“It won’t work.” Her voice was little more than a defeated breath.
“It will.” He smiled brightly at her, knowing everyone was watching. “Until then, keep an astonished smile on your face and your head high.”
“I don’t want to smile.” Her fingernails dug into his arm. “I want to rip that painting off the wall!”
The fighting spirit still lay inside her…thank God. She’d need it to get through the difficult days ahead. “Taking it down will only confirm suspicions that it’s you.”
“Too late,” she whispered, blinking rapidly. “I’m ruined.”
“I will not let that happen.”
“You can’t fix this, Dom,” she choked out hopelessly. “My life is destroyed.”
“I will not let that happen,” he repeated, the resolve hardening inside him. When he delivered her back to her family, he whispered to her as he released her hand, “I promise you.”
Chapter 17
Eve sat at her dressing table and stared emptily at her reflection. The past four days had been pure agony. But now there was no anguish, no grief as she stared at the stranger in the mirror. She’d moved beyond pain, until all that was left inside her was utter desolation.
Her world had ended.
All hell had rained down upon her since the preview. Gossip and rumors, direct cuts, rescinded invitations, laughs thrown directly into her face, scowls from matrons as if she were evil personified—all of that when no one could be certain that the woman in the painting was even her. The humiliation had gotten so bad that she’d locked herself in her room and refused to come out, no matter how much Mariah had pleaded with her.
Nothing Dom had done had been able to mitigate any of it. Not the letter that he’d forced the newspapers to run from the supposed artist denying that she was the model, not a statement from the Royal Academy indignantly claiming that they would never display a scandalous painting of a society miss, not his personal assertions to gentlemen at the clubs that he knew the artist and that the woman in the painting simply was not Eve. But he was kind enough to keep trying, although now…
“No point in it,” she whispered to her reflection. Her voice was little more than a hoarse rasp, her throat raw from all her tears.
But what ate at her heart most was that she’d also caused Mariah pain during what should have been the happiest time in her life. Instead of making plans for the baby with her husband, her sister had been with her, alternating between scolding and comforting, in a way that only Mariah could do. She’d also stayed up with Eve every night since the preview because, just as when Mama died, Eve couldn’t bring herself to fall asleep. Mariah had left today only because Eve had insisted that she go home to Robert and seek rest of her own.
Thank God Papa wasn’t here. He wouldn’t return until tomorrow, so she still had time to think of what to tell him. But when the truth came out, she’d have to leave. There was no other choice. She couldn’t remain in London where her presence would cause problems for her father’s business.
No, she’d have to go away, and this time much farther than Miss Pettigrew’s School in Cornwall. All the way to Spain or France…far enough to protect Winslow Shipping and Trade and everything her father had worked so hard to achieve and to keep from bringing scandal by association down upon Mariah, Robert, and the baby. The same niece or nephew she would now never get to see grow up.
Shutting her eyes tightly, she pressed her fist against her chest and the awful anguish squeezing her heart. She’d caused pain and problems for everyone she loved. How would she ever be able to put it all back to rights?
A soft knock sounded at the door. “Miss?”
Sucking in a deep breath, she straightened her spine. “Yes?”
Mrs. Blount, the housekeeper, opened the door and peered hesitantly into the room. “You have a visitor.”
She didn’t have to ask who. Had to be one of the Carlisles or the Marchioness of Chesney. She was otherwise friendless now, with no guarantee how much longer even those acquaintances would hold. But she couldn’t bear to see anyone.
“Please send away whoever it is,” she whispered. “I’m not accepting visitors.” And never would again.
“Yes, Miss.”
Mrs. Blount left with a nod, lowering her head so that Eve couldn’t see the older woman’s worry for her.
Wonderful. She’d even managed to upset the servants, who were like a second family to her. She hung her head in her hands. Oh, how would any of them ever be able to forgive her?
Moments later, an angry shout went up from downstairs, followed by muffled but raised voices. And then—
“The hell I will!”
Dom. What little blood still remained in her cheeks drained away.
“Where is she? I’m not leaving here until I speak with her.”
“Your Lordship, please!” Bentley sounded completely out of sorts, his voice growing closer, which meant that he was chasing after Dom, who was hurrying upstairs to find her.
“Eve!” Her name echoed through the house, followed by the pounding of footsteps up the stairs and down the hall as he searched for her.
Her door flew open. In the mirror, she saw him pause in the doorway as his gaze swept through the room, looking for her. Determination hardened his face—until he saw her, when his expression melted into concern.
“My lord!” Bentley panted heavily from the hallway behind him, worn out from chasing him. “If…you would…please leave…”
“It’s all right, Bentley,” she assured him. “I’ll speak to the marquess.”
The butler hesitated, his gaze swinging between Eve and Dom. They all knew the impropriety of receiving a man when she was alone in the house and without proper chaperone. But to have him here, in her bedroom—
The hole she’d dug for herself kept getting deeper.
“It’s all right,” she repeated as she mustered what dignity she had left and stood. “Bentley, would you please put together a tea tray for His Lordship? We’ll have it in the drawing room.”
“Yes, miss.”
When Bentley reluctantly turned to leave, Dom stopped him. “Put a bottle of bourbon on that tray, will you?” He stole a grim glance at Eve. “I suspect we’ll need something more substantial than tea.”
The butler nodded with a dismissive sniff, not at all happy with Dom’s presence here, then smartly turned on his heel and walked away to carry out orders.
Instead of stepping into the room, Dom leaned against the doorframe and met her gaze. Then he silently held up a bouquet as a peace offering.
She looked away as her eyes blurred.
He approached her slowly and set the bouquet onto her dressing table. Then he removed both of his gloves. With his face grim with concern, he reached a paint-stained hand up to caress her cheek.
The tender touch undid her, and a sob tore from her.
His arms went around her and pulled her against him as she struggled to keep from crying. No more tears! She’d had enough of them to last a lifetime. So she buried her face against his shoulder, yet her arms slowly slipped around his waist in jerky movements she couldn’t control.
“It’s all right,” he whispered against her hair as his large palm cupped her head and held her close, the other caressing soothing circles over her back. “I promised you that I’d make all this better, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“You can’t.” She tightened her arms around him despite her words. Her breath came in panting gulps, each one burning as painfully as the aching hollow in her chest. “You tried—no one believed you. There’s nothing else that can be done.”
“There is.” He placed a reassuring kiss to her temple. “That’s why I’m here.”
At the grim resolve in his voice, she lifted her head to gaze up at him, blinking hard to clear her vision. His dark eyes assessed her closely, the same way he’d done to her a hundred times since she first posed for him. But this time, he did it out of concern, and she squeezed h
er eyes shut, unable to bear it.
She shook her head and choked out, “I can’t ask anything—”
“You’re going to marry me.”
Her eyes flew open, and through the blurry tears, she stared at him, stunned. Marry him? Surely, she’d misheard. He couldn’t possibly have said…She searched his face, desperate to understand.
But he returned her stare with an unyielding one of his own. “That’s why I’m here. To propose to you.”
Her voice was little more than a shocked breath as the world began to tilt around her. “You cannot be serious…”
But he didn’t laugh as if it were a grand joke, didn’t even smile. Just kept gazing at her with that same somber determination he’d worn since he appeared at her door.
“It’s the only way.” He cupped her face between his hands. “Right now, no one believes that the woman in that painting isn’t you.”
She certainly didn’t need a reminder of that! Her shoulders sagged hopelessly. She was drowning, and dragging Dom and everyone she cared about down with her.
“You need someone outside the family to champion you.”
All of her had turned numb, except for her knotting belly, which pinched so painfully that she swallowed great breaths of air to keep from casting up her accounts all over his boots.
“If the stodgiest peer in England is willing to attest to your character by making you his marchioness, then everyone will believe that it wasn’t you in that painting.”
It would never be that simple. “Marriage won’t stop them from thinking it.”
“But it will stop them from acting upon it. They wouldn’t dare cut the Marchioness of Ellsworth or her family.” He took her chin in his fingers and raised it until she had no choice but to look him in the eyes. “Besides, when have you ever cared what society thought of you?”
Since half of them saw me naked. But uttering that aloud would only deepen his guilt. Neither of them was innocent in this.
“It’s the only way to save you, Eve.”
She sucked in a deep breath and pressed her hand hard against her stomach. The only way…and the only way to save her family, as well. But at what cost to Dom?
“Say you’ll agree, and I’ll return tomorrow to properly offer for you and arrange the settlement with your father. Then I’ll secure a special license, and we’ll be married within a fortnight.” He took both of her hands in his. “We’ll have a small wedding in St George’s, and then we’ll throw open wide the doors of Mercer House for the breakfast and invite all of society.”
Mercer House. Her last and only visit there had started all this mess in the first place. And now he wanted it to be her home, as Marchioness of Ellsworth? She should be laughing at how absurd his plan was, but it took all her strength not to fall to the floor in sobs.
“Everyone will attend because they won’t be able to resist being invited within its walls, and by doing so, give their tacit approval to the new marchioness. They wouldn’t dare cut you after accepting an invitation to your wedding breakfast.” He squeezed her fingers reassuringly. “Everyone will stop talking about the painting, and by next season, no one will remember it ever happened.”
No. They’d remember every time they looked at her. And Dom, when he looked at her, when he remembered all she’d cost him…How would she be able to bear it?
She stepped out of his arms, and thank God, he let her go.
“But you don’t want to marry me.” She fought to keep her breath and forced out, “You don’t want anything to interfere with your art. That’s why you wouldn’t make love to me, why you turned Constance out of the studio…because you didn’t want to split your passion.”
Ruination, he’d called it, that night at the studio. The ruination of his artist’s focus, the loss of separation between his peer’s life and his art.
She shook her head in frustration. “How would it be different if you married me?”
“Because you know about both parts of my life, the painting and the peerage.” He slowly approached her. “You alone know how important my art is to me. You’re the only one who truly ever has.”
She should have been thrilled to hear how special she was to him, yet her chest tightened with an inexplicable dread.
“But I’m part of your art now, you said so,” she whispered. That was the reason he’d given her for refusing to make love to her the night they finished the painting. “That won’t change simply because we signed a church register.”
“It won’t be easy, I grant you, but we can make it work.” He paused, his expression solemn. “But you won’t be able to come to the studio anymore. As a marchioness, you’ll be too visible. Until I can paint under my own name, I can’t risk anyone else finding out that Ellsworth is Vincenzo.”
Not being allowed at the studio…another punishment. Yet she somehow managed to agree, “Of course not.”
“There will also be long hours spent apart, family events that I’ll have to miss, society soirees we won’t be able to attend.” He eyes darkened somberly. “When I’m in the studio and concentrating on my art, that will take all of my focus and energy. I cannot be interrupted or think about anything else but what’s emerging on the canvas.” Another pause, and this time she steeled herself for what she knew was coming— “Including you.”
She repeated, impossibly softer, “Of course not.”
“But when I am with you, I promise that my attention will be solely on you.” He lowered his mouth to hers and murmured rakishly, each word a warm promise against her lips, “All of it.”
A tingle of desire sparked inside her, until the reality of her situation snuffed it out.
“I will be a good husband, Eve. I will protect you, and you will want for nothing.” He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip, the tender caress underscoring his hope for their future, but all it did was grow her uncertainty. “But my art has to come first.”
She forced herself to nod, even though her body flashed icy numb. An emotional marriage settlement. That’s what this conversation was, with terms and limitations openly disclosed. He would give her his name and protection but not his heart. Not the way she wanted. Her and his art…not separate after all, but conditional.
She turned away from him. If he saw on her face any of the emotions churning inside her—the desperation to help her family out of this horrible situation in which she’d trapped them, the terrible guilt that he felt compelled to marry her in order to save her—the humiliation would have ended her.
She reached out trembling fingers to touch the bouquet of roses lying on her dressing table. How had they not turned to ashes, the way everything else in her life had? “You’re offering marriage because you pity me.” Not because he loved her.
He slipped his arms around her waist and gently tugged her back to him. Despite herself, her heart leapt into a fierce pounding, and that now familiar ache began to hum inside her.
“Believe me, mia bella,” he murmured huskily as he placed a kiss to the side of her neck. “When I imagine you as my wife, pity is the last thing I think of.”
Instead of soaring at that innuendo, her heart plummeted. Of all the proposals she’d so romantically let herself fantasize about since she was a girl, not one had been to save her reputation and her father’s business. Or from a man who refused to let himself love her.
Yet she nodded jerkily. “Yes.” Her trembling fingertip stroked the velvety softness of one the tiny buds as she blinked hard so he wouldn’t see any trace of tears. She sucked in a deep breath and forced her voice not to quiver. “Yes, I will marry you.”
His arms tightened around her. “We’ll have a good marriage, Eve, I promise you.”
So why did she feel so lost?
But in a settlement, both sides negotiated, although her side had decidedly less power to bargain. Less? She nearly laughed. None. Yet she refused to give up, not without laying out her terms for their marriage.
When he placed a final kiss to her nape and stepped a
way, she turned to face him, boldly snaked her arms around his neck, and raised up on to her tiptoes to kiss him. Not like the passionate kisses they’d shared before, those kisses that curled her toes and made her hair stand on end, but one that held all the affection she felt for him.
Yet one that still put an expression of surprise on his face when she finally broke the kiss and lowered herself away.
She took heart in that. If there was one thing in which she was an expert, it was living every day to the fullest. She planned on teaching him exactly how to do that, with every part of his existence, not just in his art. And by doing so, find a way to win his love.
Clearing his throat, he wrapped her arm around his. “Let’s go have that tea, shall we? We have a lot to discuss before I approach your father.”
“That bourbon, you mean.”
“See?” He led her from the room. “We’re working out perfectly already.”
Eve wasn’t at all convinced of that.
But one thing was certain. No matter how terrible the circumstances surrounding her wedding, her marriage would be a proper one. In every way. Including love. She wouldn’t settle for less.
Accept a conditional surrender into marriage? Not without a fight.
Chapter 18
Their Wedding Day
One Week Later
The last of the wedding guests were gone. Thank God.
Dom yanked at his cravat to loosen the knot as he walked down the hall toward his bedroom, relieved to have this long day over. The gold band on his left hand caught his attention, shining in the dim light of the hall sconces that had been lit an hour ago when the sun had set.
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