Scandalous Brides Read online

  Nicholas nodded, and placed the papers carefully inside his jacket. “I will see to it at once.”

  “You should be warned,” Elizabeth added, “that Signor Visconti is a dreadful old miser. He would rather crawl on broken glass than part with a single sou.”

  “He is also an old lecher,” interjected Georgina. “He pinched my backside at a ball last month, and I could not sit for a full day!”

  Nicholas laughed. “Do not fear, fair ladies! I am certain I can deal very effectively with both the miser and the lecher.”

  “Well,” said Elizabeth, “I shall certainly be eternally grateful if you do.”

  Nicholas merely smiled.

  Elizabeth was acutely conscious of Nicholas hovering at her shoulder, watching her as she painted, for several long moments before she lowered the brush and turned to face him.

  Her hand was trembling far too much, and the leaves on the sun-drenched trees of the canvas were beginning to look rain-hazy.

  “Yes?” she said, trying not to appear too calf-eyed as she looked up at him.

  “That is a lovely portrait,” he answered. “It is almost complete?”

  “Yes.” Elizabeth eyed the little girl’s likeness proudly. It was indeed some of her finest work yet. The child’s mischief shone in the glowing colors. “Fortunately. Beatrice is a beautiful girl, but I do not think she is destined to be an artist’s model. She is rather...”

  “Hoydenish?”

  “No!” Elizabeth laughed. “I believe ‘spirited’ was the word I wanted, but hoydenish is even more accurate. This portrait would have been finished a fortnight ago if she had not been up and into mischief every five minutes.”

  “If her doting mama had disciplined her, instead of sitting in the corner eating bonbons...”

  Elizabeth nodded wryly at the memory of Signora Farinelli’s complete ineffectiveness. “I suppose, however, that it is a fond mama’s way to be indulgent. Perhaps even overindulgent at times.”

  Nicholas’s handsome face hardened, and he turned away. “Some mamas, perhaps.”

  Elizabeth’s curiosity was piqued. “Yes. I know mine was, terribly. She let me wear party frocks all day long if I liked, and even let me drink from her wineglass at supper.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Yes. I was such a horrid brat.” She wiped her hands on a rag and went to stand beside him, watching as he rifled through a pile of her sketches. “What was your mama like?”

  He did not look up. “My mama?”

  “Yes. Come now, you must have had one. I have serious doubts you sprang from your father’s head fully grown, like Athena, and I am long past the age where I will be placated by stories of cabbage patches and storks.”

  That finally won a reluctant smile from him. “Yes, I had a mama, for whatever she was worth. She was not very much at home.”

  “Oh.” Elizabeth sighed sympathetically. “And I suppose you were sent off to a school very young, too.”

  “Oh, yes. A horrid school where they beat us with birch branches and forced us to take cold baths.”

  Elizabeth glanced suspiciously at the dimple that had appeared in his cheek. “I do believe you are telling me a Banbury tale, Nicholas!”

  “Indeed I am. There were only ever warm baths at my school.”

  She sat down on the red velvet chaise she used for models, and drew him down beside her. “What school did you go to?”

  “Not one you ever would have heard of.”

  Elizabeth did not hear the evasive tone in his voice at all. She was far too busy admiring how good his dark hair looked against the red velvet, and how very beautiful his long-fingered hands were. With his hair falling in waves to his shoulders he looked like some pagan god of old. Dionysus at the feast.

  How she wanted to paint him! She would place him in some ancient ruins, wearing only a coronet of laurel leaves....

  A giggle escaped before she could catch it.

  “Is there something amusing?” he asked.

  “No! No, I merely, well, um.”

  “What is it, Elizabeth?”

  “Have you ever had your portrait painted, Nicholas?”

  “You asked me that the night we met.”

  “Yes, but we were... interrupted, before you could answer.”

  “Well, I have not. Except once in miniature.”

  “For a girl who waited while you went away to war?” A jealous pang pierced her heart.

  His dimple froze, and disappeared. “What makes you think I was at war?”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “That is usually the purpose of a miniature, in these times. And I have thought that you have something of the bearing of a soldier, even if you never sit up straight. And there is your scar.”

  She prodded at his slouched shoulders, and he immediately shot up poker-straight.

  “Yes,” he said, “I was at war. But that was a very long time ago, and I have applied myself most diligently to forgetting it.”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  They fell silent, listening to the sounds from the street and Bianca singing in the next room. Elizabeth was all-too conscious of the sound of his breathing, of the warmth of his leg against hers. She imagined reaching her hand out to him, touching the silky fall of his hair, pressing her lips to the dimple in his cheek....

  She leaped up from the chaise.

  “I ... I just remembered an ... an appointment.” She gasped, not looking at him. “Very important. I must be going right away.”

  He stood up next to her, the sketches he had been looking at still in his hand. “I wanted to speak to you about the accounts.”

  “Yes, but I simply cannot now. I ... I have to go!” She turned on her heel and whirled out of the room.

  Nicholas watched her go, a bemused expression on his face.

  “I asked Nicholas to accompany us to the opera, Lizzie.”

  Elizabeth paused in brushing the snarls from her black hair to turn and look at Georgina. Her friend was lounging on Elizabeth’s bed, already dressed in her gown of gold tissue over bronze-colored satin, and eating chocolates.

  “You did what?” Elizabeth said, her brow raised. “You asked him to go with us to the opera? But Stephen is escorting us! After the other day...”

  Georgina kicked her bronze satin shoes in delight. “Wasn’t it glorious, dear? Two men fighting over you, in our very own drawing room. It is just too bad you had to break it up like that, ruining the carpet with all that water.”

  Elizabeth tugged harder at the brush, yanking out several knots of hair in the process. “They smashed up two chairs, Georgie! And they are not even our chairs to break.”

  “Oh, pooh! They seem great friends now, Lizzie. Did you not see them talking at Lady Lonsdale’s tea this afternoon? I only hope they can sober up enough to get us to the opera in one piece.” Georgina slid off the bed and came to take over the brushing. “Here, let me do that or you will soon be quite bald, and that would never do. Not with the dashing Nicholas about.”

  Elizabeth smiled faintly, soothed by the hypnotic glide of the brush through her hair. “He is handsome, is he not?”

  “Mais oui! I knew he would be perfect for you.”

  “Um-hm.” Elizabeth couldn’t help teasing just a bit. “He is going to straighten out accounts for me. Very useful.”

  “Pah! Lizzie, if you think all a man like that is useful for is accounts then you do not deserve him. I have half a mind to steal him from you.”

  “Georgie!”

  “I am only teasing, dear! He obviously belongs with you. I couldn’t turn those marvelous dark eyes away from you if I ran through the Piazza San Marco in my chemise.” Georgina laughed, and deftly twisted Elizabeth’s hair up with black and silver ribbons. “Now, what will you wear?”

  “That.” Elizabeth threw off her dressing gown and picked up the black velvet and satin gown laid out on the bed.

  Georgina clapped her hands. “Perfect! He will absolutely swoon when he sees you in that.”

  T
he black gown was quite the most daring thing Elizabeth had ever owned, bought on a whim in Rome and never worn. Transparent black tulle formed the long sleeves and draped at the décolletage, which dipped across the very rim of her bosom. If she were to so much as shrug, all her secrets would be revealed. It was as black and soft as the best kind of sin.

  It was quite the gown a “scandalous artiste” would wear. And it was absolutely perfect for a gardenia-scented night in Venice.

  Elizabeth had barely stepped into her black velvet shoes when a slightly off-key rendition of “Plaisirs d’amour” floated up through the half-open window.

  Giggling, Georgina and Elizabeth threw open the casement and leaned out to see Nicholas and Stephen balanced precariously in a gondola, evening capes thrown back to facilitate their serenade. Nicholas held aloft a bottle of fine brandy in one hand, while the other held Stephen back from falling into the canal headfirst.

  “What are you doing?” Elizabeth called. “I would wager some gondolier has reported his vessel stolen tonight!”

  “Oh, lady fair!” Nicholas answered. “I assure you that your chariot was most honestly come by! And your loyal charioteers await your bidding.”

  Elizabeth laughed down helplessly as his white grin lit up the night.

  She had never, ever felt so giddy, so reckless, so wonderful in all her life as she did this instant. An evening of revels ahead of her, a handsome man waiting to be her escort, and the most beautiful gown ever created on her back. She did not need a gondola—she could fly.

  Nicholas did almost swoon when he glimpsed Elizabeth in her black gown. Black was supposedly only for mourning, but on her it gained a new life.

  She leaned forward from the window, her creamy bosom spilling from the bodice, and he very nearly pitched into the canal right beside the already-tipsy Stephen. She was all black and white, perfect elegance against the gray-pink stones of the house. She wore no jewels around her throat or in her ears, and only ribbons threaded through her hair, yet she shone.

  During the long years in Spain, the months of waiting, he had harbored a secret fantasy, one he could never have shared with his carousing friends, or even with Peter. He had dreamed of a woman, an Englishwoman, soft and sweet-scented and wide-eyed, who had smiled a secret, gentle smile only for him. He had dreamed of sharing laughter with this woman, of dancing with her under an English moon, of a gaiety untinged with desperation. This dream had kept him going when all seemed covered by dust and death.

  Perhaps, when he had gone ceaselessly from party to party after his return from the war he had been only seeking this dream woman. He had looked for her among English duchesses and English whores.

  Yet he had had to travel to another land, to a place completely different from the England he knew, to a place of contradiction and enchantment, to find this dream. To see, in one fleeting moment, the truth of himself in the silver eyes of a woman who was as complex, as un-English, as Venice itself. Elizabeth Everdean was not at all what he had bargained for when he embarked from England on this wild chase.

  She was certainly no milk-and-water miss, who would be easily led.

  And then the brief flash of ... something was gone, as a whiff of incense on the breeze. Elizabeth waved down at him then withdrew, shutting the window behind her. He was once again just a crippled bastard Englishman, alone in a foreign city and playing a role that he sensed could quickly become most irksome.

  Elizabeth, magical Elizabeth, was going to hate him so.

  “I hope you have saved some of that brandy!” she cried gaily, emerging from the house engulfed in a black velvet cloak, her features hidden with a white half-mask.

  “You are late.” Stephen hiccoughed. But the hand he held out to assist her was steady enough.

  “Pooh! The opera has not even started yet. And who arrives on time in Venice?” Georgina answered him. She leaped aboard in a flurry of spangled skirts, nearly capsizing them all. “Now, hand me that bottle, and row, mes amis!”

  Nicholas obeyed in silence, dipping his pole into water that now seemed as black and bitter as his own heart, and sent them off into the laughter-soaked night.

  “Are you not enjoying the opera?” Elizabeth nudged her elbow into Nicholas’s side, bringing his gaze from the stage where The Coronation of Poppea was being played out.

  Things were becoming just the merest bit fuzzy around the edges from the two thimblefuls of brandy she had drunk, but even so she could see that he was troubled by something. There was a disturbing flatness to his eyes, a stillness about him when he always seemed to be in restless motion. At first she had feared that he disapproved of her, considered her the veriest hoyden in her daring gown and her brandy drinking.

  It was more than that, though. He was acting just a bit like Peter had, when he had returned from the war so silent and searching... and haunted.

  She gave Nicholas her sunniest smile, and leaned gently against his shoulder. It was a lovely night, and she was bedamned if she was going to allow a man’s dark mood to ruin it! “I can see you do not,” she whispered. “But never fear, Mr. Carter. We shall go on to the Princessa Santorini’s ball after, and it is certain to be livelier. I have heard she is to have living statues, naked and painted white. I intend to do a great deal of sketching while we are there.”

  A faint but promising gleam broke through the opaqueness of his eyes. He raised her gloveless fingers to his warm lips and kissed them, one by one. “This morning you called me Nicholas. And I am not entirely sure you could even hold a drawing pencil. That brandy was very potent.”

  Elizabeth sighed at the delicious feelings invoked by the touch of his lips. “Are you implying that I, a lady, am foxed... Nicholas?”

  “Not a bit. No one could ever be drunk from the miniscule amount you had. A little... happy, mayhap.”

  “Hmm.” I could be drunk on you, she thought with a small smile. He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, and she propped her chin on his shoulder. The feel of his soft hair against her cheek was absolute heaven. Deeply content, Elizabeth closed her eyes and listened to the music.

  And reflected that never, if she had stayed in England and married into the ton as her brother wished, would she be allowed to behave so.

  Suddenly, the music was interrupted by a brawl forming at the back of their box.

  Georgina and Stephen had procured a bottle of champagne somewhere, and had begun the princessa’s ball a bit early by steadily draining it. Now they were quarreling in fierce whispers.

  Eventually Georgina lost her temper completely and actually pushed Stephen so hard he fell off his gilded chair with a resounding crash. Scandalized opera glasses turned in their direction, and even Nicholas was startled out of his sophistication enough to gape at them.

  “It appears your suitor is being murdered by your sister,” he murmured.

  “Indeed.” Elizabeth didn’t even raise her head from his shoulder. “Georgie is my dearest friend in all the world, but at times she can be a bit, well, odd. I should absolutely know better than to take them about in public together. Something untoward always happens—a fire, a flood, a plague of locusts.” She lifted one finger to his jaw and turned his eyes back to the stage. “Simply ignore them, and they will cease to make a spectacle of themselves.”

  The furor was indeed already dying down. Georgina had stopped giggling behind her fan, and helped Stephen to once again sit upright in his chair. He pretended to study the program.

  Nicholas once again wondered just what he had embroiled himself in, getting involved with artists. Quarrels at the opera, maids dressed in bedsheets, what could happen next? His London friends were not precisely high sticklers for the proprieties, but this was something new again.

  And, once again, something fascinating.

  “I do think they might have shared that champagne with us,” Elizabeth whispered. She kicked at the empty bottle that had rolled beneath her chair. “It would have been the polite thing to do.”

  “Shall
I go fetch you some?” he asked.

  Elizabeth considered, weighing the empty bottle at her feet against the warmth of his shoulder beneath her cheek. She decided she should have both. “Only if you will agree to share it with me.”

  He pressed a quick kiss into her palm, and stood. “I will return soon. Do not move, and do not get into trouble.”

  She laughed aloud, unmindful of the stares being directed once more at their box. “I will not, Nanny.”

  Somehow, Nicholas could not quite believe the angelic smile on her face.

  “Nicky! Yoo-hoo, Nicky!”

  Nicholas groaned at the sound of that silver-bell voice, light tones straight from the deepest reaches of his nightmares. He would have fled into the crowd flowing in and out of the opera house if heavily be-jeweled fingers had not already latched onto his arm.

  “It is you, Nicky!” Lady Evelyn Deake’s violet eyes sparkled up at him from under darkened lashes. Her smile, carefully bright, was so brittle Nicholas almost expected her powdered cheeks to crack beneath it.

  Long ago, when Nicholas had been newly home from Spain and feeling quite the monster with the red wound on his cheek and his stiff leg, Evelyn had briefly been his mistress.

  He had been overly eager for a woman.

  This was not at all a good thing. In point of fact, it was the very thing he had feared most, to encounter someone who had known him in London, before he could even decide what to do about Elizabeth. Though he should have realized it was a distinct possibility, with all the English who were flocking abroad.

  But Evelyn Deake, of all people!

  “Darling!” she cooed, smoothing back her golden ringlets. “I should have known it was you when I heard that someone was cavorting with those scandalous women artists. It is just your style!”

  Nicholas debated pretending that he did not know Evelyn, that he had never heard of anyone called Nicholas, that he was Luigi and spoke no English. Yet even as the desperate thought flitted through his mind he dismissed it. He deeply regretted his long-ago, brief liaison with Evelyn, for now she knew him far too well to be put off by such flimsy deceptions. It would have to be a very good lie indeed to get past her.