An Invitation to Sin

by Suzanne Enoch

Joanna stomped her slippered foot. “But we were to have a picnic today.”

  Not trusting herself to say anything at all, Caroline turned on her heel. She hurried upstairs to the conservatory and slammed the door closed behind her.

  “Damnation,” she sputtered. “Damn, damn, damn.”

  And then she saw the dog.

  Harold scrambled around in the corner, ripping apart several pieces of paper. Automatically her gaze went to her sketching stool. Her pad was gone.

  “No!” she shrieked, storming forward to grab the shredded papers away from the dog.

  With a whimper he backed away, his tail tucked between his legs.

  Trembling, Caroline looked through the mangled pages. Bits of Zachary were now obscured by tooth marks and dog slobber, while other pieces were missing entirely. Her favorite sketch, the one of a bare-chested Zachary, was in six pieces, though she could only find four of them. With a heavy, shaking breath, Caroline sank to the floor.

  “Oh no, oh no,” she muttered, tears spilling from her eyes and onto what remained of the sketch pad.

  Harold padded hesitantly up to her. Angry as she was, she’d seen the poor, scant level of the puppy’s instruction, and she wasn’t about to blame him for the disaster. No, she knew precisely who to blame for this.

  Not only had Zachary thrown her painting schedule into disarray simply because someone had invited him some-where and he’d been too polite and amiable to decline, but now, because of his lack of attention toward his dog, better than a week’s worth of sketches were rendered unusable. She’d spent days on what amounted to nothing. Days she couldn’t spare and couldn’t ever get back.

  This was too much. She was finished with only telling half her thoughts to Zachary Griffin. He was going to hear precisely what she thought of him—and if he didn’t like it, he could go to the devil. He could go there, anyway. With her sisters’ stupid schedule she would never have enough time to begin again.

  With a half sob, she crawled over to her thankfully untouched stack of other sketches. At this point she would have to be happy with painting Lord and Lady Eades as Adam and Eve, if they would agree to sit for her. They probably wouldn’t, but devastated as she was, she still couldn’t make herself give up hope yet. Hope was all she had left now.

  Zachary jumped down from the wagon as a groom appeared to take the horses. The two servants who’d accompanied them pulled the baskets of caught trout down from the wagon bed and hurried them into the kitchen.

  “As I said before, you are a fine fisherman, Zachary.”

  “Second to you, Edmund,” Zachary returned with a grin, stepping back as Mr. Witfeld climbed to the ground. “That reeling-in device of yours is remarkable.”

  “Ha, ha. A compensation for a severe lack of patience, and in consideration of the fact that I have well over two dozen mouths to feed.”

  Even with the basket of trout they’d left off with Frank Anderton in the village, the three of them had caught enough fish to feed two families the size of the Witfeld brood, servants included. Even if he hadn’t caught a single fish, though, Zachary would have considered the outing worthwhile. No chits, no questions about his matrimonial inclinations or intentions—what a relief.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I’d best look in on my aunt. Thank you again for inviting me along.”

  “My pleasure, Zachary.”

  After his aunt, he would have a chat with Caroline, too, where he intended to make his point about flat portraits versus fully realized flesh-and-blood men. In addition he probably needed to cancel whatever appointment with a Witfeld girl he might have remaining for the day. He badly needed a bath.

  The house, though, seemed eerily quiet and empty as he entered. Not even the ever-lurking Barling was about. Making his way upstairs, he knocked on his aunt’s bedchamber door. “Aunt Tremaine?”

  “Come in,” she called, and he opened the door.

  “Where is everyone?” he asked, taking in the cup of tea at his aunt’s elbow and the borrowed poetry book across her knees as she sat in the overstuffed chair beneath the window.

  “Sally’s closeted with Barling the butler going over plans for the ball, and six of the girls went into Trowbridge.”

  Six. “I’d best see to Miss Witfeld, then. I believe we were moving up to using paint today.”

  “Caro’s not here, either. I believe she went for a walk.”

  Zachary lifted an eyebrow. “Really?” Focused on his portrait as she was, he couldn’t imagine her leaving the house voluntarily. “Good. I’m going to change and have a bath, then, I think.” He offered her a smile. “And I hope you’re hungry for trout.”

  She lifted the book again. “And I hope you’re still hungry by the time dinner has been prepared.”

  Halfway to the door, he stopped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I suppose you’ll find out. Or not.”

  “That’s helpful.”

  Aunt Tremaine turned a page. “It’s not meant to be.”

  Females. He would have been better off if he’d stayed out fishing. At least and despite his aunt he apparently had another hour or two until the horde returned.

  Once the footmen had brought the bathtub to his bedchamber and filled it, Zachary shed his mud-and-fish-covered clothes and sank into the hot water. He sighed, closing his eyes and sinking all the way under, then slowly rose again just far enough that he could breathe. This was bliss.

  “Comfortable?”

  His eyes flew open. “Christ,” he growled, grabbing for a towel and pulling it into the water to cover his hips. “What the devil are you doing in here?”

  Caroline’s gaze was steady on his face, but her color was high enough that a moment ago she’d been looking elsewhere. “We had an appointment this morning,” she said, her voice steady, whatever she’d been staring at.

  “Your father invited me to go fishing,” he returned, refusing to feel at a disadvantage just because he was sitting naked in a bathtub.

  “You might have told him that you had a prior engagement.” She folded her arms across her pert bosom.

  “You seemed only to require my parts, and you had them in your sketchbook. The rest of me wanted to go fishing.”

  “My sketchbook. I see. Unfortunately, today I required your parts all attached together.”

  Obviously she still didn’t understand the point he was attempting to make. “You indicated that you had a week to box me up and send me to Vienna. As I said, I’m not going anywhere, Miss Witfeld. Have you—”

  “I understood your meaning,” she interrupted. “And I apologize if I’ve offended your sensibilities or affected your sense of self-worth.”

  Now she was making him sound like some kind of spoiled brat. Zachary stood, wrapping the wet towel around his hips. “That’s not what my objection was about.”

  “Nevertheless, I would like you to hear my objections.”

  “If you can’t wait until I dress, then please proceed.”

  Caroline took a step backward as he emerged, dripping, from the bathtub. “Stay where you are, sir!” she ordered, not sounding the least bit tantalized by his near naked self. “I understand you wanting a holiday away from us. I wish you’d waited another few days before you took it, but I understand. And I understand that once anyone suggests something interesting or amusing to you, you’re incapable of resisting the temptation.”

  “I am not some half-wit infant, Caro—”

  “Then why do you behave like one, Zachary? I needed your help. I asked for your help. I want to paint. I want to make it my livelihood. Lord and Lady Eades want me to be their governess and teach their children to paint. I would slice my own throat before I succumbed to a lifetime of that drudgery.”

  “Then allow me to dress, and I’ll sit for you right now,” he returned, the depth of her anger taking him by surprise. He’d only been gone a few hours, after all.

  “I can’t paint now, because I’ve lost the light. And I couldn’t do it anyway, because y
our…dog destroyed every sketch I made of you.”

  His heart stopped. “He what?”

  A tear ran down one smooth cheek. “I went looking for you, since you didn’t bother to inform me that you’d made other plans. When I went back upstairs, he was ripping…ripping my sketch pad to shreds.”

  Zachary took another step toward her, but she backed away again. “I’m so sorry, Caroline. I’ll send Harold back to Lon—”

  “I don’t blame Harold!” she exclaimed. “I blame you! You acquire a dog for God knows what reason, then decide you have better things to do than school it in proper behavior!” She flung a handful of crumpled, torn paper at him. “What did you expect?”

  What remained of his good humor vanished. “I apologized, Miss Witfeld. If there’s more I can do, let me know, and I’ll do it.”

  “That’s very nice, now that it’s too late. If you’d shown the least sense of responsibility, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  That was enough of that. “I’m not the one who decided to divide up my time and section me like an orange. How do you expect me to accomplish anything with Harold when all my time is accounted for by your family?”

  “If it wasn’t the Witfelds, it would be someone else. It’s never you, is it? You claim to have a goal to join the army, and yet here you sit on your backside doing what everybody else wishes. You can’t blame us for that.”

  “Your point being?” he bit out.

  “If you want to do something, then do it. Don’t claim to have a desire just so you sound like more than the waste of fresh air that you are.”

  “That is enough, Miss Witfeld.”

  “Caroline!” Edmund Witfeld skidded into the room, his wife, a handful of sisters, and the butler on his heels. The Trowbridge party had returned. “Remove yourself at once!”

  She kept her gaze steady on Zachary. “Go join the army, Lord Zachary. Do it now. At least then if you get killed, you’ll provide some useful fertilizer.”

  “Caroline!”

  With a last sniff she turned on her heel and stomped out of the room. Zachary stared after her, scarcely noticing the herd of stammering, apologetic Witfelds as they backed out of the doorway and left him in private. Once the door closed, he ripped off his towel and slammed the wet thing as hard as he could back into the bathtub. The resulting splash soaked the floor for ten feet around, but it did nothing to cool his temper.

  “Fertilizer?” Fertilizer? She had no idea what he wanted from life; how dare she criticize the way he went about achieving his goals. He hadn’t abandoned his army idea by any stretch. Doing a favor for Melbourne and for Aunt Tremaine didn’t mean he was some sort of mental butterfly. It only meant he was being polite and responsible. And as for Harold, they’d barely given him a second with the damned dog. What did she expect?

  He was not a waste of space, he was not without goals, and he was most definitely not fertilizer waiting to be put under the ground to grow cabbage or something. What he was, however, was leaving.

  Chapter 12

  Aunt Tremaine stood just outside the bedchamber door as Zachary slammed it open. “Good,” he snapped. “You’re here. Pack your things.”

  “I will not. You and Caroline apologize to one another, and we’ll all sit down to dinner like civilized p—”

  “Fine,” he interrupted, gesturing for his valet to hand over a saddlebag. “I’ll ride on ahead. I’ll meet you in Bath—or in London, if this trip was just a damned ruse.”

  “It was not a r—”

  “Then I’ll see you in Bath. Reed, follow with my things.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Harold!”

  The dog crawled out from under the bed and scrambled into the hallway. Zachary brushed past his aunt and thundered down the stairs, Harold at his heels and for once minding his master. The foyer was lined with Witfeld females, but he barely spared them a glance. Barling apparently realized he was about to have his front door brokendown, because the butler pulled the heavy oak open as Zachary reached it.

  “Saddle my horse,” he ordered as he reached the stable.

  “Mine, as well.”

  Zachary turned around to see Edmund Witfeld behind him. “That is not necessary, sir,” he said, anger clipping his words. “I thank you and Mrs. Witfeld for your hospitality. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m riding on to Bath.”

  “I’ll ride as far as Trowbridge with you.”

  Zachary gave a curt nod. “As you wish, then.”

  He paced, unwilling to stand still long enough for Witfeld to begin a conversation with him. He would rather it was Caroline standing there; he certainly had a few choice words for her. On the other hand, he was a Griffin, and Griffins were unfailingly polite—even when he’d been insulted in such a manner that it would have prompted pistols at dawn if it had been a male confronting him.

  Harold sat by the stable door and looked at him. Caroline had been right about one thing—the incident with the sketch pad hadn’t been the dog’s fault. It had been his.

  Finally a groom brought Sagramore up. Zachary slung his bag over the back of the saddle and tied it down, then swung up himself. If Witfeld was joining him, he could damned well hurry it up.

  Edmund caught up to him at the end of the drive, slowing from a gallop to a canter to match Sagramore’s brisk pace while Harold padded behind the two of them. “I know you don’t want to listen to anything I say, lad,” he began, “but there are things you don’t under—”

  “I understand quite well, thank you.”

  “I can’t afford to keep Caroline here past the end of the summer.”

  Zachary opened his mouth to retort, then closed it again. He couldn’t imagine not having enough money to keep his family intact, but then the Griffins were supremely fortunate by anyone’s standards. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said stiffly. “But I hardly think it’s any of my affair.”

  “She’s applied to twenty-seven academies and studios over the past three years. Tannberg is the only one to offer her a place—and that’s only if she passes the application process.”

  The application process he was supposed to have been helping her with. “It’s not as though I refused my assistance.”

  “She overreacted, I know, and I apologize on her be—”

  “Don’t,” Zachary cut in sharply.

  Witfeld drew a deep breath. “Very well, lad. If you don’t want to hear about her dilemmas, then let’s discuss yours.”

  “Mine?” Zachary glanced at him. “I don’t have a dilemma. I’m going to Bath, and if Aunt Tremaine doesn’t appear within the week I’m returning to London and purchasing my colors.” The hows and whys of that would have to be left to some time when he was thinking more clearly.

  “I did that, you know.”

  Zachary didn’t want to ask, but the words came grudgingly to his lips anyway. “Did what?”

  “Joined the army. Sally’s father told me if I wanted to marry her, I had to prove that I could support her. I married her in my regimentals.”

  “Romantic.”

  “I took what he said to heart, though. Her father. It wasn’t long before I was home just long enough to get her with child again, and then off I went to some other battle. The pay is better on active duty.”

  Zachary clenched his jaw and didn’t say anything. At this point he didn’t think he was supposed to do anything but absorb some wise words or other from someone who’d supposedly trodden all his paths before him. As if Mr. Edmund Witfeld had any idea what his life was like.

  “Then, after daughter number five, I took a ball in the leg. It was enough to get me sent back home. I couldn’t afford to support my family on half pay, so I had to sell my commission. I kept thinking if I’d been unmarried I could have lasted until my damned leg healed and gone out again.”

  “I’m sorry for your—”

  “I’m not finished,” Witfeld returned, with surprising force. “I hated being here, sitting among a clucking clutch of chick
s and hens while my former mates were still out there having their adventures. So I closed myself up in the conservatory to hide, and started inventing things. I thought if I could devise the right thing, it would pay my way out of Wiltshire. I built Greek ruins to imagine myself in another life. If I kept myself distracted enough, maybe I’d forget that I’d been denied the opportunity for greater glory and fame.”

  “And has it worked?”

  Edmund looked at the ground. “Well, what I finally began to realize was that I enjoyed what I was doing. The inventions, I mean. And when Caroline started coming up to the conservatory to paint, I also realized that I had a family. You should have seen her when she was twelve or thirteen. Even then, she would put some brush strokes on a canvas, and it became a flower. A damned flower, where when I did it, I had nothing but a mess. And I made her, as a distraction to keep me occupied while I was stuck in Wiltshire between deployments.”

  He cleared his throat. “My point being, I suppose, that I could have stayed a soldier and been dead now with some grand monument to my bravery. Or I could have seven daughters I adore despite their excessive silliness, and a chance to perhaps invent something that might be useful to them or their children.” Witfeld looked directly at Zachary. “So before you decide to run to some fleeting and deadly glory on the battlefield, do you really want to do what I did and waste twenty-two years before you realize what’s truly important?”

  It was clear now why Witfeld didn’t allow soldiers into his house. And it wasn’t for any reason his daughters would have imagined. “You’re a good father,” Zachary finally said.

  “I’m trying to be one now. For a very long time I was an abysmal father. And that is why I have five silly daughters, and two who have sense in spite of me. If I’d done right by them, I might have no silly daughters, and seven I would be proud to set against any educated, privileged young lady in Mayfair.”

  Damnation, Zachary knew what the next step was supposed to be. He was supposed to do his part in aiding the Witfeld daughters, one of the two who had sense, at any rate, and return to the manor to pose for Caroline. There was more to this conversation than that, however. More for him to think about. Because thanks to Edmund’s supplement to Caroline’s speech, Zachary had just realized that he more closely resembled a waiting bag of fertilizer than he cared to admit. While on some level he’d known already, now he had to face it. She was right, and Melbourne had been right. He had no real goals, just a desire to be someone other than the spare’s spare, the third Griffin brother.