Chapter Twenty-Four
Mr. Smith
Normally it was no hardship to go to a brothel, unless you went for reasons other than pleasure.
It was Nora who finally alerted Smith to Fanshawe’s condition.
“He’s not come home for four days,” she’d said, pacing the study at his home, where she’d somehow tracked him down. Smith took a moment to appreciate the artistry of this woman in this particular room. He liked black. He preferred it to any other shade or color. Right now he had this woman—so fascinatingly pale—set against a black background.
Not for the first time in his life did Smith wish he had the artistic skill to capture a moment.
“He’s not at Tosca’s or Bernina’s, I checked. I daresay he’s at the Bellaire.” She stopped in front of his massive black desk, this ethereal creature in white. “I don’t know anyone there—and I’d hate to make a scene asking for him. Will you check, Mr. Smith?”
While he was generally resistant to feminine wiles—or any other wiles, for that matter—he was not impervious. And he had a definite weakness for Nora Hudson. Not the least because she was an awe-inspiring artist. He’d seen the picture of Edward. And then he’d smiled after he’d picked his jaw up off the floor. Of course he recognized him, having seen that magnificent body naked. But nobody but he, Nora, and a goodly number of whores would recognize it.
He’d been disappointed when she’d won some acclaim but not won the grand prize—not that it was very grand, a small purse of money and a partial scholarship to the Royal Academy, which Nora clearly did not need—but the adulation would have been good for launching what was likely to be a spectacular career.
“Mr. Smith?”
“Hmm?”
“I asked if you would check for Edward?”
“Of course. I’ll go immediately.” He stood.
She blinked those one-of-a-kind eyes in surprise. “Right now?”
He gave her a gentle smile as he came round the desk. “Last time I checked that was the definition of immediately.”
She smiled, but her heart was not in it. She feared for her lover—more than Edward deserved, in Smith’s opinion, given the way he’d treated her. But love, he knew as well as anyone, was a strange beast.
“Come, Nora. I’ll drop you home on my way to fetch Edward.”
❈❈❈
Even in the foyer, Nora knew something was dreadfully wrong. She looked at Phelps, the butler, and he gave a minute nod of his head: Edward was home.
She stripped off her gloves as she ran up the stairs, her heart thundering louder than a herd of horses. When she got to her room, the door was open. Inside Cat leaned against the wall, blood leaking from the corner of her mouth.
Nora ran toward her. “Did he—”
“No, he didn’t touch me. I fell trying to get to the door before him.” She glared at Nora. “You left it wide open.”
Nora closed her eyes briefly and then opened them and went to the sunroom.
Edward was inside, seated on the chaise, studying the painting on the easel. Although it was only half-done, it was undoubtedly Cat, naked and spread, her wicked smile so enticing it made Nora want to step into the canvas. She’d done that, she suddenly realized. And Anthony was right—she was an artist—perhaps one day she’d be a great one.
But now was not the time to revel in future brilliance.
“Edward?”
He didn’t look away from the canvas. “How long?”
Nora knew what he meant. “Several weeks.”
“How. Many.”
“Eight weeks.”
He snorted softly and shook his head, finally turning to her. “So, while I was worried about my wife sneaking out to meet her paramours, she was fucking my mistress.” He laughed until his eyes teared. “This is too farfetched for the stage.”
Nora felt movement beside her and knew it was Cat.
“And you,” he looked at his wife as if he’d never seen her. “You never wanted me to touch you because of this—because of your Sapphic bent.”
She felt Cat shrug and was glad the other woman said nothing to incite him.
He gestured to the canvas and then to the others that were stacked against the walls, rolled up, and some hanging. “How you must have laughed at me—an ignorant philistine—while you could paint like this.”
“I’ve never laughed at you.”
He surged to his feet and seemed to flow toward her, not stopping until he had her caged between his massive arms, pinned to the wall.
“Edward,” Cat said in a shaky voice while Nora and her lover—the love of her life—were locked in each other’s gazes. “Please. You don’t und—”
“If you say I don’t understand I might just throw you on that chaise and show you how very wrong you are.” He spoke without turning away from Nora. “Now, if you will kindly get out, this is none of your affair.”
Even Cat—as fearless as she was in so many ways—did not cross Edward when he spoke in that voice.
Out of the corner of her eye, Nora saw her leave.
“Now, it’s just you and me.”
He’d looked at her many ways, but never with pure hate.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? For what? Fucking my wife? Lying to me about this?” he gestured to the room. “I suppose you’re the reason old Ceddy left, aren’t you. Because it has occurred to me, as I sat here looking at naked picture after naked picture of my wife that Ceddy must have discovered something and you paid him off. That’s the only reason a leech like that would ever leave free room and board.”
She swallowed. “Yes, he found out.”
“How?”
“He saw us.”
His jaw worked from side-to-side and she knew the images in his head aroused him. Perhaps if they were—
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t even think about it, you scheming, manipulative, lying, disloyal, cheating whore.” He leaned close to her suddenly, making her jump. “Oh, don’t worry,” he whispered against her ear, his hot breath and cold, cold tone making every hair on her body stand up. “The days of me hurting you for our mutual pleasure are over. They are dead and gone. Just as you are—or soon will be: dead as far as I’m concerned, and gone. I’m leaving for one hour. And when I come back, I don’t want to find you in my house. I’ll leave an envelope with Powell that will contain money and a bank draught for the amount in the contract. You haven’t fulfilled the terms, but it is money well-spent to get you out of my sight and out of my life. If you try to contact my wife, you will live to regret crossing me. Now, are we understood?”
Nora looked into the love of her life’s eyes and said, “Yes, Edward. I understand.”
And then he was gone, and she was where she’d always known she’d be: without him.
Part 3
Chapter Twenty-Five
Edward knew he would have to deal with Catherine eventually. In the month since Nora had left she’d become increasingly unmanageable—unbearable.
But he couldn’t deal with her tonight.
It had been a long bloody day at one of their manufactories and he was tired, dirty, and sick of life. He’d deal with her tomorrow—when he was fresher and less likely to say something he’d regret. When he—
Something flickered out of the corner of his eye as he mounted the steps and Edward looked up.
“Great, bloody, fucking hell!” He threw his satchel on the ground and ran—faster than he’d ever run in his life, up the interminable steps to Nora’s room.
He skidded to a halt at the open door, not wanting to startle her, walking on tip-toes to the threshold of Nora’s sunroom-cum-painting studio-cum-bordello.
When he reached the darkened room he vaguely noticed something scattered around the floor. He squinted, paintbrushes, tubes of paint that had been squashed and smeared, canvasses torn and scattered.
But his attention was on Cat, who teetered in the window, seemingly unaware of him. She was naked, swaying like a
thin reed with a lump in the middle, her toes hanging over the window ledge.
Part of his brain—that eternally inappropriate part—realized he’d not seen her naked before. Well, aside from the painting he’d found that day and which now was locked—with new locks—in their room.
Edward shook his head; his own bloody wife and he’d never seen her naked.
She began to sway forward and he sprang towards her, seizing her beneath her breasts, rather than her swollen middle.
She screamed—both startled and angry and, perhaps, thwarted—as he pried her fingers off the window frame and pulled her inside, kicking and screaming, her words unintelligible.
She’d lost an alarming amount of weight in the past weeks and she was so small—so horrifyingly slight, the only thing substantial about her was her stomach.
Edward couldn’t help staring at her rounded belly as he marched out of the room with her fighting him every step of the way. It should have made him feel manly, successful, triumphant to know he’d put his child inside this beautiful, pedigreed woman. But all it did was make him sad: unbearably, cripplingly sad.
As he carried her squirming body to her bedroom he had to accept that not eating, excessive drinking, and emotional tantrums would not be good for the child inside her. By the time he set her on her bed, which he’d not been to since the second month of their marriage, she was sobbing as if her heart were breaking. Well, likely it was. Nora—Edward knew better than anyone—could do that to a person.
He felt somebody behind him and turned.
It was the maid-cum-jailor he’d hired for Catherine. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Fanshawe, I just stepped away for a moment and—”
He waved the woman away. “Go. I’ll stay with her tonight.” Likely this was the only way he’d ever be allowed to spend a night in her bedroom, with her unconscious.
He could see his words surprised her and knew the entire household would be aware of the state of things. How the hell could even a dead man have missed it?
You did, for months.
Edward ignored the jeering voice—it was his constant company and he’d gotten as good at ignoring it as he’d once been at not even hearing it.
He laid a hand on her forehead and she flinched away from him—even in her sleep. Or, maybe she was unconscious, he could smell liquor on her breath.
She was hot—unusually so, he thought, although he had no experience in caring for a sick person.
Or anyone at all. Except yourself.
He sighed and pulled a chair over to the bed, looking at her and forcing his tired addled mind to think.
As he studied her, he realized he’d not truly seen her in months.
Really, Edward! Have you ever seen her?
He sighed. Probably not—and certainly not since he’d successfully impregnated her and then set her aside. And she’d become all but invisible to him after he’d sent Nora away.
He knew he should be angry with her for her infidelity, but even he was not such a hypocrite.
Now Nora’s infidelity, on the other hand …
Edward’s throat tightened and his heart sped up. Worst of all, his cock—which he rarely noticed these days—stirred with interest.
At first he’d refused to think of her. But that had been a disaster. His mind was like a bucket that was left out in the rain. But instead of filling inexorably with water, it filled with Nora.
So he’d then forced himself to allocate specific parts of the day to think of her—the way he’d consider a problem at a factory.
That didn’t work either; he could not think rationally about her. Even now, weeks later, he just saw red.
Or became hard. Or both.
No matter how much he tried to calmly examine his reaction to her that day, he came up with nothing—at least nothing he wanted to face.
He’d told her to leave and she had. He’d told her not to contact him or Catherine, and she’d disappeared like a wisp of smoke.
And, she’d taken nothing of him with her. Nothing.
When he’d looked in her room, he’d found her closet still full and her jewelry casket untouched. Mary told him the only thing gone was the trunk that she’d come with, which had held her old clothing.
She’d even left behind all her equipment and some of her paintings—the ones that must have been too wet to transport. That had included two of Catherine, both of which Edward had immediately confiscated.
There was the painting he’d held that day—a work that was quite frankly, stunning. Even unfinished it was hard to look away from. This was a Catherine he could hardly believe existed. Passionate, flirtatious, lustful, demanding, cajoling—and a dozen other expressions shone from her eyes. Looking at the painting made him feel as if his chest had been stove in by a shovel.
The other painting showed yet another Catherine he did not know. She was nude but demurely posed on her side, only the curve of her bottom, a glimpse of breast, and the rosy swell of her stomach visible.
She looked out at the observer with an expression of pure joy. She looked, he realized, like a woman in love.
These versions of Catherine—and likely many others—must have all been visible to a person who truly looked at her—or maybe just even glanced at her. It was true he might never have been allowed a glimpse at the passionate woman that Nora had, but he could have seen some other sides of her if he’d viewed her as something other than a vessel for his ambition and self-glorification.
It was no wonder the poor girl—for that is what she was—had looked for affection somewhere else; anywhere, else.
No, her part in what had happened just left him feeling empty and hopeless—but not angry, and certainly not jealous.
Only Nora left him seething with jealousy more corrosive than acid. She also seemed to reach deep inside of him—even now that she was gone—and force him to look at the very worst parts of himself. Like the fact that he was—even while standing in the utter shambles of his life—obsessed with the knowledge that nowhere in that room had there been any paintings or sketches of him.
Nothing, not even a charcoal drawing like the dozens she’d made of Catherine. Hell, there had even been sketches of the Thomases—or perhaps just one Thomas, it was bloody difficult to tell. She’d even made a sketch of Ceddy, which made him smile even now. It had been most unflattering: Ceddy’s head on a shit-fly’s body.
Edward’s amusement drained away and he shivered. He should probably be grateful she’d never drawn him. How would have he come out on paper? Not well at all, he suspected.
For the first few days after he’d discovered them—when he’d been almost insane with anger and jealousy and a pain that nothing would ease—he’d told himself that Nora had made a fool of him from the first night they’d spent together. She’d hidden this part of herself—this blazing, shattering, stupefying talent—from him. Why?
But then his private tormentor, his own personal inquisitor, had pointed out: Why didn’t you ever ask her?
Really, it was as simple as that. He’d known she painted if not from their time at Tosca’s certainly since she’d begun to live in his house. And yet he’d given almost no thought to what made up her days, assuming she must have shopped or slept or did whatev—
Catherine muttered something he couldn’t decipher and groaned, her expression one of agony. He could see that her brow was sheened with sweat. She was becoming worse, not better. This couldn’t be normal—had she done something to herself? Consumed something she shouldn’t have? Should he summon a doctor—her midwife?
He heard a soggy choking sound and sprang toward her, lifting her and turning her on her side just in time for her to void her stomach all over him.
Well, he thought, rubbing her back as she retched and retched and retched, until only clear bile would come up, it was likely the least he deserved after the way he’d treated her.
Once he was certain she wouldn’t choke he laid her back and strode to the bell pull and yanked it hard enough to pul
l it down. A sleepy footman appeared immediately.
“Send for Mrs. Jackson and Doctor Baker—and tell them both to come quickly, that it is an emergency.”
A coughing sound behind him made him turn.
She was trying to sit up, unsuccessfully.
He went to her and slid an arm around her, which she weakly tried to push away.
“Don’t want you,” she said drunkenly in between coughs. “Want Nora.”
Me too, he wanted to say, but didn’t
Instead, he held her and tipped a glass of water to her mouth. She sipped a little, but not enough to make up for all she’d lost. Still, she shook her head and pushed away the glass with her limp hand.
“Hate you,” she muttered as she slid back onto her pillow.
Me too, Edward thought—hating him and wanting Nora seemed to be the only two things they had in common.
Edward sat back in his chair, crusted in vomit, and watched his wife, who cried even in her sleep.
The midwife and doctor arrived in less than an hour; by then it was too late: Catherine had already lost the baby.
Chapter Twenty-Six
May, 1869
Nine Months Later . . .
Nora yawned, stretched, and then climbed over the sleeping body in her bed. Derek slept like the dead and didn’t even stir.
It was barely light, but—now that she was her own mistress—she’d learned it was her favorite time to paint. She paused only long enough to brew herself coffee and slip on one of the loose dresses she’d taken to wearing ever since joining the group mockingly referred to by many as, “the artistic crowd.”
In truth, she’d never joined any group, they’d somehow managed to accrete around her in the months since she’d moved back to London.
Nora suspected it was more because of the fact that there was always wine and food at her lodgings rather than any great desire to associate with her because of her person or talent.
Some of them, she knew, wanted her sexually. But if there was one thing Edward had taught her, it was to avoid emotional, complex men. So, she’d made it clear she did not share her body with artists. Instead, she enjoyed her models. And why not? For only a few shillings one could have the most physically beautiful men and women in London strip off their clothing and pose any way she wished.
His Harlot (Victorian Decadence Series Book 1) Page 22