The Sweet and Spicy Regency Collection (106 page)

Her voice wasn’t much above a whisper. Anyone around them couldn’t possibly suspect how her words wounded him.

“Elsbeth? What is wrong?”

She held out the locket, the chain broken.

“You.
You are what is wrong. You’ve lied to me from the start.” Her voice rose. A few heads turned toward them. “Did you think I would be grateful? You’ve played me no differently than an unruly child wrecking a toy. Trapping me into one painful scenario after another. The nude painting that was inspired. Everyone thought such nasty things about me after that. Where else was I to turn but into your waiting arms?”

“Elsbeth,” Nigel scolded, too confused to do anything but chide her. She wasn’t making a whit of sense. A crowd began gathering around them and the scene they were making.

“Edgeware has never wished to harm you.” George pushed his way through the throng to stand at Nigel’s side. “Surely you know that, my lady.”

She glared at George for a moment before returning her killing gaze to Nigel.

“Perhaps the Lord Edgeware you know is honorable, Mr. Waver. But I assure you, Dionysus lacks even a grain of decency.”

“Dionysus?” a murmur rose in the growing crowd.

“Boy!” Lord Purbeck stepped forward. “Put a stop to this.”

But Nigel only held out his hands, helpless to do anything but allow her to unmask him in front of everyone. After all the pain she’d suffered because of him, she deserved to be the one to rip this façade away.

“Lord Edgeware is Dionysus,” Elsbeth announced. “With his paintings he tricked me. He made me fall in love with a monster…twice.”

The room fell silent. Someone had even told the orchestra to stop playing.

“Is this true?” George demanded.

“Yes.” Nigel wouldn’t deny what Elsbeth had said. He deserved the
ton’s
scorn, not her.

The locket in Elsbeth’s hand clattered to the floor as the crowd pushed her out of their way and closed ranks around him.

“I say, brilliant work,” a gentleman boasted.

“This is all so exciting,” a lady twittered.

“Bah!” Uncle Charles snorted.

* * * *

They were proud of him, laughing and patting him on the back. Oh, what a lark! He’d pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes. He was ever so clever, was he not?

The porcelain lovers staring lovingly at each other within the locket were crushed under the feet of excited guests. The sound of Nigel’s gift being destroyed burned in Elsbeth’s ears as she let herself be pushed away. She didn’t wish to cry in front of the entire population of the
ton
. She didn’t wish to cry at all, in fact.

Hiding somewhere, curling up into a tight ball, and dying felt like a promising option. Nigel had betrayed her trust. He had lured her into feeling soft emotions, had lured her into opening her heart just so he could rip it to shreds.

She loved Nigel as fiercely as she had loved Dionysus.

Oh la, why had she not learned her lesson the first time?

She stumbled blindly into a side table. A hand curled around her arm and gave her a tug. “Come with me.”

* * * *

“Elsbeth?” How could she disappear so quickly? The rest of the world could go hang themselves. She was the only one who mattered. Nigel pushed his way through the crowd, ignoring the tugs on his sleeve and pats on the back.

On the stair leading to the bedchambers, he finally found a moment’s peace. Surely she’d escaped to her own room. Where else other than her personal chamber could a lady go to hide?

He raised his hand to knock on her door.

“She’s not within,” Gainsford said as he emerged from the darkened chamber.

“Where is she then?”

“I don’t know.”

Well, he simply would have to find her.

“Sir?” Gainsford shifted from one foot to the next, looking damned guilty. “There is something in there you should see.”

“Are you snooping again?” The nasty habit had been a real problem when Gainsford had first taken employment with Nigel.

“Lady Edgeware had asked me to put something away for her. It wasn’t my fault the latch fell open.”

“I don’t have time for games. I must find Elsbeth.”

Gainsford grabbed Nigel’s arm. “You must see this first, my lord.”

Not wanting to waste time arguing, he followed Gainsford into Elsbeth’s bedchamber. It was empty and cold as if she had never really inhabited the room.

Gainsford went straight to her jewelry box and produced the original golden locket. “She stopped wearing this the day the Earl of Baneshire came to take her home, my lord.” Gainsford fiddled with the latch. “She told her uncle she was choosing to stay with you of her own free will.”

When the locket sprang open, Gainsford handed over the necklace. “I believe Lady Edgeware kept the memory of the man she loved close to her heart. But she was willing to set that love aside. She set that love aside for you.”

Nigel ground his jaw as he stared at the small scrap of canvas tucked inside the locket. He recognized it immediately. Of course he recognized it.

Tears pricked the back of his throat. The tiny canvas had been lovingly cut from one of Dionysus’s paintings—one of
his
paintings. His brush had flowed over this particular canvas only a few days after he had first seen Elsbeth, the lithe schoolgirl. Her image had already seeped deep into his soul.

Unlike many of his other paintings, he had added his image to this one, a tiny figure hardly visible. He stood off to the side, separate from the action in the scene.

Alone, completely alone.

But Elsbeth had seen him. Not only that, she had reached out to him by plucking him from his faraway position in the landscape and had placed him in the honored spot next to her heart.

What had he done?

She had always loved him, just as he had always loved her.

What had he done?

That devil, Hubert had taken that painting along with the others. He’d given them one by one to Elsbeth. He’d convinced Elsbeth that it was his passion that had created the paintings. Lord Mercer had tricked her into believing that it was his heart she loved.

But she had always loved Nigel, just as he had always loved her.

Yet his carelessness had destroyed that love.

He had destroyed the most important love of his life.

“Nige.”

Nigel blinked back the threatening tears to find that he was alone in the room. Gainsworth had left but now Charlie stood in the doorway, a crooked grin on his lips.

“Leave me,” he growled.

“Nige.” Charlie took a step into the darkened room. “Return to the celebration. Elly’s outburst is just her way of rebelling against you. She tried to do the same thing time and again with Mercer. I tried to warn you. I—”

Nigel slammed his fist into Charlie’s square jaw. His cousin dropped like a stone. “That’s just a taste of what I plan to do to you for what you and that bastard Mercer did to Elsbeth,” he said, and rubbed his sore knuckles.

He stepped over his cousin and rushed off to find Elsbeth. He needed to tell her what he should have confessed to her all those years ago.

* * * *

“Edgeware and Dionysus are one and the same?” Mr. Waver asked as if he couldn’t quite believe it. “Incredible.”

Elsbeth didn’t say a word. She was grateful for the company, though. Mr. Waver had pulled her from the drawing room and had led her belowstairs and back to the locked doorway to Dionysus’s workshop. Or had she led Mr. Waver here?

“I should have known.” He shook his head. “I should have guessed it. His creative streak, something that quite obsessed him, disappeared one summer. I’d thought his uncle had finally beaten it out of him. It should have been obvious the desire had gone underground instead.”

She listened to Mr. Waver with only half an ear. Her head still buzzed from the shock. She had loved Nigel…

The key turned easily in the lock. The door opened without hesitation this time.

“So, this is where he goes to create?” Mr. Waver asked, poking his head into the darkened cellar. “Is this how you found out?”

She nodded. She hadn’t cried. She’d probably never cry over this. The hurt ran too deep.

“Show me.” Mr. Waver took her hand and led her down into the cellar. “Show me how his paintings have intruded on your love for him.”

She forced herself to descend the stairs and once again study the unfinished painting set up on the easel. Mr. Waver stood a step behind her, his arms crossed in front of his chest. He held his silence.

“He betrayed me,” she said finally.

Mr. Waver was unmoved.

The wild brushstrokes created an image that promised to be hauntingly beautiful. The woman Nigel had created from exotic dyes and crushed precious stones had a broken heart. The plants in the forefront wept with her pain.

“Why do you think the woman on the canvas despairs?” Mr. Waver asked after what seemed like a lifetime of grief.

“She is unloved,” was her quick answer. She stepped forward, raising the candle higher to study the scene more closely. The destroyed and discarded painting floating in the pond caught her attention. What did the painting within the painting mean? She ran her fingers over the textured brushstrokes.

“She loved,” Elsbeth amended her answer. “The love was not returned.”

“Ah,” he said. “Do you truly believe yourself to be the woman portrayed there?”

To that she had no ready answer. But how could she not be that woman? For too many years she’d loved Dionysus without having that love returned. And now, just as she believed she finally found love, this had happened.

“I suppose,” he said, “Edgeware painted this scene because he felt guilty. You loved him and he could not love you back?”

But that couldn’t be right. The painter felt the woman’s grief, actually felt it.

“You proved your love for Edgeware in so many ways. How could he not feel guilty?”

Guilt? Where was the guilt in the wilting ferns, in the dark background, or in the deadly still water in the pond? Mr. Waver must be blind. The painter didn’t feel guilt.

He felt unloved
.

From one moment to the next, her heart sank. She’d been the one withholding her love. She’d been the one inflicting pain on a wounded heart. She was the one who had become the monster…

“I need to find him,” she said. “I need to tell him that I love him. I need to tell him that I’ve always loved him…”

Chapter Thirty-One

Elsbeth searched the far corners of the house, and still she couldn’t find Nigel. Though the band continued to play lively tunes, many of the guests had left, dispersed to spread the exciting news of Dionysus’s identity to the other ballrooms and clubs in London.

Her family and Nigel’s were closed up in a parlor located in the back of the house. Lauretta sat on a sofa next to Lord Ames, her hand tucked into his lap. Aunt Violet, sitting on a chair across the room, didn’t seem to mind. In fact, her aunt appeared to be deeply engrossed in a conversation with Lord Purbeck.

No one had seen Nigel.

“Ask Charlie,” Lord Purbeck suggested. “He went to talk with Nigel after that unseemly display in the drawing room.”

“His lordship is not in the house, my lady,” Gainsford confided a few minutes later. “Every member of the household staff has searched for him. No one knows when he left, but he is not within.”

“Have you seen Mr. Charlie Purbeck?” Elsbeth asked hoarsely, her heart stuck in her throat. “Has anyone seen Mr. Purbeck?”

“No, my lady. There was such a commotion, what with you announcing his lordship’s great secret. He could have left at anytime without notice.”

Charlie
. She provided the diversion and he took the opportunity to kidnap and—God help her—kill Nigel.

She drew a deep breath. He may still be alive. She refused to stand idly by and let Charlie win this battle without a royal fight on her part. “Fetch my cloak and have a carriage brought around.”

Gainsford paled. “But-but, my lady.”

“And have dinner served. I’ll not have the remaining guests neglected.”

Gainsford opened his mouth to protest again, but he must have seen her determination sparking in her eyes, for he shut his mouth and hurried away. A footman quickly arrived and handed Elsbeth her cloak.

“Where are you going?” Mr. Waver asked. He blocked her path to the front door.

“Stand aside, Mr. Waver. Charlie has Nigel. And I intend to save him.”

Mr. Waver refused to move.

“Bah!” Lord Purbeck growled behind her. “Charlie may be a stupid boy, but he would never hurt his cousin.”

“Stand aside, Mr. Waver,” Elsbeth said again, pitching her voice low.

“But we all just want to help, Elsbeth,” Lauretta said.

Elsbeth spun around and found Lord Ames helping Lauretta with her pelisse. Olivia, curiously without a male escort, already wore her pelisse and was fussing with her gloves. Aunt Violet, also ready to go out, had her arm securely wrapped around Lord Purbeck’s.

“I have distracted Papa, Elly, though I think he would join us if he knew,” Olivia said with an uncharacteristically determined grimace.

“Very well.” Mr. Waver still hadn’t moved out of the way.

“Where are you going?” he asked again. “We cannot rush into the night without a plan.”

When she started to protest, Mr. Waver raised his hand and lowered a quelling glance in the direction of Lord Purbeck. “Charlie, if he is indeed the man we need to be wary of, will not hie Edgeware to his bachelor rooms on St. James’s.”

“I’m not a fool.” She hesitated, not wishing to blurt out her plans in front of her innocent cousins and her husband’s friends. But there was no hope for it. “Mademoiselle Dukard.” A blush stung her cheeks. “I planned to speak with her to find out—”

“Ducky?” Lord Ames said.

“That horrid woman in Hyde Park, you mean?” Lauretta said. “I should think Sir Donald would know what
that
woman is up to.”

“I don’t have time for this. The carriage is waiting. I must go. Stand aside, Mr. Waver.” She pushed Mr. Waver to the side and threw open the door before the footman could do it for her. With her skirts gathered up in her hand, she charged down the steps and jumped into Nigel’s carriage while the hellish black steeds snorted at the lead.