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  Joanna raised her chin and looked up.

  Fitzroy Monteith Mountfitchet and his brother Quentin stood waiting for her at the altar.

  Quentin gave her a wavering, boyish smile. He was obviously foxed, his brown curls dropping carelessly across his forehead.

  She barely noticed him.

  Her eyes locked onto the dark figure of her bridegroom. He looked remote and formal and impossibly handsome in his impeccable clothes, accentuating his height and breadth of shoulder. A shaft of sunlight burst through the high windows to fall across his face, across the rich black hair and the strong nose, the molded cheekbones and firm mouth.

  Lord Tarrant was frowning slightly, as if preoccupied with something far more important.

  Yet as their eyes met, Joanna saw concentration pool in his gaze. To her immense surprise, he smiled.

  She hadn’t expected it, but it gave her a warm rush of courage. She felt the sheer physical impact of it, making her blood sing and her step firm.

  His smile sent deep creases into his cheeks, and lit up his mysterious dark eyes with humor. Not that mocking, sarcastic humor, but a deeply intelligent, offered invitation to share with him in the absurdity of this moment—two strangers in all their stiff finery putting on a show for the world—and Joanna found the courage to go through with it.

  She placed her hand in his and spoke her vows in a clear, strong voice.

  “I take thee, Fitzroy Marmaduke Jeremy Monteith Mountfitchet, to be my lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold—”

  Marmaduke! No wonder he didn’t want to get married, when it meant a public recitation of his whole name!

  She felt a spurt of most inappropriate laughter and glanced up at his face. Joanna didn’t know how to read that odd mixture of expressions, but one thing was clear. There was no hostility to her in his eyes. There was humor and something wildly uncaring and distant, along with something else that looked like sorrow and a fierce burning anger. Yet none of that was directed at her, except the intelligence and wit.

  Lord Tarrant was offering her his support and something close to an apology, and Joanna made it through her wedding service without disgracing herself.

  “ . . . man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

  He touched her chin and kissed her briefly with an impersonal courtesy, before escorting her from the altar and into the vestry where they were to sign their names. The cool, light touch of his lips on hers made her knees as weak as the spring sunshine and turned her blood unexpectedly into something heady and sweet, like mulled wine.

  What a strange thing, that his kisses could be so different, yet each still move her to the very soul!

  The church bells began to ring out in a joyous peal, the clamor of notes jangling into a strange harmony, and the guests came forward to offer congratulations. It seemed odd, since she had been forced into marrying a stranger, that their parents and relatives should press greetings on them as if it were a real marriage.

  “Come, then,” her father boomed. “Let us return to the wedding breakfast! Take my girl, Tarrant, and give her sons, by God!”

  “You will forgive me, Lord Acton,” her new husband replied with a correct bow. “The son-making will have to wait. Urgent business recalls me to town. I must go now, without my breakfast and my bride.”

  As he spoke he stripped off his tight jacket and signaled to his valet. The man stepped forward with the bag.

  “To London?” Lord Acton asked in tones intended to freeze everyone where they stood.

  “Regrettable, but necessary. You will excuse me?”

  “By God, you shall not do this, sir!” It was the Black Earl, Lord Evenham, his father.

  For a moment it seemed that the two earls were ready to attack him, that Lord Acton would even use physical, brute power to restrain his daughter’s bridegroom on his wedding day.

  Joanna felt the most unseemly, wild surge of giggles, which she instantly suppressed. They were prepared to manhandle a viscount into bed with his bride? Did they think they could force him?

  Lord Tarrant remained entirely calm. “Alas, Father, I shall.”

  The surge toward him stopped. Lord Evenham stood frozen, his fists clenched. Lord Acton had even raised his cane. Now it hung like a barber’s pole above his head.

  The bridegroom had pulled a small pistol from his pocket.

  As Joanna fought her indecorous urge to laughter, her new husband took the bag and his boots from his valet, stepped into the private space where the vicar donned his vestments, and locked the door behind him.

  The scandalized guests poured out of the church, only to see Lord Tarrant run from the side door and swing onto the Thoroughbred that had been standing at the gate. He had stripped off the rest of his wedding clothes and thrust himself into breeches, boots, and riding coat.

  The horse spun and reared, before galloping off toward London.

  Its rider briefly doffed his hat and waved it, while that feral, secret mix of determination, desperation, and hilarity lit his face.

  * * *

  Joanna watched him go with mixed emotions. She was abandoned in full view of both families and the handful of servants and tenants, who stood ready to applaud and throw rice at the happy couple. She supposed she ought to be angry. What could be more humiliating to a bride, after all? But it had been so very splendid. To face down her father and his in the church with a pistol!

  “For heaven’s sake,” a cool voice said. “Everyone is hungry. Let us go back and eat.” Lady Acton smiled at Joanna and winked. “Let Quentin escort his new sister-in-law. We shall all feel a great deal better after breakfast.”

  Quentin grinned and offered Joanna his arm. She took it and allowed him to help her into her carriage.

  What the devil did it matter if her bridegroom had absconded? He would never touch her, and although he might have kissed her, she was sure that he meant it to go no further. It would never be a real marriage, and she didn’t want one.

  She wanted the freedom he had offered her: the freedom to paint.

  And then she saw Richard’s face.

  Chapter 7

  As soon as they arrived back at King’s Acton, Joanna waited for the opportunity to get her brother alone.

  First she had to sit through the interminable wedding breakfast. It took place with an odd, constrained civility, the polite conversation led by her mother. Lady Acton seemed to have no untoward emotions at all about what had happened, but there could be no toasts, nor speeches, nor congratulations, since the bridegroom was missing.

  The other guests rose to the occasion, even Richard and Lord Acton, who were obviously scarcely speaking.

  Joanna knew that her brother must have privately confronted her father about Fitzroy. Yet there would be no public scenes or outbursts, just a quiet demonstration of good breeding in the face of calamity.

  Even Quentin behaved properly, though barely, since it was too early in the day for him to be truly three sheets to the wind.

  Yet there was a real concern on Helena’s face, and that implacable fury on Richard’s.

  At last it was over, and Joanna was able to get her brother alone in a quiet corner.

  “It doesn’t matter, Richard,” she said. “Pray, let it go!”

  He took her arms in a grip that hurt.

  “For God’s sake, Joanna! How the devil can I let it go? By God, I knew he was base, but I had no idea that he’d dare to show this much effrontery—to you, to Mother, to his own family. How the hell do you expect me to overlook such an insult?”

  “You will not call him out,” Joanna insisted. “I want your word of honor on it, Richard. It’s the only wedding present from you that I care about.”

  Richard stared down at her with the eyes that were so like her own. “I’m not sure you have the right to demand that.”

  “Who else has the right? I’m the one most insulted, aren’t I? And who are you to demand that a bridegroom be publicly solicitous and caring? You left Helena alone for we
eks after you married her.”

  “Because I was forced to. Yet I did not leave her at the church door after our wedding. By God, I should have found a way to stop this. The world would be a better place without him.”

  Joanna wrenched herself away, yet the depth of his anger and despair bothered her more than she wanted to admit.

  Richard is usually an excellent judge of character. Does he think Tarrant merely offensive, or actually dangerous?

  She thrust aside the memory of her mother’s words. More to the point, Richard was only a mediocre shot, whereas she had no doubt that Fitzroy was a superb marksman, just as Quentin had boasted.

  Joanna turned back to face her brother. “That’s not up to you. I have every intention of living with him, and I don’t want my husband and my brother meeting at dawn like two cocks in the ring.”

  Richard looked incredulous. “Why the devil would you want to live with him?”

  “Where else do you suggest that I live?”

  “You can come to us at Acton Mead. You’ll always be welcome there, Joanna, you know that.”

  “Oh, you silly man! Of course I know it, but I don’t want to be constantly underfoot and in the way, intruding on you and Helena and the perfection of your marriage. Lord Tarrant has promised me a studio and complete freedom to use it. Do you think I intend to turn that down?”

  The deep vertical line had appeared between Richard’s brows. “And what will he demand in exchange? Joanna, you cannot comprehend what a man like that can do, what he may require—”

  “Not his marital rights,” Joanna said flatly. “So put your mind to rest on that score. He swears to defy his father over that. We shall live in celibate harmony, marked by his never being there. I’m sure that Lord Tarrant has no lack of mistresses.”

  “No, I know for a fact that he doesn’t,” Richard replied faintly.

  Joanna wanted to ask him again about Juanita, about why he distrusted her new husband so deeply, but she couldn’t bear the anguish she saw on his face.

  Instead she hugged him quickly, and tried to bury her insistent, dreadful unease.

  * * *

  Fitzroy rode fast, picking up a fresh horse every five or ten miles. It was at least two days to London, even without stopping. When he finally rode into Whitehall it was early dawn. He had not slept at all the previous night.

  He stopped briefly at his house on the edge of town, calling for hot water and a change of clothes. However urgent the summons, whether the very kingdom was at stake or not, no gentleman would call upon another unshaved.

  Thirty minutes later Lord Grantley ushered Viscount Tarrant into his study. He gave his guest one shrewd glance, then told the servant to bring coffee.

  “Very well, Lord Grantley,” Fitzroy said curtly as soon as the footman was out of the room. “Which man?”

  “Sit down, sir. You cannot help him now. I’m afraid it was Flanders. He was stabbed in a tavern in Whitechapel. Nothing to say that it was not a random brawl, except—”

  Fitzroy dropped into a chair and steepled his fingers together.

  “Except that he was my groom in the Peninsula, and two other men who served closely with me there have been similarly killed. Not the officers, who might still be carrying weapons to defend themselves, but the men. Dear God! I’ve been back from Spain for two years. What the hell is going on?”

  Lord Grantley gazed at him steadily. “That’s what you’re supposed to be finding out.”

  “With how much to go on? The dying words of Herring, my poor batman, for God’s sake, with a ball through the lung and trying to make jokes about it? Just after I received a message that he was down on his luck and in need of a visit? Instead, I arrived like Azrael and saw him shot down in front of his wife.”

  “But he had a message for you and it may be vital.”

  Fitzroy dropped his head and buried his strong fingers in his hair.

  “A message! Some mumbled words about a threat to Lord Wellington. Along with the conviction that one of the ladies I danced with on a particular evening will be given secret information, and is expecting me to pursue her favors at a ball she will hold on a Friday. The lady will identify herself with a response to some inane statement about Helen of Troy, and the reward for my cooperation will be the details of the plot. It’s like a damned melodrama. Meanwhile, men are dying for no other apparent reason than that they were once contaminated with my presence during the Peninsular Campaign. It makes no sense at all. It would make no damned sense even on the stage.”

  “But Green and Herring—and now Flanders—have been attacked, Tarrant. Wellington’s safety is crucial to achieving a lasting peace in Europe. It’s barely a year since Waterloo. Since the duke’s been in France, there’s already been more than one assassination attempt. Though Cambrai is proving safer than Paris, we have to take this seriously.”

  Fitzroy closed his eyes and pressed a hand over them, leaving his hair curling in wild disarray over his forehead.

  Lord Grantley watched him for a moment. The young man’s body was limned in lines of exhaustion. Grantley was not surprised to see a trace of moisture on the square palm when he dropped his hand and looked up, nor the too bright shine of his eyes.

  Though the bite of sarcasm in the viscount’s subtle voice remained unchanged.

  “You think for one moment that I do not? Lady Reed holds a ball this coming Friday. I am invited. Let us hope to God she is a devotee of the Iliad.”

  * * *

  The day after her wedding Joanna packed everything she owned and retraced the slow journey with Lord and Lady Acton back to London.

  She spent one night at Acton House on Park Lane. The next morning several footmen and grooms accompanied her to her new home, the house where Fitzroy had shown her the room she could use as a studio.

  As the menservants carried boxes and trunks up to the suite set aside for her private use, she walked straight to that elegant drawing room on the north side of the house.

  She opened the door with a certain trepidation, then stared in amazement. It had been completely stripped: no furniture, no carpet. The walls gleamed with a fresh coat of white paint.

  Packages were piled at one side of the room. Joanna opened them immediately. Everything she had wanted: easels, pigments, canvas.

  He had remembered. The fearsome Fitzroy Monteith Mountfitchet had kept his word.

  He was not at home. He had left no messages. The servants quietly accommodated her. She was expected, but that first evening she dined alone.

  It was possible that he did not return that night at all, for Joanna retired to her lonely bed at midnight without having seen him or heard him come in. She thumped at her pillow with her fist and told herself that she was far happier that way.

  The next morning she set up her studio, and then she was truly absorbed, mixing pigments and preparing a palette.

  She had no idea that it was already afternoon when the door opened and a footman came in.

  “There is a lady to see you, my lady.”

  “A lady? Did she leave a card?”

  A pale face beneath a sleek cap of dark hair peered in past the footman.

  “Lady Tarrant? You will forgive me, I pray? When I couldn’t come to your wedding, I hoped you wouldn’t mind very much if I made myself known as soon as I could. We were both at Miss Able’s Academy. Perhaps you remember me? I am Lady Mary Mountfitchet, Fitzroy’s sister.”

  Joanna pushed back a stray lock of hair and rubbed her hands down the smock she wore to work in. She had probably left a smear of paint on her cheek, but she hurried forward anyway, her heart light.

  “Lady Mary! I remember you very well. You were always so kind and patient with us little girls. I’m very glad that you came. Please, come in! Oh, dear! I don’t even have a chair in here. Let’s retreat to the withdrawing room.”

  “No, please! Please, no ceremony or tea or anything! I have no wish to disturb your work. In fact, I have come to ask a favor of you that involves i
t.”

  Joanna pushed a pile of paper from the top of a crate that had contained canvases. “Then, pray, sit here!”

  They exchanged pleasantries for a few moments, laughing together over memories of Miss Able and the other teachers. Yet Lady Mary did not seem well. Her skin was chalk white, except for a red spot burning in each cheek. Several times she coughed into a handkerchief, while hectic color flushed up her neck.

  “Now, what can I possibly do for you?” Joanna asked, concerned.

  “Well, I’ve been longing for a portrait. You can do portraits, can’t you?”

  Joanna nodded, intrigued. “Whose?”

  “I need a painting of Fitzroy.”

  Surprise turned her back rigid for a moment. Joanna had to force herself to take a deep breath.

  “Your brother?”

  “And your husband.”

  Lady Mary coughed again into her handkerchief and tried to hide it by laughing.

  Agitation surged, almost as if Lady Mary had brought her bad news.

  “But he would never agree. He would have to sit for me—pose—for several days, weeks possibly. He doesn’t intend to spend any time here at all. I don’t see—”

  Lady Mary coughed again, hard. “He’s already agreed. Otherwise, I shouldn’t ask.”

  “Why doesn’t he go to a professional portrait painter?”

  “He doesn’t have time, whereas you’re already in the house. So he could snatch odd moments. When he came back to town he told me you’re a real artist. Fitzroy used to paint, too, so he knows what he’s talking about. It would be a very great kindness to us both if you would do it. Please say that you will.”

  Joanna had to sit down. For the second time in just over a week she felt faint. Since there wasn’t another crate, she dropped to the floor and folded her legs underneath her skirts. Her mouth seemed dry, her tongue too big for it.

  “He used to paint?”

  “Yes, he was very good. But he gave it up when he went away to the war.”

  “But why would he want his portrait painted?”

  “To please me. Fitzroy spoils me. I suppose older brothers often indulge their little sisters, don’t they? Sometimes I think he’d do anything I asked, so I’m usually very careful asking. But this time I have an urgent reason.”