Evangeline was still staring at him as if he were the very embodiment of evil. “Good God, Elliot,” she whispered hoarsely, “you were my aunt’s lover! What’s worse, everyone knows it.”
“That was another mistake,” Elliot bit out. “I have made a great many, and if you will just give me a—”
“I shall give you nothing, sir! And you have made your last mistake here.” The words were uttered with a chilling confidence. Evangeline was beautiful in her fury. And frightening, too. In truth, she was beginning to look quite dangerous. Stepping away from the chair, she began to circle slowly from behind her desk.
Not only were her eyes flaming, but her hands had begun to tremble with barely suppressed rage. Suddenly, Elliot had a horrific vision of her artist’s temperament unleashed in the worst sort of way. Angry women disconcerted him. No, that was not entirely true. In the past, angry women had inconvenienced him. And the marquis of Rannoch quickly rid himself of all inconveniences.
In this case, however, expediency was not an option. This woman he must somehow keep. “Evangeline, darling, if you will just give me a chance to explain—”
“Explain?” She shrieked the word, throwing her hands in the air and waving them madly about. “Explain? Given any choice in the matter, my lord, I have just heard you utter your last filthy lie! I shall thank you to leave this house. The sooner your dust settles, the better off we shall all be.”
Elliot was stunned to realize that she had no intention of hearing his explanations. Her anger was potent. And contagious. It leapt toward him like a spark from a raging fire. “Evie, please! You cannot think … I never said—”
“Now see here, Elliot Armstrong—Lord Rannoch—or whoever you are—”
“Just Elliot, damn it!” he rasped, one hand clutched in an angry fist at his side.
“Whatever.” Scorn laced her rage. “You led us to believe that you—you—you allowed us to accept you into our home as an honored guest, as a friend, as a—”
Elliot felt his lips turn up into a cold smile. “Aye, say it, Evangeline,” he hissed venomously. “As your lover.”
Despite his hard-earned experience in evading irate women, Elliot never saw the blow coming. Evangeline’s hand contacted his jaw with a resounding crack that echoed through the vaulted room.
After a long, silent pause, Elliot tentatively touched his stinging flesh with the tips of his fingers. “I deserved that, I suppose.”
“You lying bastard!” she screamed. “What you deserve is to be hanged!”
That was just too damn much, even for Elliot Roberts. “Oh? And were you truthful with me, Evie?” challenged Elliot, deliberately keeping his voice soft. He began to edge carefully toward her.
“I have no notion what you mean,” she insisted, her eyes flashing blue fire.
“Perhaps I mean many things,” he whispered, taking one more step toward her. “But let’s start with your identity, shall we? Why did you not identify yourself as the earl of Trent’s granddaughter?”
Evangeline took a step backward, as if she knew she’d gone too far. “Why, how dare you try to turn the tables on me, you dissolute rakehell, you—you despoiler of women!”
Elliot felt red-hot anger explode in his chest. “Aye, you’ve taken the viper to your breast, quite literally, have you not, Miss Stone? And now you are ashamed. Embarrassed, in fact. That’s a big part of this little farce, isn’t it?”
“You’re bloody right,” she bit back at him.
Elliot deliberately dropped his voice to a dark, silky whisper and took another step closer. “Are you embarrassed about us, Evie?” He watched in satisfaction as her eyes opened wide with shock. “Are you embarrassed about how you respond to me? How you grow wet to my touch? How you writhe beneath me?” He reached out to grasp her trembling chin in his hand.
Evie, beginning to blink back tears, tried to jerk away. “Get away from me, you devil.” Her voice was a soft hiss.
“Oh, aye, Evie. I’m the devil, all right. And last night, you were begging to step into the fire.” In his anger, Elliot had now backed her up against the wall behind her desk. He wanted to stop, tried to stop, yet as he watched Evangeline’s tears of anger, he could not. How dare she refuse to hear his explanations? Didn’t she know that he loved her?
Oh, Jesus. He loved her. Beyond reason. And she hated him now with her blue-flame eyes and her burning artist’s heart.
Trapped between the wall and Elliot’s chest, Evangeline began to squirm, shoving hard against his shoulders with the heels of her hands. “Get away from me, Elliot,” she whispered. “Get out of this house. Out of my life.”
Nevertheless, she was no match for Elliot’s sheer size, and as she writhed against him, his rage and pain flared, then melded into something uncontrollable. He wanted to make her feel it, too. To make her see the truth of what was between them. Lashing one arm firmly around her waist, he forced Evangeline’s hips hard against his. Bending his head low, he took her mouth, still cupping her jaw hard in his hand. When she refused to open for him and tried to turn her face away, Elliot tightened his grip and slipped his thumb up to coax open her mouth.
Elliot felt rather than heard her little whimper of surrender as Evangeline’s lips gave way to his ravaging. Slowly, deliberately, he slid into the warm recesses of her mouth, pleading and coaxing her with his tongue. Want me. Take me. Give to me, he begged her with his every thrust, slipping his hand lower to cup her soft, round bottom.
When the force of Evangeline’s palms against his shoulders finally weakened, Elliot growled his satisfaction and slid his hand from her jaw and around to the nape of her neck. He felt hope when her hands began to skim lightly down his torso to rest low on his hips, and he caught a glimpse of victory when her arms went around his waist. Then Elliot, his rage and pain now little more than blind, hungry need, made a tactical error. When Evangeline surrendered completely and entered his mouth, he slowly lifted his lips from hers and slid them around to brush the warm, silky flesh beneath her ear. “Evangeline,” he begged, his voice a hoarse whisper, “say you still love me. Please.”
In a flash, she had twisted away from him and was backing toward the door. “Oh, you just couldn’t resist, could you?” she shrieked, her face devoid of all color, her hands thrust forward in an irrationally defensive gesture.
“I have never been able to resist you, Evie,” he answered honestly, his palms turned up in supplication.
“You really are the devil incarnate!” Evangeline screamed, backing toward the door. “You could not resist the opportunity to humiliate me once more, could you? To make me feel like the whore you want me to be. A whore like Jeanette and the hundreds of others you’ve no doubt had.” Her expression had contorted into a caricature of pain and anger. Her eyes darted about wildly, as if searching for something to throw.
“Evie, you are wrong!” Elliot made a move toward her, but she jerked open the door.
He took one more step, and Evangeline’s eyes settled on a cast-iron doorstop near her feet. “Take your sweet words of seduction, Rannoch, and get the hell out of my house!” She seized the heavy chunk of metal, spitting out his title as if it were an insult to her lips. “I’ll not be one of your filthy diversions, so do not ever come here again. It sickens me to know how I trusted you!”
As Elliot opened his mouth to plead with her, Evangeline heaved the chunk of metal at his head. It fell blessedly short, goring out a chunk of the ancient stone floor and sending it flying through the air. And then, in a whirl of blue muslin, Evangeline was gone, banging the door shut behind her. Through it, Elliot had caught a fleeting glance of Gus Weyden standing in the hall beyond, an expression of loathing indelibly etched onto his face.
Bloody, bloody hell! Gus had overheard everything. Not only was Evie gone from his life, but the people whose respect and friendship he had come to treasure now knew the truth of what he was, and they were disgusted by it. Elliot felt weak, as if the heavy oak door had just swung shut on his heart, slam
ming both blood and breath from his chest. For a timeless moment, he stood, staring at the door, until slowly, inexorably, he fell to his knees on the thick Oriental carpet beneath the desk. Evangeline was gone.
She meant it. She hated him. Any love, any desire she had felt had not been for him at all; it had been a gift from God, to a man who did not exist. Just a deception he had ruthlessly crafted, a man who could never be. Elliot felt an unfamiliar ache wrap itself around his heart, and then the sobs took hold, choking and sucking the air from his lungs. He was alone. Time stood still. Elliot remained on his knees, his arms still outstretched, until numbness set in and there were no more tears to shed.
“Evangeline,” he whispered into the stillness, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love you.”
Morning did come at last to Chatham Lodge, yet it mattered very little to Evangeline. From her seated position in bed, she pulled the heavy covers high against her chest and shivered uncontrollably. She was cold, so cold. Inside and out. Chilled to the core of her soul.
Throughout the evening and endless night, Evangeline had remained closeted in her room, pacing the floor, awaiting the tears that would not come. Now she sat slumped in surrender, her anger incinerated, her heart hollow. There was no grief, she told herself insistently. Grief insinuated loss, and she simply could not allow herself to believe that Elliot had been hers to lose. The implication would be too profound, the pain too much to bear. Already, sweet dreams of all they had shared tormented her fitful sleep.
Oh, but she did grieve! Evangeline suppressed a wretched sob. She grieved for the loss of a dream. The loss not just of a lover but of a deep and abiding friendship. She had trusted Elliot with her secrets, her hopes, and her heart, sharing with him in the most intimate things a woman could share with a man. How lowering it was to realize that his feelings for her had been a sham, undoubtedly a part of Rannoch’s vengeful scheme.
And then, when he had been caught out in his machinations, the marquis had proposed marriage. The audacity of it! She almost wished she had hit him with the damned doorstop. Oh, Rannoch must have something vile up his sleeve! Why else would he have made her such an offer? Evangeline simply could not allow herself the indulgence of hoping that his had been an honorable proposal.
Roused by the force of sheer indignation, Evangeline heaved the bedcovers onto the floor and began to strip off her nightclothes. A slow burn of anger subdued her sorrow. By God, what she wanted now was revenge—of any sort—for the pain and embarrassment Rannoch had caused her. And it was not just her pain for which she sought vengeance. The faces of the children last night had been agonizing.
At that memory, Evangeline began ripping the clothing from her wardrobe in search of a gown and some slippers. Finding both, she tugged them on with a ruthless energy. She thanked heaven for Gus, who had risen to the occasion with a maturity Evangeline had not known the young man possessed. Initially, she had been horrified to see him standing outside her studio following her ugly altercation with Elliot. Clearly, Gus had overheard every vile word that had passed between them. And yet Gus had quietly and understandingly stepped in to smooth over the dreadful events of the afternoon.
For once, Evangeline had been too absorbed in her own pain, and Winnie too choked with rage, to manage the near crisis. It hurt to think of how Gus had tried to console the children by murmuring some vague explanation for the three visitors, as well as an excuse for Elliot’s sudden departure. When he elaborated, however, by saying that Elliot would be too busy in London to return to Chatham, Frederica had sobbed wretchedly.
It was all too dreadful to think about. In frustration, Evangeline tore a smock from the hook inside her wardrobe and yanked it over her head. Carelessly, she wrestled her hair into some semblance of an arrangement and stormed out the door.
Perhaps she could not wreak Rannoch’s sort of vengeance, but she could certainly vent her ire in her own way. He was cruel—barbaric, even. Yes, that’s what he was, and that is what the world should see him as. Dear God, how had they been fooled by him? Worse, how could she hunger for such a man? How could she have given herself up to him with such reckless abandon? She felt her face grow hot with embarrassment at how she had behaved, willingly, breathlessly spreading her legs for Rannoch like a common strumpet, with less than a moment’s hesitation.
And she had enjoyed it. Yes, damn it, she had. At the thought of his heavy hands on her, Evangeline felt her traitorous nipples grow hard and eager beneath her paint-spattered smock. She tried to will away the memory of how his strong, long-fingered hands had teased and entranced her, how they had wrapped about her waist, then slid down, to effortlessly ease her bottom up against him so that he might fill her with pleasure. The sudden rush of arousal was hot and real; Evangeline wanted to feel him thrusting into her again.
Almost missing a step, Evangeline tried to focus on the twisting staircase beneath her feet. She all but flew around the next turn. He’s a devil, her inner voice shouted, further goading her wrath. She forced away her baser urges and concentrated on hate, not lust. What a vile, deceitful, depraved bastard! How amusing he must have found her family’s artless, provincial ways. How he must have laughed at her easy surrender to his expert seduction. She burst through the doors of her studio, realizing that the whats and the hows came freely enough, but the whys still evaded all logic.
Why would the marquis of Rannoch come to Chatham Lodge, she wondered as she dragged his portrait off the wall and shoved the frame onto an empty easel. Why would he ingratiate himself, charm her family, then seduce her? Why would someone she loved—no, thought she had loved—hurt her so profoundly when there had been so little to gain? Was it really retaliation? It was true that finding Rannoch at Chatham had incensed her step-grandmother, but the dowager had not been publicly humiliated, and she was far from defeated.
Evangeline went to her worktable, scrabbled through her pigment trays, and jerked out an assortment of brushes. Ruthlessly, she ground and scraped and stirred, slamming containers as she went, all the while wondering if the marquis truly wanted nothing more than revenge. For a moment, she paused just long enough to look at the mess she had made, ignored it, and went on. Certainly, Rannoch was known to be vengeful, yet that theory made no sense. Perhaps he had hoped to parlay their relationship into something far uglier. Something that would enable him to wield influence over Michael? At that thought, a bottle of oil slipped from her grasp and thudded onto the rug. Michael?
Perhaps her brother was the means to an end, and Rannoch sought vengeance, pure and simple. The blood was undeniably bad between the marquis and the Stone family. Because of the Stones, society had had a rare laugh at Rannoch’s expense, and undoubtedly he had not forgotten. Though Jeanette Stone had reputedly taken many lovers in her desperate attempt to beget an heir, Rannoch was the first to be caught—and in a very painful, very public way. By Jeanette’s half-witted husband, no less. The humiliation of being effectively treated like a standing stud could only have been surpassed by a ball of lead in the buttocks.
But that Evangeline should have been used as the instrument of his revenge, that she—and potentially Michael—could have been so cruelly manipulated, yes, that hurt almost as much as the loss itself.
By the time Winnie found Evangeline, hours later, the air reeked with the smell of solvent. In the center of the chaos, Evangeline sat on a stool, leaning intently into the portrait, steadily at work. Winnie knocked softly on the open door and slipped inside, almost unnoticed. Standing beside the artist and the canvas, Winnie stared at the portrait and shot Evangeline a look of grim sarcasm.
Muttering something that sounded suspiciously like “Satan in a kilt, eh?” Winnie shrugged, then crossed the room to the bank of windows and began to neaten the draperies. Outside, another brilliant morning was unfolding.
“Evie, my dear,” she sighed, finally turning from the windows to face her. “We must talk. I refuse to pretend that he has not hurt you very badly. I am sorry.”
Evangeline
stiffened her spine and pulled herself erect on her stool. “Thank you, Winnie. So am I. I did not need this. Not right now. None of us did.”
Gracefully, Winnie came toward her and gathered her into a warm embrace. “Oh, Evie,” she murmured, “to think that I encouraged you! You must believe me a worthless chaperone!”
“Nonsense, Winnie,” she answered, pushing her gently away to hold her at arm’s length. “You did nothing to make matters worse. It was I who—who—”
“Fell in love?” Winnie asked, staring down and absently scooting her toe through a glop of white paint on the flagstone. “You did, I know. And I let it happen. Do not deny it.”
Evangeline turned her head away, resolutely biting at her lip. She would not cry. She would not, for once the tears began, Evangeline was not entirely convinced that they would ever stop. Or that she would ever be able to see things clearly again.
She turned back to see Winnie’s hands fisting in the fabric of her skirt. “Why, Evie? Why do you think Elliot misled us? I have wracked my brain all night for an answer. To deliberately do something so—so odious … it just makes no sense!”
“It was all a ruse, Winnie,” she answered bitterly, staring at the Scottish barbarian who was rapidly taking shape on the canvas before her. “Perhaps it was his idea of a joke on Uncle Stephen. But I rather suspect it was far more malicious than that.”
Winnie looked doubtful. “But how could he know of us?”
Evangeline’s expression hardened as she laid her knife against the canvas, peeling away one of Rannoch’s ears with a ruthless scrape of the blade. She would bloody well like to use it on another part of his anatomy altogether. “We’re hardly hermits, Winnie. I’ll own we’re reclusive, but we’ve not hidden from the world.”
“But you have,” protested Winnie. “You’ve deliberately avoided society. You insist on painting under your mother’s surname. Other than your trips to see Peter, you never go into London.”
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