Dangerous Loves Romantic Suspense Collection (38 page)

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.

Mr. Waver, Olivia, Lauretta, and Lord Ames followed, squeezing into the carriage, though it was not designed to carry more than four people. Lady Violet and Lord Purbeck both were intent on joining them, but there simply wasn’t room. Lord Purbeck shouted for his carriage to be brought around and demanded that they wait for him. Yet there wasn’t time to wait. Much to Elsbeth’s relief Mr. Waver rapped on the roof. “Mademoiselle Dukard’s cottage is a good place to start,” he said as the carriage swayed into motion.

Elsbeth sat back, her heart beating a dizzying tattoo, and closed her eyes.
Please, let me find him alive
, she prayed.
Please, don’t let him die
.

The carriage lurched as it came to a sudden halt.

“Stay with the women,” Mr. Waver said to Lord Ames. He already had the door open and one foot out. “I will go in alone.”

No one argued. Certainly not Elsbeth, who was feeling fairly certain that she was missing something very important.

Lauretta and Olivia were whispering. Vaguely, she thought they might be speaking to her, but she pushed the notion away.

She sighed. What was it that she was missing?

“I always thought Sir Donald was a milksop,” Olivia said, speaking much louder now. “I do approve of your new choice of beau.”

“Why thank you, Lady Olivia,” Lord Ames replied.

“And to learn that Sir Donald is as buried in debt as you are truly puts you on an even keel, does it not? I heard his debts came from a single gambling bet. Lady Constance told me just this evening that two rather frightening gentlemen had threatened his life while they were taking ices together just this afternoon. Most ungentlemanly to expose a lady to such individuals,” Olivia said. Elsbeth fought an urge to cover her ears with her hands. She needed to concentrate.

“Perhaps that was what he and Ducky were arguing about in the park?” Lauretta said. “Perhaps he was trying to get her to help him do something utterly wicked in order to keep the moneylenders from extracting payment in a more violent way.”

“What?” Elsbeth said, blinking as she opened her eyes. “What did you just say, Lauretta?”

“I was just wondering if Sir Donald wasn’t trying to get Ducky to—”

“Lord Ames!” Elsbeth leaned forward and grabbed his arm. “Go fetch Mr. Waver, now! I believe I know where Nigel has been taken, and I fear we don’t have much time.”

* * * *

The horses pulled the carriage through the London streets at a harrowing pace as they raced toward the docks. A thick fog rolled in off the Thames and seeped through the windows of the carriage creating a damp chill Elsbeth could not seem to shake.

“This cannot be right,” Mr. Waver said, though he had obeyed without argument when Elsbeth had ordered him to give the driver the direction to his own warehouse. “You don’t still believe I am somehow involved, do you?”

“No, I don’t. But just like the night of the storm, he wants you to take the blame, Mr. Waver. Charlie can’t be blamed for his cousin’s death. He wouldn’t be able to inherit the estate if he were connected to either Lord Purbeck’s or the Marquess’s deaths.” The conviction in Elsbeth’s voice amazed even her. No one could wrest control from her. Not now, not when so much depended on her success. “Don’t you see? Charlie had been so insistent on proving your guilt, because you had been set up to look guilty.”

As soon as the carriage rolled to a stop, Elsbeth jumped down before the steps had been lowered. “I do hope you have a pistol hidden within the folds of that cloak, Mr. Waver.”