The Seduction of His Wife (3 page)

Marietta wrapped her arm around his middle, mindful of the blood-soaked patch on his shirt. Her voluptuous figure barely held his tall frame upright. “Juliet wasn’t pleasing enough? I can send up another girl. Someone to take your mind from the pain.”

“No company tonight.”

He couldn’t take her up on that offer now that he’d seen his wife. Emma looked the same … only grown up. As well as he could tell with that flimsy mask that did nothing to conceal her features. Her high cheekbones, her slightly freckled nose, those blonde curls of hers that looked and felt as smooth as the finest silk. He’d wanted to unravel her hair from all those pins and spread it out beneath him.

There his thoughts went again. Strange how he’d not spared his wife a thought since their wedding night and now his mind almost seemed consumed by her.

Arm tight around Marietta’s shoulders, he made his way up to the third-floor landing out of view of the other patrons. Dante followed, having completed his task. The man wore a scowl that could kill. One that said,
I didn’t save you for you to bleed out because of stupidity in a whorehouse.

“I’m well enough, Dante. Just get me in my room so I can clean this up.”

Dante hoisted him up with his shoulder, and Marietta retreated, promising to send up a repast. When he was finally sitting on the bed, he pulled his shirt off, hissing in a sharp breath.

Dante mumbled something that sounded a lot like “whore of a mother’s son.”

Taking the wet cloth from Dante’s hand, Richard patted at the blood. “I’ve only pulled a stitch.”

Dante retrieved a roll of linen, set in the room for the purpose of cleaning the deep slash in his side, and started ripping it into strips.

“We shouldn’t be here. There are too many people here to notice our presence in London.”

No, it wasn’t an ideal place, not now that he figured someone had sent his wife here. Just so happened to be the last place in London he felt he could hide without drawing undue attention to himself. Seemed he was mistaken in that notion.

“We don’t have a lot of options open to us. I can’t really fight off anyone should they try to get the better of me right now. I’m pretty much useless like this. And until I’m on my feet again and at full strength, we have to stay to ground.”

“Whores jumping about your lap is not a good way to do that,” Dante grumbled.

“I wasn’t about to slight the proprietress. She sent the girl, and I let the girl do what was asked of her.” He held the strips of linen out to Dante. “The wound has to breathe. I don’t want it turning septic.”

Dante took the linens and set them out on the tall chest of drawers. “We should leave for your town house tomorrow.”

“We will.”

A light rapping of knuckles sounded at the door. Dante pulled a knife from somewhere on his person, a lethal-looking piece of curved metal that had to be ten inches long.

“Calm yourself. It’s sure to be the meal Marietta promised.”

Of course Dante never liked to be careless. He held the knife behind his back and cracked the door open enough to see who was on the other side. The door swung wide the next moment, and a servant came in carrying a covered tray.

She gave a pretty curtsy after setting down the tray on the round walnut server. Her cleavage spilled over the low-cut bodice, revealing her rouged areolas at the line of her gown.

“Will that be all, my lord?”

Another enticement. He would have laughed if it wouldn’t have insulted the girl. Instead, he said, “Quite enough. Tell Marietta I do not wish to be disturbed until tomorrow.”

“Yes, my lord.”

When the door shut on her retreat, Dante threw the bolt in place and checked over the sandwiches neatly stacked on a plate. “Do you think she’s poisoned it?”

“Marietta has no reason to be done with me. For the time being, our arrangement is mutually beneficial.”

Leaning his head back to the wall, Richard closed his eyes and pictured his wife with her little mask and prim clothes.

“Who was the woman I followed down to the street?”

“My wife.”

There was a pause.

“Was she looking for you?” Dante’s expression was carefully absent of emotion, and his tone even.

No one could be more shocked by his wife’s presence than Richard himself.

Cracking one eye open, he answered, “I doubt it.” He’d not elaborate that she might have been here for an assignation. That was no one’s business but his own.

Dante sat in the chair and picked up one of the sandwiches. “Curious that she happened to walk into this establishment as opposed to the thousands of others in this city. Someone knows we’re here. We’re being watched.”

Richard nodded his agreement. “I’ll talk with Marietta in the morning. I’m sure she’s aware of the situation that brought my wife here.” Probably knew who Emma was to meet with, too.

“We should leave tonight.” Dante bit into the bread.

“Keeping out of sight will have to be enough. If someone wants me dead they’ll have to get through Marietta’s muscle. I wish them luck. I’ve never met a man who could get past them. Women, yes, but not just any man is going to get through those doors.”

“We are like sitting geese.”

“Whoever our foe is, they’ll not get a noose around our necks.” Richard let out a frustrated sigh. “Stop fussing and let me sleep. What we do will depend upon the information I get from Marietta. Once we start finalizing the deal with Heyworth, the waters will calm.”

“Nothing has been easy in the sale of our business. I don’t expect it to get any easier.”

“Whoever is trying to make the deal fall through may get bored with this game of cat and mouse they’ve devised.”

“I hope you are right,” Dante mumbled.

Richard didn’t respond. He hoped he was right, too. Or, despite all his careful planning, they might still end up dead before the deal could be finalized.

Chapter 3

Your father tries his best to keep my spirits up, knowing I long for word from you whenever a letter arrives. But there is never word for me.

Emma went directly to her painting room as soon as the sun had come up. She could spend most of her day painting. It let her think about nothing except the picture she was working on. Her marriage and Waverly were the farthest things from her mind. At least for now.

Setting her freshly cleaned paintbrush down on the lip of the easel, Emma stood back and studied her latest work.

The lighting was off. The position of the dark-haired woman sitting on a chair, holding nothing but a sheer orange scarf, did not evoke the erotic image that was clear in her mind. Her form, she supposed, was pleasing enough, the breasts high and overly generous in size, her waist narrow, her hips with the slightest flare. The dark-eyed beauty was missing a twinkle in her eye, something that promised naughty intentions. All in all, it wasn’t bad. But it would need a great deal more tweaking before it was just right.

With a heavy sigh she plopped herself into the cushioned rocking chair.

A shame she’d not found a more lady-like hobby over the years. She’d once found a painting in the attic at her country estate of a woman erotically splayed across a bed. It had grasped onto her imagination like a lure reeling in a helpless fish. From that point forward, she couldn’t rest until she had painted the female form just once.

That first painting had been her own form, since she had been too afraid to ask another woman to sit for her. Too afraid to share her secret with anyone at the time. She had sold it in a fit of anger on her twenty-third birthday. She’d been furious that her husband had ignored her for another year. That he had wanted nothing to do with her. It had been her only truly rebellious act against the unjust life she had been given.

She hadn’t told her friend Nathan, the Duke of Vane, that the painting was a likeness of her. He was the only person aside from her sisters who knew of the erotic portrayals she spent so much time perfecting. In fact, he’d known about them before her sisters were privy to the information, as he was the one who sold the pieces for her.

She remembered the day she’d delivered the painting to him; a deal had been secured at that point. That had been the only time she’d ever seen Nathan angry. His words had been colorful as he’d reprimanded her for selling something no man had a right to see. But the deal had been struck and could not be undone. Nathan had made her promise never to paint another nude of herself. She’d agreed not because he’d exacted the promise from her, but because she wished she had thought long and hard about releasing that painting to the public.

With that thought, Waverly came to mind. He had been a friend to her and her sisters for the past year. Waverly would not get away with treating her so poorly. She’d make her feelings clear to the man. That she wanted her painting returned, and that none of the Hallaway women would have anything to do with him in the future. If that didn’t work, she’d ask Nathan to retrieve the painting by other means.

Because if she didn’t retrieve the painting, she feared Richard would find out about it. She wished she’d never set eyes on her husband. Wished he hadn’t threatened to come home. Though she had a hard time believing he would come to the town house.

How long had he been in England? She knew he traveled the world extensively, was sure he had a house in India, too; that was the extent of her knowledge, since he’d never bothered to send his father word of his whereabouts. And it wasn’t as though he’d write to her or, God forbid, pay her a visit when he was in England. Why should he visit her? He hadn’t even come home for his father’s funeral.

Fate was cruel, vicious.

She stood and untied her apron strings, trying to rid her mind of all the questions and worries plaguing her.

The drapes were drawn back, the sun warming the room quickly at this hour. Not only would she swelter in here midday from the midsummer heat, but she’d not be left in peace hiding in here past lunchtime. Her sisters would come looking for her soon if she didn’t meet them for a walk, as was part of their usual morning ritual.

When she stepped outside, her sisters were sitting around the wrought-iron table in the small garden path, luncheon already set up.

Abby, the youngest sister, looked up from her book and raised a conspiratorial brow. “See, I told you she’d be down before the noon hour. Guilt at abandoning us to our own devices has a tendency to gnaw at her.”

“Couldn’t you have stayed in your painting room for a while longer?” Grace asked.

“I’m sure you were minutes away from retrieving me. What did you lose, Grace?”

Grace sulked. “My pearl earrings.”

“You really should know better than betting your odds against Abby.” Emma rubbed her hand over Grace’s arm in a soothing gesture. “I don’t think you’ve ever won.”

The footman standing by the serving cart pulled the cast-iron chair out for her. When she settled her skirts under the table, he dropped a serviette in her lap. A plate of fresh fruits and another with layers of sandwiches was set in front of her.

“Thank you. Take a break indoors,” she told the man.

With a bow, he retreated. Today, private matters amongst sisters needed to be discussed, and Emma did not want to hear whisperings of it from the staff at a later date. They had pristine reputations to keep intact. Well, her two sisters did. Emma was merely tolerated in society. She’d long ago been scorned for her inability to keep her husband from wandering foreign lands, indulging in all sorts of trade. Then there was her longtime association with the Duke of Vane—the only person to ever befriend an awkward young woman whose husband had run off. Vane was also the embodiment of the word
wicked,
and a pleasure seeker in the most carnal of senses. It was no wonder so many thought she was having an affair with such a man: Many women couldn’t resist him.

If word ever escaped that she painted erotic scenes that some of the richest lords owned, she’d be completely banished from polite society.

Emma had filled Grace in on everything that had happened in the bawdy house when they’d gone up to bed the previous night. Abby probably knew all those details by now. Emma hadn’t been able to bring herself to talk about the letter Waverly had written. She’d not be able to hide it much longer since he planned to visit her at Mansfield Hall.

Grace was the first to break the silence. “What are you going to do about Waverly?”

She leaned back into the cold support of the chair. “I don’t know.”

“Didn’t he at least leave a note?” Abby’s eyes widened when she didn’t respond. “I knew it. Tell us what that rapscallion said.”

“He said he would meet me at the country house. We will have to leave tomorrow.”

“And what of your husband? What will you do if he comes here looking for you?” Grace asked.

The idea was so ludicrous that she laughed. “Richard will not come here. Not with the three of us in residence. I’m worried, yes, because I’ve made a mess of things. It was unwise of me to sell that portrait.”

“Emma, you’re being too hard on yourself. Your art is very exclusive and should have never found itself in the hands of that scoundrel.”

“What am I going to do if Richard finds out?”

“How will he?” Grace said.

Emma did not want him to come home. Not with everything in her life upside down at the moment. Perhaps her sister was right. Perhaps her secrets were safe.

“Now, what do we do with Waverly?” Abby asked.

Emma cast her eyes toward her half-empty plate. “I’ll figure him out when the time comes.”

“I ought to pay the man a visit, give him a few choice words to swallow.” Grace forked a mouthful of melon viciously.

“You can’t. Let me handle Waverly my own way.”

“I don’t think you can reason with the man. It’s obvious what he wants,” Abby was quick to say.

“And what is that,” Grace shot back.

“I may not have married, probably never will, seeing as I’m so long in the tooth, but I’ll not play ignorant with my sisters. I know what happens in the marriage bed, and
outside
of it for that matter.” Abby gave them both a piercing glare that dared them to ask more. “Don’t you see what Waverly wants?”