An Artful Seduction (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Grayson raised the crystal decanter and filled his glass to the brim. He was well on his way to becoming drunk. He sat in an armchair in his study and had left strict instructions for his servants not to disturb him. He’d spent the week sulking and drinking; even Brandon hadn’t been successful in luring him out for long.

Grayson reached for the glass, took a swallow of whiskey, and watched the fire in the grate.

A knock sounded on the door.

Damn. Who would dare?

“Leave me,” he growled, barely recognizing his own voice.

The door opened. He swung around, fully intending to deliver a tongue-lashing to the servant.

Sara stood there instead. “What’s wrong with you?”

Had she really asked him that? She was old enough to know when a man was drunk, wasn’t she?

He scowled at her. “It’s not a good time. Leave me be, Sara.”

She ignored his command, entered the room, and closed the door behind her.

Grayson nearly growled in disapproval. Apparently she didn’t recognize a drunken man. She came forward and stopped in front of him. Her dark eyes darted from the half full decanter to his glass before focusing on his face.

“What did you say to Mrs. Somerton?” she asked.

“You’re too young to ask me that.” He kept his attention on the fire. Maybe if he ignored her, she’d leave.

“I may be young, but I’ve more sense than you,” Sara said tersely.

His gaze snapped to his sister.

“Sara,” he said, a note of warning in his voice.

“Please don’t shut me out, Grayson. I won’t leave until you tell me what happened between you and Eliza.”

He waved his glass. “She won’t have me.”

“You proposed to her?”

He scowled. “Of course not.”

“Then what do you mean she won’t have you?”

He must be truly inebriated to have mentioned anything to his sister about his personal relationships. But he saw the moment that enlightenment dawned on Sara’s face.

“Oh, I see. You want her to be your paramour.”

Holy hell
. He sat up. “Where did you even hear that word?”

“I’m not completely naive. I know what went on between you and Leticia when she visited late evenings.”

“Sara,” he growled. “We are not having this conversation.”

“Why not? It’s a perfectly good conversation.”

He set his crystal glass down with a loud chink. “You have been raised far too leniently. I’m hiring a strict governess for you first thing tomorrow.”

She didn’t appear at all frightened which confirmed he’d been too lax with her upbringing.

“No wonder Eliza refused you. You should propose to her. Get down on your knee and offer her our mama’s ring. She may not bear a title, but she is a lady.”

He stood and ran his fingers through his hair. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Reality is far from one of your childhood storybooks.”

“Why? Because she is a shopkeeper? She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you. You’re happy when you’re with her. I saw the way you looked at her when we went to Gunter’s.”

Sara’s words hit a spot deep in his gut. Feeling restless and caged, he started pacing.

“I also know you are drinking yourself silly because you miss her,” Sara continued.

He did. He missed Eliza terribly. But he’d never admit it out loud to Sara.

He stopped pacing and glared at Sara. “Marriage is out of the question. What kind of example would I set for you?”

Two bright spots stained Sara’s cheeks and her lips thinned. “For me? Don’t you dare tell me you are doing this for me! You love her, you idiot.”

His jaw gaped. “What did you call me?” He stared at her in shock. His beautiful sister may be stubborn and willful, but she never, ever spoke to him that way.

Sara let out an exasperated sigh. “I think marrying Eliza would set a wonderful example.”

A sudden thought occurred to him. “Eliza spoke to me at Gunter’s about you. I didn’t fully understand what she meant then, but now I have a suspicion.”

A streak of unease crossed Sara’s face. “She spoke to you about—”

“The Duke of Trent’s son. You don’t fancy him, do you?” Grayson asked.

Sara’s shoulder’s eased a notch. “Eliza spoke to you about the duke’s son?”

“Yes. Answer me.”

“No. I don’t fancy him at all. He doesn’t listen to a word I say and he cares only for himself.”

Grayson shook his head. “Then he won’t do at all. Not for my sister. I apologize for not seeing it.”

Sara hesitated and worried her lip. “Eliza said I should confide in you. That I can trust you. That you want only my happiness.”

“She said that?”

“She did.”

His heart did a leap. Somewhere deep inside Eliza
must
trust him. He had only to convince her that he cared for her, truly cared.

“There’s someone I do fancy. He’s smart, hardworking, and”—Sara touched her heart—“he makes me feel special.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Samuel Neal.”

Grayson remembered the young man. The father and son had attended Lady Belmont’s ball last year and the son had struck him as an upstanding man. Grayson had thought the father was fortunate to have a solid heir for his business.

“He’s not titled,” Grayson pointed out.

“Neither is Eliza, but she makes you feel alive, doesn’t she?”

Yes, she did. A sudden thought clicked in his mind. It may have taken half a decanter of whiskey and a surprising talk from his sister, but he realized it just the same.

He was in love with Eliza Somerton.

Stark, raving love. His whole being tightened, and he knew it was true. He couldn’t imagine his life without her in it. Without making Eliza his own. Nothing else mattered but her.

Not even the need for justice for her father’s crimes.

He blinked and found Sara studying him expectantly. “If you still feel the same for Mr. Neal after you have your first Season, then I will seriously consider his request to court you,” he said.

“Oh, truly!”

Grayson held up a hand. “But first he will have to impress me that he truly loves you and will provide for you.”

“I’ll agree to that.” She hugged him tightly. “Promise you’ll do the same. Why not seek the same happiness for yourself? For us? Eliza would make a wonderful sister-in-law. And if it wasn’t for her, we’d never have had this talk.”

Sara kissed his cheek and slipped from the room leaving Grayson alone with his whiskey once again.

He returned to his chair and stared at his glass. He had no doubt Eliza would make a wonderful sister-in-law for Sara. She would also make a wonderful mother and the thought of her carrying his child didn’t scare him, but rather filled him with joy.

If she wouldn’t be his mistress would she agree to be his wife?

What had he offered her except a position as his mistress and a promise to continue to pursue her father?

The need for justice that had burned so hotly and for so long in his gut seemed to diminish and evaporate.

From the first time he’d seen her, he’d threatened to turn her in to the constable if she didn’t help him. He’d pursued her in his bed even knowing he still wanted Jonathan Miller hung. He’d told her as much.

Christ. Why
would
she have him?

He set the glass down. He could lose her forever. Had lost her. Not marrying her wasn’t protecting Sara’s interests. Having Eliza’s influence and love would be the best thing for Sara.

And him.

He jumped to his feet and caught his reflection in a decorative silver mirror. He looked a fright with disheveled hair, sallow skin, bloodshot eyes, and wrinkled cravat and jacket.

It was late and he suspected it would take him until morning to sober and properly dress. He had a lot to do before then. He opened the door and shouted for his valet.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Eliza pulled the candle closer. Well past midnight, she had snuck downstairs, lit a candle, and sat at a table with her ledgers spread out before her, going over the shop’s accounts. Her sisters were soundly asleep upstairs and the room was blessedly quiet.

It was no use returning upstairs to sleep. Immersing herself in dull figures was all that she could do to keep her sanity.

She missed Grayson terribly. It was ludicrous, really. She was made of sterner stuff than that of a lovesick female. She should be happy. Business was steadily improving. Whether it was due to Grayson’s influence or the end of a bitter winter, she should be grateful. Chloe was healthy. Amelia had ceased talking of selling forgeries, and the concerning forged Jan Wildens was back beneath their roof where it belonged.

None of it helped. Her heart was breaking. She had wanted to go to Grayson a hundred times over the past week.

Yes, I’ll be your lover.
She imagined herself huskily speaking the words.
Teach me more about lovemaking. Show me everything.

How easy it would be to forget their differences. To forget Lady Kinsdale’s taunts. Forget that he still hunted her father.

To simply become Grayson’s lover.

But for how long? How long before he tired of her and sought out another lover? How long before he married a titled lady of his station and had children? What would she be left with then?

Loneliness. Despair.

She’d given up dreams of ever marrying after her father left. She was a businesswoman. Her efforts went into the print shop and providing for her sisters. She wanted them to marry for love and security, but she’d never felt the urge to marry herself. If only he wasn’t so tempting, if only she didn’t want him so badly.

Her thoughts were disturbed by a scratching sound outside the shop’s bay window.

Eliza froze, quill in hand.

What was that?

Perhaps it was a passerby in the street? Or a drunken neighbor finding his way home?

Or, heaven forbid, a burglar?

She glanced at the door, making sure it was bolted. She always locked the door at the end of the workday. Three unmarried women living upstairs required the utmost precaution.

The scratching sound repeated, this time followed by a low knock.

The hair on her nape stood on end. It was close to one o’clock in the morning. Who could it be?

She stood and grasped the candlestick. Her stockinged feet were silent on the wood floorboards. There were no lit street lamps this late outside her shop, and darkness met her gaze out the front bay window.

She pressed her ear to the door.

“Who’s there?” she said.

“Eliza Somerton?” said a gruff-sounding voice.

She stiffened. The stranger knew her name, but that did not put her at ease. Anyone could learn the name of the proprietor of a shop. She wasn’t foolish enough to open the door to a stranger in the dead of night.

“Go to the window,” she said.

She went to the bay window and held up her candle. The stranger held up a lantern and the glow illuminated his face.

Air sucked from her lungs as pulse-pounding recognition struck her. It couldn’t be! She felt like a bird flown into a stone wall.

“Father?” she whispered.

…

Fingers trembling, Eliza opened the shop door. A lone man stepped inside.

He was of average height and his face was illuminated by the lamp he carried. His pleasant, even features were as she recalled, but he looked older than his fifty-something years with more grey than brown in his hair and sideburns. His clothing was nondescript—plain trousers and a brown corduroy jacket. But the intensity in his green eyes was the same, sharp and assessing, as he looked at her.

“My God,” she said. “It’s really you, Father.”

“Yes, Eliza. It’s me.”

She stood awkwardly, unsure whether her exhaustion was causing her to hallucinate. A part of her wanted to embrace him, another to strike him with the candlestick.

He set the lantern down on counter beside her ledgers. “It’s good to finally see you. You look well.”

“What are you doing here? We feared you were dead.”

“I’m sorry for everything.”

“Sorry! You left us.” She was coming fully to her senses now, the blood pounding in her veins. She would have raised her voice, but she thought of her sleeping sisters.

She couldn’t wake them, not yet…

“I had to run. The constable would have put me in jail,” he said.

“But what about us? Chloe was so young. And Amelia not much older. We struggled to survive after you left.”

Her father shifted from foot to foot as his gaze swept the interior of the shop. “But you have done well. I always knew you would, Eliza.”

“But five years with no word from you. We feared the worst. You could have sent word that you were all right. Contacted us some way by—”

“I’m sorry,” he cut her off. “But I couldn’t risk it. Others were hunting me. Are still searching for me.”

She thought of Grayson. How many others were wronged by her father? Dozens? A hundred if one considered the extent of his career.

“You hurt people,” she said.

A wrinkle appeared between his brows. “It was only money from those that had ample.”

After all these years he still held the same twisted beliefs. She felt as if she were thrown back in time and was a young girl standing beside him as he painted in his workroom.
The rich are filthy rich, Eliza. I’m just skimming a few pounds from them with none the wiser.

She shook her head. “No. It wasn’t just the money. You truly harmed others.”

For an instant his glance sharpened. “Ah, you must be speaking specifically of Lord Huntingdon.”

A terrible tenseness enveloped her body. Could he possible know about her relationship with Grayson?

Impossible.

He’d been away and they’d been discreet. She took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing heart. Her father was adept at reading people and she couldn’t show the panic she was feeling. There was a rational explanation for his bringing up Huntingdon—an explanation that had nothing to do with her feelings. Grayson’s humiliation was printed in the papers, and he’d been the one rallying the magistrate for a warrant for Jonathan Miller’s arrest. It made sense that her father would mention him.

“There were others who were harmed. Dozens of them. You must know this as you painted many forgeries,” she pointed out.

His eyes pierced the distance between them. “None as influential as Lord Huntingdon. Come now, daughter. I may be in hiding, but I’m not entirely ignorant of London events.”

Wanting to change the subject, she decided to ask the question she’d wondered for five long years. “Where have you been all this time?”

“Not far. In town with different friends.”

He’d been close, yet he couldn’t send a letter or short note? She thought of all the times she’d wondered if he was ill and suffering in an alley. Or all the evenings she’d comforted Chloe after she’d woken from a nightmare. Or the days she’d caught Amelia painting feverishly, her brush almost battering the canvas in anger.

A sudden thin chill hung on the edge of Eliza’s words. “Was Dorian Reed one of those friends?”

He looked at her questioningly. “Not recently. However did you learn of Mr. Reed?”

“It doesn’t matter how I learned of him,” she snapped. “What does matter is that you owe him a thousand pounds.”

“An unfortunate business dealing gone sour.”

“Unfortunate indeed! He wanted to take our livelihood. You left us in a horrible position.”

“But you handled it, no? I’ve heard Lord Huntingdon took care of you,” he said.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Her unease rose as he mentioned Grayson’s name once again.

He reached inside his coat pocket to pull out a newspaper and placed it on the counter. In the lantern light it was unmistakable.

The
Times
article.

“In fact, Lord Huntingdon has been taking care of you for quite a while now, hasn’t he?” he said.

A coldness centered in her chest. “Why have you really returned?”

His gaze held her still. “I’m in need of funds. I don’t need much. Just a few hundred pounds.”

A knot formed in her stomach. “Five years and not a word and you return in the dead of the night to ask me for
money
?” she asked incredulously.

“Not you, Eliza. Lord Huntingdon.”

“Huntingdon? How do you plan to achieve that?” she asked.

“You can use your feminine wiles to cajole it from him.”

She stared at him in shock. “I cannot.”

“Yes, you can. It’s clear he’s enamored of you. I don’t hold it against you that you have become the mistress of the man who’s hunted me with a vengeance and still wants my neck in the hangman’s noose. But I do expect some loyalty.”

If he took out a pistol and shot her, she couldn’t have been more shocked. “Loyalty!” The notion was ridiculous coming from him.

“You’re my eldest daughter. I’d say Huntingdon owes me for bedding you.”

Eliza went suddenly still as anger welled in her chest. “I want you to leave.” She’d never dreamed she’d say those words to her parent after she’d been so desperate to find him. She’d always known he was a fraud and forger, but now, as he stood before her, she saw him for who he truly was.

A master manipulator. A heartless man.

And she was to be the next victim of his schemes. He’d only returned because of her association with Grayson. She saw it now as clearly as if it had been branded on his forehead.

“What do you think Huntingdon will say if he learns who Mrs. Somerton truly is?” His lips curled mockingly.

She gave him a hostile glare. “You mean if he knew I was your daughter?”

He chuckled. “Yes. I can only imagine how humiliating that would be for the man. To be fooled twice by two members of the same family.”

Clenching her teeth, she squared her shoulders as she faced him. Now that she knew why he’d returned, she wouldn’t allow him to manipulate her further. “He knows the truth.”

Surprise flashed across his face, but then the all too familiar avaricious gleam returned to his eyes. “Then Huntingdon must truly be smitten. It will be easy for you.”

“You’re wrong. My association with Huntingdon is at an end. You’ll have to find some other way to steal your money.”

“I should think it would be a simple task for you to make amends with the earl.”

“Get out.”

“What about Amelia? And Chloe? Don’t you think they’d welcome a visit from me?” he asked.

The tension stretched tighter between them. “They will never learn of it,” she swore.

He donned his hat and went the door. “I’ll respect your wishes for now, but think about what I’ve said.”

After her father left, Eliza stared at the door in disbelief. He was alive. After all these years, her father was alive.

And he was rotten.

Her gaze landed on the newspaper he’d left on the counter. She wanted to tear it into bits and scream.

She could not. She had to keep quiet, and she said a silent prayer of thanks that her sisters hadn’t awakened to witness the scene. They’d both be devastated, but for different reasons. Although Amelia had ceased wanting to search for their father long ago, she understood his obsession for producing forgeries and struggled with the temptation of the artistic curse as well. Chloe had been much younger when he’d abandoned them, and her memories were of a father who was a hero to a young girl.

As for herself, Eliza had believed there was good in Jonathan Miller. She’d desperately wanted to believe.

She strode to the door and bolted it. He’d threatened to contact her sisters, but he would fail. She’d tell Amelia and Chloe the truth before she allowed him to hurt them more than they’d already suffered from his abandonment.

As for using Grayson, Eliza had no idea of her father’s future intentions. Her mind spun with all the possible scenarios Jonathan Miller could act upon.

His motives were simple. He needed money. But she wouldn’t fall into his trap. She loved Grayson too much to see him harmed. And Grayson
would
be harmed if she remained a part of his life. She didn’t trust a word from her father’s mouth. Even if she agreed to “use her wiles” to extort money from Grayson, her father wouldn’t cease his efforts. He’d come calling again, for as long as he could use his eldest daughter to steal money from the Earl of Huntingdon.

But could her father still do harm? He could somehow let the press know that Mrs. Somerton, a close friend of Lord Huntingdon’s, was the daughter of Jonathan Miller and a charlatan with a false name herself. Once again, Grayson would be humiliated. A laughingstock. She could just imagine what Viscount Pickens would say to the press. It would present the perfect opportunity for Pickens to gain his vengeance for the loss of the Rembrandt.

Yet she didn’t think her father would reach out to the press for the simple reason that he couldn’t profit from such an endeavor. He’d have nothing to gain, but would rouse Grayson’s wrath even further and risk him renewing his search for the forger of the
ton
with vigor. It would be like waking a sleeping dragon with a hot poker, and her father was no fool.

No, if her father believed Eliza’s relationship with Huntingdon was over and she refused to have any contact with him, then Grayson would be safe from scandal.

She loved Grayson with all her heart and would do everything in her power to protect him. Eliza swallowed the lump that lingered in her throat and rigidly held her tears in check. It was best that she had ended their relationship even if the only thing left was a raw and aching heart.

Her past had finally caught up with her.