What A Lord Wants Read online

  He glanced up as the wicket door opened, his heartbeat spiking hopefully. “Eve?”

  Instead, his man Davies stepped inside, with two boxes in his arms and a bundle of clothes wrapped in a sheet over his shoulder. And a scowl on his face.

  “This would not be necessary, Your Lordship,” his valet scolded as he juggled everything in his arms and attempted to shut the door with his foot, “if you came home on time to dress.”

  “Apologies, Davies.” With a prick of remorse, he came forward to take the boxes from his valet’s hands. His painting was complicating more than just his own life. But that would all stop soon. “I couldn’t get away.”

  The man slid a dubious glance at Eve’s mostly naked likeness, then gave a soft humph and hurried past him and up the stairs without comment.

  Dom followed behind, amusement twitching at his lips. Only Davies could get away with speaking to a marquess like that, and then only because of how much Dom needed the man. Not only could he be trusted to keep his silence, he also knew how to hide whatever signs Dom wore on his body of being an artist, right down to minimizing the scent of linseed oil. For all of that, the man had earned the right of leeway.

  “Next time I’ll cancel the invitation, and you can send my regrets.” Dom set the boxes onto a chair while Davies laid the bundle of clothes across the bed and unwrapped them to reveal the evening finery that he’d selected. “Better for both of us then.”

  “Not when the contessa is involved.” Davies grimaced, although Dom couldn’t tell if he’d done it at the mention of Sabrina Ribaldi, young widow of the Conte di Monteriggioni whom he’d agreed to escort tonight, or the slightly wrinkled condition of the white satin waistcoat that he’d carried all the way from Mercer House. “God help the man who crosses that one.”

  “The contessa isn’t at all as fearsome as people believe.” But she was one of the most beautiful women in Europe, and one of the most insatiable.

  Davies leveled a pointed gaze on him. “The rumors say it wasn’t apoplexy that killed her late husband in his bed.”

  Dom grinned rakishly as he began to unbutton his waistcoat. “Ah, but what a glorious death that would be!”

  That earned him the aggravated glare he expected. Muttering to himself about painters, marquesses, and madmen, Davies turned back to his work.

  Dom chuckled to himself, enjoying baiting the man far more than he should. Though, truly, when he’d received word from the contessa last week that she would be in London and was seeking an escort for the evening, Dom knew exactly what she wanted. Him. Sabrina had never been coy about that, and that directness had led to several highly memorable encounters. Yet he’d been too wrapped up in the painting and the exhibition to give her much thought beyond accepting her invitation as a courtesy to an old acquaintance.

  Now, though, an evening with the contessa might be exactly what he needed to get Eve out from under his skin and back into her proper place as his model. A thorough reminder to not confuse the passions he held for his art with those he felt as a man, given by a woman who had no trouble removing her clothes for him.

  Davies shook out each garment and laid it carefully across the bed. Then he turned his attention to the hat, boots, and other accessories tucked into the two boxes.

  “Matheson sent this for you.” He handed Dom a message from his secretary that he’d tucked into one of the boxes. “He wants you to confirm the list of paintings to be sent to the Royal Academy for display.”

  Dom frowned. “This could have waited until I returned home.”

  “Since none of us knew when that would be, sir,” he reminded him chidingly, “I agreed to deliver it to you.”

  That stung. But he had been ignoring his duties at home lately in order to focus on the painting. Something he hoped would change forever by season’s end when he revealed his masterpiece.

  He glanced at the list. “Tell Matheson that it looks fine.” He paused, then decided, “But add another painting to the list. One to be entered into the summer exhibition. I’ll have it waiting at Mercer House for pick up.”

  Davies tucked the list back into the box and continued with his preparations by moving to the shaving accoutrements laid out on the chest of drawers. “Which painting, sir?”

  “A new one.” He smiled to himself. “Earthbound Venus, by an unknown artist named Dominick James.”

  “Yes, sir.” In afterthought, Davies reached beneath his waistcoat and drew out a small note. “This arrived for you by messenger. The boy refused to say who sent it.”

  His chest tightened. Such messengers never portended good fortune. “Thank you.”

  He cracked the seal and unfolded it. The elegant handwriting and floral scent wafting from the card told him immediately who it was from. So did the threat.

  * * *

  I want what you owe me. Make the arrangements I asked for, or all of England will hear what I have to say.

  * * *

  “Anything of importance, sir?” Davies tested the razor blade on his thumb.

  Dom shook his head and crumpled the card in his fist. He tossed the unwanted note onto the bed and took a seat on the chair by the lamp, so that Davies could shave him. “Just a headache that will soon go away.”

  The contest that the Royal Academy hosted as part of their summer exhibition couldn’t come fast enough, even if the paint on the canvas would barely be dry. Then, he could put his own name to it, and finally put Vincenzo—and Constance’s threats—behind him for good.

  Pushing Constance from his mind, he tilted back his head and closed his eyes. “Try not to slit my throat, will you?”

  Davies laughed a bit too maniacally for comfort and lathered up his face.

  Chapter 9

  “Where have you been?” Mariah asked.

  Already dressed in her pale pink ball gown, her hair pulled up into a riot of ebony curls, Mariah Winslow Carlisle walked into the dressing room and found Eve with one arm hanging out of her dress, mid-removal.

  Her older sister halted and blinked, dropping an assessing gaze over her. “And what on earth are you wearing?”

  “Work clothes.” Not a complete lie. It was a work dress that she’d yanked on over the breeches and corset. Just not a dress in which she did any actual work. “I was in Chelsea.”

  With a suspicious expression, Mariah leaned against the doorway and watched Eve undress, shedding layer upon layer and dropping each to the floor where her maid would collect them later. “Since when do society ladies do manual work, even in the name of charity?”

  “Since when am I a society lady?” She snatched up her robe and sauntered past Mariah to the waiting bath, which had long ago grown cool.

  She gritted her teeth as she sank into the cold water. This was her punishment for not paying attention to the time. At least being late meant that she would be quickly out of her cold bath.

  “Besides,” she reminded Mariah as she washed, “you’re not one to cower from real work.”

  “Not in breeches.”

  Eve had the good sense to look offended. “You expect me to bend over, scrub floors and walls, step up onto stools”—Pose for a notorious Italian painter with a reputation as bad as Lucifer’s—“with nothing on beneath my skirts?”

  From Mariah’s dubious lift of a brow, that logic was getting Eve nowhere.

  So she tried a different tack. “You wear similar clothes yourself when you work at the Gatewell School.”

  A direct hit, and Mariah’s distrust melted into chagrin. Partially. Because Eve knew her sister well enough to see that suspicion still lurked inside her.

  “That dress looks beautiful on you.” Eve soaped up her arms and legs. There wasn’t time to wash her hair or let it dry, so her maid would have to do the best she could with it. “Has Robert seen you in it?”

  Mariah’s eyes narrowed at that obvious change of topic. “What trouble have you gotten yourself into now?”

  “None.” Which was the truth. So far.

  “
Evelyn Margaret Winslow.” Mariah leveled her displeasure at her with all the sympathy of a cranky governess. “I know you better than anyone else in the world, and I know when you’re dissembling.”

  “I haven’t lied to you.”

  Although only for technical reasons, since hiding the truth wasn’t the same as lying. Because if she were lying to her sister, she would feel horrible about it, when right now she only felt an uneasy guilt bubbling in her belly.

  “I was late this evening because I was in Chelsea, working.” By posing semi-nude for a handsome painter, whose kisses were utterly divine. “Ask John Coachman. He dropped me off and picked me up at the Royal Hospital.” Even though she’d slipped through the hospital and right out the back. “I lost track of time and hurried home as fast as I could.”

  That was the God’s honest truth, although she’d left Dom staring after her in complete bafflement. She’d have to come up with a good story for why she’d run away from him like that, and so close on the heels of kissing him, no less.

  Lying to everyone she loved was beginning to wear on her. But it would only be for a little while longer. Soon the adventure would end, and all the glorious freedom she’d found in the studio would come to a grinding halt.

  Along with never seeing Dom again. Her throat tightened painfully at the thought of it.

  She stepped from her bath and wrapped her robe around herself. But Mariah refused to move from the doorway to let her walk past into her bedroom.

  Eve gave a heavy sigh of exasperation. “Do you want to keep arguing with me about what trouble I haven’t gotten myself into, or do you want me to dress so that we’re not late to the party?”

  But her sister’s face remained somber as she warned quietly, “Be careful, Evie. If people find out what you did with Burton Williams—”

  “They won’t.” She stepped past Mariah into her bedroom and crossed to the dressing table. Her maid would be up soon with the curling tongs she was heating over the kitchen fire. But for now, Eve had to reassure Mariah about Burton, or she’d never be left alone to dress. “He’d never be foolish enough to tell anyone.”

  Not with the Carlisle brothers still disappointed over not being allowed to tie him up and toss him onto the first ship bound for Australia.

  Besides, Burton wasn’t the man who worried her.

  She looked up to catch Mariah’s gaze in the mirror. Knowing she could trust in her sister’s advice, she asked, “Why did Robert notice you, when you first met him?”

  “He didn’t have a choice.” Mariah smiled like a cat who’d stumbled across a mouse. “Papa forced him to.”

  “No.” She lowered her voice, “I mean, as a woman.”

  Her sister’s lips formed a soft O of understanding. Slowly, she came up behind her. “Is that what this is about—you’ve met someone?”

  Shaking her head, she bit her lip and looked away, to fuss with the hair combs on the table. “He doesn’t think of me that way.”

  Mariah said nothing for a long while. Then she reached for a brush to stroke it through Eve’s hair, the way she used to when they were girls.

  “And you?” Mariah asked carefully. “What way do you think of him?”

  In every way. Every wicked, wanton, scandalous way that a proper young lady should never think of a man. “As a teacher, I suppose.”

  The brush hesitated at that before Mariah continued with brushing her hair over her shoulders and down her back.

  “The problem is…he’s different.”

  “Different how?” Another pause of the brush. This one much longer.

  “He’s a good man.” A man, while Burton was a mere boy in comparison. “Quite well-respected.” In certain circles…small, artistic circles.

  “Whoever he is, you must be careful.” Mariah’s face turned grim as she began to brush Eve’s hair again. “I did you no favors by marrying into the Carlisle family. It made the Winslows even more prominent.”

  “Even more prone to attacks by fortune hunters and society gossips, you mean?”

  “Exactly.” Mariah set down the brush, then returned to the dressing room. Her voice was muffled, but not her concern. “We can’t have adventures anymore like we used to.”

  No, her adventures had been elevated to a whole new level of scandal, if anyone ever found out.

  “We were able to get away with them before because no one cared who we were and because we never would have been accepted into society anyway. A shipping merchant’s daughters…Half of society thought we were already ruined to begin with, the other half tolerated us only because of Papa’s fortune.” The sound of doors and drawers opening and closing punctuated Mariah’s words. “Until the Carlisles came along and changed everything. Now the gossipy old hens will be watching and waiting, just salivating to find a bit of scandal involving the Winslows, especially if they can connect it to the Trent title.”

  Wonderful. Eve heaved out a sigh. That was just what she needed—more guilt weighing on her shoulders that she might hurt not only her own family but the Carlisles, as well, for this taste of irresistible excitement.

  “But I need to do something,” she called out over her shoulder in exasperation. “All this sitting around in the house, staring at the walls, with nothing to pass the time—” It was death. Already she felt as if she’d wasted so much time by not seizing all of life that she could, by not making every moment count. If her own mother’s life could be cut so short, then Eve’s could be, too. Just as easily. “There are only so many hours a woman can needlepoint before she goes mad. Only so many books she can read before she goes blind.”

  The rustling of fabric didn’t hide Mariah’s amusement. “You could play the pianoforte.”

  No, she most certainly could not. “And punish the rest of the household right along with me?”

  A contemplative pause. “Perhaps you’re right.” Seconds later, Mariah emerged from the dressing room with an ice-blue satin gown draped over her arm. “So this man you’ve met who is dumb as stone—”

  “He is not!”

  “He hasn’t noticed you as a woman.” Mariah held up the dress to shake out the fabric. “How intelligent can he possibly be, then?”

  Her chest warmed gratefully at her sister’s defense of her, even at Dom’s expense. “Actually…he thinks I’m beautiful.”

  Mariah’s eyes darted to Eve’s in the mirror. “He said that?”

  “Yes.”

  A knowing smile played at her lips. “Then I think he’s noticed you.”

  “No.” Eve’s shoulders sagged. “He didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Oh, every man means it like that.” She gently took Eve’s hair and held it up on top her head to see in the mirror how the dress would look with her complexion. “So this man who hasn’t noticed you but thinks you’re beautiful—”

  Eve rolled her eyes.

  “Do you want his interest?”

  Did she? Certainly having Dom’s attentions on her had been better than she’d imagined—not only as an artist who saw her as a masterpiece to be painted, but as a man who wanted to kiss her.

  But simply being associated with him and his libertine’s reputation might also mean the ruin of all she and Mariah had fought so hard to keep safe since she returned from Scotland.

  Eve pulled in a ragged breath and admitted, “I don’t know.”

  Mariah wrapped her arms around Eve to hug her from behind. “Oh, my poor Evie.” She rested her cheek against Eve’s and said with sincerity, “The heart is a beastly thing, isn’t it?”

  A long sigh escaped her. “Cruel and devious.”

  “As are all the fairytales with their handsome princes.”

  Their eyes met in the mirror. “But you found yours,” Eve reminded her. “So there must be hope for the rest of us.”

  Mariah smiled. “There’s the romantic I know, who believes everyone will be happily wed.”

  She used to be that. She wasn’t so certain now, at least not for herself. There were only s
o many times her heart could shatter before she was unable to mend it.

  “So this teacher of yours,” Mariah said, trying to keep her voice nonchalant as she pried into Eve’s affairs. “Is he the reason you were late this evening?”

  “Yes. We were together, and I lost track of time.” Her face in the mirror lit up, despite herself. “He’s wonderful to talk to, Mariah—you have no idea how brilliant and talented he is. He’s traveled and been on so many adventures, and he has such a unique way of looking at the world. He makes me feel alive and beautiful.”

  “Because you are.” Before Eve could roll her eyes again, Mariah interjected, “He possess good character, then?”

  “Yes.” Fie on what other people thought of him!

  “Who treats you well?”

  “Very.”

  “With enough income to keep you in the lifestyle you’re used to?”

  Eve’s mouth fell open, aghast. “Who said anything about that?”

  “Marriage is the natural course of attraction,” Mariah muttered, turning her attention to the dress’s sleeves. But she couldn’t hide her happy smile. “Followed by babies.”

  Eve froze, her heart skipping. “Mariah?” She grabbed her sister’s hand. “Are you and Robert…?”

  Her smile blossomed into a full beam. “Well, I am. Robert’s not.”

  Eve spun around as she rose from the stool and hugged her sister. Both laughed with happiness in each other’s arms.

  “Mariah, this is wonderful! Does Papa know?”

  “Not yet.” A mischievous gleam lit her eyes. “I’m making Robert tell him this evening.”

  Eve’s hand flew to her mouth to hold back her laughter at Robert’s expense. “I wish I could be a fly on the wall for that conversation!”

  “Oh me, too.” Mariah stepped back with a squeeze to Eve’s hands. “You’re the only one who knows. I wanted you to be the first. Robert’s family doesn’t even know yet. We’re telling his mother in the morning. Elizabeth is going to be overjoyed!”