Beyond A Wicked Kiss (36 page)

He remembered bits and pieces of the miracle she had wrought in making him human again. She had somehow coerced him out of bed after a bath was drawn for him in her dressing room. She bullied him into the copper tub and threatened him with a proper scrubbing if he was not up to managing the thing himself. From time to time she checked on him, always at a point, it seemed, when he was ready to fall asleep. She produced warm towels and a clean nightshirt, then pushed and prodded until he made good use of them. It was abuse of a kind and caring nature—or at least that was what she told him.

West pushed at the blankets that were neatly turned down across his chest. He was indeed wearing a nightshirt, and it happened to be his own. "You found my bag."

"I did."

He came rather late to the realization of what else she found. His bag had been fixed to Draco's saddle, and fixed to the bag were Beckwith's paintings. "I don't suppose you checked your curiosity."

Ria's expression was genuinely regretful. "It probably will not matter to you, but I resisted for the better part of an hour."

"You're right," he said, pushing himself up. "It does not matter. What have you done with them?"

She pointed to her armoire. "I put them inside where they will not be found."

West pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes and rubbed. He wanted to shake off the dregs of sleep and was finding it absurdly difficult. "Did you ladle laudanum down my throat?"

"Only a little. Don't you remember? You complained the megrim was becoming quite real."

In point of fact, he did not remember, though he supposed she would not lie about it. "What is the time?"

"Not much after five, I should think." She anticipated his next question. "Evening, not morning. Can it be so important? You do not mean to go now, do you?"

West ran a hand through his tousled hair, leaving it unimproved by the effort. "No, not just yet. Draco has been cared for?"

"Hours and hours ago. He is in the stable now."

"Good. Thank you for seeing to him."

"Mr. Dobson did that." She hesitated, thinking perhaps she had sounded too acerbic. "You're welcome."

Looking up at Ria, realizing he had made her anxious and that nothing was proceeding as he had hoped, West sighed deeply. "God's truth, but I did not want you to see those paintings."

"I know."

"You looked at both?" He saw the affirmative answer in her clearly expressive eyes. "It's not important," he said after a moment. "I don't suppose I really thought it could be otherwise."

Ria sat on the edge of the bed. "I didn't want to see them either, but I didn't know it until I had."

"If there is logic there, it escapes me." He held up a hand to forestall an explanation. "No, it is the sort of thing that only becomes more knotty when one tries to unravel it."

She nodded accepting the truth of it. "Shall I bring you supper? It is roast beef tonight and Mrs. Jellicoe has made plum pudding."

"Not just yet." He reached for her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. "Have I been short with you? I did not mean to be. I apologize."

"And I accept."

"Is there another apology I should make?" he asked. His clear green eyes held hers. "Should I speak to your regrets?"

Ria shook her head. "I have none."

"Even at the end?"

"No," she said firmly, willing him to believe her. "I did at first, but I have had time to think since then. I was naive to suppose it would end any differently. I would be frantic with worry if you had done otherwise."

West's head tilted to one side as he continued to regard her. "Then you would not want a child?"

Ria chewed on her bottom lip as she considered her reply. It was no longer as simple as saying yes or no. That option did not exist anymore, and hadn't for some time. "What I do not want," she said, "is to present you with a bastard."

She allowed him to make of it what he would and gave his hand a squeeze, letting him know she would say no more on the subject. "Now, will you tell all, or must I apply thumbscrews? Where were you before you came here?"

The abrupt shift in the conversation made West blink, but he answered truthfully because he knew there was no help for it. "Not far away at all. I was near Ambermede. There is a cottage at the edge of the estate that the duke deeded to my mother years ago. You might know the one I mean. It has been mine since her death. That's where I was last night—visiting my home."

Though it answered her question, it barely qualified as an explanation. "You will have to say considerably more than that."

West didn't doubt it. Surrendering to the inevitable, he made room beside him on the bed. When she was settled there, he began with how he had found the paintings in Beckwith's study, the reason he had removed them, and finally the purpose of taking them to London. His relationship to the colonel required a bit of roundaboutation, but it was no more than he was used to doing when someone showed too much interest. If Ria no longer believed he was a clerk in the foreign office, she did not say so.

She proved to be a very good listener, asking questions infrequently and only for clarification. He could see there were things she wanted to know that he had not fully explained, but she let him proceed with the story in his own way. He kept his discourse to the paintings, not mentioning his visit to Lord Herndon or Lady Northam's own findings from the dressmakers on Firth Street.

"Miss Parr joined us shortly after I finished showing South the paintings," West said. "I think she might have been listening above stairs. She was very composed when she came to stand with us. It pains me to admit I did not give a lot of thought to how difficult it would be for her to look at them, or how hard it would be to watch her do the same, but I can tell you it is not an experience I will soon forget. Southerton, either. It was doubly painful for him, I am certain. Miss Parr admitted she knew the paintings existed. There are apparently more than forty of them, all with similar themes."

Ria shivered. "They are about her degradation."

"That is what I thought also," West said. "Miss Parr says the artist's intent is not so easily explained in that light. The paintings are meant to show that she is deserving of worship."

"And of sacrifice," Ria said softly. "She must know that the paintings show her as a sacrifice."

West was taken aback by how clearly Ria saw it. He and South had not had that same perspective until India explained it to them. "It may be that it is already begun," he said quietly, resting his head back. "She asked me to make her a gift of the paintings. She wanted to destroy them herself, to make certain they could not be made public. I couldn't allow it, and South knew I couldn't. I don't think you can imagine how difficult it was to say no to her. I thought—"

"I can imagine," Ria said. She rested her hand on his forearm and stroked it lightly. "You are decent. And good. A gentle... man." She smiled a trifle crookedly. "No, I have not forgotten our meeting in the alley outside your club, nor that you still carry a blade in your boot, but neither of those things negates the others. They do not change the fact that you can feel despair at having to refuse her request. I know you mean to return the paintings to Mr. Beckwith—you really have no choice."

West's shoulders rose and fell with his inaudible sigh. "I explained to Miss Parr that there were no other paintings concerning her in the collection I found, but she was clearly discomposed that any at all had left the hands of the artist. I had already learned from South that the paintings were not done with her permission, that she was, in fact, drugged. She was never posed with anyone in the room save the artist himself. Everything else he painted was born of his imagination."

"Except those rooms," Ria said. "The rooms are real enough, I think."

West had never doubted the sharpness of her wits, and here was farther proof. "You recognized them. I wondered if you would. I was rather slow coming to it myself."

"I have passed those portraits in the corridor almost every day for six years. You cannot have seen them more than twice."

"Three times, actually. I took a moment to study them before I came in here this morning. The identical Ionic marble columns are in several of the portraits of the school's founders. The capital on each is the same as the pair in Miss Parr's painting. So is the fluting on the shaft. It is the frieze, though, that makes them truly identifiable. It is on the marble altar as well. Have you ever looked closely at it?"

"I have not made a study, no, but I remember thinking it was suited to the school. Young Greek maidens studying their scrolls. Horses, I think, grazing nearby."

"Nymphs and satyrs." He turned sideways to gauge her reaction. Ria was staring at him, openmouthed. He reached over and placed a finger under her chin, gently closing it. "At least you did not tell me I cannot be right. That is an improvement."

She removed his finger. "It is only because you closed my mouth. Are you quite certain? Is there no room to suppose you might be mistaken?"

"The frieze is very cleverly done, and I understand why you didn't give it more than cursory attention. It is not, after all, the focal point of any of the portraits, merely a background. This morning I studied each of the friezes to compare them with the one in Miss Parr's painting. I do not have any doubts about them now, but you are free to decide differently."

Ria fought the urge to quit her rooms and go to the entrance hall immediately. It was not that she did not believe him; it was only that it was something she needed to see for herself. "You did the same for the other painting?"

"The couch and draperies are not as distinctly unique as the other, yet you had no difficulty recognizing them. There is only one portrait that features those things in the background—a relatively recent one, I think. The colors of the fabrics are still the same, though not as vibrantly realized as they are in the painting of Miss Parr. It struck me that he thought the sapphire chaise longue was a good complement for his eyes."

"You are speaking of Sir Alex Cotton. He is the one sitting on the chaise with the open book at his side, and he does have rather piercing blue eyes." Ria plumped the pillow at the small of her back. "He is also the last person to join the board of governors."

"How long ago?"

"Since I've been here. It was February, I think. Two years ago."

"Miss Parr said that painting was done three years past."

"She was in that room?"

"No. Nor the other. She has only seen them as part of the paintings."

"But they must exist," Ria said. "The portraits of the founders and governors were not done by the same artists—at least one of them with the Ionic columns is nearly one hundred years old—and none of them were done by the artist who painted India Parr."

"I agree. The rooms exist."

Ria realized there was nothing he could say beyond that. He did not know any more. Whatever else had happened at the cottage, it was not connected to those rooms or Miss Weaver's Academy. "You have not accounted for the fire," she said.

"It happened as I was explaining the impossibility of leaving the paintings. Miss Parr smelled the smoke first. South sent her out of the cottage to safety, and he and I went upstairs to find the source of it. We used what we had at the ready at first. Blankets. My jacket. I thought we would be defeated by it. Flames crawled up the ceiling and across the mantelpiece. The window to that room was open, and gusts of wind fanned the flames across the floor. We retreated once because of the smoke. I hauled buckets of snow from outside, running them up the stairs, taking the steps two and three at time. South threw them at the fire, and then I would run out again."

West sat tailor-fashion and rested his elbows on his knees. He steepled his fingers, and as was his habit, he tapped the pads of his thumbs together. His head bent, and he felt Ria's soft touch at his nape. She stroked the back of his neck, laying down the stubborn curls with the lightest touch of her fingertips. It was almost as if she knew what he had to tell her and how bloody hard it was to do so.

"We put out the fire that round," West said, "but by then we'd lost what was important. Too late, South realized the fire was a diversion. I should have known myself. All those mad trips outside to get more snow... you would think I'd have seen that Miss Parr was gone. We searched for her as best we could, on foot for the first hour because our horses had been sent off. Even the pair of grays that South used for his carriage were missing."

Ria's fingers stilled in West's hair. She hesitated, and then finally broached her question. "I'm not sure I understand. Did Miss Parr set the fire to get away from your friend? Was she with him against her will?"

"No." He stopped tapping his thumbs a moment. "Most definitely no to your first question. The answer to your second is more complicated, I think, and not mine to share. Can you be satisfied with that?"

"Your discretion makes you an honorable man. I can be satisfied with that." She ruffled the hair at the back of his head again. "You did not find her?"

"No. The horses found us eventually, but by then the trail was colder than the day. Southerton returned to London. I offered help, but he would not accept it. He knew I had somewhere else to go, though I do not think it was only that."