The Nude (full-length historical romance) (29 page)

“She didn’t even know me when the first attempt occurred.”

“No? Are you certain? Perhaps she edged her way into Dionysus’s life in order to get close to you. Perhaps she is after your fortune.”

There was silence in the room.

“Has she yet lied to you, Nige?” Charlie asked smoothly. “She lies beautifully, you know. Remember, I have known her longer than you have.”

Elsbeth’s shoulders tightened in the growing silence.

“Tonight you plan to spring your trap? Tonight you will capture your smugglers. I pray your heart will not also be broken.”

“I trust Elsbeth with my life,” Nigel said, his voice low, rigid . . . almost uncertain. She wished she hadn’t pushed him away. She wished she had listened to what Nigel had wanted to say to her that morning, because Charlie was doing it again. He was cleverly putting a wedge between her and her husband. She hadn’t been able to stop him when he plotted against her marriage with Lord Mercer. Why did she think she could do anything now? Nigel trusted Charlie while he barely knew her. And Charlie was right about one thing—she was able to lie well.

* * * * *

Early that evening, Elsbeth posted a letter to her uncle, explaining matters and her plans to accompany her cousins home in two days’ time. Not that news of her marriage would come as a surprise to him. Just that morning she had received a rather stunned note of congratulations from her aunt and uncle.

“Shouldn’t you transfer your belongings to the marchioness’s chamber?” Olivia asked when she returned to the apartment shortly before supper. “It doesn’t seem proper that you to remain put up in one of his guest chambers.”

“She needs to be a watchin’ you gels an’ mendin’ ’er aches,” Molly answered sharply. “She’s not needin’ to be taking up her duties as marchioness or bothered by a man’s whims.”

There was a knock on the bedchamber door. Molly opened the door and took a large covered tray that Guthrie had carried up.

Lauretta appeared from the adjoining room. She was dressed in a pale yellow gown with a flowing train sparkling with crystals. Her cheeks were flushed and bright. “You won’t be joining us for supper, will you?” Lauretta sounded a bit too hopeful, which made Elsbeth itch to shout, “Stay away from that bastard Lord Ames!” They were all bastards though, weren’t they? All except for Nigel.

But even he wasn’t perfect. No doubt he now believed any number of vicious things about her, all thanks to Charlie. And the variety of horrid things Charlie could tell Nigel might all be true. She wasn’t the paragon Nigel believed her to be. Far from it.

Remembering her responsibility to her cousins, she pulled herself together.

“Molly,” she said, forcing her aching body to rise from the bed. “I intended to take supper with the guests.”

Molly “tsked” and shook her head. “Guthrie says your lordship ordered you to take your meal in this room.”

“He didn’t say anything about this to me. In fact, I haven’t seen him since—” She felt suddenly flush, remembering the uncertainty in his voice as he’d defended her. If he felt doubts about her or her involvement in the murder attempts against him, she would do well to avoid him.

So she ate her meal after giving both Olivia and Lauretta several admonitions to behave themselves and having secured promises from their hostess, Lady Waver, to act as chaperone.

Taking her meal in the room was a good idea, Elsbeth thought with a yawn. Her eyelids grew heavy even before she finished half the food on her plate. And she barely landed on the bed before sinking into a heavy slumber.

“Been drugged, we ’ave,” she thought she heard Molly say. But her maid’s voice was so soft, so distant. “Your lordship’s done an’ drugged us.”

Elsbeth slowly awoke to the sound of a gale force wind howling. The not-so-distant waves broke against the shore with thunderous crashes. And a driving rain was stinging the side of her face.

She shivered. One arm was pinched under her body at an awkward angle. She couldn’t seem to move it. Nor could she imagine why she’d be sleeping curled up on the rocky ground. Never had she felt so cold or miserable. What a horrid, horrid dream. She tried to wake up, but couldn’t seem to manage the task.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” a man asked in the darkness.

“Aye, sir. The captain can handle any storm. Says he prefers ’em to running from harbor patrols,” another man answered.

“Even so, the men down on the beach could be swept away in this squall.”

“Better to risk the storm, than a hangman’s noose.”

Hangman?
Elsbeth struggled to sit up. Her limbs didn’t seem to be working. She really needed to wake up.

One of the two men passed beside her. She heard the footfalls. Though in all this wet and darkness, she couldn’t see a blasted thing. A few moments later the second man approached. His boots sloshed in the mud. The freezing rain was coming down even harder.

“Please, help me.”
She reached out to the man. Her hand brushed his slick boot.

He stopped.

A flash of lightning glinted off the blade of the dagger in his hand. She held her breath as he bent over her, blocking the worst of the rain. He was dressed all in black, no wonder she’d had trouble making out his features. Even his shirt and oilskin cape were black. A black kerchief covered his nose and mouth. A large hat, designed to disguise, hid the rest of his face. A horn, carved from bone, hung from a strap across his chest.

“God’s teeth! What in bloody hell are you doing out here?” the shadowy man demanded gruffly. He knelt down beside her and pressed his fingers to her neck. “At least you’re alive,” he muttered and then uttered a string of colorful curses.

She knew him, knew that voice. She blinked several times, trying to get her blurry vision to focus. It wouldn’t. Her head hurt from the effort, and the world was beginning to spin back into soft gray nothingness.

She had to be dreaming again. Why else would a flickering light be dancing among a grove of trees? The dancing light was drawing nearer. The man kneeling beside her must have seen it, too. He cursed again, then put the curved horn to his lips, and blew a long deep note that was loud enough to carry about the roaring storm.

The sound seemed to upset the distant firelight. It swung wildly as it drew even closer. Shadows emerged from the darkness.

“Damnation, I’m not going to let you be the cause of my men getting caught or hung.” The man whipped off his oilskin cape. His hands moved swiftly as he wrapped it around her shoulders. He then scooped Elsbeth into his arms and scurried to his feet. His quick movement jolted her buzzying head. Pain shot through the straining stitches in her injured side.

She heard a shout. Felt another sharp jolt.

And then, blissfully, nothing.

* * * * *

Elsbeth shivered uncontrollably. She awoke, still miserably cold and wet. A sharp slap on her face added insult to her unhappy condition.

“Leave off, sir,” she mumbled groggily and batted the offending hand away.

“Wake up. Do as I say.”

She was slapped again. It was amazing how impolite some people could be.

“Leave off!” she howled. Her eyes fluttered open. “I am quite awake!”

She had to blink several times before her vision cleared. And after it had, she blinked again, hoping to improve things. She was inside a small abandoned one-room cottage. The room, if it could be called that, was bare, the roof mostly gone, the walls crumbling in the strong gale, and the dirt floor muddy.

She shivered—this time from fear—and hugged a dripping cape to her chest that had been wrapped about her shoulders.

Nigel’s friend hovered over her. “M-mister W-waver?” The words chattered with her teeth. “Y-you have abducted m-me? Why—?” She sat up, overcome with a fit of sneezing.

“Damnation!” He peeled off his leather gloves and shoved them into her hands.

His gloves, though large, were fur-lined and warm. “Thank you,” she said just before pulling herself to her feet. The pulling pain in her side felt much sharper now than it had all day. And the room was becoming blurry again. He swore again and then reached out to catch her when she stumbled.

She pushed his anxious hands away. “I have a bullet wound in my side that hurts like the devil. I am soaked to the bone . . . and cold.” She stifled a sneeze. “And I am foggy in the head, no thanks to you, sir.” She took a step away from him, which she instantly regretted since it put her into the path of the driving rain coming in through where the roof was absent. She returned to his side where she could find at least the illusion of dryness.

“I did not do this!” He waved his hand in her direction. “Good Lord, Edgeware will surely kill me when he finds us.” He began to pace, not seeming to mind that he’d wandered into the rainy part of the hut.

“You’re one of the smugglers?”

“What do you know about that business?”

“I listen to conversations I oughtn’t.” She paused, eying Mr. Waver carefully. “You
are
a smuggler.” Of course he was. Why else would he be dressed like the very devil? “And Lord Edgeware has found you out.”

Her heart thundered a beat. “You—you are Dionysus?”

She stumbled back a step, overwhelmed by the thought of finally standing face to face with the artist, the madman. “You’re trying to
kill
Nigel?” She just barely eked out the strangled question.

“No!” he shouted. His gaze sailed wildly around the room, seemingly startled by his outburst. “No,” he said more sedately. “But that is how
he
wants it to look.”

“Who?” Elsbeth could not help but ask.

“Who the bloody hell knows! Dionysus is as good a guess as any!” He gulped. “Forgive my language, my lady.” He tossed off his hat and wiped a puddle of rain from his brow. “Wait a blessed moment.” He stopped pacing and turned suddenly to stare at her. “You truly don’t know Dionysus? But how can that be? That painting was so . . . so lifelike.”

“I have never met the bounder, sir. I have no idea why he is determined to be my tormentor.”

He stared at her for a moment longer. “We should join forces on that front, but there is no time to discuss that now. You believe this Dionysus is trying to kill Edgeware? That is an interesting thought . . . I must think about that . . . but not now . . .”

He closed the distance between them. The menace in his eyes left her quivering all the way down to her toes.

He grabbed her arms so tightly she yelped.

“You cannot tell Edgeware about this, my lady. I am trying to protect him. I swear I am.”

“Y-you are not a-a smuggler?”

“Yes! I am that!”

The sound of distant voices carrying on the wind alerted the both of them.

“Yes,” he whispered, “I smuggle goods. Just like my father and his father before him. My work helps support the whole village.”

“B-but you d-denied—”

“I am not trying to kill Edgeware!” His gaze darted to the door. “I am as anxious as you are to uncover who is. In fact I have recently discovered a piece of evidence that will help lead me to the murderer. There has been talk in the village that Guthrie, one of Edgeware’s footmen, has bragged about how much money he’d been paid to put a metal burr in Edgeware’s saddle, a metal burr that nearly sent Edgeware to his death.”

“Nigel is convinced that the smugglers are the ones trying to kill him though,” she said, trying to put the pieces together in her fuzzy head.

“Yes, I know.” He turned away.

“I cannot keep this from him.” She shivered, wondering what Mr. Waver would be forced to do to her now that she’d refused to cooperate with him.

“Please, my lady,” he said. “Please, give me a chance to plead my case to Edgeware myself. Give me a chance to tell him by the morrow.”

If she didn’t . . . well, Nigel had said it himself that morning: He planned to kill the smuggler, which now appeared to be Mr. Waver.

“Very well,” she said with a sigh. “Till the morrow. I will not wait a moment longer. I will not put him in further danger.” Truly, she didn’t wish her husband dead. Nor did she wish to see him kill Mr. Waver. Quite possibly with his own hands.