She’d never intended to auction or sell her most intimate portraits—those of her and Ian. They had always been her personal treasures, created to give her solace and remind her of the intimacy the two of them had shared during a time of fear. But he had left her no choice in fighting back after he’d more or less called her a schemer and exposed her as a possible fraud, though now, three days after his party, she felt more subdued than angry. She was tired of the fight and just wanted to leave, to get out of the city quickly, retrieve her son in Cheshire, and head for the Continent. With the sale at auction this evening she at last had adequate funds, and with her title, she could settle in any number of cities, begin life anew, afford good tutors, and raise her son to an age where he could return to his land as a young adult with promise. Of course the Duke of Chatwin might follow her to the ends of the earth, she supposed, but after she’d unveiled her greatest weapon tonight, in front of his peers, she truly hoped he would take the message to heart and his crazed pursuit of her would end.
It really didn’t matter what she said to him. He ignored explanations and would never forgive her for the pain her family had caused him. Even if she revealed everything that had happened in the dungeon, she knew instinctively that he wouldn’t believe her. Leaving the city was now her best option for living a normal life, and as much as she had looked forward to a grand season out of mourning, the notion now seemed as far removed from her world as it had been for the country girl from Winter Garden, her past of years ago.
Viola raised her glass and took a sip of sherry. He would be fuming mad when he finally laid eyes on her, though she felt relatively prepared for whatever he might do or say, trusting her keen intuition that he couldn’t do her physical harm in his own home with servants present. In the end, regardless of his anger, she just wanted to get this confrontation behind her so she could leave him once more with good riddance, and for a final time.
The sound of slow-moving footsteps interrupted her musings and she glanced over her shoulder, her pulse beginning to race seconds later as he at last walked into view.
He looked disheveled, his evening jacket discarded, waistcoat unbuttoned, dark brown cravat loosened at the neck and his shirtsleeves rolled up to midforearm. He studied her from the doorway for a long moment, the dim lighting of one lone lamp on a sofa table shadowing his expression as he very slowly skimmed her figure, from the top of her elegantly upswept hair to the hem of her plum embroidered satin skirt.
Viola felt a stirring of uncertainty in her belly. She turned her body so that she faced him squarely, holding her sherry glass with both hands to keep them steady. Finally, after a long, uncomfortable pause, she broke the static silence.
“Are you going to speak, your grace, or just stare at me for a time?”
For seconds he did nothing. And then, very slowly, he closed the door behind him, isolating them from the outside world.
“Why are you here?” he asked, his voice low, controlled.
Shoulders back, chin lifted defiantly, she replied, “I’m offering you a truce.”
“A truce?”
“Yes. For my part, I’m leaving the city,” she said without pause or pretense.
He nodded almost imperceptibly. “I know. I just spoke with your solicitor.”
She blinked; her mouth dropped open. “How did you—Why?”
He shrugged negligibly. “I was looking for you and thought you might be at his office, awaiting information or payment from the auction.”
She licked her lips, then swallowed, uncertain how to respond.
“Don’t worry, darling Viola,” he drawled, smirking. “Your secrets are safe with him, though he did inform me you were on your way here.” He looked her up and down again. “To be truthful, I didn’t think you’d actually have the nerve to come to me, to my home, after what you did tonight.”
She couldn’t read his mood, and the notion that he’d sought Duncan’s counsel about her made her squirm a little in her stays. Obviously he’d gone to her town house in search of her and Needham had offered too much information. For her butler of several years to do so meant that Chatwin had either threatened or coerced him in some unusual manner. Suddenly she just wanted to get away fast.
Clearing her throat, she said, “I came here to offer you a bank draft in exchange for my artwork. ”
His eyes narrowed as he watched her. “I’m keeping the sketch.”
That simple statement unnerved her even more. He wasn’t acting at all as she had expected. Instead of heated anger and a quick demand for answers, he analyzed her with a cold calculation that filled her with escalating dread and an immediate regret for baiting him tonight. Still, it was too late to back down now. She just wasn’t sure how to respond to such icy calmness.
He apparently sensed her confusion. Inhaling deeply, he clasped his hands behind him and began to stride toward her, his gaze never wavering.
Viola backed up a step as he approached, feeling her skirts spread out as satin and crinoline pressed up against the glass window behind her. “Forgive me, your grace,” she replied curtly, “but I cannot imagine you wanting to keep a forgery, which you so craftily proved to my disgrace—”
“We both know it’s not a forgery,” he cut in, coming to a halt two feet in front of her. “And we both know you sketched it yourself, as Victor Bartlett-James, along with the very explicit painting you auctioned tonight.”
Of course he would make that assumption, and she’d expected it after he’d laid eyes on the portrait at Brimleys. It had also been her hope, at least in part, that it might in some way spark a bit of memory in him, and perhaps it had. Still, hearing him acknowledge her as the artist in such a cold, measured tone rang the first bell of warning deep within.
“There is no way you can prove I am Victor Bartlett-James,” she replied boldly, “and I’m sure you know that if you tried to announce it to the world, nobody would believe you. I also know Duncan would never betray my trust and give you details about me and my artwork, my past, or my future plans.”
“I don’t need details about you, Viola, or to prove anything to anyone,” he said. “What matters is that I own both pieces of art now, and I’m sure you realize, madam, that the painting I bought tonight will never again see the light of day.”
Alarmed, she fairly blurted, “You wouldn’t destroy it.”
He dropped his gaze briefly to her breasts, then raised it again. “And yet I can’t sell it, or display it, especially when it’s so obviously painted in the likeness of me, the nobleman famously kidnapped and held captive by common women.”
She recoiled inside from such a callous remark overflowing with enmity.
He moved a step closer. “How many others are there, Viola?”
“Others?”
“You know what I’m asking.” His cheek twitched. “How many other paintings and sketches of me, of us, did you . . . create from memory?”
Her heart skipped a beat as he seemed to suddenly tower over her. “There are no others.”
Shaking his head, he replied, “I don’t believe you.”
“You’ve no choice but to believe me, your grace,” she maintained, trying to sound braver than she felt. “And if you agree to a truce between us, leave me alone forevermore, you can guarantee it.”
He cocked his head to the side a fraction, studying her intently. “You are the brazen one, aren’t you?”
“Not so brazen as determined,” she admitted in fast reply. “And you know we both have secrets we’d rather not have revealed.”
His eyes grew stormy and he tightened his jaw with that implied threat. Silence reigned for seconds until he whispered huskily, “What happened in the dungeon, Viola? Between you and me.”
Stalling, she took another sip of sherry in a vain attempt to disguise her discomfiture. “Nothing happened.”
&n
bsp; Incredulous, his brows rose. “Nothing?” He brought his arms forward and crossed them over his chest. “I know something happened, and you must as well, since you had the gall to paint us together, show it to the public, and sell it for profit.”
“I did no such thing,” she shot back defensively. “I would never paint myself in such a . . . an indecent position, I assure you. I painted a portrait of lovers without defined features, and if you choose to see the man as you, or think that’s what I think you look like when—when—”
“When I make love to a woman?” he finished for her.
She swallowed as heat suffused her cheeks, then she brushed the unseemly question aside with a flick of her wrist. “If you think it’s you, that’s your own conclusion entirely.”
“And the conclusion of every other gentleman at Brimleys tonight.”
She said nothing to that, knowing he was right, just as he knew his humiliation had been her only intention this evening.
The air crackled around them, the tension grew palpable as she fought to contain her growing anxiety. Still, she couldn’t look away from him.
At last, he murmured, “You have stirred a scandal, Viola—”
“You stirred the scandal—”
“—at my expense, knowing very well that by tomorrow I will once again be the joke and pity of society. You exploited my suffering for profit, for one last laugh, and I intend to make certain you pay for it.”
“Pay for it?” she retorted caustically. “And what would you do? Have me arrested for painting?” Chin lifted, she shook her head defiantly. “No, do not think to threaten me, sir. Everything had been settled, all was fine, until you came to London to pursue me, to purposely ruin me. Now here you are enraged that I got the best of you instead. You thought to embarrass me and damage my reputation at your party, and you succeeded. I simply fought back to warn you that I will stop at nothing to protect my honor and my son’s good name.”
“Your son’s good name . . . ,” he echoed in whisper. Suddenly he sneered. “You have no honor. You’re nothing but a fraud and a liar, a beautiful whore who will do anything in your power to climb the social ladder on which you don’t, and never have, belonged.”
She gaped at him, stunned and deeply hurt by his assertion, more so because he said the words with such utter repulsion. Fighting tears of anger and frustration, she countered, “You don’t know me, Ian. You don’t know my life and what I’ve done. You’re filled with a hatred for something you can’t define, for a past you couldn’t control and can’t now escape, and you’ve placed all your bitterness on my shoulders, making me guilty for your feelings. I realize you’ve been wronged, but I refuse to have my future ruined by a bitter, lonely man and his foolish quest for revenge—”
He slapped the glass of sherry from her hands. She gasped, stunned as it shattered on the floor, the amber liquid splattering on her gown, his shoes. And then just as quickly he was upon her.
In one swift move, his warm palm spanned her neck as he shoved her shoulders against the glass window behind her, pinning her tightly with the length of his body, his grip firm and steady on her delicate throat.
“What happened in the dungeon, Viola?” he demanded in quiet rage. “Between us.”
She began to tremble, her terror realized, her eyes opened wide with shock as she stared into his.
He tightened his grip. “What happened?”
She smelled the whiskey on his breath, witnessed the controlled fury in his expression, his hardened jaw and rigid body. Shaking her head, she whispered, “You don’t . . . understand, Ian.”
His nostrils flared, his lips thinned. “I understand the lewd painting I saw. I also understand I was violated—”
“No,” she countered, her own anger at his terrible assumptions crushing the fear. “I stayed with you, cared for you—”
“You’re lying. I remember being touched intimately, Viola, when I couldn’t defend myself. Did you do that, or did one of your sisters? Maybe all three of you? Maybe you made a game of it, a mockery of me?”
Appalled, she raised a hand to slap him hard, but he caught it instead, wrapping his palm around her wrist as he shoved her arm against the glass, locking her in place without defense. He leaned into her, his entire body touching her, chest against chest, his legs enveloped in her skirts.
“Tell me, Viola Bennington-Jones,” he whispered huskily, “was I there for your pleasure alone?” He swallowed so violently that he appeared ready to choke. “Was I drugged daily just enough to affect my memory but not my body in the hope of getting one of you with child?”
Made speechless, she could do nothing but stare into his eyes, her absolute horror exposed to his view, his crushing weight and strength keeping her in his total control. His warmth seared her through the layers of her gown; the scent of his musky skin struck a sudden memory of him so potent that it took her breath and made her legs weaken beneath her.
His dark eyes narrowed to slits; his forehead beaded with perspiration as the veins in his neck grew taut with tightly controlled rage.
“Did you rape me, Viola?” he whispered.
She trembled, said nothing.
“How did you do it?” he goaded, baiting her, his voice scratchy and thick with an innermost pain. “How does a woman rape a man?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Ian—You don’t—”
“Understand?” he said for her. He rubbed his thumb along the length of her neck, paused at the quick pulse beneath the skin. Seconds later, he murmured, “I saw the painting of my son, my bastard son, conceived through whoring and without my choice.”
It took a long time for those words to sink in, for her to clearly comprehend what he was saying, the line of his thinking, to grasp the foundation of his fury.
My bastard son. . .
Her eyes grew wide with newfound fear. “No . . .”
He snarled. “It was a secret well kept, I’ll give you credit for that, Viola. Were you waiting to blackmail me with this information when I announced my betrothal to the perfect, innocent lady of quality? Did you expect me to pay you for your silence?”
Bewildered, she shook her head, tried to free herself from his tight grasp. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I know precisely,” he charged. “I know the only reason you’d take advantage of an earl, risk getting yourself with child, would be to extort money in the end.” His nostrils flared; his own lips trembled. “I just wish I could remember the details for my trouble.”
Her entire body flushed as shame and renewed anger radiated from every pore. “You don’t know anything, Ian.” She struggled in his arms again, to no avail. “You’re despicable. Let me go.”
He shook his head. “I want the truth. I demand to know what happened. Exactly.”
She clenched her teeth. “Nothing happened. John Henry is my son, my husband’s son—”
“Who happens to look nothing like him and just like me,” he said snidely.
Refusing to turn away from his burning gaze, she retorted, “Your arrogance is astonishing. My son, Lord Cheshire, is of noble birth, and everyone who knows my child will say without the slightest doubt that he looks just like me.”
His hold of her loosened slightly as he furrowed his brows, and for the first time since he entered the green salon he looked less infuriated than perplexed.
“You’re actually denying I’m his father?”
After a long, still moment of silence, of lingering regret and sorrow filling her heart, she whispered with harsh intent, “My son is not a bastard. There is nothing else to deny.”
For ages, it seemed, he stared into her eyes, attempting to probe her thoughts with an intensity she felt to her bones. And then, with a sharp inhale, he apparently grasped the meaning behind her carefully chosen words, releasing
her so swiftly and unexpectedly that she nearly toppled over.
He backed up a step, arms to his sides, his gaze never wavering. Now well after dusk, the only light in the room came from a dim lamp behind him, leaving nearly all of his face in shadow, his expression masked, though he radiated a tension that enveloped her, compelling her to flee.
Voila righted herself and smoothed her skirts with trembling hands. “Keep the sketch,” she said in a shaky breath as she slowly began to move away from him. “Keep everything. Just leave me alone—”
“I can’t do that.”
That powerful pronouncement stopped her cold. “What did you say?”
“It’s time for full disclosure between us, Viola.”
Panic seized her. “There is nothing left to disclose. Or discuss.”
“I disagree,” he revealed very slowly, “and so I informed Mr. Duncan that my sister, the Marchioness of Rye, has gone into confinement and needs your assistance in Winter Garden, where you’re anxious to visit her and . . . extended family for a time. And because her baby is due any moment, you’re needed at once. That was the reason I went to him this evening looking for you, and that is why he told me where to find you.”
“I’m barely acquainted with your sister, and I don’t have extended family,” she argued, knowing that was a ridiculous thing to say even as her mind began to race in an effort to discern the depth of his resolve. “Mr. Duncan knows me well, and wouldn’t believe any of it.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t think he’d disbelieve a gentleman of my station, especially after he receives your note.”
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