Lord of Sin

by Madeline Hunter

  Right now, however, she did not appreciate someone echoing her thoughts. “We cannot finish until Lord Lyndale leaves.”

  “Then you had better find a way to make him go. Michael said that the earl assumed it would take a few days to settle matters. He was asking what chamber he should prepare.”

  “They can use the stable.”

  “Now, Bride, you know they can’t.”

  Bride gazed around her bedroom. The privacy of this chamber was one of the few benefits of being the eldest, and it was small compensation for all the worry and responsibility that came with the privilege.

  “Lord Lyndale can use this room. I will move in with you and Jilly.”

  “And Michael?”

  Bride did not miss the familiar way Joan referred to Lyndale’s servant. Her sister had blushed more at dinner than she had in five years combined.

  That was not like Joan at all, although Bride could understand the appeal.

  Michael was handsome and charming enough, although there was a subtle air to him that suggested he was far less angelic than his countenance implied. He reminded Bride of the kind of person who flattered you silly while picking your pocket.

  “Michael can share this room with Lord Lyndale, or sleep in the stable. There is no place else to put him, and I won’t have him underfoot in the kitchen or library.”

  Bride began collecting some garments and belongings for her move to the other bedroom. “Help me do this quickly, then go and get a cot. And, Joan, about Michael—I saw how he flirted with you at dinner. It is bad enough I have to watch Mary every time high boots walk this property. I really do not need the vexation of worrying about you, too. You are too sensible to be taken in by such a man and should know better.”

  “Well, you would know all about knowing better, now, wouldn’t you.”

  Bride halted her work. This was the second time today one of her sisters had all but said she had no business giving such advice. There had been allusions before, but rarely anything this blatant.

  She lifted her stack of clothes and shoved them into Joan’s arms. Without another word, Joan left the room.

  Bride made sure that her trunk was securely locked. She checked that the wardrobe had enough space for Lord Lyndale’s coats, then went to work clearing a drawer in her chest for his use.

  She stuffed its garments into other drawers, then dealt with the private treasures that had lain beneath them. She tucked the miniatures of her father and mother into her writing table. She lifted a tiny leather booklet. She paused with it in her hand.

  She had not opened this memento in close to a year.

  She remembered distinctly the night when she had decided to no longer depend on the promises this object symbolized. She had left her bed in the dark and carried it over to the moonlit window and held it for at least an hour, wanting badly to look at the image inside. Her soul had argued not to, however. Her essence knew that there would be pain, not comfort, in gazing at that face.

  Would she still react the same way now?

  Testing herself, she opened the little cover and looked at the drawing that showed the portrait of a young man.

  She had made this herself. She had lovingly crafted the leather-covered boards to hold this small piece of paper. She had neither the skill nor the materials to make a miniature, but she could catch a likeness with lines, and she had labored to make this one perfect and to mount it so it had an elegant home.

  She tried to remember if this portrait was very accurate. Had his sandy hair been that wild? Was that warmth truly in his eyes, or had she imagined it?

  The man pictured on this paper would never have abandoned her. He would never have left her worried and vulnerable.

  He would not have claimed he was going away so he could help her when in fact he was merely running from her arms.

  The man in this drawing would have returned or written months ago, unless something bad had happened to him.

  Then again, perhaps the likeness was not accurate at all. Maybe her heart had distorted her vision and she had not seen the truth. Mary and Joan had clearly decided so.

  She had half decided so herself.

  She closed the leather cover and put it with the miniatures in her desk. It still saddened her to see that face. It brought back nostalgic memories of joy and laughing pleasure.

  It also provoked her two worst fears. One was that he had come to harm while trying to protect her.

  The other was that he was hale and fit and living in some distant town, caressing another woman’s body.

  When Bride joined Lord Lyndale in the library that evening, he was paging through one of her father’s notebooks.

  She barely suppressed a hiss of annoyance. The room was stuffed with books. How did he light upon that in this sea of bindings?

  “Your father’s intellectual interests were far ranging,” he said. “It appears he collected all the information he could find about the Celtic culture north of Hadrian’s Wall.”

  “He was by nature a thoughtful and curious man.”

  “Educated, too, it appears.”

  “He did not attend university. But then, many do and remain ignorant, so that accounts for nothing, don’t you think?”

  Lord Lyndale’s cocked eyebrow said he suspected she included him among those who had studied but accounted for nothing.

  He looked to the shelves across the room. “There are schoolbooks there. Yours?”

  “My parents educated me. I helped my father teach my sisters. This library is well used by us all.”

  “That explains your manner and speech. I admit this household is not what I expected, in many ways.” His attention returned to the notebook in his hands. “He describes rituals here. Did he ever re-create them?”

  She knew where this was going. Shortly he would be thinking her father had been eccentric at best and a madman at worst. “He did so, as experiments. There was no other way to know if they had any merit.”

  “Did they have merit?”

  “He thought they had some. His study and research were not intended to promote a new paganism, Lord Lyndale. He wanted the Scots to know and take pride in their ancient roots. He loved this country.”

  He set aside the notebook. “I assume he was a Jacobite.”

  “Isn’t every true Scot?”

  He pierced her with a suspicious gaze. “Was your father radical on the matter? There are those who still think Scotland should secede from the Grand Union.”

  “If you have read those notebooks for very long, you know his views on the issue.” More than radical ones. Her father had toyed with strategies and theorized plots and written them down in those notebooks. “If you are other than a complete fool, you no doubt realized they were the private musings of a creative mind, and never true threats.”

  “Others might disagree. I suspect my uncle did. I think whatever occurred between the last earl and your father can be blamed on those creative musings.”

  She was more than happy to let him think so, and did not disagree.

  “And you, Miss Cameron. Do your views match your father’s?”

  “What a peculiar question, sir. You ask it as if it matters what a woman has as a view.”

  “In other words, they do match his.”

  “When you said you had come here to investigate my family, you claimed it revolved around our care and well-being, not our private political views.” She picked up her father’s notebook and returned it to its shelf. “Your interest piques my own curiosity, however. I am half inclined to ask where your ancestors were at Culloden, or even Bannockburn, for that matter.”

  A flush blotched Lord Lyndale’s cheeks.

  It was as she expected. This earl may have Scottish names and a Scottish title, but his family had been tools of the English for half a millennium.

  Content that she had communicated the uncomfortable conversation that awaited in any further investigation of her loyalties, she strolled to the door.

  “Eno
ugh of boring politics, Lord Lyndale. I said that I would show you my father’s legacy this afternoon. If you are agreeable, I will do so now and you can conclude your mission quickly.”

  “Amazing.”

  Lord Lyndale paced around the drawing room, clearly impressed.

  Bride beamed with pride. This room represented her life. Here she had continued her father’s work. Here she and her sisters had supported themselves. They were very good at what they did, too. Among the best. She knew that, even if the world did not.

  She led him to a place on the worktable where she had set up a little display.

  “Here is a drawing I am reproducing. I place it so it is reflected in that mirror propped there, because the image has to be engraved in reverse in order to print in the correct view. Then we use this pointed instrument—it is called a burin—to make the lines and marks on the copper plate that will reproduce the drawing when the plate is printed. To print, the plate is inked, and the ink descends into the grooves we have made. The press will create pressure on the wet paper, and force the paper into those grooves to pick up the ink. That creates the image.”

  He lifted a rocker lined with fine teeth from the table. “You make mezzotints, too?”

  “On occasion. Mezzotint plates fetch more money. There is a lot of work in them. Also, the publisher cannot print as many images from them, so their prints are more expensive for that reason, too.”

  “I know all about the costs, Miss Cameron. I buy the kind of engravings your plates provide. I inherited the interest from my uncle, and have an extensive collection of my own.”

  Bride’s heart sank. This was not good news.

  She had intended to drown him in talk of burins and scrapers.

  She had expected to bore him quickly, while ensuring he believed this studio was an enormous success.

  Instead, Lyndale appeared captivated. He looked to be a man who would want to poke around for hours, when she could not allow him to poke at all.

  “Did your father teach you this craft?”

  “Yes. And my sister Anne. She and I helped teach Joan and Mary.”

  “So your father was an engraver, and made plates for engravings that reproduced great paintings. How did he obtain the drawings on which to base his craft?”

  “He had gone to Europe as a young man, and made his own.”

  Lyndale moved over to the press. “You check your work with this, I assume. Print the plate at stages as you go, to see how it appears.”

  He seemed to know an awful lot about it. Too much.

  His tour took him to the other side of the room, and the portfolio on a table there. He opened it and began flipping through the prints they had saved of their finished plates.

  He pointed to one. “What is this here?”

  She went over to see what he meant. “The blank border? That is where the publisher will add his name, date, and address to the plate, along with credit to us. Surely you are familiar with that. It is a common practice.”

  “Of course. How stupid of me.” He flipped another sheet.

  Which brought his arm and hand very close to her for a moment. He did not touch her, but she reacted as if he had. A liveliness woke her body like a beam of morning sunlight. Her physicality became very aware of how close he stood, and of the dominating aura he projected.

  “Raphael’s ‘Alba Madonna,’ ” he said. “I think this is the best copy I have ever seen. Far better than the one in Lyndale’s collection.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice sounded small and unsteady.

  His arm moved again, to turn another print. He might as well have brushed against her breast, she felt him so plainly. Her attention fixated on his hand, and how handsome and masculine it looked. She tried to control the sensual vitality transforming her, but it was too delicious to deny.

  Lyndale appeared ignorant of her disadvantage. Except she wondered if he was. There was something in his eyes as he perused the prints—a contented, dangerous little spark—

  “To which publishers do you sell your plates?”

  “MacDonald in Edinburgh.”

  “I have visited that establishment. I never saw prints with the name Cameron.”

  The comment brought her back to her senses as quickly as a slap. She stepped away from him.

  He did not look at her. He just turned another sheet. She could not shake the sense that he knew how she had reacted to his closeness, however. He had feigned ignorance about the border so he could call her over and test his power.

  “Since buyers do not think much of a woman’s skill in anything, least of all the arts, we use a different name,” she said.

  “Of course. A fictitious name. Most sensible.” His gaze sharpened on the engraving in front of him. For a moment his concentration permitted no intrusion. “Would you happen to use the name Waterfield? I have a work by him, bought at MacDonald’s, and the technique is similar.”

  She just stared at him.

  “No?” he asked, glancing at her.

  She found her voice despite the alarm buzzing in her head. “You have an expert’s eye, Lord Lyndale. There are those who can make such attributions to peintre-graveurs who create engravings of their own original compositions. It is rare for someone to do so based on the technique used for reproductions.”

  “It was only a guess, but I have had a lot of practice.”

  Too much damned practice. He did not only collect. He was one of those collectors who counted the burin lines used to model an arm.

  He was a connoisseur.

  She needed to find a good excuse to end this. Fast.

  “Tell me, Miss Cameron. If your father made drawings when a young man, and had been creating plates from them for years, how many drawings are left?”

  “Enough.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “They can also be used more than once.”

  “Now, now, that is not true. Your publisher copyrights his printings and pays for the plate’s exclusive use. If Mr. Waterfield makes another, it would be known.” A subtle smile broke. A smug one. “I suppose that you could use yet another false name when you make the second plate. However, that would be illegal, so I am sure you do not do it.”

  He had her cornered. She wanted to kick herself. Or him.

  “Under the circumstances, I would feel more confident about your future if I knew there were sufficient drawings left to sustain your industry and thus your keep. Why don’t you show them to me.”

  “Certainly, Lord Lyndale. Please wait here and I will bring them to you.”

  She walked to two map drawers stacked on a table at the other end of the wall. As she did so, she saw a blond head peek through the doorway to the drawing room.

  She gestured furtively to Mary, telling her to come in.

  “Stay here,” she whispered when Mary joined her. “Close the drawer when I am done. Then pretend to have work to prepare. When I have him distracted, remove the box from the other drawer and take it upstairs. He is going to stick his nose into everything and I cannot risk his becoming aware of it.”

  Mary nodded. Bride quickly opened the top drawer, removed another portfolio, and turned back to Lord Lyndale.

  She caught him studying her much as he had been examining those engravings.

  She halted in her tracks, portfolio in hand, blood coursing with alarm.

  His focused eyes held the same objectivity. The same assessment. His gaze was in the process of judging value and worth along with the details of form and line. She could almost hear his mind working. Is it good enough for my collection? Do I want to acquire this particular specimen?

  There were important differences, of course. This calculating inspection was that of a man observing a woman. It created an undeniably sexual atmosphere that descended on her with irritating effectiveness.

  She looked him in the eyes with her best disdainful glare. She let him know that his behavior was crossing a line.

  He ignored her. He finished his slow inspect
ion like a man accustomed to following his own mind in such matters, as if the decisions were all his.

  Finally, the demeanor of a polite guest reclaimed his countenance, except for a half smile that said they both knew what he had been thinking. The notion did not embarrass him at all.

  He gestured to the portfolio. “You can bring it here. You do not have to be cautious with me.”

  Evidently the work of art titled “Bride Cameron” had been deemed lacking by this connoisseur.

  She could not ignore that she had just been insulted at a basic, primitive level.

  She set the portfolio on the table. She lifted the top board.

  Mary began fussing on the other side of the room, setting up her tools.

  “This holds the original drawings, and also my father’s own collection of old master prints. You may find them interesting. Most are by peintre-graveurs, not reproductive. All are very rare.”

  As she expected, the word “rare” instantly captivated him. He flipped through the drawings so quickly she doubted he counted them. When the turn of the last revealed one of her father’s prized possessions, he exhaled in awe.

  “Dürer’s ‘Melancholia.’ I have never seen a finer example,” he muttered.

  He set it aside so it would not be buried. The next sheet almost had him swooning.

  “Rembrandt’s ‘The Three Crosses.’ My God. Only one other example of this suite has been documented.”

  “Two, actually.”

  He glanced at her in question.

  “There is one in Germany,” she explained.

  “Your expertise surpasses mine on the matter, I can see. I am impressed.”

  He returned his attention to the prints. He became a man absorbed and possessed. She helped him set them out one by one on the large table.

  She gestured behind her back to Mary.

  Lord Lyndale was too busy bending over the glories spread before him to notice Mary approach the map drawers.

  “This is the legacy you referred to.” His keen eyes roamed over the atmospheric flicks showering “The Judgment of Paris” by Bonasone. “They are now yours, I assume, as the eldest child.”