The Art of Sinning (27 page)

“That wasn't your fault.”

“Maybe not, but her death . . .” Unable to bear Yvette's pity, he faced the fireplace. “I failed her, don't you see? I failed her by not being there.”

She came over to place her hand on his arm. “Jeremy—”

“No!” He shook off her hand. “You don't understand. Father never wanted her to be my wife. Yet even knowing that, even realizing that her time was near, I still left her to his care. I
trusted
him. Because the work of the mills had to go on. So instead of staying with her, I let him convince me to go to a damned meeting in Philadelphia where everything was about money and how to make it!”

About commerce. He cringed. Oh, God, the painting fit that, too. How had he not seen it before?

“So I suppose you're right,” he continued in a low voice. “
Art Sacrificed to Commerce
probably is about her and him.”

“Or perhaps her and you,” she said in an aching voice. “It's you as the model, isn't it? Your mother said you looked like your father, but it goes beyond that. You blame him . . . and you blame yourself. So both of you wield the knife.”

“Enough,” he said in a ragged whisper. He felt bludgeoned by the truth, bludgeoned by the past.

“I'm sorry, Jeremy. I didn't say all that to make you feel worse. I just wanted to explain why you and I shouldn't—”

“Damn it, Yvette, you might be right about the painting's true purpose, but you're wrong about you and me.” He fixed her with his gaze. “I didn't use you to purge my grief. You've been the first real light in my life in years. The moment I saw you, I knew I wanted you. The painting was just an excuse to have you.”

Her eyes warmed, and she seized his hand. “Then prove it.”

That stopped him cold. “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

“Mend the rift with your family. Return to Montague and settle your affairs. Stop running.” When he tried to jerk his hand from hers, she clung tight to it, refusing to release it. “Because the only reason I can see for your not going home is your inability to get past the deaths of your wife and son. Unless you can do that, you're not ready to begin again with a new wife.”

His throat worked convulsively. “You don't know what you're asking of me.”

“I do. Facing the past is hard. But your father is dead now, and your mother and sister need you. They suffered along with you back then, though you probably couldn't see it. Let them help you grieve now and put it behind you at last. So you can go on.”

Struggling for breath, he slipped his hand from hers. “Is this a new requirement for our marriage?” he said curtly. “Even though you've already accepted my offer, you're imposing some new condition—”

“I didn't know all the facts then. And yes, now that I do, this is what I require.” A flash of pain darkened her gaze before she steadied her shoulders. “Because the truth is, Jeremy, I've fallen in love with you.”

The words stunned him, then crept through him like ivy seeking out cracks in the bricks he'd used to wall up his heart. She loved him. Even after everything she'd learned about his past, she
loved
him?

Her eyes filled with tears. “I thought I could marry you despite your not feeling the same, but I find that I cannot. If we're to have a life together, you can't always be running—from love, from the past . . . from me. My father ran from all the hard parts of marriage.” Her voice cracked. “I can't watch my husband do it, too. I just . . . can't.”

“I'm not sure if I can do what you ask,” he choked out.

“Then I don't see any way for us to wed,” she said mournfully. “Because marriage only works if the husband and wife can both look forward.”

A knock came at the door. Neither of them re­­sponded, but the door opened anyway to reveal his mother. “Oh. Forgive me. A servant came in to say that Lord Blakeborough is still waiting in his carriage for his sister.”

Yvette gave her a forced smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Keane. Please tell the servant I'll be there in a moment.”

His mother glanced from her to him and frowned, but she left.

“I have to go,” Yvette murmured.

“Don't.” He caught her hand. “I don't want you to go. Please don't go.”

Her expression conflicted, she kissed him on the cheek. “Take care of yourself. You know where to find me if you should change your mind.”

Then she walked out.

He stood there numb. Disbelieving. After all they'd meant to each other, all they'd shared, she'd broken their engagement. Or rather, she'd put a condition upon it that he could not meet.

Or could he? Was Yvette right?
Was
he running away from everything and everyone? If they married, would he eventually run away from her, too?

Art Sacrificed to Commerce
caught his eye, and he felt that horrible lurch again as he stared at the work. After all these years, what had pressed him to paint it?

Father's death, obviously. Jeremy had started
thinking about the painting shortly after the funeral. Working on it the past few weeks had obsessed him. Yet although he was generally a quick painter, this one hadn't come quickly.

He hadn't been able to get Yvette right, no matter how much he reworked her image. Was it because he'd wanted to make her into Hannah and hadn't yet succeeded?

No, he didn't think so.

“My, my, that is . . . very . . .”

He whirled to find his mother staring at the painting with widened eyes. She managed a weak smile. “I guess that answers the question that Lady Yvette kept avoiding—how you ended up engaged. Did her brother actually allow—”

“No.” Although Mother would never hurt Yvette's reputation, he ought to try to explain away the re­­semblance to Yvette, or otherwise hide the truth from her.

He just didn't have the heart for it anymore.

She cocked her head. “Is that your father?”

“No.” Jeremy speared a hand through his hair. “Yes. Well, both of us, really.”

His mother stood in silence, taking in the image. “It's not finished, I take it.”

“Not yet.” And he seemed to have lost all desire to complete it. What would be the point, now that he knew why it had consumed him so?

“What do you call it?”

“
Art Sacrificed to Commerce
.” He held his breath, waiting for her to make the inevitable connection.

“Ah. So it's about your father not letting you go to art school when you wanted.”

A maniacal urge to laugh rose up in him. Mother had never been very deep. “That's not what Yvette says. She says it's about Hannah, about my guilt over her death. Amanda told her some nonsense about how she looks like my late wife.”

“Well, that's absurd. Your fiancée looks nothing like your late wife.” She snorted. “Amanda never was very observant when it came to people. I hope she didn't upset Lady Yvette too much.”

A lump stuck in his throat. “As a matter of fact, my fiancée doesn't want to
be
my fiancée anymore. She's convinced that I haven't let go of the past. She says that marriage isn't for those who are still living past tragedies.”

“Ah.”

When she said nothing more, he slanted a glance at her. For the first time, he realized how old his mother was getting. She was still in her late fifties, but gray had finally begun to overtake the auburn in her hair, and time had etched lines in her face where there had been none before. Had all this happened in just eight months?

Your mother and sister need you. They suffered along with you back then, though you probably couldn't see it. Let them help you grieve now and put it behind you at last. So you can go on.

“Why didn't you stop him?” The question he'd always wanted to ask burst out, and he realized that if there had been any rift between Mother and him, it was this. That she hadn't prevented Hannah's death.

When Mother paled, he said, “Forgive me. I know you don't like to speak of it, but surely
you
didn't
think Father's choice was right—to save the babe over my wife.”

She began to tremble. “Must we talk about this?”

“I think we must. If I'm to lose the woman I love over it, then let me at least—”

He halted as he heard himself. The woman he loved.

God, he was such a fool. He loved Yvette.

Of course he loved her. How could he not? She was his lodestone, drawing him in. Anchoring him to the world, to a reality outside his past. He'd been so convinced he couldn't or shouldn't or wouldn't fall in love that he'd refused to see the truth slapping him in the face.

He loved her. And if he wanted to get her back, if he wanted to make a life with her, he would have to change things.

His mother looked as if she might faint. Hastily he went to her side and urged her to sit on the settee opposite the sofa.

He sat next to her and took her hand, noting the blue veins that grew more prominent with each passing year. “I don't mean to upset you, Mother, and I don't ask this to accuse you of anything or blame you for anything. I just need to understand why you let him do it. Why you didn't stop it.”

She gripped his hand in hers. “Because I agreed with his choice.”

He gaped at her. Surely she hadn't said what he thought.

“You weren't there, Jeremy. She was in agony. Even at nine months along, she was such a frail thing, and pale as death besides. The doctor said she
probably wouldn't survive the birth anyway, even if we destroyed the child. He said that if he opened her up, we might still save the babe.” She thrust out her chin. “Your father gave the order, but I agreed with it. Perhaps I was wrong, but—”

“Why did you never tell me this?” he asked in a hollow voice.

“So you could cut
me
out of your life, too?” She swiped a tear angrily away. “You were both so stubborn, you and your father. He wanted to force you to his will, and you fought that with every ounce of your being. And after Hannah died, he blamed the doctor, you blamed him, and I knew better than to take a side.” Her words grew choked. “I didn't want to lose my only son. But I suppose I lost you anyway.”

“No,” he said earnestly. “Never. I love you, Mother. I just . . . couldn't bear to go back to Montague, to face the truth. That I should have been there.
I
should have made the choice.”

“If you had, it wouldn't have ended any differently, my dear boy. I never was able to make you accept it, but sometimes people just die, and there's not a damned thing we can do about it.”

She pulled his head down and kissed the top, as she'd done so many times when he was a boy, and he clutched her to him, fighting the tears stinging his eyes.

“I know your father was a hard man,” she whispered into his hair. “He never understood you, and he didn't know a blasted thing about how to talk to people without getting their backs up. But he didn't want Hannah dead, I swear. He just saw a chance to save his grandchild, and he took it.”

Jeremy's control crumbled. Gripping his mother tight, he gave way to his grief—for the wife no one had been able to save, for the baby that had never had a chance, for the years he had lost with the hard man who'd been his father.

Mother held him and murmured soothing nonsense, as if he were her little boy again. And he didn't care. There was something freeing about losing himself in the comfort of his mother's arms.

After a while he pulled away to find Mother crying, but she was smiling through her tears. She cupped his cheek tenderly. “Oh, my poor lad. You must leave it behind.”

“Yes.”

It was time to forget and forgive. He saw that now. Yvette was right: going on in the way he'd been was impossible. He wasn't even sure he was capable of it anymore. These past few weeks had changed him.
She
had changed him.

Mother sniffled, and he drew out a handkerchief for her. With a tremulous smile, she took it. “What will you do about your Yvette?”

His
Yvette. He liked the sound of that. “Whatever I must to get her back. Because I can't bear to be without her.”

Then prove it.

He brushed a kiss to his mother's cheek, then rose to stare critically at his painting. Maybe it was time to head in a new direction. And how better to start than with this?

Twenty-Seven

Ever since Yvette and Edwin had driven away from the town house, she'd struggled to hide her feelings. But it was hard not to keep thinking about the shock on Jeremy's face when she'd interpreted his painting the way she saw it.

How could he have been so blind to it? Had he been entirely unaware of the stake he kept twisting in his heart? He had to have known it was there.

Well, thanks to her, he couldn't ignore it now. And she wasn't sure that pointing it out to him had been a kindness. Sometimes one had to lie to oneself in order to endure pain.

Except that he'd been lying to himself, or hiding from himself, for years and years. Wasn't it time to put that aside? Or had she been asking too much to expect that? It was fine for her to say he should get past the deaths of his wife and son, but it couldn't be easy.

“You look upset,” Edwin said.

Lord. She really wasn't hiding her own pain very well if even Edwin had noticed it.

Although she couldn't bear the idea of exposing her torn-open heart to Edwin's critical perusal, she supposed she had to tell him what had happened. “Mr. Keane and I aren't getting married,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. “I decided that we wouldn't suit after all.”

He drew in a heavy breath, his face unreadable. “I see.”

“That's all you have to say?”

“Yes. Ultimately it's your choice, isn't it?”

“It is.”

Except that she could still hear Jeremy's words in her heart.
I don't want you to go. Please don't go.

It might be her choice, but she wasn't sure she'd made the right one. And judging from her brother's expression, he wondered the same thing. “You think it's the wrong choice,” she accused him.

“Don't put words in my mouth,” he said stiffly.

With her confrontation of Jeremy still ringing in her ears, that got her dander up. “You think I'm too particular.”

“Certainly not.”

“Well, then, you think I'm too contentious to find a husband.”

“I think you're too afraid.”

She froze. “Of what?”

“Of making the wrong choice again. The way you did with Ruston.”

Her heart faltered. Edwin was supposed to be unaware that she'd
ever
made a choice about the lieutenant. Unless . . .

Oh, Lord, Jeremy had been closeted alone with Edwin for some time yesterday morning, according
to the servants. “Jeremy told you about Lieutenant Ruston.”

“No.” He drummed his fingers nervously on his knee. “I knew all along.”

She caught her breath. “About the blackmail? About my garter?”

“All of it. From the beginning.”

The soft words fell into the stillness of the carriage like a stone into a pond, rippling the surface of their relationship in ever-widening waves.

Remembering that Jeremy had suggested something of the sort, she clenched her hands together in her lap. “How?”

He glanced away. “The day it happened, I caught . . . Ruston in town preparing for your elopement.”

She raised an eyebrow. He was lying. She could tell because he was awful at it. Always had been. “I see. And Lieutenant Ruston simply told you all about the blackmail when you encountered him?”

Her brother began to rub the back of his neck. “I . . . um . . . well . . .”

Wait a minute. “
Samuel
was the one who told you, wasn't he?” She should have realized Samuel wouldn't have been able to handle the matter alone. “He told you so you would fix things.”

Edwin's startled glance sent a chill down her spine. “Right. Exactly. Samuel told me, and I stepped in to fix things.”

Her eyes narrowed. If that were the case, why not tell her about it all those years ago? Why let Samuel get the credit for saving her? For that matter, why make up some nonsense about catching the lieutenant in town?

A pounding began in her temples. “It wasn't Lieutenant Ruston you encountered, was it? It was Samuel. He was in on the lieutenant's plan from the beginning.”

Edwin muttered a curse under his breath, and her heart clenched inside her chest. All this time she'd clung to the memory of Samuel as he'd been in his youth—her wild and fun brother—but that brother also didn't care about anyone but himself. He certainly hadn't cared about her. Not the way she'd cared about him.

She choked down tears. “Oh, Edwin,” she said sadly. What a fool she'd been to believe Samuel. She should have realized that Edwin had caught Ruston and taken care of the situation. Then hidden it from her. “Why not just tell me?”

His eyes were solemn. “I didn't want you to know that he would betray you like that. Bad enough that Ruston had broken your heart. I couldn't stand to let Samuel break it, too.”

Touched to the depths of her soul, she reached across the carriage to clasp his hands. “That is quite possibly the dearest thing you've ever said to me. Or done for me.” She fought back her tears, knowing they would only upset him more. “I know it's long overdue, but thank you. For looking after me, and trying to protect me from being hurt.”

He flushed a deep scarlet. “What are brothers for?”

Clearly not
all
brothers, but
he
certainly was. Thinking of Samuel reminded her of where they were headed. “And thank you for stepping in to save little Elias, too. I know you didn't have to.”

His expression hardened a bit. “You're damned right I didn't have to,” he grumbled, but now she knew that his gruff manner was mostly for show.

She should have realized it before. He'd always been a decent sort; she'd just been too busy balancing the chip on her shoulder to notice.

With another squeeze of his hands, she sat back. “Why did you decide to tell me about Samuel's betrayal today, of all days? Did something happen at Miss Moreton's?”

“Yes. But that's not why. Keane has been urging me to do so ever since I told him the truth yesterday.” He fixed her with an earnest gaze. “I don't want you fearing that Keane is just another Ruston. Because I honestly think he's not. I believed the rumors at first, but now I don't think they're entirely true. He's a better man than he's willing to let anyone know.”

“I'm fully aware of that. And that has nothing to do with why I broke with him.”

When he looked expectantly at her, she realized how very much he cared about her. And how little faith she'd put in him heretofore. She'd been as bad with Edwin as Jeremy had been with his family—closing him out, not revealing the doubts of her heart.

Perhaps it was time she told him what she could. If nothing else came of her two-day engagement to Jeremy, at least she could make sure she held on to the one good thing to come out of it: a better relationship with her brother.

With that decision made, she began to explain about Jeremy.

The rest of the day passed in a daze for Yvette. The meeting with Meredith, who'd readily agreed to take Elias. The interminable trip home to Stoke Towers. The lonely dinner with Edwin that reminded her she was supposed to have been celebrating her engagement tonight with Jeremy and his family. All of it felt otherworldly, as if it existed on one plane and she on another.

How would she go on if he couldn't change? Was it even right of her to ask him to?

Yes. She knew herself too well to believe she could marry a man who still had one foot in his old pain. Who, as his sister had put it, had “been shattered—may always be shattered—by the past.”

But oh, how it hurt. Going to bed was a pointless ritual; it wasn't as if she could sleep. She still smelled him on her nightdress. Though it wasn't their lovemaking that she kept dwelling on.

It was the other things—how he'd listened to her tale about the lieutenant without judging, how he'd persisted in wanting to marry her because he'd ruined her . . . how he'd held her and complimented her and confirmed what she'd wanted to believe—that she was a woman worthy of a decent husband. One who genuinely cared about her.

By the time she fell into a fitful sleep, it was nearly dawn. When she awoke, the noonday sun was streaming through her windows.

For a moment, she considered just lying there all day. She couldn't cry any more; there were no tears
left. But she could wallow in her misery, in the pain of having a blade lodged in her heart.

Like the blade in Jeremy's cursed painting, it held untold torment. She stared sullenly at the ceiling. Perhaps
that
was why he'd painted the image, as a prediction of how he was plotting to stab her through the heart.

She sighed. A self-pitying bit of nonsense if she'd ever heard one.

What was she doing? Trying to turn herself into Edwin? That would accomplish nothing. Better to keep busy, to do something useful to keep her mind off the pain.

She got up.

Some hours later, she was dutifully putting sewing kits together in the drawing room when her butler entered. “Mr. Keane is here to see you, my lady.”

Just like that, the blade she'd been fighting to ignore sliced deep once again.

Curse him. No doubt he had come to try to convince her that none of it mattered. That they should marry anyway, because she was ruined
.
She couldn't go through this again. She would put an end to the agony once and for all.

“Show him in,” she said in her loftiest voice. Rising from her chair, she fought the urge to look in the mirror over the fireplace. She knew what she'd see—a haggard woman in an old gown, whose hair barely looked presentable.

She didn't even care. Especially once she caught sight of
him.

Jeremy looked even worse than she. Although his
unruly tumble of blond curls somewhat enhanced his appeal, his bloodshot eyes and drawn face did not. Had he spent the night drinking? He certainly looked it.

She fought a twinge of sympathy until she saw the large box he held in his right hand. Oh no. Not the painting. If he was here to explain away what he'd depicted, she would toss him out on his ear, and his dratted canvas, too.

Better yet, she would tromp on it.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Keane,” she said, hoping she sounded calmer than she felt. “What brings you back to the wilds of Hertfordshire?”

“So formal already, sweetheart? I would have thought you'd take at least a week to revert to calling me Mr. Keane.”

The word
sweetheart
was all it took to crumble her defenses. “Please, Jeremy, don't toy with me. I can't bear it.”

He looked stricken. “I understand. Because I couldn't bear being away from you, not for one night, even knowing it was necessary.”

Her throat felt tight and raw. “Necessary?”

“You asked me to prove that I had gotten past the deaths of my wife and son. So that's why I'm here. To offer my proofs.”

All she could do was gape at him.

He laid a sheaf of papers on the table. “Here's my contract with Amanda, selling her my half of the mills. We practically had to beat the lawyers about the head and shoulders to get them to write it up so quickly, but they managed it.”

She stared at the contract. “That only proves you've got out from under the mills at last, which
is exactly what you wanted anyway.” She lifted a bewildered gaze to him. “Although Amanda said your mother had some say in it and had refused to sign the papers unless you came back to Montague to settle other affairs.”

“Yes.” He moved closer. “Which is why my mother and sister and I are leaving for Philadelphia in a few months.” His gaze burned into hers. “After you and I wed.”

Her blood began to pound in spite of her caution. “Assuming that we do.”

He flinched. “Yes.”

“And you're really planning to return to America.”

“For a visit, yes. And I'd like you to go with me.” His voice turned husky. “I want to welcome you to my home. To introduce you to the other members of my family. I want you to see that I truly
have
put the past behind me.”

Hope had begun to replace the blade in her heart, but she was afraid to embrace it entirely. “Is it safe to assume that you've mended the rift with your mother?”

A soft smile crossed his features. “Considering that she ordered me to carry you triumphantly back to London, I think it's safe to assume that I have.” His eyes turned serious once more. “I have much to tell you, my love, but before I do, I have to show you something.”

She was still reeling from the words
my love
when he set the box on the table and opened it.

As he lifted it, she began, “Jeremy, I don't want to . . .”

Then she saw the painting, and her mouth dropped open.

He'd repainted whole parts of it. It had clearly been hastily done, but the changes were still quite obvious. He'd turned the figure of his father back into himself, and instead of holding aloft a knife dripping blood, he gripped the post of a tester bed, which was what he'd turned the banker's counter into.