The Sweet and Spicy Regency Collection (57 page)

“How did you manage to escape? My father said—”

“I told you I wouldn’t abandon you to the gossips and I mean to stand by my word.” He didn’t want to talk about how he’d fought his way out of his father’s townhouse like a madman possessed. He’d rather hold Iona in his arms and, ignoring the tearing pains in his side, nuzzle the delicate curve of her neck.

“I sure made a muddle of things last night,” she whispered. “I should have never dared speak my mind.”

“Balderdash,” he exclaimed and couldn’t help but smile. “Your timing can certainly be improved but you’re still learning how to use your voice. Mistakes are bound to happen.”

“A mistake.” She returned his smile, though hers had quite a rueful tilt. “You’re too kind. I can’t imagine a balder understatement.”

“I’ve made my fair share.”

“Hmmm…” she agreed. “At least I’m in good company. You are a dear for coming to check on me, Nathan. I can’t tell you how much your concern means to me.”

“Oh no, you don’t. You’re not thinking to dismiss me so easily, are you? I meant what I said. Whether you want me to or not, I am going to stand by you and help you. So tell me, Iona, what has happened?”

“According to my family, I have become tainted as the latest hapless victim of Bath’s most dangerous rake. I was too innocent to know what I was getting myself into. But regardless of any of that, I’m tainted. Stained by your touch, they say.” Her voice rose with indignation. “It’s utter nonsense of course. I knew exactly what I was doing and I have no regrets.”

“And Lovington and your father? They haven’t abused you or tried to convince you to do harm to yourself?” He didn’t know what he’d do if he heard of anyone lifting a hand against his Iona.

She shook her head slowly. “Oh no, Nathan. They’re all behaving chillingly civil. Even Mama. It’s terrifying.”

“At least they aren’t plotting to do you harm—”

“But they are!” Her cheeks bloomed a rosy pink. “To hear them speak, they’ll have me married to Byron by the month’s end. And he’ll take me well in hand to reform the unseemly behaviors you’ve encouraged. He says he isn’t too worried though. Once he gives me my first child, he says he’s certain I will return to being the staid, quiet lady he has grown to admire.”

The thought of her cousin—or anyone else for that matter—touching Iona in an intimate manner made Nathan’s thoughts turn murderous. He furiously tried to tamp them down, knowing that he had no right to her. He’d come to protect her reputation, not to make matters worse.

“You’d told me that no matter the circumstance, I could follow my dreams,” she complained, clutching a well-loved sketchbook to her chest. “That I could be happy. But I despair that with Byron, I will never be happy. Whenever I mention my art to him, he waves it away. He refuses to listen to my dream to become a sculptress, my dream to make from stone and metal the beautiful images that fill my thoughts.”

“May I?” Nathan asked. He too had dismissed her dreams. Ladies were taught art. But he knew very few who took their studies seriously.

She handed over the book and said, “Be honest.”

He looked over her sketches. He’d expected to see the typical schoolroom drawings. Simple landscapes and the typical bowls of fruit. That wasn’t what he found though.

He flipped through the first few pages. The lines were bold. The technique daring. And the subject matter, though everyday people and objects, depicted something deeper. She saw through the glitter of the ballrooms and soirées. A sketch of a teapot held by a debutante, for example, displayed the anxiety and uncertainty the young lady most certainly was experiencing. Those emotions were laid out on the page, not on the girl’s carefully schooled expression but in the wavering gleam of the teapot! Nathan had never seen anything more amazing.

These were no girlish schoolroom drawings. These were the works of an artist who took her craft seriously.

“You drew these?” he asked, turning another page and finding a startling image of himself. His laughing eyes and self-depreciating smile rang false on the page. “All of these?”

Iona nodded.

“I didn’t realize…”

He saw that she was holding her breath.

“They’re good,” he said. “Better than many of the works for sale in London’s Fitzroy Square. I’m impressed. Truly impressed. While I can barely draw a straight line, you seem to be able to capture an emotion with the stroke of a piece of charcoal or pastel.”

He handed her back the sketchbook still open at the page with the rather accurate sketch of his face. “You’re a little too perceptive perhaps.”

She chuckled softly.

The sound warmed his heart. He’d risk life and limb time and again to be rewarded by the delightful song of her laughter. If only there was a way to untangle the fix they’d gotten themselves into. And then he remembered something.

“Thomas Barker is an acquaintance of mine.” The wealthy landscape painter who lived on Sion Hill had agreed to mentor and feed a few of the starving artists Nathan had befriended while living on the outskirts of London society. “May I take your sketches to him? I’d be interested in his opinion.”

“You would do that for me?”

“It is no less than I’d do for any other budding talent.”

All of a sudden, Iona appeared to understand. “The rich paintings covering your apartment’s walls—” She lowered her voice to barely a whisper. “And the rather shocking ones in your bedchamber, they are by artists you’ve discovered and helped?”

“Not really discovered,” he said. “But the horrible secret is out. I’m not a complete rake. When I have the funds, I’ve been known to help a talented soul here and there.”

She eyed him carefully. He had the uncomfortable feeling that she was being all too perceptive again. “I suspect you’re being modest,” she said with a wry smile that made his heart beat faster. Unlike the other artists he’d worked with, he was willing to give Iona everything. The sun, the moon and every beautiful star in the sky.

He clasped her hands in his. “Let me act as your patron. And as your protector.”

“I don’t know…” She tried to pull her hands away but he refused to let her go.

“Let me do this for you.”

“You do have more experience in dealing with these things.”

He could see that she was beginning to soften toward the idea. “Yes, I have more experience in dealing with scandals…unfortunately.”

She chewed the inside of her cheek for more than a minute while he held his tongue, waiting for her to come to the only decision available to her.

“Only if you let me help you,” she implored.

“Very well.”

He knew what needed to be done and he also knew she wouldn’t be happy about it. Not when she was still set against marriage in any form. Unwilling to risk her rejection, he kept his plan silent. Instead he cupped her face in his hands. “If I do something that will salvage both our reputations, do you promise not to hate me for it?”

Tears pooled again in her eyes but she bravely held her chin strong and stiff.

“I promise,” she said.

He kissed her.

“I love you, Iona.”

He kissed her again.

“Never forget that. I love you and I will do everything in my power to make you happy.”

He’d move mountains if need be in order to chase away the distress he saw in her eyes. He hoped moving mountains would be enough.

* * * *

“He’s gone,” the Duke announced. Iona had returned to the drawing room to find her family waiting for her. “Portfry came to inform me personally that,” he cleared his throat, “that rogue, Lord Nathan, has slipped away.”

Her mother, Lillian and her cousin Byron all turned to Iona as if she could tell them where Nathan could be found. And, she supposed, there was no reason to keep silent about anything…not anymore.

“I know,” she said, drawing her chin up. “He was in the garden with me just now.”

Her cousin ran to the window.

“Dash it all, Iona,” her father said as he stiffened his spine. “I don’t understand your behavior lately. After last night, why would you let that bounder come anywhere near you again?”

“He was simply inquiring after my wellbeing, Papa. He was worried about me.”

“He has seduced her,” her cousin muttered under his breath, along with something else Iona couldn’t hear.

Her father sent him a sidelong glance and, nodding, drawled, “Quite.”

“What will we do?” her mother asked.

“I know what I plan to do,” her cousin said as he headed toward the door where he met the family butler who was just about to knock. Like before, Myers plodded into the room and straight to her father.

“Lord Nathan Wynter is asking to speak with you,” he announced.

“He’s here! In my house!”

“Yes, your grace, he is,” Myers said and bowed deeply. He turned and started for the door when something seemed to change his mind. He returned to her father. “With all due respect, I think you should hear what the lad has to say.”

The Duke glared at Myers for a few breathless moments. In all her life, Iona had never seen Myers stand up to her father. She wondered if he was about to have his head bitten off.

Though her father’s temper was still sparking, he forced a breath out sharply through his nose and asked Myers to show him into his study.

“What does he want with you?” the Duchess asked as she began to sniffle again. The Duke merely shook his head and tightened his jaw.

After a few tense moments, Myers returned. Iona leaned forward so she could peer out the open drawing room door.

“Nathan?” she breathed. Pressing her suddenly trembling fingers to her lips, she rose. Though he’d changed out of his battered clothes, he was holding his right arm against his chest as if it pained him and was walking with a pronounced limp. “What are you doing here? Have you lost your blooming—”

Lillian grabbed Iona’s wrist and just barely kept her from dashing through the doors and into his arms.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” the Duke said. His study was a few steps down the hall. He slanted Iona a warning look as he followed Myers from the room, taking extra care to close the drawing room door behind him.

In the silence that followed, Iona stopped breathing. Lillian served as a surprising source of strength by keeping a comforting hold on her hand.

“Well,” her mother huffed. With a light step, she stole across the room and swung wide the parlor door. “I can’t say I’m surprised the Marquess wasn’t able to keep that brute under control. Did you see him?”

How could she not see him? What was he doing? He’d promised her that he would salvage both their reputations—not get himself killed.

Good Lord,
he
was in her home—with her rather overprotective and quite enraged father.

And the townhouse was entirely too silent.

The only sign that time hadn’t stopped altogether was the regular ticking coming from the chinoiserie-style clock stationed on the small black lacquered table at the top of the stairs.

The creak of the study door as it opened stirred everyone in the drawing room. They moved as if they were being roused from a deep dream.

The Duchess stood and so did Iona. The house suddenly felt unsettled, like when the maids rolled up all the carpets to beat the dust from them.

Her father paused in front of the drawing room door and clasped Nathan’s shoulder. The two men shook hands. “I will send word to you as soon as it’s completed,” he said.

Nathan gave a deep nod. “I’ll be at my father’s. I’m sure he’s most anxious for my return. You see, I left in somewhat of a hurry.” He hugged the arm he’d been holding to his chest and smiled woefully. “And not without damage to my person.”

“In that case, I’ll be sure your father receives word of our agreement without delay.”

Nathan gave a nod, turned on his heel and, without sparing Iona a passing glance, a raised brow, or anything that might help clue her in on what he’d just done, disappeared down the hall.

“Well then,” her father said clapping his large hands together. “I take it, by your gaping mouths, that you are anxiously waiting to hear what that was all about.”

“I don’t understand why you let him into your home,” her cousin said rather bitterly. “You should have let me challenge him to a duel. I can’t think of anyone who deserves to taste the sting of a bullet more than him.”

Her mother gave a cry and fell back into her chair.

“Lovington, that is a most inappropriate thing to say in mixed company,” the Duke warned.

“My pardon, Aunt,” her cousin said. His cheeks brightened.

Her mother only cried harder.

The Duke turned his back on her dramatics. “Lovington, I am deeply sorry but you won’t be marrying my daughter.”

Iona breathed a deep sigh of relief. Nathan had come through with his promise. She wondered what he must have said to get her father to come to his senses. She wasn’t left wondering for long.

“Iona, Lord Nathan has pled a convincing argument to me. He wishes to regain his honor.”

“That is my wish as well,” she said, her faith in her father returning. “Those rumors about him had simply gotten out of hand. I know in my heart he is a good man. I cannot understand why others don’t see it as well.”

“I’m glad we are in accord about this, poppet. Lord Nathan has filled me in on the circumstances of his past. And all morning you have been doing a fairly good job at describing some of the…um…interesting activities that you, my dear, have been undertaking with him lately.”

So he had been listening to her…

“In light of that,” he continued, “I don’t think he should be asked to bear the full brunt of responsibility for this scandal. Don’t you agree?”

Iona’s cheeks blazed. She nodded slowly.

“Good. Good. He has told me he came to Bath with a mind to find a respectable wife. Thanks to you, he has only found ruin. I see that you have no choice but to let him repair his name in the only manner society will accept.”

“What do you propose, Papa?” she asked, fearing once again she knew the direction her father’s thoughts were flowing.

“Oh, poppet, my dear, dear poppet.” He blinked back tears. “I have given him permission to marry you.”