Silver Splendor (25 page)

She didn’t flinch under his furious gaze. “More orders, your lordship? I’m an American, in case you’ve forgotten, and an independent woman.”

Her proud manner incensed Nicholas. Gripping her arms tighter, he gave her a shake. “You might have been killed! By God, I really will have to lock you up!”

“You are hurting my arms,” she said coldly.

“Good,” he snapped, though he loosened his hold a fraction. “Perhaps bruises will convince you where mere words have failed.” He had to make her understand without revealing what he knew of her past, the secrets only Owen had the right to tell her. “The maniac who attacked you has never been caught. He could be out here anywhere, waiting for a chance to catch you alone!”

“Don’t be absurd. That was an isolated incident. No one else is going to bother me.”

“Perhaps you should ask your father about that.”

Nicholas regretted the words the moment they slipped out. Elizabeth looked startled, and her eyes widened to pansies, huge and purple. Suddenly he felt drowned by the violent urge to make love to her, to demonstrate his domination of her right here, on the damp lush grass of the square, in full view of a hundred watching windows.

She tilted her head warily. “My father? What do you mean?”

“Never mind.” Nicholas picked up her sketch pad and thrust it at her. “Come along,” he said, seizing her hand and pulling her down the path.

She stepped smartly to match his pace. “I want to know what you mean, Nicholas.”

“Forget it.” He searched for a distraction. “There’s something else we need to discuss. My sister’s behavior.”

“If you’re referring to her interest in Drew Sterling, Cicely has acted with admirable discretion.”

“Discretion,” he stated with black humor, “is hardly the word I’d use to describe her most recent lapse in conduct.”

He sensed her irritation in the stiff set of her shoulders. A protective hand at her back, he guided her across the busy street. Entering Hawkesford House, he drew her into the sumptuous confines of the drawing room, shutting the double doors.

Elizabeth set down her sketch pad and folded her hands, gazing at him with cool expectation. “Well, Nicholas?”

Walking to the mantelpiece, he struggled to regain his fury toward Cicely; in light of the danger to Elizabeth that matter now seemed trivial.

“My sister has been making sketches from your anatomy book,” he said. “Did she have your permission to do so?”

“I told her she could borrow any of my books, if that’s what you mean.”

Her offhand manner made him speak more bluntly. “Did you know she was drawing unclothed men?”

Elizabeth didn’t look shocked in the least. “No, I didn’t. But I must admire her initiative.”

“Admire?” Anger leapt inside him. “I might have guessed
you
would see nothing wrong with such indecent behavior.”

She laughed. “Oh, please, Nicholas. Surely you’re not embarrassed by the human body!”

To his utter chagrin, he felt a dull heat rise from under his starched collar. Pivoting sharply, he paced the room. “That’s neither here nor there. Praise God I caught Cicely and that her lascivious pictures weren’t found by one of my aunt’s friends.”

Elizabeth continued to smile. “Are you saying Cicely would be shunned for drawing a man?”

“It isn’t amusing. A few maliciously whispered words can taint a woman’s reputation forever. It’s hardly a practice I condone, but one we must all live with.”

“But copying a picture out of a book? Imagine how the tongues would wag if people knew that in art school I studied anatomy by drawing naked male models!”

Nicholas hadn’t thought Elizabeth could still shock him. Yet the image of her sitting in a classroom, casually sketching a man’s private parts, staggered him. Her free spirited upbringing had been so radically different from the rigid rules of his youth. How could they ever hope to find a middle ground?

Something in her face changed, a softening, a yearning. She bit her lip, then took a step toward him, fingers twisting in the loose folds of her trousers. “Nicholas, I know you’ll think me bold… but I’d be dishonest if I didn’t say you’re far more attractive than any of those men were.”

His body reacted with hot desire; his mind responded with cold anger. Her admiration both gratified and infuriated him. Only a fool would want a woman to scorn his good looks, but God! Couldn’t she exhibit any regard for his character as well?

“We have a saying here in England,” he said icily. “‘Save your breath to cool your porridge.’ Don’t bother suggesting again that I pose for one of your sculptures.”

The light went out in her eyes, yet she held herself with a noble bearing. “Believe me, your lordship, I wouldn’t dream of broaching that topic. I wouldn’t want you to think I was fishing for a commission.”

“Excellent. We’re in agreement.” He walked to the door and paused, assaulted by the uneasy memory. “By the way, if you’re looking for your copy of
Gray’s Anatomy,
I had Peebles burn it.”

“Burn it!”

Staring at his lordly figure, Elizabeth stood riveted, too stunned to move. How could Nicholas stand there with such calm hauteur and announce he’d destroyed her property? Yet why was she surprised? It was precisely the sort of domineering tactic the earl took as his right.

Bitterly she said, “I suppose that’s another example of governing my life, your lordship. And all because I can’t ever react the way I’m supposed to.”

His brooding gray eyes studied her. ‘I’ll admit I was angry when I gave the order, but I’ll still not have such material available to my sister. My secretary, Thistlewood, is out of town. When he returns, he’ll reimburse you the cost of the book.”

As the door slammed shut behind Nicholas, Elizabeth wilted into a brocaded armchair. She wondered if he even understood the significance of the burned book, that it symbolized his inability to accept her life, her dreams. If he’d been furious enough to incinerate such a minor detail, how he must despise her most precious vocation, her sculpting.

Perhaps she should leave Hawkesford House. Her heart plunged to her feet. Then the memory of Nicholas’s concern for her safety bolstered her spirits. Somewhere inside him flickered a tiny flame of caring, a flame that drew her, a flame she longed to fan into an inferno. But how? If she were to act on her feelings, he’d be repelled by her forwardness.

Unable to resolve the dilemma, she fled to the conservatory. If she couldn’t reach out to Nicholas, she could at least satisfy the restless yearning inside her. Working feverishly, she began winding sausages of clay around the armature.

By gaslight night after night, she draped the wire until it assumed the rough proportions of a man. On the third evening, Elizabeth stared wearily at the sculpture. The rugged contours resembled Nicholas, but now could she fill in the details? She could only guess at the shape of the leg muscles, the curve of the buttocks, the sinews of the arms.

Frowning, she turned her gaze to the deepening twilight. A flicker of movement at one of the windows caught her eye. Horror seized her heart. Pressed against the glass was a bristly face. A face with the features of a bulldog.

The man in the porkpie hat!

The lantern cast a wavering circle of light over the darkened garden. The scent of roses perfumed the cool night air. Looking through the glass panes of the conservatory, Nicholas saw the shadowy tangle of camellia bushes rimming the center of the room, where the pale glow of gaslight illuminated the scattering of work tools and shrouded pedestals. Beside the fountain stood the rough sculpture of a man, the sculpture Elizabeth must have been working on only an hour ago, believing herself to be secure within the walls of Hawkesford House.

He imagined someone standing here, peering at her
graceful figure, reveling in the knowledge that she was
alone and vulnerable, plotting to creep inside and
clamp his crude hands around her swanlike neck.

A nauseating mix of fear and anger choked Nicholas. Dropping to his haunches beside the policeman, he demanded, “Well? What do you think?”

Detective Inspector Mulvey motioned to Kipp, who stood gravely at attention. “Bring that lantern a mite closer.”

The boy briskly obeyed. “Aye, guv’ner.”

Mulvey scrutinized the pair of footprints embedded in the soft earth of the rose bed. “Hobnailed boots, your lordship.” He glanced up, lamplight illuminating the spiderweb of veins on his face and the bulging eyes that reminded Nicholas of a trout. “Belonged to a rather big man, or so I’d guess by the size of the prints.”

“We already know that much,” Nicholas said, hard pressed to restrain his impatience. “After the first incident nearly a month ago, Miss Hastings sketched a likeness of the man. I, too, gave a concise description to your chief superintendent at Scotland Yard.”

Mulvey’s pale fish eyes lowered deferentially. “Ahem. Yes, your lordship. I recollect the episode.”

“Shall we proceed with the investigation, then?” Nicholas surged to his feet, a thorn catching briefly at his trousers as he started down the crushed stone path. “The intruder went this way,” he said, the inspector trotting to keep up. “One of my men found another footprint over there.”

He pointed to an area beside a shadowy clump of boxwoods, and Kipp scurried ahead with the light.

“No one else saw the man?” Mulvey asked.

“He must have escaped in the time it took Miss Hastings to run to the dining room to fetch me. We searched the grounds immediately, but he was already gone.”

“I see. Must’ve slipped through a gate, I’d guess.”

“The gates were locked.”

“Just takes one careless gardener —”

“I checked the locks myself,” Nicholas said curtly. “Judging by the direction of that last footprint, the man likely climbed over the wall up ahead.”

In a few quick strides he reached the shoulder high stone wall which enclosed the formal gardens. Half running, the lantern swinging in his hand, Kipp drew alongside Nicholas. The swaying light briefly illuminated a small, dark lump beneath one of the rose bushes. Bending, Nicholas picked up a battered, flat crowned hat with a turned up brim.

“Here’s something our trespasser dropped,” he said, flipping the hat to Mulvey.

The inspector rotated it in his rawboned hands. “Porkpie hat, no distinguishing marks. Venture into Petticoat Lane or Seven Dials and you’ll see a half a hundred of ‘em in the space of an hour.” He stuck the hat under his arm. “I’ll take it along just the same. Evidence, you know.”

Mulvey’s casual attitude grated on Nicholas’s nerves. “Your confidence overwhelms me,” he said icily. “I trust you’ll at least
try
to find the man.”

“Oh, yes, your lordship,” the inspector hastened to say. “Didn’t mean we wouldn’t do a systematic search. Just want you to know what we’re up against. Hundreds of places to hide in them rookeries. Places even the police daren’t go. Fine gentleman like yourself couldn’t know about such rat holes —”

“I’m acquainted with the rookeries.”

“Oh?” Mulvey’s protuberant eyes stared for a moment, then dropped beneath Nicholas’s glacial glare. “Ahem. Guess I’d best proceed, then. Need to question the others… if I might, your lordship?”

“Follow me.”

Turning, Nicholas marched toward the house, Kipp trotting ahead to light the way. Without slowing, the boy swung his scrubbed face around. “You’ll catch ‘im, yer lordship, sir,” he said, his brown eyes shining with worshipful trust.

He pulled open the massive door and Nicholas strode into the gaslit entrance hall. He wished to God he shared Kipp s confidence. His throat felt dogged with fury and frustration and fear. He hated this damned feeling of helplessness. He wanted to
do
something. Anything. To track down that blackguard and throttle him. To squeeze out the truth about who had hired him.

Fists clenched, emotions under rigid restraint, he walked into the drawing room, Mulvey following. Nicholas’s eyes sought Elizabeth; she sat on the Queen Anne sofa between a white faced Owen and a frowning Aunt Beatrice.

Elizabeth appeared calm but pale. She still wore a soiled apron over her blouse and voluminous trousers. In her hands she absently turned a ball of clay. When she saw Nicholas, a small smile bloomed on her lips.

With total neglect of logic, his insides went as soft as pudding. He recalled her frightened face as she’d burst into the dining room and rushed to him, her hands clinging to his, her eyes large with alarm, her words halting and breathless. A fierce thrill sped through Nicholas. In her moment of need, she had come to him. Dare he hope her actions bespoke trust in him? That deep inside, she thought of him as more than simply a model ofphysical perfection?

Lady Beatrice aimed a glare at Mulvey. “Have you apprehended that vile man?”

The inspector shifted, clearly ill at ease with both the luxurious setting and the wrath of a gentlewoman. “Not yet, m’lady. My sergeant is in the kitchen, questioning the servants. Checking for anyone who might’ve seen the man —”

“Indeed,” Lady Beatrice said, her fine eyebrows arching. “Elizabeth saw the intruder. Or do you doubt her word?”