An Invitation to Sin

by Suzanne Enoch

  At least the eldest Miss Witfeld knew what it was she wanted in life—and he’d apparently put himself in the position to deny it to her. Or to help her gain her dream. In a way, that felt more significant than any silliness he might be contemplating for himself. And he had some serious contemplating to do, though he preferred to do that at length and in private, and bloody well not while galloping along the road literally headed in the wrong direction.

  “Do you think the trout are ready?” he asked slowly.

  Witfeld made a poor effort to conceal his smile of relief. “I’m sure they will be by the time we return.”

  “Good. I’m hungry.”

  Caroline sat in the morning room and covered her ears with her hands. Even that, though, didn’t much help to lessen the cacophony around her. Her mother and at least three sisters were in hysterics, while Susan stood by the window sobbing. Anne yelled at Joanna and Julia to stop shrieking about losing their one hope for a happy future, while Grace kept repeating, “You called him fertilizer?” at the top of her lungs.

  As loud as it all was, the screeching was still quieter than what her mind shouted at herself. And covering her ears couldn’t block out any of that. Yes, perhaps she’d become overly focused on his parts rather than his person, but for goodness’ sake, what did he care? He’d already made it perfectly clear that he wanted to avoid any entanglements in Wiltshire. Oh, she probably could have flattered him more, made more of a fuss over the perfection of his features and his manly form. And no, she shouldn’t have called him fertilizer.

  How much of his careless, haphazard presence was she supposed to have tolerated, though? After he’d sworn he would help her, he’d gone fishing, of all things, and left his stupid dog behind to make matters even worse. And then he’d left altogether when she’d protested.

  Caroline shuddered. None of her plans or even her opinions of Zachary mattered now, because he was gone, and she had to convince Lord Eades to sit for her and to sign a letter of approval. She had more than a sneaking suspicion that he would hand over no such thing—encouraging the artistic ability of his son Theodore would be more important to him than aiding her. All he had to do was string her along for a week and then deny his approval, and for all intents and purposes she would belong to the Eades family.

  She was so stupid. Zachary should have been a learning experience; undoubtedly a great many nobles were as aimless as he was. If she couldn’t tolerate it in an otherwise charming, kind gentleman, she had no reason to think she could make her living among his kind.

  A tear ran down her cheek. Of course no one else noticed, because they were all too occupied with their own miseries. She felt like yelling herself, pointing out that none of them had had so much as a pin-point’s chance of netting Lord Zachary, but they wouldn’t listen. They didn’t want to hear it, and so they wouldn’t. She, however, had a stronger sense of reality. And what she’d begun to realize was that the moment she’d opened her mouth to yell at Zachary for his inconsideration, she’d irretrievably ruined her own life.

  “I said, enough!”

  Caroline didn’t know how many times her father had called for quiet, but she heard that one. So did the rest of the family. For a heartbeat the silence seemed louder than the yowling.

  “Mr. Witfeld,” her mother said tearfully, “I insist that Caroline be punished. Such an ungrateful girl! You can’t—”

  “Everyone go change for dinner. Be back down here in twenty minutes,” her father snapped, his usual easy manner vanished. “I do not want to hear another word spoken until then. Is that clear? Nod, don’t speak.”

  One by one everyone nodded.

  “And Caroline, join me in my office. Now.”

  He turned on his heel and vanished. Caroline followed, pretending to ignore the glares boring into her back. Nothing they could say or do could make her feel more hopeless than she already did.

  Her father stood beside his office door and gestured her to precede him. She stepped through the door, and he closed it behind her. Before she could wonder why he’d closed her in alone, Harold trotted up to lick her fingers. Startled, she lifted her head and spied the figure standing by the desk.

  “Lord…I…Zachary, I…”

  “If you sketch tonight and begin your painting in the morning,” he said, unmoving, “will you complete it in time to meet your deadline?”

  Caroline couldn’t breathe. He was giving her another chance. She felt the blood leaving her face, and she still couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but keep repeating to herself that he’d come back.

  “Jesus,” he muttered, moving abruptly forward to help her into a chair. “Breathe, Caroline.” He patted her none too gently on the back, and air rattled into her lungs again. “Better?” he asked after a moment.

  “Yes, thank you,” she managed. “But I thought you were going to Bath.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been quite that angry before,” he said in a low monotone.

  “Then why…why—” She broke off. A tear plopped onto the back of her hand.

  Zachary shrugged. “I deserved a little of what you said.” He cleared his throat. “More than a little. And I don’t think I quite understood exactly how important my cooperation was to you. If I had, I wouldn’t have abused the privilege.”

  Despite his kind words, his voice didn’t have the relaxed drawl she’d become accustomed to hearing. He was probably still angry; she would be. She tried to tell herself that she had a reason to be angry, as well, but she was too busy feeling grateful and trying to remember to breathe. “I apologize for what I said. It was thoughtless and mean, and I should never—”

  “It was true, and you’ve given me some things to think about,” he said gruffly. “Leave it at that.” Stirring again, he made his way to the door. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

  “Yes. I…thank you, Zachary. Thank you so much.”

  His hand touched her shoulder as he passed by, and then he and Harold were gone.

  Caroline sat there for several minutes. Her thoughts refused to settle into anything cohesive, and mostly she just thanked God and her lucky stars for convincing Zachary Griffin to return. She’d certainly learned her lesson. From this moment on, she was going to remain polite, or remain silent. There wasn’t going to be a third chance.

  The door opened. “Everything settled?” her father asked, moving into her line of vision.

  “He said he would sit for the portrait,” she returned, still dazed. In the background the cacophony began again. Her sisters had discovered that Zachary had returned. And with that, another problem occurred to her. “I don’t have much time, Papa. With the sketch pad ruined, I have to do at least one more preliminary drawing before I put paint to canvas.” That was how it usually went, anyway. She would begin her painting based on a sketch. With Zachary, she’d felt she could draw him with her eyes closed, but the application was too important to risk by employing that questionable method.

  “If I’d known what you’d scheduled for today, I never would have invited Zachary fishing.” He sighed. “I tend to think, though, that your argument was bound to happen, regardless.”

  “I should have thought before I spoke. It was unpardonable, and I hope I didn’t embarrass you.”

  “You spoke your mind. I’ve never found fault with your wits.”

  “What did you say to him, to convince him to return?”

  “That’s between him and me. Now. Which of your sisters made up that damned schedule for Zachary’s time?”

  “Anne.”

  “I’m revising it.”

  She looked over at him. “But—”

  “You get that portrait painted, Caro. If you fail, it won’t be because you didn’t have the opportunity to try.”

  “Thank you, Papa.”

  “Mm hm. Go and change.”

  The second conversation gave her time to recover her feet and her balance, and she hurried upstairs to do as he bid. She didn’t think there was an
emotion she hadn’t run through in the course of the day. Anticipation, anger, resignation, dread, frustration, fury, despondence, and suddenly hope.

  When she returned downstairs to the dining room, everyone else had already seated themselves. For a moment she thought she might have to face more accusations and recriminations, but she might as well have been a tree stump for all the attention anyone paid her. Every pair of eyes was focused on Zachary, who’d apparently become even more handsome and gallant than he’d been a few scant hours before. Grateful as she was, the fawning and twittering began to make her head ache.

  Zachary, however, smiled through it all. If she hadn’t become so accustomed to reading and deciphering his expression, she would have thought him completely at ease, entirely the old Zachary. But she saw the coolness behind his eyes, the slight delay before he smiled or laughed. And if her sisters kept pushing their nonsense at him, she didn’t know how long he would sit for it without pushing back.

  Halfway through dinner, her father tapped his wineglass. “I have an announcement,” he said. “Beginning in the morning and for however long it takes for Caroline to complete her portrait, the rest of you girls will leave her and Lord Zachary alone.”

  “But Papa, we have a sched—”

  “Alone,” he repeated with the same rare force in his voice she’d heard earlier. She and Zachary weren’t the only two who took what had happened very seriously. “You may pester him as much as he can stand during luncheons and dinners and in the evenings, but while there’s light to paint by, you will make yourselves scarce.”

  “Yes, Papa,” Anne said, nudging Grace. After a ripple of nudges around the table, all of her sisters agreed.

  “Actually,” Zachary said, “tonight I promised to sit again for Caroline so she can replace some of her ruined drawings, and then I will be training Harold. And I need a word in private with my aunt.”

  Caroline heard the unaccustomed seriousness in his voice, but she wasn’t certain whether anyone else did. They were all still so wrapped up in the misery of being Zachary-deprived and the joy of his return that she doubted they would notice the roof caving in. “Is there something I might do to help?” she asked.

  Cool gray eyes looked at her. “Will you give me twenty minutes?”

  “Of course.”

  “Very well.” Setting his napkin on the table, he pushed his chair back. “If you’ll excuse me? And my compliments to the cook on the trout. The most excellent I’ve ever tasted.”

  After a second’s hesitation, Lady Gladys followed suit. “I’ll see you in the morning, girls, Mr. Witfeld.”

  “Good evening, Gladys,” Sally Witfeld returned.

  “Good evening,” Caroline echoed more quietly. It was going to be a very long night.

  “We’re not planning a midnight escape, are we?” Aunt Tremaine said, taking a seat in her usual chair beneath the window and propping her swollen foot up on a pillowed footstool. She’d summoned tea, and she had the feeling she would be requesting something stronger by the time she and Zachary were finished with whatever was on his mind.

  “Did you hear anything of the argument between myself and Caroline?” he asked, beginning a slow pacing across the wooden floor.

  “I mostly heard hysterics and something about fertilizer,” she returned. “I retreated after that.”

  She expected his usual smile, but his expression remained quiet and very serious. “Do you believe that I’ll join the army?”

  “Not if Melbourne has anything to say about it.”

  He slowed, glancing at her before he continued pacing. “As I see things, the lot of you figured Melbourne wouldn’t have to do a damned thing. You’d keep me out of London for a month or two, provide me a different setting, and eventually I’d forget my plans or find something else to occupy me.” He paused. “Am I wrong?”

  A few weeks ago she would have said something witty and distracting and changed the subject. This was a different Zachary than she was accustomed to, however. And she sensed that this one seriously wanted to hear the truth. And even more, that he was prepared to hear the truth. “No, you’re not wrong. My gout is real, but it provided an opportunity which your brother and I discussed.”

  Zachary nodded, his thoughtful expression unchanged. “I’d like to stay here through the end of the month.”

  She tried not to let her surprise show. After all, three hours ago he’d been so eager to leave that he’d been willing to leave her behind. “Zachary, whatever Caro said, you have nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing to regret. You are a fine young man. You’re well-liked, kind, charm—”

  “I know I am,” he interrupted, briefly grimacing. “That’s my role in the family.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “You know. Sebastian’s the humorless, unsmiling one, Charlemagne’s the stubborn, ambitious one, Nell’s the rebellious, clever one, and I’m the easygoing, charming one.”

  “And what’s wrong with that?”

  “It’s not very challenging as far as life’s ambitions go,” he said, a touch of his usual humor entering his voice. “I want to be interested in and passionate about something, Aunt. And I have no idea what that might be.”

  “You’re four-and-twenty, Zachary. You’re not required to have all the answers yet.”

  “But you didn’t argue about my assessment of myself either, did you?”

  “I thought your statement was rhetorical.”

  A footman knocked with the tea, and Zachary retrieved the tray and placed it at her elbow. “Rhetorical or not, I’m as tired as anyone else of the way I find a project and then abandon it. I thought the army…” Trailing off, he sank onto the edge of her bed. “And I was wrong. So now I’m abandoning another one.”

  “At least you realized before you did any damage.” She carefully kept her voice level, despite the abrupt desire to shout with joy, Thank God.

  “Do me a favor and don’t tell Melbourne. When I’m ready, I’ll inform His Holiness myself.”

  “Zachary, this is nothing to feel badly about. You have a great many interests, and if you haven’t yet decided which one intrigues you the most, there’s nothing wrong with that. At least you have the luxury of time to discover what moves you, my dear.”

  He shook his head, obviously not happy with her answer. “That remains to be seen.”

  “Zach—”

  “I do know one thing,” he cut in. “I’m going to do whatever I can to see that Caroline gets that portrait finished and sent to Vienna before her deadline.”

  “That’s very admirable.”

  “Yes, well, I have a dog to train, too.” He tilted his head at her. “You’re certain you don’t mind staying in Wiltshire?”

  Even if she did, she wasn’t about to tell him so. Her gout, never as serious as she’d let on, was beginning to subside, but it still sufficed as an excuse. “Not a bit. It’s a nice change, being in a household full of females.”

  “Very well.” Zachary leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “I’m going to go pose for some replacement drawings.”

  As he left, Gladys sat back and poured her tea. Well. She was glad she’d made an early evening of it. This new, more contemplative Zachary wasn’t the only one who had some thinking to do.

  Chapter 13

  Caroline paced the conservatory floor for nearly an hour before Zachary arrived. Despite their usual tendency to chat while she worked, they’d barely spoken a word while she’d sketched him the night before. Part of that had probably been because her sisters—though they’d been mostly silent as they’d promised—had refused to let Zachary out of their sight. She supposed she couldn’t blame them, and actually she’d been almost relieved not to have another moment in private with her subject. And that was the other reason for their mutual silence—what in the world was she supposed to say to him? This morning, though, conversation could no longer be avoided.

  The idea still made her nervous. She hadn’t slept much at all the previous night, but she ha
d dreamed just long enough to wake up with the solution to the problem with Zachary’s portrait, which had troubled her from the beginning. Or she hoped she’d found the solution; she would have to see him first.

  “I didn’t know what you wanted me to wear,” Zachary said, entering the room five minutes before their appointed time and half closing the door behind him. Her maid, Molly, waited just outside, close enough to lend propriety—though she hadn’t yet helped much in that area—and far enough away that her mumbling and snoring wouldn’t disturb the creative process. “I brought three coats and waistcoats. Which do you prefer?” He hefted them in his arms.

  She drew a slow breath, very aware both that the air between them still wasn’t easy and that the full, lifting sensation in her chest she always seemed to feel in his presence was stronger than ever. My goodness. “The dark gray,” she said after a moment, willing herself to concentrate.

  With a nod he shed the striped brown waistcoat he had on and dumped it onto the window seat. Again she wished she had the chance to paint him shirtless or even naked—especially after what she’d seen of him in the bathtub yesterday—but that would do her as little good at the Tannberg studio as a portrait of Lord and Lady Eades in powdered wigs, dressed as Romeo and Juliet. And when she next did a personal sketch of him, it would have to be completely from memory.

  “How’s that?” he asked, buttoning the dark gray waistcoat and shrugging into his lighter gray coat.

  “Actually, would you mind leaving off your coat?”

  He hesitated so briefly that she might have imagined it—but she didn’t think she had. The air between them felt so…turbulent that she doubted he could avoid sensing it, as well. “Certainly,” he replied. “Where do you want me?”