The Nude (full-length historical romance) (26 page)

A lump rose in his throat.

He would do anything, anything short of letting the marriage dissolve, to return a bit of happiness to Elsbeth’s life.

“Lord Edgeware,” someone called out to him as he went briskly through the hall. “Lord Edgeware! I must have a word!”

Nigel ignored the call. He didn’t have the energy to deal with the guests anymore. He should send them all home. The party was over.

But if he ordered them to leave, would Elsbeth find a way to escape with them? No banns had been read, no special license procured. If she were to contest the wedding, she would win. But in winning, she would be forever ruined in the eyes of the
ton
. What with the nude painting and having being caught in an indiscretion, her reputation couldn’t survive another scandal. The guests would simply have to stay to act as a buffer until she accepted that.

He threw open the front doors and headed toward the stables. A storm was rising. A sharp wind rushed toward the dark clouds approaching from the south.

Elsbeth would have her way. Though he couldn’t let her go, she would not suffer from his wicked presence. He would suffer alone. And apart.

Dionysus would bear the pain, not the Marquess of Edgeware. Never would he allow that powerful and important figure the luxury of suffering again.

He stiffened his shoulders and picked up the pace as he rounded the corner of the manor.

A sharp pain jolted him.

He stumbled to his knees.

“Elsbeth,” he cried, as his face hit a paving stone.

* * * * *

“Edgeware.” A hand slapped his cheek.

Nigel moaned.

“Edgeware.” A second slap followed.

“What is this? What are you doing to the Marquess?” A new voice demanded. One he recognized.

“George?”

“A man attacked Edgeware. Hit him on the head,” said the man who’d been slapping him. “I frightened him away before he could do more.” That was Severin. Nigel recognized his voice now.

“And who was this phantom?” George demanded.

Nigel pried open one eye, a hellishly difficult task.

“I don’t know. A kerchief covered his face,” Severin said. “Thank God, Edgeware, you are revived.”

Nigel blinked, forcing both eyes open. “Which way did he run?” he at least had enough wits to ask.

“That way,” Severin pointed toward a path that followed the foundation of the manor house around to the back. “Did you see anyone, George? You came from that direction.”

“No, there was no one on the path.”

“Help me stand,” Nigel said. His blood was beginning to boil over the villain’s boldness. His anger quickly cleared his head, leaving only a dull ache.

Severin offered his hand and pulled Nigel to his feet. All three men started off down the trail.

“This is foolish,” George was quick to say. “We won’t find the villain hiding in the bushes.”

“Then where is he?” Severin stopped in the middle of the path and poked his finger against George’s chest. “You should have seen him.”

“
I
should have seen him? Tell me, Lord Ames, why were you stalking Edgeware in the first place?”

Nigel crossed his arms and stayed out of the argument. It was quite possible that one of his friends was lying. Which meant, either Severin or George could be involved in the plot against him and also possibly responsible for Elsbeth’s injury. But the very idea that someone he trusted and cared for would betray him was unthinkable.

Damn his throbbing head. It was keeping him from being able to think straight.

“Well, Severin?” George pressed.

Severin’s jaw tightened. He hesitated for far too long before quickly saying, “I was trying to catch a moment alone with Edgeware.” He cursed under his breath. “I spent the morning with Lady Lauretta—all in innocence, Edgeware, I swear. She is worried. Lady Mercer . . . um . . . um . . . her cousin . . . your wife, oh hell, Lady Lauretta doesn’t believe her cousin wished to marry you. She called out to you in the hall. But she was in no state to be speaking with you.”

“In no state?” Nigel asked.

“She . . . um . . . she said she wanted to bash you in the head like you did to me.” Severin smiled sheepishly rubbing his bruised eye. “I told her I would give you a . . . um . . . a nobber for her myself.”

“Ah-ha! He admits it.” George rounded on Severin. “He admits that he was planning to ambush you.”

“Were you?” Nigel tentatively touched the sore lump on the base of his neck. “
Did
you?”

“No! I was planning to talk with you while giving Lady Lauretta time to compose herself.”

Nigel continued a few steps down the path, not sure what to think. If not Severin, then he’d be forced to return his suspicions back to George.

He rolled his eyes heavenward. That’s when he saw, quite by happenstance, that one of the glass doors leading into his study was open. “Our villain’s escape route, I suspect,” he said with a nod to the door.

Neither George nor Severin seemed satisfied by the discovery. Both still eyed the other with suspicion.

“M’lord! M’lord!” Joshua came sprinting up. The groom’s face was stark and pale, his breathing erratic.

What now? He had enough troubles to tend to; he certainly didn’t need any more.

“M’lord, you must come to the stables,” Joshua shouted. “
He-he’s dead!”

A few hours after sunset, Guthrie, the large footman who still longed after the gold sovereign Elsbeth had offered him earlier, volunteered to carry her to the small and generally ignored parlor at front of the manor house—a house Elsbeth still had a difficult time thinking of as her new home.

The bullet wound seemed so trivial, so minor when compared to how her body would ache after one of Lord Mercer’s rages. Compared to the past, she barely noticed the biting sting in her side. And lying abed all day while contemplating her future was threatening her sanity. She needed a change in scenery to take her mind off the dangerously handsome Lord Edgeware, if only for a little while.

Even though Molly had begrudgingly given her approval, she remained in the small parlor, fussing like a nervous nursemaid with a newborn, until Lauretta arrived and sent Molly away. Elsbeth’s young cousin appeared to be in a black mood. Once they were alone, she slumped on a small settee near the fireplace and cradled her chin in her hands. “He’s a monster!” Lauretta wailed.

“Who is?” she demanded, with a measure of alarm. Had Lauretta fallen prey to Lord Ames again? Elsbeth was half out of the royal blue velvet chaise lounge Guthrie had placed her on and fully prepared to confront Lord Ames. He had no right to push his attentions on a young, innocent—

“Lord Edgeware, of course. Who else could I mean?” Lauretta said with an unladylike groan.

“Oh! Edgeware.” Elsbeth settled back onto the chaise. Her stitches burned from moving too quickly. “
My husband
.” Those two words got stuck in the back of her throat and threatened to choke her. She coughed. Like the marriage ceremony she couldn’t remember, she couldn’t seem to free herself from the lump that formed every time she happened to think about the dark lord—
her
dark lord. Her pulse sped and her cheeks heated as a memory of their wicked encounter in his study rose unbidden in her mind.

The memory felt as foreign to her as the bullet wound. Had she really touched him so brazenly? She seemed to recall trying to tear his shirt from his firm chest. But no, that couldn’t be right. She would never be so—so—
hungry
for a man’s attentions.

He was a man, a man with her future nestled in the palm of his hands, after all. She shouldn’t be spending her time wishing for his return. But blast it, for the life of her she couldn’t seem to think of much else.

Much to Elsbeth’s relief, Lauretta helped to take her mind off the tempting Lord Edgeware. Her cousin spent most of the evening sharing her opinion of the house’s décor—too dark and gloomy for her tastes—imparting gossip, and detailing the excitements of the day. Some of the guests had apparently decided to stay until the end of the week. A few had even confessed to harboring morbid hopes being part of the dangerous drama that was unfolding. Most of the gentlemen had spent the day hunting, while the ladies played cards in the parlor. Lady Dashborough had caused somewhat of a stir after Olivia had accused the lady of cheating. Despite everything, Lady Waver was still an unflappable hostess. Elsbeth was grateful to hear it. She didn’t think she was up to taking responsibility for the household or its guests so quickly.

But the topic soon returned to Edgeware. Anger sharpened Lauretta’s tongue when she recounted how the dark lord had punched Lord Ames in the face shortly after he’d been discovered alone with Lauretta in the portrait gallery. “Honestly, Elsbeth, Lord Ames was a perfect gentleman. And yet, your Lord Edgeware attacked him. The man is a brute, a monster. Papa will surely assist you in gaining an annulment. Imagine, trapping you into marriage like he did. He is a scoundrel, naught more than a common scoundrel.”

Her cousin’s venom should have fed Elsbeth’s dark feelings toward the man who had forced her into a marriage she would have never agreed to, but it didn’t. All she could think of was the honest, open way he had pursued her, how he’d asked to hold her hand, how he’d asked to be granted that first kiss, how he’d even warned her that he’d planned to seduce her.

He was different from any man she had ever met. For one thing, he was careful around her. He acted as if he cherished her feelings. At least that was until they were married yesterday.

Oh bugger, not that she cared, but after his brief morning visit, he hadn’t given her the consideration of his company. He’d not even asked after her welfare. So much like Lord Mercer, he’d snagged the prize, and now it appeared he was quickly losing interest.

“Perhaps an annulment would be possible,” Elsbeth said, but saying it aloud only made her feel all the more miserable.

Edgeware was a villain, a rake, a cad, a scoundrel . . . a man. What woman in her right mind would wish to be saddled to such a combination of ill manners? She
was not
lonely for him. She
did not
miss his company. Truly, she didn’t. Damn the demon to hell. Damn him. Damn him. Damn—

“
Lauretta?
What did you say?”

“This afternoon, after Lord Ames frightened off the fiend who’d hit Lord Edgeware from behind with a sack of rocks,” Lauretta repeated. “I said, Mr. Waver had the audacity to accuse Lord Ames of plotting to stick Edgeware’s spoon in the wall.”

“Someone attacked Edgeware this afternoon?” Guilt. Pure, uncomfortable guilt buzzed in Elsbeth’s head. What had she done? She’d cursed a man whose life was in mortal peril. What kind of woman had she become?

Damn him for turning her into a shrew. No, no, forget that prayer. Protect him from harm, instead. Curses, how could she continue protecting her heart from him when his life was in constant danger?

“Indeed,” Lauretta said, “it happened right outside the manor’s front entranceway. Knocked over the head with a sack of rocks and would have been done in if Lord Ames hadn’t happened upon the villain, too! And the Marquess’s butler—” Lauretta shook her head slowly. “They found him dead in the stables. Strangled, I heard someone say. I shiver at the thought.”

Strangled?

Poor Edgeware. He must be devastated over the death of his butler. Unlike Lord Mercer, Edgeware seemed to truly care about his servant’s welfare.

Dionysus must have gone mad. For who else could be behind this plot against Lord Edgeware? And where did Charlie fit in all this? Did she still believe he was Dionysus?

Her heart said no. But if not Charlie, who?

Action. That was what was needed. She needed to act. She needed to stop Dionysus from further endangering either of them. She was struggling to get out of the chaise again when the parlor’s pocket door slid open.