The Nude (full-length historical romance) (3 page)

“Is this some kind of punishment?” she muttered, closing her eyes. If only she could pinch them closed long enough for the fervor to die down. But such a scandal would outlast any effort on her part to hide. And worse, the scandal could tarnish the spotless Baneshire name. Olivia and Lauretta, two
innocents
on display in the Marriage Mart, deserved better than to be ruined by something done to her.

She drew a deep breath and forced herself to face the crowded room. She couldn’t forestall the scandal, but she could take steps to endure the brunt of it, and protect her cousins from the irreparable damage that could befall their futures.

Lord Baneshire had trusted her after all.

Freeing her hand from Lauretta’s strong grasp, she pushed her way to the front of the room. The gentlemen in the audience glared, while the ladies turned their backs to her as she made her way to the steps of the stage.

“This was done without my permission or knowledge,” she forced from behind clenched teeth. After taking one last look at the painting, her blush deepening, she ripped the sheet from Lord Ames’s hand and tossed it back over the accursed painting.

“How could you?” she said, and slapped Ames across the cheek. The sound of flesh striking flesh echoed within the now eerily silent room.

Nigel Purbeck, the sixth Marquess of Edgeware, liked the sharp sting of a damp ocean breeze against his face. It made him feel alive. With a shift of his thighs, he urged his dappled gray stallion, Zeus, into a hard run along a trail that paralleled the low cliffs. The crimson morning light glinted off the turbulent waves. The sight of it made Nigel’s heart race. It had been many months since he’d witnessed such an inspiring sight. London, where he made his home for most of the year, was dank and smoky and not at all as wildly beautiful as the landscape surrounding his Dorset estate.

Zeus flicked his ear and stubbornly tugged on the reins, pulling his head in the direction of the estate’s main house, Purbeck Manor. Its worn rock and marble walls rose up on a knoll in the distance behind a line of storm-beaten, half-dead palm trees his father had imported from Italy ages ago.

Zeus pulled harder to the right and danced in his step, bobbing his head.

“Easy,” Nigel soothed.

The large horse was willful and notoriously difficult to handle. Only Nigel and the estate’s head groom could consistently manage his bouts of bad temper. Under Nigel’s patient care, the stallion rarely showed his temper, almost never demanded to get his own way like he was doing on this damp, spring morning. The stallion snorted and yanked on the reigns, fighting with a ferocity Nigel hadn’t seen in years.

“Easy, boy,” he said, and reached out to pat the horse’s broad neck. “We’ll head home.” He let Zeus turn back toward the manor while he tightened his thighs over the stallion’s broad back, hoping to regain some control.

Zeus immediately screamed and reared up. While pulling up on its powerful hind legs, the horse twisted his long, sleek neck back toward his own shoulder, and nipped the back of Nigel’s outstretched hand.

Nigel cradled his bleeding hand while leaning forward, desperate to keep his seat, but Zeus had other ideas. The great beast landed with a thud and kicked up with his hind legs, sending Nigel sailing over the top of his stallion’s head.

There was nothing he could do to protect himself. His head hit the pebbly ground first. Dazed and wondering if death would soon be upon him, he landed flat on his back,
staring up into the sun-kissed
morning sky.

Zounds, this was not the way he imagined he’d die. He’d hoped to live at least a few more years than his father had been able to eke out. In fact, he’d rather hoped he’d live to be a very old man. At least live long enough to find a woman to love.

With the sound of approaching hoof beats thundering in his ears, he raised his head. A sharp pain struck him, and his eyesight blurred.

Damn
, he thought as darkness enveloped him.
Damn and blast
.

* * * * *

“Lord-a-mercy! What havey-cavey is this?” Joshua peered down on the bloodied and crumpled body sprawled out on the wet grass and shook his head. No one in the tiny village of Purbeck ever expected the Marquess to gain his thirtieth year. His father hadn’t accomplished such a feat. Nor had his grandfather. And his lordship, on the dawning months of nine-and-twenty, was growing close to surprising the members of the village.

“Who’s his heir?” the stranger standing next to Joshua asked. He was a messenger dressed in full livery who’d recently arrived on horseback, demanding to see the Marquess without delay. His mount was still blowing hard. “Considering the urgency I was told to treat this task, I believe this message should go to his lordship’s heir straightaway.”

“Aye,” Joshua agreed. “His lordship was a bachelor. He produced no children, least none that weren’t bastards.” He shrugged. “His uncle, Lord Purbeck, is his lordship’s heir. God save him.”

“Take me to him. I was given orders that this letter be given the highest priority.”

The messenger’s cold demand momentarily stunned Joshua. He tilted his head, still staring down at the immobile body that once was his master. “His lordship was a good man, he was. Always treated his servants kindly.” Joshua dragged his cap from his head and clutched it against his chest. “He will be sorely missed, he will. God deliver him.”

The corpse moaned.

Both men jumped back as Lord Edgeware, eyes still tightly sealed, slowly sat up.

“The devil!” Joshua shouted.

“Don’t be too quick to deliver me up to the devil, Joshua,” Edgeware said. “I have yet a few more breaths in these lungs.”

* * * * *

Nigel’s head menaced him. The pain, sharp and unmerciful, tried to draw him back to unconsciousness, but he wouldn’t allow it. By sheer force of will, he pried his eyes open.

“You’re alive, m’lord!” Joshua, his head groom, cried.

“Of course, I’m alive. I hope you planned to have me checked over more carefully before sending for a casket maker.”

Joshua stumbled a step back and looked as pale as if being forced to stand before the devil himself. “F-forgive me, m’lord. It-it’s just that everyone expects you to—”

“I’m soaking wet,” Nigel mused aloud. “Did you douse me with water?” He pulled a handkerchief from his coat and wiped the liquid from his brow and looked at it.

He puzzled over the ruddy cloth until his sluggish mind realized what he was seeing. Water shouldn’t stain a handkerchief. But blood did. Goodly amounts of it, which was never a good thing.

“Help me stand.” He reached out to Joshua while fighting a wave of panic. “Damn man, don’t just stand there gawking. I will bleed to death if you don’t help me.”

With some effort, Joshua and the messenger helped Nigel get his wobbly legs underneath him. Joshua fastened Nigel’s cravat tightly around the crown of his bleeding head and had tucked several handkerchiefs against the wound for good measure.

“That should staunch the flow, m’lord,” he said, drawing a deep breath. His groom’s senses seemed to be returning. Joshua jammed his cap back on top of his head and turned to the messenger. “Go fetch a litter to carry his lordship back to the manor.”

“Wait, I’ll ride back. I’m not dead yet. I refuse to be transported as if I were.”

“But, m’lord, your head.”

“Damn my head. I want to have a look at Zeus. He tossed me as if I were a bee in a woman’s bonnet and I want to know why.” He quickly spotted his ill-mannered stallion happily feasting on wildflowers no more than a few yards away.

Joshua offered his shoulder for support. Leaning heavily on him, Nigel limped over to inspect his horse. Every muscle in Nigel’s body screamed with pain. He needed to get into a tub of hot water before his muscles tightened into a set of impossibly stiff knots. But first he was determined to tend to Zeus. It had been years since he’d seen his horse panic so forcefully. There had to be a reason.

“Gads, m’lord,” Joshua exclaimed, when they lifted the saddle and blanket from the horse’s flank. A metal burr was embedded in Zeus’s tender skin.

“The harder I tried to control him, the deeper I drove this cursed thing into his back. Zounds, how did this happen? Who saddled him this morning?”

“I did, m’lord. You know I did, m’lord. No one else would dare touch your horse.” Joshua grew pale.

“Then how did this happen?” A new wave of dizziness hit Nigel as fresh anger made his blood race. A trickle of blood ran down his cheek. He rounded on his groom. “How did this happen?”

“I-I don’t know, m’lord. You know I take great care with the blanket and saddle. I check the blanket for burrs every time, m’lord. You know that.” His ruddy cheek bloomed red with anger. “Someone purposefully injured Zeus.”

“A chilling thought.” Nigel accepted Joshua’s innocence for the moment. His groom sung to the estate’s horses and treated them as if they were his children. He wouldn’t harm a horse as a means to kill a man. But if not Joshua, then who? Who would be interested in his death?

“My lord,” the messenger stepped forward. “Begging your pardon. But my master insisted I not hesitate to deliver this note to your hands. I am to await a reply.” The lanky messenger held out a folded piece of foolscap.

“Joshua, take care of Zeus. I’ll ride Hera back to the manor.” Nigel stumbled a step. “In a moment.”

He took the message and studied the red, wax seal. The seal, a growling beast surrounded by a circle of flowers, was a mark he quickly recognized.

Matters had to be dire for Severin to contact him. Nigel peeled back the wax and opened the letter.

Lord Edgeware
, it read,
a certain situation in London requires your immediate attention. I dare not explain more. But I must impress on you the urgency in which this is written. I only pray you make every effort to attend to this catastrophe with utmost haste
. The message had been signed with an elaborate letter “A”.

Nigel blinked several times as his vision swam in and out of focus. The timing of this new crisis could not be any worse. He swore an oath beneath his breath as he crumpled the foolscap clutched in his bloodied hand. He knew he could not ignore the plea for help. Severin would not write without desperate cause. There could only be one reason he’d send this note.

Dionysus
.

Lord Baneshire ground his jaw as he paced the green-hued parlor, the muscles in his reddened cheeks visibly straining. A day after the scandal and his anger had still not cooled.

Word of the scandalous painting had reached the Baneshire household even before Elsbeth could usher Olivia and Lauretta into the carriage and rush home. Lord Baneshire, grim-faced, had waited for them at the front door. His arms crossed and his legs spread wide, he made quite a menacing picture. He’d taken one look at the three girls and pointed the way to their bedrooms. They had silently obeyed.

Late the next morning, the earl summoned Elsbeth and her cousins into the front parlor. Elsbeth sat primly in her favorite chair. An uncomfortable calm filled her as she watched her uncle pace.

Lord Baneshire had every right to be angry. His family was a model of propriety. Such a scandal wouldn’t only mortify him and harm his children’s chances at finding husbands, but it would also touch his political career. A career in which he took great pride.

She should have never accepted his invitation to live with them. She should have known her dream of returning to London and settling into a quiet, unassuming life had never been possible in the first place.

“Strumpets pose for artists,” he said without altering his stride. “Whores pose for artists.”

“The children, my lord,” Lady Baneshire, paler than usual, scolded softly with a quick glance in the direction of Olivia and Lauretta who sat huddled together on a small sofa, their heads lowered.

“When did you do this?” he shouted with a great wave of his arm. “You were supposedly observing a period of mourning this past year. Or did this happen before your husband’s death? Were you unfaithful? Were you seeing another man while he was fighting—dying—for our Mother England? That’s what the gossips will think, you know. Is it true?”