How to Impress a Marquess(25)

Bloody, bloody, bloody hell.

She pulled out the sampler, assuming she would find more embroidery or doll clothes. Instead, nestled in cotton was a roll of pages bound with a blue string.

Her fingers trembled as she undid the tie and unrolled the stiff paper. A picture in watery blues and lush greens jumped from the page. An enormous oak with sweeping boughs grew over a brook. A little girl in a blue dress sat against the trunk, smiling in the same joyous light that was shining on the water and leaves.

The night turned silent in Lilith’s mind. She carefully turned the page. Written in black ink was one word, “George.”

“Dear God.”

She shifted through the pages as though they were four-hundred-year-old hand-painted holy manuscripts. Below waited a scene of workmen in smocks ripping turnips from the soil. The field was symmetric lines against the men’s rounded, hunched forms. An expanse of blue sky with gossamer whirls of clouds arched over them. Composition that masters had studied for years came instinctually to this young artist.

She had to wipe away tears to view the next painting: a servant girl perched on an upturned bucket before a blackened kitchen fireplace. The image was dim but for the warm gold light of the flames that reflected on the girl’s silver sewing needle and the coppery tones of her hair.

“George,” she whispered. “What did they do to you?”

Beneath the servant girl, Lilith found a tiny book Penelope had described. She smiled as she flipped the pages. George had painted beautiful dolls and playful kittens for his young sister. But the last image undid her. Hiccuplike sobs shook her body. Protected in jagged shrubbery rested a nest filled with vivid blue robin eggs.

She bolted up and cradled the pages to her heart. That sensitive little boy. How could someone be so cruel as to silence this brilliant talent?

She wanted to pull that hurt boy to her heart and assure him he was perfect just as he was. Rip out the seeds of shame that had been planted in him.

Did she possess the strength to help him? George would hurl vicious insults to keep her away. Whatever words or threats had been used to stifle his talent still waited inside him like an uneasy tiger, ready to lash out if threatened. She had felt his sharp claws that night in his study when she first asked about his art. She wasn’t strong enough to break through his defenses, not after Frances and Edgar had left her. She needed to lick her own wounds, not tend to someone else’s.

And George, no matter the sensitive material of his soul, was a Maryle. No amount of pretty pictures could make up for the pain inflicted by him and his ilk. He could have no redemption.

Like the sultan.

She released a long breath while her fingers caressed the old pages. But at least she had to show him the pictures. He needed to see the beautiful parts of himself that he had rejected in order to become the unyielding man he prided himself on being.

However, she couldn’t take the pages back to her room. They wouldn’t fit in her portfolio and she didn’t know how to keep them safe from nosy servants, no doubting working as spies for their controlling valide sultan. The trunk had been safely concealed for over twenty years and that shouldn’t change overnight. She carefully replaced pages and doll trunk in their protective chamber pot shell and then shifted another trunk over them.

How could she lead George up here with an open heart? She couldn’t approach him and say, Hello, Georgie, I’ve found parts of yourself that are painful and that you refuse to admit exist. Care to see?

She needed to be a little more devious.

And she needed an answer soon, for she was about to run out of lamp oil.

She paced in a tight circle. The lamp guttered. As if by instinct, she reached into the trunk of clothes from the 1830s and grabbed a handful of balloonlike sleeves and billowing skirts.

Oh yes! Simply perfect.



That morning in the breakfast room, George regretted his words the instant they left his mouth.

His mother pressed her clasped hands to her heart. “Oh, George, grandchildren!”

Even Penelope perked up from where she stared glumly at her unbuttered toast.

“That’s a bit premature, Mama,” he said. “I merely said I’m aware that I need to prepare for my family’s future and will consider, merely consider, courting one of our young female guests.”

“I’m quite champing at the bit to hear the joyous laughter of children and the patter of their little feet at Tyburn again,” his mother prattled on. “You know how I adore children. Penelope, my dear daughter, has kept me waiting all these years. Yes, you have, my darling, you know it.”

George prided himself on keeping a neutral face in Parliament when some cabbage-headed Whig carried on with his fairy tale–like solutions to England’s complex problems. However, his mother’s utterance was more than even a man of his forbearance could stand. He made busy dissecting a sausage to keep his face concealed. Since when did his mother care for children? The minute they broke out in joyous laughter or left tiny mud prints behind the patter, she would be calling for the nurse to whisk them away, complaining of her nerves. And secondly, why did she assume she would continue to live at Tyburn once he brought home a wife?

And then there was the scary concept of being a father. What the hell would he say to his children? All he had was what his own father had told him. He didn’t want to be like that. No child of his should know the pain he had growing up.

“Where is Miss Dahlgren?” Penelope cried in a small, desperate voice. Yes, he wondered the same thing himself. At that moment, he needed her there, but he didn’t know why.

“I’m sure she’s found a lovely new scrape to detain her,” Lady Marylewick said in complete amicability and sipped her tea. “Such an excitable young lady. No doubt she will find our respectable party a dead bore and wish she had never come.”

George heard the subtle threat under the tinkling laugh.

He realized just how frayed his nerves were when he desired to bolt from the table and shout Enough of this stupid house party. Penelope was miserable, Lilith was beautiful, tempting, and insane, among other things, and his mother…well, Samuel Johnson hadn’t precise words for a person possessing such sugar-laden malice. Only Beatrice, who appeared to be studying the water displacement and solvency by adding more and more sugar cubes to her tea, was all right and that was because she was too young to know better.

Then, as if strolling onto center stage of the hilarious farce Lord Marylewick Throws a House Party, or maybe the angst-ridden drama Lord Marylewick is Hanged for Murder, George wasn’t sure yet, Lilith entered.

She wore a vivid pink satin gown that would have fit a woman several inches smaller. Her breasts appeared ready to pop out from the bodice and her ankles were in plain view. Massive puffed sleeves decorated each arm and her hair was piled high, resembling a bird’s nest on the top of her head.

“What on earth!” his mother shrieked.

“Lilith, what…what are you doing?” Penelope cried.

“I’m going to make the 1830s all the rage again!” Lilith swished her abundant skirts. “I shall be big and bombastic. Everyone will talk about it.” She studied her massive sleeves. “Hmmm, I wonder if I pumped these sleeves with hot air, whether I could float about. What do you think, Beatrice?”

The last of George’s self-restraint cracked. He bolted to his feet, toppling his teacup. “Stop making a mockery of this family, Lilith! By God, I should never have let you come. You cannot be worked on.”

Lilith’s features fell. She gazed up at him with large, wounded eyes. “You don’t like it?” she asked like a hurt child.

“Lilith Dahlgren, don’t you dare disgrace us by appearing in those hideous clothes!” his mother hissed, her beautiful features pinched to sharp lines. “George, she intends to ruin everything. It’s her raison d’être.”

“Mama, please,” George said. “I’ll take care of Lilith.”

He grabbed Lilith by the elbow, escorted her into the corridor, and shut the door.

“Lilith,” he began, trying to keep his anger in check, “I thought we had an understanding—”

“Oh, George.” All the mischief drained from her face. She pressed her palm to his chest. The sensation of her touch sank below his skin to the marrow of his bones. “I’ve seen your art. I’ve seen it. You’re brilliant.”

“What?” Just capital. She picked the morning of his house party to truly lose her wits.

“The art from when you were a boy. Penelope preserved it in the attics under a chamber pot. George, you should never have been stopped. It was cruel. The composition, the colors, the light. It’s stunning. You must see.”

Why the hell was she digging into his past?

“A chamber pot is its proper home,” he barked. “I have serious—”

She clasped his hand, trapping it between hers, and held it over her heart. He released an uneven breath as blood rushed to his cock. “Don’t get angry. You must recognize your talent. See all the beauty inside of you.”

He bit back the harsh words waiting on his tongue and said, with all the control he could muster, “I know you sincerely believe your artist mumbo jumbo. But I’ve serious obligations, Lilith. Important men will be arriving at any time. I must persuade them to vote in their best interest. I don’t have time for your silliness.”