How to Impress a Marquess(33)
“Yes,” she said quietly. “Art means everything to me. My family didn’t want me. I drifted from one school to the next, even my beloved Frances and Edgar betrayed me. Art remains true to me.” She carefully swept her fingers over the pictures. “And it’s not rubbish. A wonderful little boy lives on in the work. As long as this work remains, a piece of him is still here. ‘A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: / Its loveliness increases, it will never / Pass into nothingness; but still will keep…’ That’s from Keats’s Endymion.” She pressed the painting to his chest. “Don’t ever destroy these, George. One day they might save you.” She rose and dusted off her robe. “There, I have shown you the paintings. That’s all I intended. It’s the only reason I behaved for the entire day. So good night.”
“What?” he thundered. Thank God no one stayed in this wing. “No, it’s not good night. What…what are we going to do tomorrow?” He came to his feet.
“Very simple. I’m going to keep my distance from you.” She tried to sound matter-of-fact, but he wasn’t fooled. He could hear the pain beneath the bravado. “I’m never going to utter a word about what happened if you honor your promise.”
“My promise?”
She flung up her hands. “To paint, to draw, to make art.”
He began to say something, many things in fact, but quickly shut his mouth. Technically, he had never promised. “Very well,” he said, feeling very much like a careful solicitor.
“It was a near wreck. That is all. You almost sullied yourself with Lilith Dahlgren.”
“Good God, Lilith, how can you say that?” How could she use the word “sullied” to describe the most loving and compassionate moment he had ever experienced?
“It isn’t? Then George, you have compromised me. You must marry me now. Ah, the panic upon your face!” A sad smile graced her lips. “It is well. I would rather throw myself off St. Paul’s Cathedral than be a Maryle.” She picked up her lamp. “There, your kingdom is saved. Go marry Lady Cornelia. She will make a wonderful Marchioness of Marylewick.” She started to walk away.
“Lilith, don’t go.”
She turned and gazed at him in that tender way that destroyed his heart. “Don’t ever forget tonight or your promise.”
“Let us talk.”
“Whatever we have to say will only hurt,” she whispered. “Good night.”
She turned out of the room. He started to chase her and then stopped.
Bloody hell, let her go.
Just let her go.
He picked up his paintings and drawings, slowly studied them one by one, her words echoing in his mind. “A wonderful little boy lives on in the work. As long as this work remains, a piece of him is still here.” He wanted to call her an irresponsible, grown-up child, anything to push away these feelings. But he couldn’t. All Lilith had done was show compassion to his sister…and to him. His eyes burned. Goddammit, you weakling! He mentally shouted the words his father had once used.
He didn’t need compassion. Nothing was wrong with him. He had obligations he had to honor.
He rolled up the paintings, restored them to their sarcophagus, and then encased it in its chamber pot tomb.
In her bedchamber, warm tears streamed down Lilith’s cheeks, dripped off her chin, and wetted the pages of her Keats that she hugged to her chest. She had done what she intended by showing him the paintings. She must let him go to Lady Cornelia or some other worthy wife.
But it was so bloody hard!
Her heart had shattered as she watched him gazing at his old pictures. She could see the fragile boy still inside him after all these years.
Why must she fall in love with the patriarch of the family she despised? She had been saving herself for a Keats-worthy man. Someone she could love with that trembling, ethereal delight she felt when reading a lovely poem or viewing a masterpiece.
She never thought she would feel such love for a man she could never have or want to have. George was her own Pre-Raphaelite painting. A lush, mysterious male beauty trapped in a canvas, forever unattainable.
It was all so bitterly useless.
At least she had made him vow to draw more. Some merit would arise from this horrid mess.
But on the crest of sleep, a tiny thought niggled in her mind. She bolted up.
He hadn’t precisely promised to create art.
Did that sly marquess think he could get away with that not promising after she had all but given her body to him?
Fifteen
George dressed slowly, letting his valet fuss over the minor details. He used that time to strengthen his resolve and drink another cup of black coffee. Until the first fingers of dawn, he had tossed and turned in his bed. Several women in his past had stripped him of his clothes and made love to his naked body, but Lilith stripped him bare in a way no other woman had. She ripped his skin off, exposing his beating heart, and released a host of demons. Long-forgotten memories came howling back to George in the darkness. His fingers itched with restlessness to do something, anything to get out the emotion that was burning inside him. When merciful sleep finally came Lilith returned to him in his dreams, whispering and giving him soft kisses on his mouth and other parts of his body. Suffice to say, a man over thirty shouldn’t wake up alone in a bed with sticky sheets.
As he strolled down to breakfast, he was like Admiral Nelson sailing into the Battle of Trafalgar, refusing to go below deck even as the bullets were flying around him.
The dining room was humming with guests. He located the women in his life: his mother beaming majestically over her steaming tea, Penelope appearing pale and traumatized over her uneaten toast, and Beatrice discreetly removing an insect from the flower bouquet. But Lilith was missing.
He had a twinge of dread mixed with sadness at her absence. After he made the obligatory greetings to guests—“Jolly good morning,” “I hope you slept well,” “I assure you that we do not have mites in our sheets, Lord Harrowsby”—he turned to Beatrice and made a show of asking her a question. “My lovely Miss Maryle, what lively entertainment do we have for our lady guests this morning?”
Beatrice didn’t hear, but was entranced by the green metallic bug circling her palm.
His mother cleared her throat. “Beatrice, my darling.”
She jumped. “Yes! What can I do?”
George politely repeated himself.
“Oh!” Beatrice cried. She yanked out her tiny notebook and began to hurriedly read what sounded like a dictation from his mother: “In the morning, the young ladies can tromp down to the ruins, and once they tire of those dull, soggy things, they can see if there is anything tolerable in the village shops. Meanwhile, the matrons can lounge about eyeballing each other’s fashion choices and gossiping in the morning parlor, while the gentlemen smoke, play billiards, and try to get those appalling Whigs to see the light of reason.”
George locked his face in its polite expression.
Lady Marylewick forced a laugh. “How funny, you are so perfectly, darlingly droll, my little Beatrice.”
Beatrice flushed bright red, suddenly realizing what she had read.
“By Jove, why, I can’t think of a morning better spent than trying to see the light of reason,” quipped Lord Charles. “I certainly hope Lord Marylewick can succeed where all those dons with their talk of Aristotle and Descartes failed.”
“Miss Maryle inflates my ambitions,” said George through his clenched jaws. “I thought a simple game of billiards would be enjoyable.”
Before Lord Charles could make another clever rejoinder, Lilith burst into the room, clad in vivid blue and white stripes and hoisting a great roll of papers. Her vibrant beauty obliterated his train of thought.
“Isn’t the morning glorious?” she cried. “I feel inspired. Look at the light. It’s as if God is calling out, ‘What a lovely day it is to sketch the ruins.’” She whirled on her toes, holding her roll like a dancing partner. Why did she whirl every morning? “I have brought enough paper and pencils for everyone.”
He was ready to throttle her after he recovered from the quaver caused by the mischievous glance she flashed him. Her ruse was as thin as gossamer. Now she was on a campaign to make him draw.
“I’m afraid only the ladies will be joining you,” he said in dampening tones.
“What?” Lilith was visibly crestfallen. “Mr. Fitzgerald, Lord Charles, you are not going? But what will happen if we are attacked by rabid sheep or…or a band of marauding art thieves?”
“My footmen have been specially trained for dealing with rabid sheep and art thieves,” replied George.
“Deuce take it, Lord Marylewick,” said Charles. “I couldn’t let one of your footmen be the hero of the day. You know this county is teeming with art thieves and vicious sheep. Ladies, I shall be your protector. What do you say, Mr. Fitzgerald, care to be chivalrous this morning?”
“I do indeed,” he replied.
Several of the other young gentlemen echoed this sentiment, as did Lord Fenmore.
The duke decided the matter. “Let the feeble old men play billiards. A fine day should be enjoyed by the young. Run along, Lord Marylewick.”
George chafed at being told he should run along. Nonetheless, an hour later, he was running along the path to the ruins with his cane spiking the ground. Lady Cornelia and Miss Pomfret hovered around him, while Beatrice dawdled behind, lost in her own world. A retinue of servants carrying paper, easels, pencils, and jars of lemonade marched after the group of guests.