How to Impress a Marquess(21)

“You want to know my calling?” he asked. “I have to help run a country, as well as take care of ten estates, and nearly a hundred relatives and tenants who depend upon me for food and shelter. I’m the guardian of numerous children. Then there’s you. And you take up more of my time than most of those combined.”

She drew a little circle with her finger on the stonemason bill. “It’s always responsibility and duty, as if you are using them to keep you safe from something.”

“Safe from something?” he thundered. “Do you know what happens when I don’t see to my responsibilities? Families don’t have enough food. Workers don’t get paid. Governments don’t function. You seem to take for granted what I do. You enjoy mocking me.” He gazed out the window at the dark square below. The moon lit the night a deep velvety blue and turned the trees into black silhouettes.

He heard her approaching steps. Her citrus and vanilla scent filled his nose. Her fingers kneaded into the taut muscles of his shoulders. “But you must take care of yourself, of your soul. What can you be to anyone if you aren’t even your true self?” She let her arms slide down him until she embraced him. She pressed her cheek to his back. The rise of her breasts pushed against him. Her touch soothed as much as it electrified. “What would happen if you stopped taking care of everyone? Who would you be, George? Do you even know?”

That little compassion, or was it condescension, in her voice dropped like a lit match on oil. How dare she presume to know him? To think she knew better than he did? She who couldn’t walk down the street without falling into a scrape.

He ripped himself free from her hold and strode to the grate. The giant mirror hanging over the mantel showed her reflection. She held out her palms, her eyes still filled with empathy, despite his brusque behavior.

“Don’t be afraid, George.”

Good God! She was a child. As if her belief in paint and poetry justified her irresponsibility.

“How well can you take care of yourself, Lilith?” he shot back. “And by the by, where is your art? You speak of art’s nobility and calling, but I don’t see any of yours. And I don’t see your artist cousins and their gallery. I don’t see any of your artist friends beating down my door to help you now that you can’t give them money. The truth is you can’t do things for yourself and that is your problem. No, that is my problem.”

In the mirror, he watched her flinch. Anger burned away her tender expression. Why did he say those words? Why did he have to push her away?

“Very well.” She smoothed her robe. “It was such a lovely evening. I’m sorry it had to be ruined. I thought…I thought there was more to you. But I was mistaken.” She headed for the door. “Good night.”

“Lilith, stop.”

She spun around. The air was pregnant with frustrations he couldn’t voice. He knew with the right words the invisible wall that always separated them could shatter. But what were they? He didn’t have words like Colette’s creator. All he had were colors, textures, sensations, and that black fear inside of him. What could he tell her? How could he describe the way that the firelight warming her creamy skin filled him with peace and longing for something that he couldn’t name? He moved his hands about his face, grappling for the words that described all he saw in her cocoa eyes. How could he tell her that, yes, she was beautiful, but that loveliness stemmed from an inner quality that infused her whole body? Something ethereal that he couldn’t capture in words, or at least, his words. He wasn’t a Keats, so instead he said, “I expect you to continue your calisthenics and improvement regimen.”

She stared at him—her face screwed with disgust and disbelief. “Good night, George.” She walked away.

He wanted to chase after her, but what would he say? Nothing. There was nothing to be done.

He went back to the desk, opened the drawer, and gazed at the picture he had sketched. He ran his fingers along the lines. It wasn’t enough. He hadn’t captured her. He wasn’t a Keats, nor was he an artist. He slammed the drawer shut and hung his head in his hands.



What sadly misguided notion did you harbor? Lilith admonished herself in her chamber.

Why did she keep making stupid mistakes? She had thought her cousins were loyal. Quite wrong on that count. George drew a few sketches and suddenly she believed that under his starched exterior existed a soul-crushed little boy trying to break free. She humiliated herself in the process of learning how wrong that assumption was.

Her fingers were trembling. She needed to write. She had to direct this anger and frustration churning inside her somewhere or she feared that poof—she would spontaneously combust. All the coroner would find was the smoldering ashes of Lilith.

She dug out her portfolio and withdrew her last pages. She scanned over her previous work, all melodrama scrawled in a heated passion: Colette trapped in the sultan’s tent, her heart broken, railing against God, threatening suicide, etc.

“Muse, we need a vast improvement. Some ideas of murder or, at the very least, accidental death for the sultan.” She dipped her pen and began to scribe.

Colette could cry no more and buried her face in the pillows.

She let her mind wander back to her home and her father when he was well. Her heart ached for the love she had then, so abundant, like the groves of ripe olives.

At first, she thought it was a trick of her mind, remembering the songs her father sang to her as a young child, but the timbre wasn’t correct. He had a weak, reedy voice and what she heard was rich and resonant.

In the tent’s dim corner, she made out the hard lines of the sultan’s powerful body. He continued to sing, moving closer. His magnificent voice wove a musical spell around them. Caught in its magic, there was no anger and hurt from the past or fears of the future. Only this moment.

“Dear Muse.” Lilith rolled her eyes. “Must we be melodramatic?”

Colette smoothed a wayward strand from his savage brow and gazed into his black eyes, finding in their depths a frightened little boy.

“Frightened little boy? Muse, no! Did you not witness what happened? I thought we had cleared up the matter of the little boy. He doesn’t exist, just a hardened villain. He can garner no sympathy.”

“Who are you?” Colette whispered.

“I don’t know.” Sorrow imbued his voice. “I don’t know.” He clasped her hand and pressed it to his mouth. “You must help me, Colette.”

“What can I give you? What do you need?”

Lilith’s pen hovered over the page. “Well, Muse, why don’t you tell me,” she quipped. “How can Colette, who has almost died by this man’s hands on several occasions, help him?”

Colette lowered the blankets, revealing her nude body.

“What? The publisher will never allow that.”

“Touch me,” she whispered, taking his hand and resting it upon her breast. “Fill yourself with love. Take it from me until you hurt no more. Only healing love will vanquish the evil in your heart.”

The sultan flicked his thumb over her nipple. Colette gasped in pleasure.

“Rest upon me,” she cried. “Find solace inside my—”

“Enough, Muse! Enough! I’m rather upset tonight and you have not been the least helpful. I don’t know what journal you think will publish this lurid claptrap. He is the villain. Villains meet horrible yet deserved ends. That’s how the stories go. I’ll give you another chance.”

He opened his caftan. His dark chest was striped with hard muscle all the way to his—

“Good night, useless, filthy-minded Muse.” Lilith shoved her pages into her portfolio and locked it. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll remember what proper literature resembles.”





Ten


“Pardon me, my good man,” George called to the newspaper and magazine vendor in Euston Station. “Has a new issue of McAllister’s Magazine come out?”

The man shook his head. “No, guv’nor. Maybe tomorrow. Been asked about it all week. Everyone is mad for Colette and the sultan of ’ers.”

Dammit. George needed the calming words of Colette to keep him distracted from the worries weighing on his mind.

He liked to believe that omens were the stuff of addled minds. Yet as they were about to embark for the house party, the drenching rain making a muddy slurry of the street and swelling the gutters left an uneasy feeling in his gut. Then added to that uneasy mix, he hadn’t wired his mother that Lilith was attending.

Lilith hadn’t spoken to him for the last several days. Even a brief flicker of eye contact seemed too painful for her to manage. Despite their embarrassing fight in his study, he thought it best not to give in to his urge to reconcile with her. He was her trustee, not her friend. Meanwhile, Lilith and his sister’s relationship continued to blossom. He felt oddly jealous of their private jokes and shared secrets. If Lilith hurt Penelope, she would be beneath contempt in his mind. However, it soon became apparent to him that it wasn’t his threats about money which had persuaded Lilith to attend the house party, but some loyalty to Penelope he couldn’t understand. The two ladies had never been friends before.