Scandalous Brides: In Scandal in Venice\The Spanish Bride (11 page)

“Oh, Lizzie,” Georgina said. “Our rough months in those drafty billets were... perfect.”

“Jack was handsome,” Elizabeth answered.

“And as good as he was handsome.” Georgina twisted on her wrist the narrow pearl bracelet he had given her, which never left her person. “He was not the most intellectual man, true, but he loved that I wanted to be an artist.”

“What of Mr. Beaumont?”

“Ah, well, Lizzie, you needn’t fear that Nicholas will be another Mr. Beaumont.” Aloysius Beaumont, wealthy cit, had been all of seventy-six when he had married Georgina, and seventy-seven when she buried him. He had been elderly, but generous.

“And rather nice, when he could recall who I was,” Georgina said. “And if it were not for him, we could never have had the things we do on the pittance Sir Everett’s children allow me.”

“And what a shame
that
would have been! Every grocer and dressmaker in Italy would be destitute,” Elizabeth teased.

“So, my dear, perhaps you should take a chance with Nicholas. You need not tell him quite
everything,
even if you are lovers. He may turn out to be your Jack. Or at least an amusement.”

Elizabeth hugged Georgina, but in her heart she was screaming,
But what if he does not want to be my Jack?

Chapter Nine

“Y
ou are very late.”

Nicholas paused at the sound of Elizabeth’s voice, still poised over the candle he was lighting. Slowly, he turned to look at her.

Elizabeth sat, very still and pale, in the corner of the dark foyer, hands folded in her lap as she watched him. She was dressed for a party, in sky-blue muslin trimmed in white satin ribbon, her hair plaited and caught up in ivory combs.

She looked like the Parmigianino Madonna, all slender neck and mysterious, downcast eyes.

“I thought perhaps you had had a contretemps with an irate client,” she continued, coming to take the flint from his frozen fingers and lighting the candle herself. “You are not one to forget a party.”

He slapped his open palm against his forehead. “The Vincenzis’ party! I was to escort you. I am sorry, Elizabeth. I was just... walking. I lost track of the time.”

“That is quite all right. As it is raining, we can’t go out into their lovely gardens anyway. Everyone will be smothering in their tiny ballroom. Georgina has gone ahead.” She smiled up at him, her mouth turning suddenly down as she saw his hair dripping onto the carpet. “You must be frozen through! Come into the kitchen where there is a fire, before you catch the ague.”

Nicholas allowed her to lead him into the warm kitchen, and fuss over him with towels and warm kettles. But he, who had never had a modest day from the time he could toddle away from his nurse and pull off his nappy, balked when she asked him to remove his shirt.

“Wh—what?” he stammered.

“I said you should remove your shirt,” Elizabeth answered calmly, stirring at the brewing tea. “It is soaked through.”

“I am not certain that is a very good idea.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Oh, please, Nicholas! Do not go missish now. Your teeth are chattering, and if you make yourself ill I will not see a farthing of payment for a month.” She slanted him a sly smile. “I already saw a great deal on the terrace last night, you know. I promise to use my artistic detachment and refrain from ravishing you here in my kitchen.”

Nicholas couldn’t help but laugh at himself. He was behaving rather like a spinster aunt, shivering in wet clothes in order to preserve a doubtful modesty. This, after all, was a woman he had held, kissed... planned to kidnap. He pulled off the sodden shirt and leaned back in his chair, relishing the heat of the fire and the cozy sounds of Elizabeth’s tuneless humming and the soft patter of the rain.

“Here we are!” Elizabeth arranged the tea service on a small table, and sat beside him to pour. “A nice pot of tea, some brandy if you need something a bit stronger, and even some sandwiches Bianca had put away in the pantry.”

“It looks lovely,” Nicholas answered, gratefully accepting the liberally laced cup of tea she offered. “But I do not want you to waste your evening waiting on me. You should be at the party.”

Elizabeth waved away his protest. “Not at all. This is ever so much nicer than yet another party. I’m quite enjoying the quiet. And the company.”

“So you tire of the social whirl?”

“A bit. I love the gatherings—Venice is a delight, and there are so many artists here.” She paused to take a thoughtful bite of sandwich. “But at times it can be rather overwhelming, and I forget the perfect pleasures of a good fire on a rainy night.”

“Carnivale will soon be over.”

“Yes.”

“What will you do then? Stay and watch Venice in its Lenten solemnities?”

“Settle down to my work, you mean?” Elizabeth chuckled. “Yes, I do need to do that. The Bruni commission will not wait forever, and I have a few things I am working on for myself. Georgie has suggested we take a villa in the country for Lent, somewhere nearer Venice than her home at Lake Como.”

“Do you approve of this plan?” He listened to her carefully, straining for a glimpse of wistfulness, longing for a return to English aristocratic country life. If she could be persuaded to return on her own ...

“Oh, yes. The country would be very conducive to my work.”

“So you do tire of city life?”

“Not a bit!” She poured herself another cup of tea. “I am having a wonderful time here. So many patrons eager to spend their money! And we must come back here in the spring, anyway.”

“Return? Why so?”

“I received a letter this afternoon, a new commission. To restore the Veronese frescoes in Lady Deake’s Ca Donati. I am to begin work on them in April, when Lady Deake returns from Rome.”

“What?” Nicholas almost fell from his chair in his shock. “Lady Evelyn Deake—you will be working for her?”

“Yes.” Elizabeth frowned. “Nicholas, whatever is the matter? This a perfect commission; every artist in Venice has been vying for it. It is a great honor to be so singled out, even by someone as thoroughly irritating as Lady Deake.”

“Elizabeth.” Nicholas knelt before her, her hands between his. If Elizabeth spoke with Evelyn, if Evelyn told her who he truly was ... all would be lost. “Listen to me. You have traveled all over Italy. You have seen so much.”

“Yes, that is true.” He voice was puzzled, her forehead creased in concern as she looked down at him. She obviously thought him moon-mad.

Still he plunged on, hardly knowing or caring that he was babbling. “Perhaps it is time you expanded your experience, discovered a new culture.”

“A new culture? Such as France?”

“Perhaps. Or even... England.”

She snatched her hands from his. “England!”

“There are many fine artists there ...”

“Absolutely not! There is nothing to be learned there. This is my home, and here I will stay.” She took a long sip from the brandy bottle, sitting there marble still, eyes closed, until she visibly composed herself. “Oh, Nicholas, do sit down. What is wrong with you tonight? First you walk about in the rain, and now you are full of England for some reason.”

Nicholas reluctantly sat back in his chair, watching her, the glitter of her eyes as she suppressed tears, the mulish set of her dainty jaw. Never had he known such desperation before. He had thought himself quite prepared to do anything to take her back to England and Peter, and then go on with his life. Now he trembled with something very like fear that she would discover the truth from Evelyn’s painted lips, that her laughter and kisses would be lost forever when she knew.

As they would when she was kidnapped by himself and the nasty Benno.

He did not want that, he saw now. He only wanted to go on like this always, sitting beside her in a firelit kitchen with the rain whispering at the windows.

“There is no reason,” he said, smiling at her in reassurance. “No reason at all.”

Elizabeth lay awake for long hours that night, watching the silvery fall of rain outside her window and thinking of Nicholas’s words that evening.

She knew him so little. For all his charm, his dimpled grins, his wondrous kisses, he was yet a stranger. She knew nothing of his motives, his past. She had not wanted to ask, for fear of opening the Pandora’s box of her own past. And he was such fun, so good at his job, that it had not seemed all that important.

Until now. Now, when he had shown her such seriousness, such barely veiled desperation. She had never thought to see that in his merry countenance. He had been so earnest when he urged her to give up Lady Deake’s patronage and return to England. His intensity as he had gripped her hands had been almost frightening.

Could he truly miss England so much himself that he hoped his employment with her would take him back there? That seemed so flimsy an excuse. She would not have thought him such a patriot as all that. In her speculations on his past, she had supposed him to be fleeing England like herself, in search of adventure and fortune. Or perhaps fleeing a broken heart...

“Of course!” Elizabeth whispered to herself. “It was the mention of Lady Deake that brought on this rage to leave Venice.”

They
had
been conversing so closely at the opera. Elizabeth shuddered at the memory of Lady Deake’s bright curls nodding near Nicholas’s shoulder as she giggled up at him.

Lady Deake must have been a part of his past, or had at least known him before. And if he had been moving in such a smart set as that, he was not the middle-class soldier she had supposed him to be. What a coil!

He had been living under their roof, eating his meals across the table from her, watching her paint, teasing Bianca, bantering with Georgina. He was not intrusive, did not at all mind their erratic ways, and was very good at his job, willing to deal with very unpleasant people to collect what was owed to her.

In his short tenure, he had persuaded no less than three clients to pay their accounts in full, leaving only two particularly stubborn ones in arrears. Elizabeth had bought a dashing new blue velvet cloak, paid Georgina her share of the rent, and still had coin left over.

But more than that, clients now looked at her with a different air, a respectful air, a professional air. There were no more lewd remarks, no more agreeing on one price then paying another when the work was complete. It was quite marvelous.

And entirely due to Nicholas. In their household, he was charming, witty, a little silly, a little roguish. In public, he was every bit a commanding military man, stern and uncompromising with all who owed her money. The hard glint in his onyx eyes could even make Elizabeth stand up straighter.

Yet he never spoke of himself. Georgina was an unrepentant snoop, with a positive gift for ferreting out people’s secrets whether they wished her to or not. All her leading questions over the breakfast table only earned a grin, a “That is far too dull a topic to discuss over these superb scones,” and perhaps a suggestive comment concerning one of her late husbands.

Elizabeth’s more delicate inquiries had fared no better. Their conversations were always interesting; he was a very intelligent man, and witty as well. But they always concerned business, Italian art, or gossip about the people they met at social gatherings. He never inquired about her own past, except for that night on the terrace; he never spoke of his own.

“I
will
find out the truth.” Elizabeth climbed out of bed and lit a candle, searching through her cluttered writing table for a sheet of notepaper. “I will simply write and ask Lady Deake to tea, before she leaves for Rome.”

Chapter Ten

“H
e has settled well into secretarydom.” Georgina paused in sipping cognac and sketching in her book to glance at Nicholas, who had crossed the crowded terrace at Florian’s Café to speak to one of Elizabeth’s clients who was in arrears.

Elizabeth popped a small tea cake into her mouth and chewed absently, watching with avid interest as Nicholas’s gleaming white grin flashed in the sunlight. He really was an utterly handsome specimen of manhood, despite his odd behavior.

Yes, gorgeous but mysterious.

Elizabeth was, in fact, becoming utterly and dizzily obsessed with her secretive secretary who kissed like an angel. She was becoming like a schoolgirl mooning over the dancing master. It was completely ridiculous, but there it was.

She was blushing fire red just thinking about it; she could feel the color creeping down her throat. Nicholas looked up then, caught her staring at him with cake crumbs on her chin, and grinned his wonderful, infuriating grin.

“Oh!” She groaned, snatching up her napkin and scrubbing furiously at the crumbs.

“Blast it all, Lizzie, just bed him and get it over with!” Georgina muttered. Her gloved hand reached out for another of the cakes.

“If only I could.” Then she would know what it was like, would know what Nicholas looked like with no clothes at all, and she could then go on with her life.

Perhaps.

“Why can you not?”

“You know perfectly well why, Georgie.”

Georgina shook her head hard enough to set the feathers on her bonnet bobbing. “Tell me, dear.”

“I ought not to get so very close to someone, particularly an Englishman. He may know someone who knew me in Derbyshire.”

“What does one thing have to do with the other? He won’t necessarily guess your secrets simply because he sees you in your chemise.”

“Georgie! Some women may be able to take a lover and not spill all their secrets at once, but I could not. I would feel I had to tell him all, silly me.”

Georgina nodded. “You do have rather a revealing face.”

“I already feel horrible about deceiving him so. And he is only the secretary now.” The secretary she kissed passionately.

“Lizzie, you are making far too much of this! You must simply steel yourself and keep silent. And if you talked too much you would not have enough time for the amusing bits, anyway. That is what an affair is for, after all.”

The amusing bits.
That sounded rather promising. Still, Elizabeth shook her head. “I wish I could feel as you do. It would make things so much simpler. But Nicholas would have to know he was bedding a
murderess.”