Mad About the Earl (33 page)

And if Lauderdale showed the painting to his friends, passed that provocative likeness from man to man … She shuddered. Ruination stared down at her from her own face.

Though the words stuck in her throat, she forced them out. “What do you want in exchange for that painting?”

*   *   *

Lydgate approached Griffin with a worried look on his face. “Have you seen Rosamund?”

Griffin shook his head and poured himself another drink from his brother-in-law’s private stock. The library had been a haven until Lydgate arrived.

His friend frowned. “I saw her talking with her mother and Lauderdale. Then I lost sight of them and haven’t seen them since.”

Griffin slammed down his glass. “Good God, man! Why didn’t you say so?”

It took them far too long to discover where the trio had gone. Griffin hoped Lady Steyne’s presence would check any advances Lauderdale might make, but he wouldn’t trust the woman as far as he could throw her.

Finally, a footman said he’d seen them go upstairs to the long gallery.

“This way,” said Lydgate.

They took the steps two at a time. Griffin’s heart pounded in his chest. If that bastard did anything to her, he’d rip his liver out.

The two men arrived in the gallery to find Rosamund quite alone.

“Christ!” said Griffin, and froze.

She stood precariously balanced on a spindle-legged chair with a great, shining sword held aloft. She’d lost one of her evening slippers and her hair was tumbling from its careful coiffure.

As Lydgate and Griffin stood there, transfixed, she gave a hoarse cry and hacked into one of the full-length portraits on the gallery wall. The portrait was of Rosamund, Griffin realized. She slashed at the image of her own face and body, while great, racking sobs burst from her chest.

Griffin strode forward, ducking as the rapier flashed dangerously close to his head.

He gripped the hilt where she held it and twisted it from her grasp. Handing the sword to Lydgate, he swung her down from the chair and folded her into his arms.

Between gasping, wrenching sobs, she related the entire tale. At the mention of Lauderdale’s demands, Griffin exchanged a fierce glance with Lydgate over her head.

She shuddered. “I said I wanted to do it properly, at his rooms. I insisted we must go now. He went to order his carriage. I—I needed to get rid of him so I could do this.” She gestured to the tattered remains of her portrait. She gave a broken, hysterical laugh. “The portrait is destroyed. He cannot touch me now.”

White-hot rage burned through Griffin. A quick death was too good for that bastard. For taking this dastardly advantage of her, yes, but also for forcing her to annihilate her own beauty to escape him. Irrationally, the latter seemed far more disturbing than the captain’s clumsy attempt at coercing Rosamund to his bed.

When Griffin had seen Rosamund slashing at her own features and body in that frenzied way, he’d felt sick inside, without knowing anything about the true cause for the destruction.

“I’ll kill the bastard,” said Griffin softly to Lydgate.

His friend’s blue eyes held an unholy light of anticipation. Anticipation of committing violence on Lauderdale’s person, if Griffin wasn’t mistaken.

“He’s mine,” Griffin warned.

“Be my guest,” murmured Lydgate.
Let’s see how you do,
were Lydgate’s unspoken words.

Then they turned their attention to the top of the staircase, where Lauderdale appeared.

To his meager credit, the captain didn’t take to his heels or try to talk his way out of trouble. He squared up to Griffin, his head held at an arrogant tilt. Oh, good. He would take his punishment like a man.

Lauderdale raised his brows, looking haughty beneath that flopping fringe of golden hair. “Are you going to challenge me to a duel, my lord? How—”

He didn’t get any farther. Griffin’s fist stopped his mouth.

“No,” said Griffin, advancing as Lauderdale crashed into the wall. “Dueling is for
gentlemen
. And you, my dear sir, are not one of those.”

Lauderdale regained his footing and bore in, but Griffin was ready for him. Griffin drove a punch to the kidneys, then slammed his fist into Lauderdale’s stomach and followed it lightning-fast with an uppercut that all but lifted the captain off his feet.

The man was tough, Griffin would say that for him. Lauderdale raised himself from the floor and slowly got to his feet. Staggering like a drunk, he squared up again.

“Finish it.” Lydgate’s clipped voice cut through the deadly atmosphere. “Finish it now, Tregarth, or I’ll finish it for you.”

Griffin shook his head like a dog. Fury pounded in his blood, roared in his ears. He’d finish it, all right. He’d be satisfied with nothing less than total annihilation. He was going to kill Lauderdale for the pain he’d forced on Rosamund.

He dealt Lauderdale a sickening punch on the temple that sent him reeling back. Baring his teeth, Griffin started after the captain. He wanted to pound that pretty face into a bloody bag of bones.

But somehow, Lydgate got mixed up in the fight. Or at least, his foot did. Lauderdale tripped over it, lost his footing completely, and tumbled back down the stairs.

Baulked of his prey, Griffin could only watch, bemused, as his enemy dropped from view.

There was a shocked gasp from below, and a calm speech from Lydgate, who had followed Lauderdale down in a more leisurely fashion. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Deepest regrets. Man ought to be able to hold his liquor, eh? Call the captain a carriage, will you, my good man? Tsk-tsk, ladies present, too.”

Griffin ducked back out of sight of the guests downstairs. His fists were still clenched and his chest heaved. Curse Lydgate’s interference! He’d fully intended to rid them of Lauderdale once and for all.

But as his bloodlust faded, he began to feel grateful. Lydgate’s coolheaded thinking had saved him from an irrevocable act that would have embroiled Rosamund in scandal and perhaps seen him arrested or obliged to flee the country.

Satisfied that Lydgate had matters well in hand downstairs, Griffin turned again to Rosamund.

She was shaking, shaking hard. He led her to a sofa by the wall, where they sat down. He put his arm around her and murmured soothing nothings while he stroked her hair.

She shrank into his chest and clutched his coat lapel. “I never loved him. Never!”

“I know, sweetheart. I was a fool to believe otherwise. Indeed, I have not believed it for some time.”

She seemed to accept that, and the relief of having Rosamund safe in his arms slowly sank in.

He looked down at the golden top of her head, at the curls that tumbled about it in disarray from her exertions with that sword. Where had she found it? Glancing around, he spied a collection of rapiers decorating the far wall of the gallery and had his answer.

Marveling at her courage and resourcefulness, he stroked her shoulder in a soothing motion.

She stirred then, disengaging herself. With a self-conscious smile that slipped a little, she put her hand to her hair. “I must look an awful fright.”

“I don’t care,” he said.

“Yes, but
I
do,” she said ruefully. “I doubt
that
aspect of my character will ever change.”

She rose to stand straight-backed and elegant, her natural grace reasserting itself despite the disarray of her person. “I’ll go to one of the upstairs chambers and ring for a maid to attend me and be with you directly.”

“I’ll come with you,” he said, getting to his feet. He worried about her going alone.

Her smile lasted longer this time, but he saw what it cost her. “No, thank you. But if you would have the carriage brought, I should be grateful. I want to go as soon as I have tidied myself.”

Before she left him, she laid a hand on his arm. “Thank you, Griffin,” she said softly.

And she stood on tiptoe and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Griffin couldn’t sleep, knowing Rosamund lay wakeful beside him, though she’d assured him she needed nothing more from him tonight.

She did need something, though. She needed to talk. That’s what women liked, wasn’t it? To talk about things.

The trouble was, he hadn’t a clue what to say. He couldn’t imagine anything worse than reliving such an unpleasant experience. Wouldn’t talking about tonight make things worse? Wouldn’t she be better off putting it out of her mind?

He didn’t know. But he owed it to her to give her what she needed. He hated the thought of her suffering beside him.

Griffin rolled onto his side and spoke into the darkness. “I am awake. If you like, we could…”

In a strained voice, she said, “I’m terribly sorry, Griffin, but I’m not in the right frame of mind for making love tonight.”

Appalled, he said, “No, I didn’t mean—I meant, you know, if you wanted to, ah —”
Oh, Hell.
“—talk. About things.”

He winced and waited for her to annihilate him with scorn.

She didn’t, though. She didn’t say anything at all.

He heard her swallow a couple of times. Loud, inelegant noises that sounded like a valiant attempt not to weep.

“Sweetheart.” Gingerly, he took her into his arms.

She laid her head on his shoulder. In a quiet, trembling voice she tried desperately to control, she said, “If my mother had offered
you
that portrait, Griffin, would you have bought it?”

It was too dark to read her expression. She held herself rigid in the circle of his arms, however. He sensed a subtle withdrawal, though she did not move from his embrace.

“The portrait?” he repeated. His answer to this question was vitally important; that was clear. “Hmm. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Oh, never mind. Forget I asked.”

The temptation to take her at her word was one he nobly ignored. “Of course, I would have bought the painting to save you from embarrassment.…”

“But otherwise?” she asked. “Would you want that painting?”

He hadn’t seen the painting—not intact, at all events. He’d scarcely glanced at the unfinished canvas when he’d arrived at her brother’s house. But he’d seen her pose for it, hadn’t he? And he’d certainly admired the way she appeared that day.

But there was something … not right about gawping at a portrait of her in semi-undress, particularly one that had been completed so as to identify her without her knowledge or consent. It was too much like a dirty old man leering at one of those bawdy cartoons in a print shop.

“I don’t think so,” he said finally. “Certainly not from your mother.” He stroked the silken softness of her shoulder. “And, well, why would I need a picture of you when I have the flesh-and-blood woman right here?”

She made an inarticulate sound, throwing him into panic. Oh, God, he’d said it all wrong!

“Not that I don’t want to look upon you all the time,” he assured her hastily. “I do, but … I want
you,
not just your beauty. I want to talk with you, laugh with you. I want you to have your own mind, to make me lose my temper, to be your own self. I want you in my arms, in my bed.” He hesitated, feeling his chest tighten with the well of emotion his own words had evoked. “That’s it,” he said gruffly. “I’m not good at explaining.”

“I think I understand,” she said. He nearly groaned with relief when he heard the smile in her voice.

She turned in his arms and kissed him on his crooked beak of a nose. “Thank you, Griffin.”

He released the breath he’d been holding. “Was it a good answer?”

“It was the
perfect
answer. Better than perfect, in fact.” She subsided into his embrace again, and he closed his arms about her and held her tight. He
should
have killed Lauderdale for bringing her to such a pass.

Rosamund tilted her head up to press her lips to his.

Perhaps she’d meant it as a chaste, brief expression of her gratitude. To Hell with that! Griffin lashed his arms around her and crushed his mouth down on hers and lost himself in Rosamund.

With a choked little cry, she responded, opening to him, tangling her tongue with his. Their kiss was raw and perhaps a little clumsy, too. But it shimmered with honest, true emotion. He’d never realized a kiss could communicate so much, reveal so much.

Griffin raised his head and stared down at her in wonder. Beneath all that tumbled beauty was an aching vulnerability that he had not seen before tonight.

He’d been willfully blind, had he not?

Had he ever truly seen her before? Had he been no better than Lauderdale? In love with the dazzling face and the heavenly body and not troubling to discover the heart and soul and mind behind them?

In that moment, his own heart shifted in his chest. She was neither perfect nor an angel, his countess. Despite her incomparable beauty, her good breeding, her wealth and her charm, even Lady Rosamund Westruther was not unassailable.