quick glance about the room, but there was no trace of Yvette. Except for a hint of her perfume.
But maybe he was imagining that.
Damber fixed him with an accusing glance. “Why is the bed all mussed?”
Jeremy thought quickly. “I sat down to rest for a moment and fell asleep. I had just roused and was changing my clothes when you knocked. So I’m afraid I haven’t gotten any packing done yet.”
God, he sounded like an idiot.
“I suppose you want me to do your packing, too,” Damber grumbled. “It’s nearly two a.m. I thought you wanted everything done by now so we could head off first thing.”
He couldn’t leave now. Everything had changed. “Actually, I’ve decided to delay my departure a few days.”
“What?” Damber crossed his arms over his chest. “After I already packed up the paints and canvases and the—”
“Yes, yes, unpack it all.”
“Tonight?”
Jeremy took pity on the lad. “It can wait until morning. But early, mind you. By the time the family is up I want everything back in place, before anyone can wonder what’s going on.”
“The servants are still going to wonder. They already knew we were leaving. What do you want me to tell them is the reason for staying?”
Damn, he’d forgotten that. After he offered for Yvette, which he intended to do first thing in the morning, they might very well speculate about what had happened in the wee hours to change his mind.
He couldn’t have anyone gossiping about his future wife. “Tell them I got a good look at the portrait in the light of day and realized I wasn’t as far along as I thought.”
That would also serve as an excuse for remaining if Yvette turned down his first offer. Because, damn it, he wasn’t going to leave here without securing her hand in marriage. If he had to work on that bloody portrait for a month to have time to convince her, then he would.
“So you want I should tell the grooms to stable the curricle?”
“Yes, then you may go on to bed.”
“Are you sure?”
Jeremy glanced sharply at him. “Why wouldn’t I be sure?”
The hulking fellow shoved his hands in his pockets. “I dunno. You’re acting peculiar is all. One minute we’re sneaking about the house to pack up and slip away in the dark of night, and the next you’re having a nap. Not to mention that the room smells like . . . like . . .” He sniffed.
“Like what?”
“Like you been tupping one of the maids.”
Oh, God. Jeremy laughed, hoping it didn’t sound as false to his apprentice as it sounded to him. “Have you ever known me to tup a maid?”
“Well, no. But there’s always a first time.”
“You’re imagining things,” Jeremy said irritably. “Now, out with you. I can’t go to bed as long as you’re lounging about in my room.”
Damber sniffed. “Just trying to help. But I’ll make myself scarce, I will.” He headed out the door, muttering, “I swear, sometimes I think you mad as a hatter. Or p’raps a little . . .”
The boy’s mumbling trailed off down the hall. With a roll of his eyes, Jeremy closed the door and headed straight for the brandy flask he kept on his dressing table.
Only a few hours until dawn. No point in going to bed now; he wouldn’t get any sleep. Besides, Blakeborough was an early riser, so if Jeremy wanted to catch him and offer for Yvette before she got up, he’d better stay up.
All right, he supposed he should wait until she agreed to marry him. But it wasn’t unusual for a suitor to first ask a woman’s male guardian for her hand. And it couldn’t hurt to get her brother on his side. Especially with Yvette surprisingly reluctant.
Cursing, Jeremy drank from his flask. He had handled it badly, damn it. He should have made it sound less as if it were a “duty” and more as if he were in love with her. Though that probably wouldn’t have worked. Yvette could read him too well for that. And he would have been lying.
He scowled. Yes, lying. Just because he thought about her too much, wanted her too much . . . craved her too much didn’t mean he loved her. Love was about putting someone first. Clearly he didn’t know the first thing about that. If he’d loved her, he wouldn’t have tumbled her with no heed for the consequences. Or risked her reputation by letting her talk him into taking her to a brothel. Or done any number of the things he’d done in the last few weeks with her.
And clearly she knew he was a bad bargain. She hadn’t agreed to marry him, had she? She hadn’t made any grand professions of love herself.
I’m not waiting for anything from you. You’ve told me often enough that you have no intention of taking a wife—a second wife, that is—and I took you at your word.
He winced. He hadn’t exactly made it easy for her to say anything. With a flash, he remembered her expression after he’d dictated their need to marry with all the subtlety of an ox.
She’d been hurt. She’d hoped for more, and he’d hurt her.
As guilt clutched at his throat, he took a longer swig from the flask. Damn it, this was why he’d wanted to stay away from her in the first place! He wasn’t the right sort of man for her.
Not that it mattered; he had to marry her. No other man would take her after this, or if he did unwittingly, he would make her life hell when he learned the truth. And she deserved to have a decent husband, to have a home of her own and children.
An image leapt into his head, of Yvette happy and content with a babe on her knee. His babe on her knee. Some fat and sassy cherub of a girl or a restless, sweet-faced boy crawling along the floor to his father . . .
No! He’d been that route before, only to have it all turn to shit in his hands. He wasn’t going to throw himself into that dream agai
n.
He would offer marriage because he must, because it was the right thing to do. But he would not indulge his sudden inexplicable urge for a romantic entanglement. That way lay madness.
It was a miracle that Yvette made it back to her room without crying. Once she was there tears boiled out of her, born as much of anger and frustration as of hurt feelings. She resisted the childish urge to tromp about her room and throw things that made a lot of noise. That wouldn’t do a bit of good, and it would call attention to her secret activities, besides.
But blast it all, she wanted to scream! Him and his pity proposal. What had she been thinking? Had she really believed that sharing a bed with the blasted man would magically make him swoon with love for her? Say he would die if he couldn’t have her?
She dropped onto the bed. Yes. She had believed it. Not consciously, of course. But the fierceness of his desire had convinced her that he really cared, that he wanted her for more than just a bed partner.
That he might actually love her.
She snorted. What a fool she was. Hadn’t she learned long ago that rogues only wanted to get beneath a woman’s skirts?
No, that wasn’t fair. A rogue would have taken her to bed and then said a merry farewell. Jeremy had resisted her, tried to run away from her. And when she hadn’t taken no for an answer, he’d made love to her and proposed marriage.
Rogues didn’t propose marriage.
She threw herself back on the bed. So now what was she to do? Obviously, if she did find herself breeding, she would have to marry him. But barring that possibility, she didn’t want a husband who saw marriage to her as a supreme sacrifice. Though neither did she want to be left ruined and alone.
She hated conundrums. Especially the kind that involved a certain aloof artist who became a pillar of fire whenever he touched her or kissed her or bedded her.
A sigh wafted out of her. Every part of her ached, yet she would do it again in a heartbeat—not just for the amazing pleasure at the end, but for the wonderful feeling of closeness she’d felt with him.
The feeling had been building for days, but it had blossomed into something more when he’d listened to her tale about the lieutenant without criticizing her behavior. He’d been irate on her behalf, ready to slay dragons and lop off horns for her.
She sat up. Yes, he had been, hadn’t he? Not exactly the behavior of a dispassionate admirer of her body. Perhaps the dratted idiot really did have feelings for her. Perhaps he even really wanted to marry her.
Or perhaps she was spinning dreams again that could never come true.
Well, if something more than a guilty conscience and a rampant prick was guiding his determination to marry her, he’d have to tell her. Or show her. Or somehow reassure her that wedding him wouldn’t be a huge mistake.
Because she wasn’t about to risk marrying a man who could make her life a misery. She’d rather be ruined and alone than suffer that.
Twenty-One
“You want to what?”
Standing in the midst of Blakeborough’s study the next morning, Jeremy winced at the man’s incredulous tone. Perhaps he shouldn’t have sprung the matter so abruptly, but it was too late to go back now. “I said, I want to marry Yvette. If she’ll have me.”
For the first time since Jeremy had met him, the earl looked completely confounded. “Marry her. You want to marry my sister.” Blakeborough excelled at stating the obvious.
“Surely you’ve noticed that she and I get along very well.”
The earl, who’d taken a seat behind his desk when they’d first entered, now leaned forward to stare at him over it. “Yes, but well enough to marry? Have you even asked her?”
Thunderation. He could hardly admit he’d asked her more than once after he’d made love to her like a randy hound with no self-control. Or an ounce of sense.
“Not exactly.” Under the circumstances, he figured it was all right to shade the truth. “We’ve discussed the idea, but—”
“Have you? That comes as a surprise.” Blakeborough cast him a considering glance. “Is that why you’ve been gone these past few days? Trying to drum up the courage to ask her for her hand?”
Jeremy scowled. “Certainly not.”
“Hoping that absence would make her heart grow fonder, and she would agree to your proposal immediately upon your return?”
“Not that either,” he grumbled. “Damn it, Blakeborough, will you accept my offer or not? Assuming that she does, too.”
The earl snorted. “That’s an enormous assumption, old chap. She’s turned down three other suitors before you.”
“But I thought she’d never had . . . ”
Her words last night came to him. I haven’t had any decent offers of marriage . . . very little courting by respectable gentlemen who weren’t after my fortune.
Damn her. She’d had offers, just not “decent” ones from “respectable gentlemen.” His blood ran cold. What kind of proposals had she had?
“Were these other offers viable?” Jeremy asked.
“They were from gentlemen of good family and connections, if that’s what you mean.”
“That is not what I mean, and you know it.”
Blakeborough sighed. “Then no. Not viable. I probably would have refused them myself if matters had gone that far.” His tone hardened. “No fortune hunter or roué with a roving eye is going to marry my sister.”
Jeremy gritted his teeth. “I do hope you’re not including me in that description.”
“Should I?”
Bad enough he’d had to bare his soul to Yvette. Must he do it to Blakeborough, too? “No. I have a substantial fortune of my own, and I don’t have a roving eye.”
“Just a penchant for frequenting brothels.”
“Only because I use the women as models for my paintings.” That much he felt safe in revealing.
It gave him the satisfaction of seeing the earl flummoxed again. “Truly?”
“Yes. Ask Mrs. Beard herself if you don’t believe me.”
Blakeborough stiffened. “I hardly think that will be necessary. Although if I learn you’re lying to me, I will put an end to any talk of marriage at once, no matter what Yvette thinks about it.”
That gave Jeremy pause. “And have you done that before, put an end to talk of marriage heedless of her wishes? Or perhaps to save her from a particularly nasty suitor?”
The sudden guilty flush in the earl’s cheeks gave him away. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The hell you don’t. You knew about Ruston, didn’t you? You’re the one who sent him packing.”
Blakeborough jumped up in alarm. “How do you know of Ruston?”
“She told me.”
With a stunned look, the earl sank back into his chair. “Yvette told you about Ruston.”
“As I said, we get along very well.”
“It must be extremely well if she told you about that arse. I’m not sure even Knightford is aware of what Ruston attempted.”
That rather pleased Jeremy.
Blakeborough steepled his fingers in front of him. “What exactly did she tell you?”
“Everything, I think.” Jeremy eyed the man nervously. “Why, what do you know?”
“More than she realizes.”
“Aha, I was right! I told her you must have had a hand in putting an end to the ass’s blackmail, but she didn’t believe me.”
“No, she wouldn’t—not with the way things have always been between us.” Blakeborough’s expression darkened. “My sister sees me as the enforcer of rules, the petty dictator of Stoke Towers. She doesn’t understand that, thanks to our absent father and rogue of a brother, someone had to be in charge. And it fell to me.”
“She does realize that.”
“I don’t think so, or she would come to me with these thi
ngs. She’s afraid I might restrict her freedom too much. Afraid of what I might do.” The earl’s voice turned regretful. “She’s afraid of me.”
“She’s not afraid of you. She’s afraid of disappointing you. It’s not the same.”
“She could never disappoint me.”
The fierce certainty in those words took Jeremy by surprise. He’d never seen Blakeborough show that much depth of feeling. “Then tell her that. She needs to hear it. For that matter, tell her the truth about your part in saving her from Ruston. Because right now, she thinks Samuel was her savior.” And that’s why she’s doing fool things like going to brothels looking for your nephew.
The earl cast him a pained glance. “Better that she think him her savior than that she know the truth. It would destroy her. They were close in their youth, so if she knew how he’d betrayed her . . .” He uttered a shuddering breath. “I couldn’t do that to her.”
An icy chill wracked Jeremy. “How did he betray her?”
Abruptly Blakeborough stood and stalked to the window, then back. “I only know what Samuel was willing to admit after I caught him attempting to arrange a hired chaise to carry Ruston and Yvette to Gretna Green. It was sheer luck that I was in Preston an hour before Ruston meant to run off with her.”
“Oh, God. That must have been after Samuel claimed he could do nothing to help Yvette, before he turned around and ‘saved’ the day.”
Edwin’s gaze grew murderous. “Probably. Fortunately, the chaise owner admitted the truth when I warned him I would report his participation to my father if he didn’t. He wasn’t fool enough to cross the earl’s heir. Everyone in Preston knew I ran things at the estate. So when Samuel wouldn’t say a word at first, the chaise owner admitted what Samuel and Ruston were planning.”
“To carry Yvette off . . . with her consent, of course, assuming she would have given in to the blackmail.”
“Ah, yes, the blackmail.” The earl’s face clouded over. “When pushed to the wall and threatened with a visit from our father, who’d already had enough of Samuel’s irresponsible behavior, my brother revealed that Ruston had sworn to destroy Yvette’s reputation if we didn’t let him marry her.” Blakeborough paused to shoot him an uncertain glance. “That is what you’re talking about, isn’t it?”
The Art of Sinning Page 22
