A Thief in the Nude

by Olivia Waite

  Uncle Pym sputtered but found no words to counter his daughter’s ultimatum. Hecuba smiled something very like a real smile.

  John’s heart lifted to see it, hopeless though he was. They made quite the pair: Anne dark and defiant, Hecuba shaken but stoic. His mind was halfway done with the initial sketch before he shook the dream away.

  The earl turned to John with a scowl. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” Simon demanded.

  Six pairs of eyes fastened themselves on John. It seemed the very world was holding its breath, giving him a chance to make some stirring proclamation, pull a white horse out of his sleeve, throw Hecuba over his shoulder and ride away in search of the nearest clergyman. Or Scotland. Aunt Pym would tell her friends how romantic it had been. Uncle Pym would grouse into his claret about young men’s impulses but give the rascal credit for doing his duty. Simon would consider it a fit punishment for his lack of gentlemanly behavior, and would no doubt find himself rather fond of Hecuba, once he got to know her. As for the presumed bride herself...

  Hecuba’s face threatened cold vengeance if he tried anything of the kind.

  Her decision meant there was no decision for him to make. It was curiously liberating, though the relief echoed hollowly within him. “No,” he said to the unimportant everyone. “I have nothing else to say. I will honor our agreement and send your niece the last of her mother’s paintings.” He bowed to Hecuba, who inclined her head in return. “Miss Jones, if you should ever need anything, all you have to do is ask.” Then, ignoring the storm of curses, shouts and horrified gasps, John turned on his heel and strode from the room.

  When word of the scandal spread, the Pym family was cut off like a gangrenous limb. Absent the constant round of visiting and visitors, the world seemed very quiet. Hecuba told herself this was for the best, and spent as much time as possible in the conservatory, away from her aunt’s dramatic sobs and her uncle’s icy silences.

  But she couldn’t avoid them forever. Dining together became an impossible ordeal. She didn’t know which was worse: Evangeline’s near-constant weeping or Aunt Pym’s vicious comments. Night after night Hecuba was treated to a catalog of all the ways she’d failed as a niece, as a lady and as a Christian. Even Anne, who had initially tried to rebuff these attacks, was soon reduced to simmering silently and waiting for her aunt’s eloquence to flag.

  Hecuba bit her tongue until it bled and resolved to leave the house as soon as possible. Her cousins’ situation would improve once she was gone—if it weren’t for her guilt over how Anne and Evangeline were suffering, she could have laughingly shaken free of all her aunt’s venom. It couldn’t even come close to wounding her as much as John Rushmore had.

  One week later, the butler informed her that several parcels had arrived addressed to her. “From the Earl of Underwood,” he said, pitching his voice low.

  Hecuba instructed him to take them upstairs at once.

  Safe in her bedroom, with shaking hands, Hecuba opened the first parcel.

  Three figures lounged in a fire-lit room. A brown-haired gentleman sat with his feet up, smoking a pipe, looking fondly at a dark-haired woman. This lady had a book in one hand, but was not reading from it. Instead, smiling, she was combing gentle fingers through the bright red hair of a little girl whose knees were on the floor but whose head was pillowed in her mother’s lap. Of course it was Hecuba, her mother and father. A Winter Evening, it was called, and the spaces outside the family circle were chill with snow and bristling with greenery.

  A second parcel turned out to be herself, nude, with a cravat tied around her wrist. Hecuba’s throat ached at the happiness reflected in her painted features. She remembered the slide of linen against her skin, the tension of restraint, the feel of Rushmore’s body plunging into hers. She remembered how he’d laughed at her irritation and soothed her worries. She remembered how agony had sliced through her when she’d learned of this painting’s existence—knives were ticklish in comparison. She’d imagined something lurid and ridiculous, or something too idealized and worshipful and therefore silly in the eyes of onlookers. But this was warm, sweet, and human while still being beautiful and sensual. This was how Rushmore had made her feel.

  Her whole self ached with missing him.

  When she went to open the third and final parcel, she noticed that a letter had been attached.

  My dear Jones,

  I wish very much that I had the right to tell you all that I’m feeling. But my feelings are not your obligations. Since you wish to end it, all that remains is this: I wish it had ended differently. So wondrous a beginning deserved a better coda, if it had to end.

  Please accept not only the remaining painting of your mother’s, as promised, but also your own portraits, including the fourth and final one. They are yours to do with as you please. At first I thought of keeping them, I admit, but it made me feel like some mad alchemist of ages past, surrounding himself with lead in the hope that it might someday turn into gold. But that’s your specialty, not mine.

  The new painting is called Thief of Hearts. Yours,

  John

  Hecuba pulled away the concealing paper.

  It was a dark canvas, nearly black, with hints of deep green and a few splashes of vermillion that she recognized as her own concoction. Moonlight flowed in from the picture’s left, outlining a tall window and a figure in the process of leaping over the sill—a woman in black with red hair bound tightly back from a pale and mischievous profile. A necklace of heart-shaped rubies as bright as fire swung from one hand as she held open the window sash with the other. The edges of the figure were blurred, as if caught in the middle of motion, so quick and elusive that the eye itself was barely fast enough to catch her.

  But oh, it was the shadows that broke her heart.

  As with Circe, the margins of this painting were inhabited. But instead of tortured bodies and grasping hands, the figures here were plain, dark, and unvaryingly forlorn. Hooded and ghostly, they inclined toward the fleeing thief like headstones in an ancient graveyard, night-black robes swirling down around their ankles. Each one pressed a hand to its cloaked breast, as though in mourning for a heart that beat there no longer.

  It was the loneliest image Hecuba had ever seen.

  He was letting her go.

  The thought made her breathless, grateful and mournful all at once. He had accepted her rejection as final without berating her, without belittling her and without bullying. Her family was not willing to allow her the luxury of refusal, but Rushmore offered it as a matter of course.

  She loved him so very much.

  She leaned Thief of Hearts against the wall beside A Winter Evening. The two paintings complemented each other perfectly—reds and blacks, whites and greens, motion and peace, light and shadow. They belonged together, one on either side of the mantel. Depending on how you arranged them, the thief could either be leaping toward or running away from the family and their cozy fireplace.

  Hecuba had placed her leaping toward.

  She sighed. That was telling. It was not the mystical properties or prophetic nature of oil paint that spoke to her, but the realization that she was looking for reasons to change her mind.

  It was galling to think that she felt the need for reasons. Rushmore hadn’t asked for hers when she’d refused his proposal. Her refusal had been reason enough—and none of the pressures their families brought to bear had been able to change his mind.

  He’d been strong enough to give her up merely because she’d asked.

  Would he be strong enough to give up his way of life, if she offered herself in exchange?

  Perhaps not. Perhaps he’d found it easier to let her go than to lose his comfortable existence and the pleasures of aristocratic society. It was a daunting thought. But Hecuba Jones had never yet backed down from a challenge.

  It was time to tell Rushmore everything.

  How strange to go through the unfamiliar front door and find herself in a very familiar room. How stra
nge to feel her skirts tangling around her ankles and her stays hampering the easy in and out of her breathing. “What?” said Rushmore’s voice when she knocked.

  She opened the door to the earl’s study, pulling in as much breath as she could against the rushed beat of her heart. A servant walked behind holding four rolls of canvas.

  Rushmore slouched in the armchair on the hearth, legs stretched out on the ottoman. One hand was gripping a pencil, the other a glass of whisky. Neither hand had moved in quite some time, it seemed—the whisky glass was full and the page beneath the pencil was barren and blank.

  His eyes widened when they fell on Hecuba but he said nothing.

  Hecuba relieved the servant of his burden and dismissed him with a simple “Thank you.”

  She turned back to Rushmore, arms wrapped around the bulk of canvas, trying to untie her tongue. His coat was tossed negligently on the chair beside him, his waistcoat hanging open and unbuttoned. He looked a ruin. “You haven’t shaved,” she said.

  He shrugged. “I haven’t cared to.” He raised the glass of whisky and toasted her with it. “Even getting drunk was too much work—I doubt I’ve had more than two sips from this, and I’ve been sitting here since noon.”

  “May I?” Hecuba put the canvas rolls aside and took the drink. She downed half the spirits in a single swallow and returned the glass to him, catching her breath a little when his fingers brushed hers.

  “Feeling in want of courage, Jones?” he asked, one corner of his mouth lifting briefly, though his shoulders remained stiff and his eyes wary.

  “Somewhat,” Hecuba replied. “It isn’t every day I propose to a gentleman.”

  Rushmore choked on his drink, whisky perfuming the air between them. He set the glass aside and put his feet on the floor, giving her his full attention. “Maybe I’m drunk after all,” he said. “Are you really planning to propose? To me?”

  “To you,” she confirmed. “But you are allowed to refuse if you wish.”

  He held himself very still. Hecuba felt the distance between them like a gap in her own flesh. “Why the change of heart?”

  “Not heart,” she said. “Merely a change of circumstances.”

  He blinked, and waited.

  She gathered her strength and began. “Here, at this moment, there are no hysterical aunts, no sympathetic cousins, no upright brothers to tell us what to choose. If I’d accepted you the other day, we would have married to prevent the worst thing from happening. There would have been a pall over the whole business right from the very start. If I were to change my mind about marriage, Rushmore, then I could only do so for the best reason. None of those reasons were good, let alone best. But now the worst has already happened and we have survived it. We are free.”

  He was unconvinced. “You think being ruined is the worst possible thing?”

  “I think making a choice for the wrong reasons is the worst possible thing. I think choosing other people’s comfort over my own needs is the worst possible thing.” She realized her hands were fidgeting and made them keep still. “I refused you not because of yourself, but because no one else in that room would have believed I’d said yes because I wanted to marry you.” She sighed. “It is equally possible that stubbornness is my most overriding flaw, and I dislike being dictated to.”

  “I know that,” he said, his voice as soft as firelight. “I know you, Jones.”

  “Oh,” said Hecuba. Fluttering hope awoke and stretched its wings. “Then you probably already know as well that I love you.”

  Statues were less still than Rushmore was at present. “No, Jones,” he whispered. “I had no idea.”

  “Well. I do love you. With all my heart.” She took a deep breath. “I would be very honored, Rushmore, if you—”

  She never had a chance to finish the sentence. Rushmore had finally shaken off his stillness and had yanked her into the chair with him. She fell in a froth of petticoats, gasping against his mouth as he kissed her with enough fire to combust what remained of the glass of whisky. She tried to move closer, to straddle his hips, but her skirts were too cumbrous, pinned beneath her knees and snagged on the heel of her shoe. His hands struggled alongside hers until he gave up, lifted her bodily and sent them both to the floor in a controlled hurtle.

  From there it was easier—her skirts rose beneath his hands while she tugged at his hair and begged him to hurry. His rough fingers found the heat of her and plunged inside, teasing her with sweet thrusts. She pulled open his shirt and spread her legs, arching up to rub against the hard cock she could feel beneath his trousers. “Marry me,” she said, pressing her mouth to the side of his neck. “Please.”

  He groaned, wrestled with his trousers and plunged his cock into her. Her gasp was ragged at the edges—if it felt any better, she would die here and now with a smile on her face. He fucked her hard, desperately, a horde of keening sounds falling from his throat. One of his hands plunged between them and unerringly he found her clitoris, stroking fast and hard. Hecuba bit his neck to keep from crying out as she came, clenching and shuddering around him, tightening deliciously around his plunging cock. He held himself deep and gasped aloud his own climax, shaking and throbbing and pouring himself into her.

  “If that is how you say yes,” Hecuba sighed, “then I shall propose every day until the wedding.”

  Rushmore rolled to the side with a laugh. “That is one way to say yes,” he replied. “Here is another.” His hand grazed her cheek as he smiled. “I love you, Hecuba Jones. I love you more than words. I love you more than life. I love you more than painting, if you can believe it.”

  Hecuba laughed, rose to one elbow and kissed him. “That reminds me. Perhaps you should not say yes until you know precisely what you are getting into.”

  “I’m getting into trade, aren’t I? You’re not giving up the idea of being a colorman just because you’re marrying me, are you?”

  “Does that bother you?”

  “It certainly does,” he said. “It bothers me very much if you give up so good a plan for so paltry a reason.”

  She smiled, but this was important. “It might make things very difficult for you.”

  He shrugged—as much as one can while lying on one’s back. “My family won’t disown me if that’s what you’re worried about. We’re a small group—just my brother, my sister and the aunt she’s travelling with in Italy. I won’t miss the social whirl, either, especially as I intend to be very busy with my own work. Besides,” Rushmore went on archly, “if my wife is a colorist, I expect to get a discount on paints.”

  “Help fund this enterprise and you can have all the paints you ever need,” Hecuba said. “But I really ought to tell you where the other funds are coming from.” She pushed herself to her feet, shook out her skirts and began unrolling the four paintings she’d brought with her. Amiably, Rushmore buttoned himself up and joined in. Soon all four C. F. Jones canvases were spread out along the desk. “Can you give us more light?” Hecuba asked.

  Rushmore lit a taper and set it on the edge of the desk. By this time, Hecuba had aligned four of the paintings’ corners so they met in a cross in the middle.

  Rushmore sucked in a breath and leaned closer. “How...?” he asked. The brushstrokes that had seemed mere abstract filler when the paintings were separate were now revealed to form shapes together—a blue circle here, a winding brown snake, gray-green squares and at one point a bright, vivid X. Made of Hecuba green.

  “It’s a map,” he breathed.

  “The paintings are my mother’s bequest,” Hecuba explained. “I was to receive them when I came of age at twenty-one, along with her recipe book, including the formula for Hecuba green. And my father was a thief who was never caught—he had a small store of jewels when I was younger, some pearls and other stones he used to let me play with. None of those turned up when he died, either.” She pointed at that blob of Hecuba green. “It’s all waiting right there,” she said. “I needed all four paintings to reconstruct the map.”<
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  Rushmore leaned on his hands. “You mean I’ve had a treasure map this whole time and never knew it?” He groaned. “Simon is never going to let me live this down.”

  “Simon never has to know,” Hecuba replied tartly.

  “Let’s not tell him then,” Rushmore agreed. He pulled Hecuba tight against him— not that she was resisting. She sighed and breathed in the warm, faintly earthy scent of him. “Shall we get married tomorrow?”

  “So soon?” Hecuba answered. “I was hoping you’d say yes a few more times first.”

  Rushmore’s eyes danced as he said, “Jones, I promise you—I’ll say yes every day for the rest of my life.”

  “Is that it?” Rushmore asked, squinting beneath the cover of his hand.

  “No, you idiot,” Hecuba replied. “To the east of the pond. That’s left.”

  “Left, east—who can tell in all these trees? Good thing I brought you along, wife,” he said. “A treasure map is no good if you can’t understand where it’s telling you to go.”

  Hecuba muttered something about telling him precisely where to go, which only made him laugh. In truth, she was only irked by the blisters on her feet and the scratches on her arms. They were out in the country, two miles north of Hecuba’s home parish, and certain paths had become much harder to navigate since her father first traversed them so many years before. The harder she cursed, the more amused Rushmore became. He knew she enjoyed a certain amount of grumpiness.

  If she hadn’t already married him the week before, she’d marry him again.

  They found the right tree, an ancient oak keeping court over a circle of young and lovely birches. Rushmore pulled out the spade they’d brought with them and began to dig.

  And dig.

  And dig some more.