by Erica Ridley
“I…” Heath cast a glance toward the baroness snoring softly on the other side of the room. “Perhaps this isn’t the right moment for confessions.”
Nora bit her lip. He was right. They would not be able to have the heart-to-heart they desperately needed if the baroness could wake up at any moment and overhear everything.
She rose to her feet. “Come with me.”
Heath looked at her quizzically but pushed to his feet without question.
She led him past the room where they had trained Captain Pugboat to the tiny parlor she used as her drawing nook. It was close enough to the front parlor to hear the baroness if she should happen to call, and not so far away as to reach the guest chambers.
The tiny parlor was too small to hold more than the single chaise, so Nora seated herself on the end with the armrest and motioned for Heath to join her.
“Is this your hideaway?” he asked as he settled by her side.
It had been her sanctuary for eight short weeks. The idea of moving into her own house… Nay, of having not one but two homes of her own, with the farm no longer a worry…
“Yes.” She tilted her face toward his. “But first, you were telling me there was something you’d rather be doing with your life. I’d love to know what that is.”
He leaned his wide shoulders back against the wallpaper. “Don’t laugh.”
“Never.” She loved him too much to treat his ideas with disrespect. “Trust me.”
After a moment, he nodded. “An art gallery.”
“You want to buy one?” she asked when he didn’t elaborate.
“I want to run one.” His eyes brightened. “I want it to be mine.”
She leaned forward. “Your art?”
“My vision.” His voice sounded far away. “I want to discover the artists, select the right works, and determine the best way to display them. I want to have seasonal themes and host traveling exhibitions and introduce all manner of art to people who would not otherwise have known where to look for it. I want to provide modern artists a venue like the Dulwich Picture Gallery has given to the masters.”
“It sounds marvelous,” Nora said, and meant it. “You have thought about this a lot.”
“Since I was small,” he admitted.
She didn’t understand. “Then why don’t you do it? Is it the money?”
He laughed humorlessly. “I wish all I lacked was money. We have plenty of that. What I cannot have is an association to a trade.”
“You can purchase unlimited quantities of art for your home, but not for a gallery?” Nora said in disbelief.
“I can own a thousand galleries,” he said, his expression defeated. “I just can’t run them. That’s work. Something other people do. I would have to pay someone else to perform the job I want for myself.”
Nora frowned. “Two of your sisters work.”
“And have lost all ties with Polite Society,” he returned with a frustrated sigh. “Besides all the other reasons why a man in my position would have no wish to lose my social standing, I also would hope to make my peers the primary market. They have the free time and the heavy purses to dedicate to it.”
“It would be a gallery for rich people?” she asked slowly.
His gaze snapped to hers. “You don’t approve.”
“It seems like there are plenty of places for the rich. White’s, Boodle’s, Almack’s,” she admitted. “But if your goal is to share art with as many people as possible, then being a ‘Vauxhall’ is better than being an ‘Almack’s.’ Your gallery would attract both sectors and triple the potential exposure for the artists.”
The corner of his mouth curved up. “Perhaps you should promote the gallery, and I shall concern myself with procuring its specimens.”
“I hope you do it,” she said, hoping he could see the sincerity in her eyes. “I think you’d be perfect at it.”
He slid his hand into her hair and cupped her cheek. “Do you know what I think is perfect?”
Heart pounding, she shook her head.
“I’ll show you.” Without another word, he lowered his mouth to hers.
His lips were familiar now. She’d dreamed of them every night. And yet his kiss moved through her like lightning streaking across a thunderstorm. Bright, powerful, electrifying. Each brush of his mouth, each lick of his tongue, sent shockwaves of pure desire through her core.
There was no need for discussion. Nora could no longer deny that she belonged to him in every way that mattered.
His kisses drugged her like wine. She laced her fingers behind his neck and pressed her body into his. There was nothing between them but a few layers of cloth, yet she did not feel close enough. She wanted more.
As if reading the direction of her thoughts, he shifted her onto his lap. The movement broke their kiss. Before she could complain, his parted lips grazed her aching nipple through the sprigged muslin of her gown. She gasped at the sensation.
When he lifted his head, she slid her fingers in his hair to stop him.
“Do it again,” she begged.
He gave a wicked smile. “I’ll do it even better.”
His warm, strong hands traced her curves over her hips and up her waist to the ribbon just beneath her bodice. With a few deft tugs to loosen the laces at her spine, the puffed sleeves of her gown tumbled down her shoulders.
Cool air sent shivers of anticipation down her skin. Nothing covered her breasts now but the thin linen of her chemise, billowing above her stays.
Her breath caught as he gently lowered the bodice and allowed her breasts to spill free. This time when his lips grazed her nipples, nothing was left between them. She gripped his hair tighter. When he opened his mouth to suckle her breast, pleasure and longing jolted through her.
This was what she wanted. This, and something more. A growing restlessness stirred within her. An ache that only he could fill.
“We should stop,” he murmured against her breast.
She had no interest in letting go. Soon the banns would be read, and they would be husband and wife. They didn’t need to hide their true feelings any longer. She could finally let herself admit how much he meant to her. Show him that she was his.
She touched his cheek. “I don’t want to stop.”
“Neither do I,” he admitted raggedly.
In relief, she arched her back to offer him her breasts once more.
As he teased her bosom with his mouth and tongue, her heart pounded in anticipation. He carefully, deliberately, ever so slowly lifted the hem of her gown. It slid up her ankle, up her calf, up her thigh, giving her every opportunity to halt him before they went too far.
Still, he lifted his mouth from her breast to ask, “Do you want—”
“Yes,” she begged, and gasped as his finger entered her.
The twin sensations of his tongue laving her stiff nipples as his fingers played between her thighs pushed her over the edge into weightless bliss. Her breath was choppy, her mind empty of everything but him as her muscles spasmed against his fingers.
When at last he pulled his hand away, her body longed for him to fill her once more. But this time, with no substitutes for the real man before her. She was his completely, and she wanted him to take her.
She lowered her hand to the flat plane of his stomach and released one of the buttons of his fall. His shaft sprang free to greet her fingers, hot and hard and ready.
He grabbed her wrist before she could do more than stroke him. “Are you certain?”
She slid from his lap in order to undo the other side of his fall, then swung her leg round to straddle him. “I’ve never been more certain about anything in my life.”
“Me either,” he whispered.
Inch by inch, she lowered herself onto his shaft until he completely filled her. He took her breasts in his hands, touching, suckling, making the sting of pain disappear into a renewed whirlwind of desire.
Slowly, she rocked against him, picking up speed and rhythm until they were both gasping for
air as he gripped her hips and brought them both over the peak and sent them soaring into the heavens together. When she collapsed against him, she could still feel the occasional pulse of pleasure, as if her body was not quite ready to let his go.
“Marry me,” he murmured into her neck. “Say you will.”
She lowered her head to kiss him. “There’s nothing I want more.”
“Wife.” He held her as if they would never have to part again.
She rested her cheek against his hair and held on tight. “Husband.”
This was more than love. He was everything she had ever wanted. A part of her soul.
Chapter 25
Heath might or might not be the most fortunate man alive, but he was certainly the happiest. He smiled to himself as he slowed his landau in front of his town house. Soon, he would not be returning to an empty home, but one filled with love and laughter. In the future when he came home, it would be to Nora.
Three weeks of banns seemed like an eternity.
Before his groom could arrive to take the reins, the door to the town house burst open and one of Heath’s footmen raced down the walkway to the carriage.
“Got a name,” Larkin said as he fumbled for something deep in his pocket.
Heath’s head was still so full of Nora’s kisses and smiles and heated touch that at first the words did not make sense.
“A name?” he queried, trying to look like he was paying attention.
“The caricaturist.” Larkin dug in a different pocket. “Or at least his emissary.”
The caricaturist.
Heath’s mind cleared at once and all his senses immediately focused on his footman. “Don’t tell me you found the name and lost it.”
“Win-something,” Larkin muttered as he abandoned his coat pockets in favor of his waistcoat pocket. “Winston? Winslow? Winfield?”
Winfield.
All the air emptied from Heath’s lungs.
No. It was a coincidence. Nora would have nothing to do with such a terrible thing.
“Here it is!” Larkin squinted at a scrap of parchment. “The sketches arrive to the intermediary courtesy of a Mr. Carter Winfield of the West Midlands.”
Mr. Carter Winfield of the West Midlands. It was not a coincidence.
It was a conspiracy.
“This Winfield fellow isn’t the actual artist,” Larkin continued. “He never divulged the name, but one of the letters I glimpsed mentioned a ‘she.’ If you wish to send me to the West Midlands, I’m certain I can ferret out who ‘she’ is.”
Ice filled Heath’s veins.
He reached for the parchment. “No, Larkin. Such a mission won’t be necessary.”
Heath already knew who the culprit was.
Someone connected enough to be present at Society gatherings. Someone inconspicuous enough to fade into the background. Someone cruel enough to use the secrets she witnessed to line her pockets.
Someone who had made love to him not an hour earlier as if she had nothing at all to hide.
He stared blindly at the letters printed on the page. His head was already too full of words. Winfield. West Midlands. Nora.
There could be no mistaking that his intended bride was the villain he had sworn to capture. Nora was not the sweet country innocent she presented herself to be. She was Heath’s sworn nemesis. The ton’s worst enemy.
And she’d accepted his marriage proposal knowing exactly who and what she was.
He crumpled the parchment in his trembling fist.
She had lied to him. He had believed her because he wanted to believe her. Because he’d needed to believe in her. Because he loved her.
Or rather, loved the façade she’d used as her disguise.
He almost couldn’t think over the roaring in his ears.
The woman he’d just made love to was the self-righteous, anonymous coward who had been mocking Heath and his peers all Season.
The woman he’d just made love to was the arrogant caricaturist who thought nothing of exploiting the likenesses of Heath’s own family for her personal profit.
The woman he’d just made love to was a complete stranger.
Vibrating with disappointment and rage, he lifted his reins and turned his landau toward the Roundtree town house to confront his erstwhile bride.
He wouldn’t trust a word from Nora’s deceitful lips ever again. She had already shown her true colors. His body shook with anger. There would be no more lies.
It was time to unmask the caricaturist.
Chapter 26
Lady Roundtree was resting upstairs in her bedchamber when the butler strode into Nora’s sitting room. The normally orderly interior had just been turned topsy-turvy by none other than his esteemed highness, Captain Pugboat, who had determined that sharing teacakes was for lesser pups right before he’d taken off in a flurry of wrinkled fur and cake crumbs.
“Mr. Grenville to see you, miss.”
Nora’s besotted heart grew giddy. “To see me? Not Lady Roundtree?”
“You, miss.”
“Please, show him in.” She should not be so surprised. He had proposed to her, after all.
It was perhaps unusual to pay a second call so soon after the first, but she could not bring herself to care about adhering to such protocols. Not only was Heath Nora’s future husband—he was also her first gentleman caller. He was here for her.
It took all her self-control not to fly into his arms the moment he entered the disordered drawing room.
“Such wonderful timing!” she said with a laugh. “I was trying to teach new tricks to—”
“I don’t care.” Heath’s countenance was dark and angry. Those were not storm clouds brewing in his eyes, but entire battles being waged. And all of it was focused on her.
Nora’s smile died on her lips.
The wacky story about Captain Pugboat frolicking on the tea tray amongst the lemon cakes no longer seemed very funny.
“What is it?” she stammered. But of course, she already knew. There could only be one answer.
“You.” He stared at her as if she were a specimen to dissect, a moth in a butterfly collection, something to be pinned through with a sharp needle and never looked at again. “I had no idea I was in the presence of such a popular artist.”
She swallowed hard. The ruse was over. And so, it seemed, was her chance at a happy ever after.
He would never forgive her for this.
“I thought about telling you,” she said hoarsely.
His flat gaze was sharp enough to cut ice. “Did you?”
She didn’t blame him for not believing her.
He would probably never believe anything she said again.
“I stopped,” she whispered. “I’m not drawing anymore.”
His eyes flashed. “You started.”
She had no reply.
Hurt mixed with anger on his face. He filled his lungs as if forcing himself to remain calm.
“Why did you do it?” His voice was detached, disinterested, emotionless. Like a judge about to pass sentence.
She doubted he would like her defense. “At first, my drawings were just for myself and my family. I would sketch whatever happened that day, and send them back home in the post.”
His lip curled. “So they could mock us from afar?”
“No.”
So they would know how it was going. She had learned to draw because she couldn’t write.
But that wasn’t why she had kept making caricatures.
“C-Carter sent one of the sketches to a publisher on a lark,” she began hesitantly.
A bark of laughter came from Heath’s throat. “You blame your brother for your drawings?”
“I do not. When the publisher offered more money for a single drawing than I could earn in a fortnight as a companion, I could not afford to stop. My grandparents could not afford for me to stop. Our farm could not afford for me to stop. So much was riding on my ability to scrape us out of our hole. The few sheep we s
till owned—”
“You lied to me.” His hazel eyes were furious. “While I dreamt of building a future together, you did your best to keep me in the dark.”
He was not listening. Nora’s fingers curled into fists. “I would think, as a secret-keeper, you of all people would understand the reason for lies of omission.”
“Of course I understand the need to keep certain details from the public. You were exploiting the public’s secrets for profit, and keeping your private self secret from me. That’s why I’m angry.” His gaze was deeply hurt. “These magical eight weeks have been a complete misrepresentation of who you are. Who I thought I was falling in love with. Who I thought I was going to marry. You’re not that person at all.”
He was right.
She had good reasons for every minute of her actions, but his heart did not deserve to be treated shabbily. Not by her. Not by anyone. She might not have had a choice, but that didn’t make her any less a monster. He had loved her.
And now he didn’t.
“I’m sorry,” she said brokenly.
His laugh was hollow and bitter. “You’re not sorry. You climbed on top of me on that settee knowing full well how I would feel once I learned the truth. Was it all some trick to bring a future baron up to scratch? You played your hand well.” He gestured at the chaise in disgust. “The deed is done.”
Nora sucked in a shuddering breath. She could not let him think that the moment they had shared was all part of a grand manipulation to line her pockets. She loved him too much.
“It’s not too late for you,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Our private moments can remain a secret. No one is better at keeping them than you.”
“No, I believe you win that award,” he said, his voice icy and his gaze empty.
She winced. Although they could not save their relationship, she could do him this courtesy. “I cannot be ruined if there is no scandal. No one will know we made love.”
His eyes beseeched her with equal parts hope and pain. “Did we make love if I don’t even know who you are?”
“You do know who I really am,” she burst out, and took a halting step toward him. “I love you. Your happiness matters more than my own. Your place in Society is critical. Your career is important to so many. I’ve never thought I was good enough for you. There is no trap. You can walk away. You are under no obligation to me at all.”