Society's Most Scandalous Rake

by Isabelle Goddard

  ‘A convent, perhaps?’

  She stared at him. ‘Well, isn’t that one of the few acceptable choices for a virtuous Spanish girl? The altar or the cloister, or so I understand.’

  Rage fought with tears. How dare he predict her future? What she did was no longer his concern. But suddenly his voice was soft.

  ‘Don’t choose a convent, Domino. You were not made for such.’

  He began to walk towards her and she seemed paralysed to move. But before he reached her, the door opened and Christabel walked into the room. Domino had thought this encounter could not get worse but she had been wrong.

  Joshua stared blindly at the vision that had entered. Though well into pregnancy, Christabel was able still to stun any man who crossed her path. But Joshua’s mesmerised gaze was not for the woman he saw before him, but for the one he had long ago bid farewell.

  ‘Christabel?’ he queried in amazement. ‘Christabel Tallis!’

  ‘Christabel Veryan,’ she corrected him gently.

  ‘Of course. Lady Veryan, my apologies, and my very good wishes on your marriage.’ He bowed politely. ‘And on your forthcoming happiness,’ he added, smiling at the noticeable bump Christabel carried.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Marchmain. You are most kind. And I am delighted to see you again.’

  Domino remained silent and unmoving, hardly able to believe the turn of events. It was as though she was watching a play enacted, with herself the sole audience.

  Christabel continued unperturbed, ‘Domino told me you were to call today and I was hoping that I might speak with you.’

  He looked enquiringly and she said with hardly a pause, ‘I am sure she has thanked you profusely for the service you rendered her. But I would like to add my own thanks. Your courageous action saved her from the most dreadful fate.’

  He nodded an acknowledgement but she had not yet finished and her quiet voice seemed to fill the room. ‘There is something else. I wished to thank you for the service you rendered me many years ago. I know that as a result you must have suffered harm.’

  Joshua was looking dazed—as well he might, thought Domino, burning with righteous anger.

  ‘If you had not intervened in my life so dramatically,’ Christabel went on, ‘I would have wed Richard, but for all the wrong reasons. I would not have the happy marriage I have today. I needed to find out where I truly belonged, and you did that for me.’

  His expression was wry. ‘You are most kind, Lady Veryan.’

  ‘I speak only the truth. But what of you, Joshua? I hope you, too, have found where you belong.’

  ‘I thought I had but apparently I was mistaken,’ he said curtly.

  He picked up his gloves from the small table beneath the window and bowed to each of the women in turn.

  ‘I believe it is time I left. Christabel, Lady Veryan, it has been most pleasant to meet you again. Domino, my very best wishes for your future happiness.’

  And with a brief nod, he was gone. The front door shut with loud finality and Domino could no longer maintain her veneer of detachment. Careless of what Christabel would think, she rushed from the room and up the stairs to her bedroom, locking the door behind her.

  She sank down on her bed. She was out of reach of friends and family alike, but not out of reach of torturing thoughts. The carefully scripted encounter had gone very wrong. All she had to do was express grateful thanks for her rescue. A few words on either side would have sufficed. Instead, what had happened? Joshua had not wanted to be thanked for his endeavours. He had wanted her to know that her priorities were wrong. The rescue was unimportant; what she did with the rest of her life was what mattered. He had brought home to her in bald terms just what her choices were and she had not liked them. And he had chopped her into the smallest of pieces by claiming that she had no idea what love was; that all she was capable of feeling was a pretence of love.

  And then there was Christabel greeting him as a long-lost friend, behaving as though they were meeting at some dowager’s tea party. She had clearly astonished Joshua with her words. She had absolved him, Domino thought savagely, so that he no longer need feel a shred of guilt for his past sins. She had even come close to praising him!

  The churn of thoughts flooding her mind brought her to her feet. She could not rest and began aimlessly to pace the polished floorboards. Joshua had done a dreadful thing; he had almost destroyed the man she once loved. According to him that love had been nothing but illusion—and he was right. She had recognised that weeks ago. But he was so very wrong about this love. The love she felt for him was no illusion. He had taunted her that she didn’t want a flesh and blood man. If that meant that she didn’t want a man who carelessly inflicted hurt, then he was right. Yet both Richard and Christabel were happy now. Their baby would soon be with them, an added joy in the life of love they already shared.

  And what of her, Domino de Silva, heiress and sad, sad girl? What was to become of her? Just a few days ago her world had been full to overflowing, then Charlotte Severn had dripped poison into her ears, and suddenly her life, her future, was changed forever. The duchess had won their battle of wills.

  But why should she? She was allowing her to win—no, willing her to win. She was behaving exactly as Charlotte Severn had anticipated. The woman had judged her correctly to the last inch. How mortifying to be the duchess’s creature. But if she were to defy Charlotte’s malign calculations…

  She paused her restless wandering and gazed out of the window. For several long minutes she stood there, watching the waves endlessly tumble to shore. Joshua Marchmain was a fallible man, a man who had lived a far from perfect life. But it was a life that had given him strangely little happiness. She remembered how puzzled she’d been that someone who seemed to have everything could be so bored and discontented. Yet from the moment they’d met, he had appeared quite other. Was it really possible that his days of philandering were over, that with her he’d finally stumbled on fulfilment?

  She rested her forehead on the cold glass of the window pane, thinking, thinking. Minutes ago she’d heard him say that he thought he’d found where he belonged but that he’d been mistaken. But he hadn’t been. He did belong with her and she belonged with him. Not with an unknown husband, nor behind a veil. She belonged with him, a strong, tender man who had once been an unloved child. He’d lost sight of where he belonged and before he’d properly matured, had committed the fatal error determining his life’s path. Why couldn’t she accept that?

  There was no reason, no reason. She snatched up her bonnet and pelisse. The wind was blowing strongly and dark clouds threatened the return of an early autumn storm, but she took no heed. In a minute she was tripping down the stairs as quickly as she had run up them. Flora was crossing the hall and made to speak to her. She held up her finger for silence and slipped out of the front door.

  The wind sent her skirts skirling but she bent her head against its force and pushed on towards the Pavilion. The guard on the gate recognised her from previous visits and though surprised at her solitary state, allowed her through into the gardens. She quickly found her way around the side of the palace, making for where she knew Joshua would be. Where else but in his studio?

  He looked up as she appeared in the open doorway. The wind had whipped colour into her pale cheeks and her dark, dishevelled curls framed a luminous face. Her graceful young figure was silhouetted against the stormy sky outside and she looked heartbreakingly lovely. He drew in a sharp breath but resisted the impulse to reach for her. He had no idea why she was here. It was yet another confusion in a vastly confusing day.

  Meeting Christabel after so long had been astonishing and his mind still grappled with her sudden arrival. He could make little sense of it except that her presence had forced him to be circumspect. When she’d entered the room, he had been in a fair way to for
getting his resolve to remain coolly polite. He’d wanted to grab Domino, shake her, make her see the foolishness of her decision. He would have done it, too, if Christabel had not opened the door at that very moment. In the end he had been forced into a cold, mechanical farewell: a fitting end for a doomed love affair.

  But now here she was, teetering on the threshold of his studio, her face wistful, her eyes shining.

  ‘I had to come,’ she said simply.

  ‘And…’ A small flicker of expectancy started deep within him.

  ‘I’m sorry. I was wrong.’

  ‘About?’ he prompted, the flicker growing stronger.

  ‘About everything. I’ve been obsessed with what happened all those years ago. You behaved very badly but so did Christabel. She has forgotten the bad memories, Richard too, and you—all of you have forgotten. I don’t know why it became so important to me.’

  ‘Perhaps because I was not the man you imagined.’ His voice was guarded and he remained standing aloof from her.

  ‘I have been very stupid.’

  She walked further into the studio, moving closer to him, her gaze clear and unwavering. ‘I don’t know why I got it so badly wrong. I started out thinking you were the worst kind of man, a thorough rake, irredeemable. But then I fell in love and thought the world had wronged you and treated you callously. You became the best kind of man there could ever be. I placed you on an impossible dais.’

  ‘And now you know that I am neither?’ For a moment he looked tired and brushed away a lock of hair which had fallen over his forehead. Her heart stirred in tenderness.

  ‘I know that you’re the only man I ever want to be with,’ she said with a catch in her voice.

  He was beside her in a step, his tiredness forgotten. He held out his arms wide and she walked into them.

  ‘Is that true?’ he breathed into her ear.

  ‘I’ve never stopped loving you, Joshua. But for a while I lost my trust.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now I’ve come to realise that your past is truly dead and I was wrong to doubt you.’

  ‘Does that mean you still wish to marry?’

  ‘I do with all my heart—though what Papa will make of it, I cannot begin to imagine.’

  He smiled down at her, the familiar glint back in his eyes. ‘And not only Papa,’ he mocked gently. ‘How will Carmela survive the news?’

  Domino pulled back from him a little and said in a considered tone, ‘I think perhaps we should wait until she is back in Spain before we formally announce our betrothal.’

  ‘Then let us make her travel arrangements as soon as possible.’

  She gurgled with laughter. He had thought he would never hear that sound again and pulled her close, holding her fast against his body, his suppressed longing overtaking prudence and destroying the carefully forged restraint. The palace was full of interested observers and the studio doors stood wide open to the garden. It mattered not.

  He tipped her face to his. Her dark eyes were radiant and filled with love for him. This is where they both belonged. Gently and insistently he began to kiss her. Over and over again, at first soft and exploratory and then demanding, ever more demanding. Blind to everything around them, they crashed a path through the studio until they came to rest on the well-worn couch pushed against its rear wall. Laughingly they disentangled themselves and surveyed the carnage. Canvases were scattered here and there, an easel had been overturned and paint streaked the floor and soaked though their footwear.

  ‘We seem to have managed a pretty good demolition.’

  ‘Since we’ve made such a satisfactory start, perhaps we should finish,’ she suggested, her full mouth curving into a provocative smile.

  In response he folded her tightly into his body. ‘Do you not think we should wait until you have a wedding ring on your finger?’

  He was nibbling delicately at her ear but she detached herself sufficiently to take him to task for such heresy. She ran a finger lovingly down his face.

  ‘I would never agree to such a foolish notion.’

  ‘How foolish?’ He kissed her eyebrows one at a time.

  ‘Unbelievably foolish! Every girl knows that once she’s caught her rake, she must make it impossible for him to escape!’

  ‘Is that so?’ His hands were making light work of the muslin’s fastenings. ‘I’ve obviously left it far too late to save myself.’

  ‘I fear so.’ Her voice faded into a sigh as she felt his limbs pressing fiercely against her, imprinting her with his form.

  ‘Sadly your beautiful gown is like to be ruined,’ he lamented as the crushed dress was swiftly undone and cast to one side. Shirt and breeches soon went the way of the muslin.

  His lips were moving across the bare skin of her neck in sweet, fiery kisses. She heard her breath coming fast as his mouth reached her breasts, tasting them, teasing them, moulding them into sharp pinnacles of desire.

  ‘I cannot think of dresses just now,’ she panted, small groans of pleasure emanating from somewhere she had never before known.

  ‘And why would you?’ he murmured, his body hard and hot. ‘While I am so very close, what need have you of a gown?’

  Epilogue

  ‘Las Meninas has to be the most flawless picture ever painted.’

  Joshua was squinting at the large canvas, trying without success to detect an imperfection. The young Infanta Margerita, surrounded by her entourage of maids of honour, bodyguard, two dwarfs and a dog, looked out at him from a room in Philip IV’s palace.

  Domino smiled knowingly. ‘It depresses you.’

  ‘Only a very little. Nothing so perfect can depress me for long. Do you see Velázquez himself in the painting, just behind this group here, working at his canvas but looking out at the viewer. He’s mocking me for my very poor efforts.’

  ‘He’s greeting you from across the centuries,’ she said consolingly. ‘You must have seen the picture many times before. I remember your saying how much you loved coming to the Prado to see Velázquez. Does he always have this effect?’

  ‘Far worse. I’m finding the painting much less dispiriting today. That’s because you’re by my side.’

  ‘Las Meninas looks different with me?’

  ‘Everything looks different with you.’

  ‘You are a shameless flatterer’, and she held his arm more tightly. ‘At least I assume that was a compliment.’

  ‘It could be nothing else. I feel as though I’ve been walking on clouds for the last six months. I want to paint the most exquisite picture which will say everything I feel for you. But Velázquez reminds me how far I am from achieving that.’

  She smiled up at him, her face aglow with happiness. ‘Whatever you paint for me will be better than anything hanging in the Prado, for it will be done with love.’

  ‘An understatement, my darling.’ And he dipped his face beneath the brim of her bonnet and kissed her soundly.

  ‘You shouldn’t do that! No London manners here! And I am fearful that any time soon you will come down to earth with a bump.’

  ‘I am almost sure that you’re wrong. I find that married life is exactly what suits me.’

  Their fellow visitors shuffling their way around the white-walled room stopped for a moment to glance with curiosity at the couple. A tangible lustre surrounded them and everyone in their vicinity felt its warmth.

  ‘Only almost!’

  ‘I cannot allow you to get too puffed up,’ he teased, adjusting the rose-satin ribbons of her villager hat and surreptitiously slipping his arm around h
er waist. He squeezed her tightly and an elderly lady wrapped in black glared at him through her pince-nez. In response he smiled sunnily back.

  They began to move away from the picture that had taken their attention for so long, strolling slowly through each succeeding salon, their bodies brushing as they walked together, side by side, over the thick red carpet. In this fashion they made their way to the huge polished wood door guarding the front entrance. Domino could see ahead the fresh blue of a spring sky. Beside her Joshua’s flaxen locks glinted in the sun’s rays as they penetrated the gallery’s long windows.

  ‘Madrid in spring is heavenly.’

  ‘The city has made a perfect end to our journey,’ he agreed. ‘But now it’s time to head home—to my home, rather.’

  ‘My home, too,’ she reminded him.

  ‘You will miss your father.’

  She looked a little troubled. ‘We will miss each other. We have had such a short time together but he is very happy to have been posted to Spain. I think he found London life a deal too complicated. And he will visit us in England for sure.’

  ‘And your aunts?’

  ‘It’s strange,’ she conceded, ‘but I will miss them too. I never thought I would say that but they have been so welcoming. It must be your charm, you’ve won them over completely.’

  ‘But not Carmela, I fear.’

  He reached over to take their outdoor coats from the attendant and helped his wife into her rose velvet capote, shrugging himself into a greatcoat with upwards of a dozen capes.

  ‘You never will,’ Domino said sagely. ‘For her you will always be the dangerous rake. But she is happy enough in Santa Caterina. The convent is where she has always wanted to be, you know. Brighton was a horrible deviation and I am sure she wishes to forget that she ever visited the town.’