The Art of Sinning

by Sabrina Jeffries

  At least he’d offered to marry her if she were ruined. But she could never let him go through with it—because the last thing she wanted was a husband who’d married her out of duty, who’d abandoned his family for Lord knew what reasons, and who kept his cards always close to his chest.

  So she’d better pray they were not caught. Because she also refused to end up a social outcast.

  Jeremy was in a panic the entire way back to his cousin’s town house, though he didn’t dare show it in front of that ass Knightford, who would blast his way through any chink in Jeremy’s armor.

  But looking at Yvette, so still and pensive across from him, made Jeremy want to pummel something. She deserved better. And he’d nearly ruined her entirely in Mrs. Beard’s office, all because he’d wanted to pleasure her, to see her reach her ecstasy at his hands. If Knightford hadn’t shown up when he had, God only knew how far Jeremy might have gone.

  What a selfish devil he was. Which was precisely why he shouldn’t marry her. He couldn’t give her what she needed.

  But he could protect her from disaster. Since Yvette clearly mustn’t keep running off to brothels with him in search of her nephew—they’d be lucky if they got her through tonight unscathed—he’d have to help her another way.

  That meant involving Bonnaud and the Duke’s Men. Though she’d begged him not to, there was something she didn’t know. Bonnaud and Zoe owed him quite a bit. Last year Bonnaud had uncovered the fact that Zoe wasn’t the legitimate heir and countess in her own right that the world had assumed. Which meant that Jeremy was the legitimate heir to his cousin, the Earl of Olivier. He’d agreed to keep their secret because he had no desire to be an English lord.

  That hadn’t changed, but his relations were aware that they were indebted to him for their entire future. Bonnaud would be utterly discreet, would even be willing to investigate on behalf of the son of his brother’s enemy, Samuel, if Jeremy asked it.

  So he would ask it. It was the least he could do for Yvette. It was vastly superior to her risking her reputation searching the city for her nephew. And it was better than his marrying her.

  He glanced out the window. Was it? She’d make a wonderful wife. He could easily imagine her in his bed, easily imagine her joining him on every adventure.

  The image of her gawking at that bare-assed fellow in the brothel leapt into his mind, and he bit back a smile. Oh yes, his curious and clever lady might be eager for any exploit. And once they headed into the logical next adventure—having children—she’d make a wonderful mother.

  His smile faltered. If she survived childbirth. If she even survived marriage to the reckless and wild Mr. Jeremy Keane, whose very presence in her life would provoke more scandal.

  Yet, God help him, he was tempted to risk it. How dangerous was that?

  “We’re here,” she said in her low, melodic voice, tightening something deep in his chest.

  Not his heart. He had no heart. He couldn’t risk having one, because hearts always ended up broken. And he’d spent too long protecting his to offer it to her just because he wanted to bed her.

  The three of them got out, slipped through the garden gate unseen, and put their plan into action with surprisingly little trouble.

  Until they reached the doors into the house and Blakeborough walked through them. “Where the devil have you been?” he barked, directing the question to Yvette.

  “In the garden,” she said without missing a beat. “Why? Were you looking for me?”

  “You haven’t been in the garden all this time. I went over the entirety of it a while ago.” Blakeborough fixed his gaze on Knightford. “Tell me the truth, Warren. Where has she been?”

  Jeremy held his breath.

  Then Knightford smiled. “With me and Keane, of course. They encountered me while I was fetching Clarissa her cloak. We stood a while talking. Then Keane wanted to get some air, so we moved outside.”

  “I went past the coatroom as well,” Blakeborough said tersely.

  “Oh, that must have been when we went to get refreshments,” Yvette said shakily.

  Jeremy could tell that Blakeborough had noted her nervousness, so it was best to distract him. “Knightford and I were discussing our club,” he said boldly.

  Knightford blinked. “Er . . . yes. Your club.”

  Blakeborough’s whole manner softened. “Not just my club and Keane’s, old chap. We want you to join, too.”

  “I told him,” Jeremy cut in. “I made it clear that we couldn’t do it without him. But he’s still hesitant.”

  “I’m surprised,” Blakeborough told Knightford. “Given all your trouble with Clarissa and her antics, I’d think you would make good use of a club where men compared notes concerning suitors for their womenfolk.”

  A stranger’s voice sounded from beyond Blakeborough. “Is there such a club?” asked a fellow Jeremy didn’t recognize, accompanied by another gentleman Jeremy didn’t know.

  “Not yet,” Blakeborough said. “But we mean to start one, Mr. Keane and I. And Knightford, if he agrees.”

  “The idea is growing on me,” Knightford assured him. “Keane has only given me the sketchiest of details, however. Perhaps we should have a drink and discuss it.”

  “Can I join you?” said the other fellow, and his friend echoed the request.

  Blakeborough frowned. “Actually, gentlemen, I was looking for my sister so we could return home. But I’ll call on both of you when next I’m in town, and we can discuss how to go about forming such a club.” He nodded to Knightford. “I’ll call on you tomorrow. We can talk about it more then, if that’s all right.”

  “I look forward to it,” Knightford said. “Actually, I believe Clarissa is ready to leave, too. That’s why I was fetching her cloak.”

  Jeremy had no doubt that Clarissa would support her guardian’s story, since she’d obviously been allowed into Yvette’s confidence to some extent.

  “Well, then,” Blakeborough said, any suspicions he’d had about what Yvette had been up to seemingly having vanished. “Are you ready to leave, Yvette?”

  “Yes,” she said quickly. “Quite ready.”

  Taking her arm to head into the ballroom, Blakeborough asked, “Are you coming, too, Keane?”

  “Actually, no.”

  Yvette tensed, and Blakeborough stared at him questioningly. “No?”

  “Not tonight.” He couldn’t spend another evening with her alone and control himself. He needed time to think, to figure out how to go on. His work was becoming entangled with her, with his feelings for her. He had to sort things out.

  “I need some additional pigment for the portrait,” he went on. “I also want to take care of a few business matters, and to find out if there’s been any word about my mother’s ship. I’ll return to Stoke Towers in a day or two.” He met Yvette’s gaze. “You’re not rid of me yet.”

  Her face fell, and the sight of it cut him to the bone. But it was for the best. Even if it hurt her temporarily, they needed to cool their friendship. Then maybe when he saw her again, they could keep a more professional distance. A safer distance.

  It took everything in his power to walk into the ballroom away from her, knowing that her feelings were probably wounded. And that such wounds would harden into anger by the time he saw her again. Or, worse yet, indifference.

  But at least he hadn’t compromised her.

  “Hold up, Keane!” called a voice behind him.

  Knightford, damn him.

  Jeremy faced the ass. “What?”

  The marquess grabbed him by the arm and steered him back out into the garden. Blakeborough and Yvette had already disappeared, probably headed for the entrance to call for their carriage, so it was just the two of them in the corner as Knightford released his arm with a little shove.

  “You are not to go near her again, is that understood?�
�

  With a nonchalance borne of the armor he’d developed through the years, Jeremy examined his fingernails. “It will be rather difficult for me to avoid her while painting her portrait.”

  “You know precisely what I mean, you arse. I’d better not hear of any more private rendezvous in locked rooms.”

  Jeremy cast him a bored look. “I’d better not hear of you speaking one word about them to anyone, her brother included.”

  “Why? Because you care about what happens to her? I have trouble believing that.”

  And Jeremy wasn’t about to contradict it. Knightford mustn’t suspect how deeply he did care, or the man would surely go to her brother. “Because Blakeborough has commissioned her portrait from me, and I mean the painting to be my ticket into the Royal Academy. You understand.”

  Knightford cocked his head, as if uncertain whether to believe him. “I understand that you have a reputation.”

  “A well-deserved one, I assure you. So if you think I would settle down with some English chit who probably dresses in the dark, you’re mad.”

  “But you’d seduce one, I daresay,” Knightford said grimly.

  “And be caught in a parson’s mousetrap? Not I. Besides, she put me in my place very effectively.”

  Knightford relaxed his stance. “She does have a way of doing that.” His gaze turned speculative. “Tell me what she was looking for at the brothel.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “She asked me not to. I may be a scoundrel, but I’m no tattletale.”

  “But Edwin should know of it.”

  “Then she’ll tell him. In her own good time.”

  Knightford scowled. “You’re an arse, do you know that?”

  “It’s a popular opinion,” Jeremy said dryly. “I live down to it as often as possible.”

  But he grew weary of playing that role. Once, it had suited him to assume the mantle of Byronic artist. It kept people from getting too close. Ever since he’d met Zoe and Bonnaud, however, he’d begun to see that family could be pleasant to have around sometimes. Lately he’d been less inclined to hold people at arm’s length, which was probably why he’d foolishly allowed Yvette beneath his guard.

  “Are we finished here?” he asked Knightford.

  “For now. I may still call you out.”

  “Go ahead. But you’ll be proclaiming me a coward the next day. Because I will not fight you.”

  Knightford’s eyes narrowed. “That wouldn’t help your aspirations to be part of the Royal Academy.”

  “But it would keep my neck intact, wouldn’t it?”

  He headed away from Knightford, toward the ballroom. But it was only as he entered that he remembered something disturbing.

  He still didn’t know who Lieutenant Ruston had been to Yvette.

  Sixteen

  Three days after the ball, Yvette sat at a table in the drawing room at Stoke Towers, putting together kits of sewing materials for the women at her favorite charity and trying not to think of Jeremy. But when her distraction led her to drop yet another needle on the rug, she cursed under her breath.

  “How many of those kits have you put together?” Edwin asked from his usual post, working on his account ledgers. “A hundred?”

  “It seems like it, but it’s only been fifty. I promised them seventy-five.”

  “Then I suppose it’s good that Keane hasn’t been here. Though God only knows when he intends to finish that portrait I’m paying him for.”

  Yes, God only knew, because Yvette certainly didn’t. She hadn’t heard anything from the dratted man. Not. One. Word. The portrait didn’t worry her; it was the search for Samuel’s son that concerned her. She needed Jeremy for that.

  Though that was all she needed him for. She’d had time to settle her emotions, to think through everything that had happened, and a marriage between them would never work. It simply wouldn’t. He was too . . . too . . .

  Oh, what a liar she was! She missed him.

  She still wanted him. And if she couldn’t have him as a husband, she might even settle for having him as a lover.

  A blush heated her cheeks. Would she? She’d always sworn to steer clear of rogues, but he was no rogue. And he was the most exciting man she’d ever met. The most stimulating, and certainly the most intriguing. Why not share his bed? It wasn’t as if she had any impending proposals on the horizon. And the idea of never having a chance to be with him intimately—

  Drat him. Surely he had to come back sometime. He had his other painting to finish.

  She would have broken his rule and peeked at it, but not trusting her or the servants, he’d hidden it somewhere. Or more likely had handed it to Damber for safekeeping. Since the servant had rushed to London as soon as his master wrote to summon him, she had no idea where the painting was. For all she knew, Damber might have dropped it into the pond.

  “Lady Clarissa Lindsey!” announced a footman.

  Before Yvette could do more than blink, Clarissa breezed into the drawing room and threw herself onto a chair next to Yvette with wild abandon. The woman did everything with wild abandon—rode, sang, told outrageous stories that got people laughing. Despite her blond, green-eyed china-doll exterior, she was a hellcat in skirts, which was precisely why Yvette liked her.

  And if sometimes a haunted look crossed her face, well, that was Clarissa, too. Yvette only wished she knew what caused it.

  “Good afternoon, Clarissa,” Edwin said without looking up from his account books. His shoulders had gone rigid the moment she entered the room. They generally did. “To what do we owe the honor of this visit?”

  “I’m not visiting you,” Clarissa said blithely. “I’m visiting Yvette.”

  Edwin lifted his head, then his eyebrow. “I don’t see the distinction. The house belongs to me.”

  Clarissa flashed him an arch smile. “That’s like saying that the palace belongs to the king, so no one can visit the princesses without visiting him, too.”

  His gaze sharpened, and he lounged back against his chair. “Are you comparing me to the king?”

  “Only if you’re bloated and red-faced and an aging debauchee. Which you clearly are not.”

  “Goodness, no,” Yvette cut in, before Edwin could chide her friend for her rash words about His Majesty. “Edwin is the opposite of all those things.”

  “Indeed. It’s his particular charm.” Clarissa turned to Yvette. “But I’m not here to talk about your brother.”

  “Then I hope you’re here to help me put together sewing kits for the poor ladies at the charity.” Yvette pointed to a jar of needles. “Those have to be stuck through placards that we place in the kits.”

  “Oh, very well.” Clarissa went to work on the needles. “And while I help you, you can tell me all about that artist fellow who’s doing your portrait. When you visited us the other day, you neglected to mention that he is so very good-looking.”

  With a snort, Edwin returned to perusing his account books. But Yvette now noticed him rubbing the back of his neck. He did that when he was agitated. No doubt he was still worried about Yvette’s association with Jeremy.

  As Yvette opened canvas bags, she weighed her words. “I suppose some would find Mr. Keane attractive. Assuming that one liked that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, come now, he was handsome as sin in that costume, admit it.”

  Yes, if Sin had an angel’s golden locks and glorious blue eyes. Jeremy certainly made Yvette feel like sinning. Recklessly. Thoroughly.

  Often.

  “It’s only because he has that American way of seeming carefree and wild. That can sometimes be appealing.”

  “Sometimes!” Clarissa snorted. “I doubt he’s anything less than gorgeous at any time. I can only imagine how divine he must look in dinner attire.”

  Divine, indeed. Yv
ette hoped she got to see him in it again. Or out of it. The sight of Jeremy in shirtsleeves had quite heated her blood. Just imagine if he were wearing nothing but—

  “Don’t be vulgar,” Edwin said through clenched teeth.

  Yvette nearly jumped before she realized her brother was speaking to Clarissa.

  Her friend tipped up her chin. “Pray tell me, why is it vulgar for a woman to admire a man’s looks? Men admire women’s looks all the time.”

  “Ah, yes, I forgot,” he said. “You aspire to be a man these days, complete with trousers and waistcoat.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re angry that I didn’t consult you about my costume at the ball,” Clarissa said, an odd gleam in her eyes. “Really, Edwin, I didn’t know it mattered so much to you.”

  Edwin scowled. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t give a farthing what costume you wear. You can dress yourself as a Turk, for all I care.”

  “I’d much prefer to be the Turk’s harem slave,” Clarissa said sweetly. “Only think how much fun that costume would be. All those flowing, nearly transparent fabrics and flimsy pantaloons. I could wear some kohl around my eyes and show my belly, and practically ensure that I’m asked to stand up for every set.”

  A curious flush rose over Edwin’s face. He stood abruptly, gathered up his account ledgers, and headed for the door. “Forgive me, ladies, I have work to do. You’ll enjoy your chatter more without me here anyway.”

  As he walked out, Clarissa cast him a speculative look and said softly, “I sincerely doubt that.”

  When he was gone, Yvette turned to her friend. “Why do you persist in taunting him so?”

  A strange expression crossed Clarissa’s face before she shrugged. “It’s good for him. He’s too sure of his opinions and his place and his rules. Someone has to shake him up, and you don’t do it nearly as much as you should.” She leaned over. “Now, enough about your rigid brother. Tell me more about your Mr. Keane.”

  “He’s hardly my Mr. Keane. He’s been in London ever since the ball.”

  “He’s probably working up the courage to offer for you.”