Read Portrait of Seduction Online

Authors: Carrie Lofty

Tags: #Romance, #Historical, #Historical Romance

Portrait of Seduction (20 page)

“Why are you out here?” he asked. “Why Karl?”

The tips of her hair trembled. Otherwise she held perfectly still. Even her fingers had stopped their anxious petting. “I needed his help.”

“Help?”

“I said I recognized him from my uncle’s staff. I assumed he might know someone who…who could help me.”

“You’re not telling me.”

“Uncle Thaddeus sold a forgery of mine to Maria Lucca.”

“Tell her it’s a forgery.”

Greta shook her head violently. “There won’t be any need. She’s a renowned connoisseur of art. She’ll spot it as a forgery straight away. As the duke’s mistress, she has influence enough to ruin my family. My uncle will never forgive me if my cousins are unable to marry well.”

“The fault is his.” Anger made his voice more harsh than he had intended. “He should’ve learned his lesson in trying to cheat Ingrid.”

“He should have but he didn’t. I—Oliver you must believe that I argued against it. I fought him, and I
never
fight him. Not outright, at any rate. But it’s too late. The painting has been delivered to her private residence, displayed in her great hall.”

“And she’s returning from Berchtesgaden with the duke.”

“Yes.” That one word was nearly a sob. “And so I asked Karl for a name. Someone who could retrieve that painting.”

“Retrieve? You mean steal.”

“Yes.”

“And what name did he give you?”

Greta bit her lower lip. Then she met his gaze squarely. “He said I should ask you.”

Oliver blanched. This was going to end badly. He knew it. But he could no more deny her in distress than he could have permitted that knife-wielding madman to hurt her at the opera.

“He’s right,” Oliver said quietly. “Ask me.”

Chapter Twenty

Morning came and went with Greta in a nervous stupor. She tried to sketch but kept breaking her charcoal. Fiddling with watercolors became more of a frustration than a release, so she spent hours arranging her meager selection of brushes and pots of paint. Sometimes it was easier to play with the tools of her trade than to dare tackle a new creative work. The tools did not invite criticism, not like she did her own feeble attempts.

The urge to pace—even run—overrode all thought. Maria Lucca would arrive within the next two days, with rumors abounding that Napoleon would soon follow.

French armies invading Salzburg.
Again.

Greta tried to reprimand herself, that the fates of entire countries were far more important than her relatively petty concerns, but she found no comfort there. The advancing French assault only strengthened the need to keep her family safe. Anna and Theresa needed wealth and respectability, yet they only possessed half of that important combination. Without their respectability, they would never marry well—trapped in the path of oncoming armies.

The two problems bound up within her mind so tightly that a headache followed her through the whole morning. Until a missive arrived.

She was sitting in the salon where Ingrid had promised to put in an appearance. The sketchbook in Greta’s lap remained closed. She simply tapped her fingers against the arms of the chair, needing an occupation but finding no concentration. Anna and Theresa were writing letters and sharing quiet words. Greta watched their bowed heads, how the sunlight caught silver-blond strands of hair in elaborate coiffures. She envied them their innocence. They knew nothing of fear or anxiety. They knew nothing of feeling as if grave mistakes already tainted the present and blackened the future.

The footman who entered was nearly anonymous in the Venner family livery, but Greta had taken to finding the human being beneath the costume. In an odd way, she felt compelled to—if only to constantly honor Oliver and the fact he was very much his own man, no matter his lower station.

“Thomas, isn’t it?”


Ja,
Fräulein Zweig,” he said, a slight frown edging across his brows. “That’s right.”

She accepted the letter, proud that her hands barely shook. “
Danke
, Thomas.”

He snapped a quick bow and hurried out of the salon. Anna and Theresa both tittered before returning to their correspondences. Weary of such game-playing, Greta did not wait to open the letter. Her heart thumped painfully at the sight of Oliver’s unmistakable script:

Your room. Now.

The painful thump of her heart transformed into a racing pulse. He had an answer for her. But the power of those three simple words had her thinking of how thoroughly he commanded her sexually. She was no longer an innocent like her cousins, but she had discovered something far more important. Desire. She desired Oliver Doerger like she had never wanted anything in her life—not even painting. Her feelings for him were pure inspiration, untainted by the criticism she leveled at her work.

She stood and stuffed the letter in a skirt pocket. “I have a headache, my dears,” she said in all honesty. “I believe I shall retire to my room.”

“Of course,” Anna said with an absent wave of her quill. “You look rather dreadful. Do get some rest.”

With her customary chagrin, Greta shrugged off her cousin’s tactless yet honest comment. Having been out in the garden for most of the dawn’s early hours, huddled with Oliver against the garden gate, had not done wonders for her appearance upon waking. Her body was weary and her limbs leaden. Even her face felt overly haggard.

Stiff legs carried her up the stairs. The doorknob turned beneath her fingers, despite a creeping numbness. Maria Lucca. Napoleon. Forgeries. Oliver. Too many tricks and troubles blunted her senses until nothing made sense.

She entered the empty, sunlit room and hastened to draw the shades.

Oliver cleared his throat.

Greta whirled, her hands flying to her throat. A little squeak slipped free. Standing beside the bureau, Oliver was as at home in shadow during the day as he had been at midnight. He stepped away from the bureau with almost negligent movements and locked the door. There he stood, watching her in a way that reminded her of their initial meetings—so intense, so piercing. Greta wanted to turn away but did not. She had grown so very fond of being scrutinized by his perceptive gaze and sharp mind. He allowed no pretense.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

Hardly in control of her senses, she blinked twice and shook her head. Surely he had not said those words. Surely he was above the criminal enterprise she had proposed. In the garden, his face had frozen over with a stony coldness as he’d offered himself as a candidate.
Give me till morning,
he’d said.
I’ll have an answer then.

Greta found herself approaching him, slowly, steadily, as if walking toward a trapped predator. Such an animal could lash out at any moment. Oliver, for all his goodness, was a tough man to bend. This request, she feared, would do more than bend him. He would break, and what they had—no matter how brief and illicit—would break too.

“Why?” she asked.

“Too many reasons, none of them good.” He touched her face, the softest of caresses. “Because I’m good at dangerous work. I’m good at keeping secrets. And part of me—damn, I’m still trying to prove myself to you.”

“I—” Greta swallowed thickly. “I shouldn’t have asked it of you.”

“Too late now. I am a man indebted to too many. To my father—right old sinner he was. To Karl. To Venner.” A tick along his jaw was her only indication of Oliver’s building temper, until he squeezed his powerful fingers along her nape. He dragged her face closer, breath heating the scant space between their lips. “Maybe for once, no matter how selfish, I want someone to be indebted to me.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I think I do.”

A wave of panic cooled her skin and froze her bones. This was wrong. She was asking too much of him, like dragging an angel down to earth. “Don’t do this, Oliver. Please. I’ll take the blame and—Uncle Thaddeus has influence. We’ll be fine.”

“Tonight,” he said, his mouth a grim line, “meet me in the garden. We’ll exit through the rear gate and have done with this.”

“We?”

“I’m not going on my own, Greta. You need to show me which painting is the danger to you.” He edged closer, brushing his lips against her temple. “And you want to, don’t you?”

“Want to sneak into a woman’s house and commit a crime?”

“Exactly. You’re such a strange woman,
meine Allerliebste.
So reserved and quiet, and yet underneath it all, such a wild streak. That’s why you came to me, all persistence and curiosity. That’s why I found it so easy to become obsessed with you.”

Greta’s knees had gone liquid. She curled her fingernails into his biceps, wondering when she had thought to grab hold of him. But he was not wrong. The terrible restlessness that had haunted her since childhood continued to do so, urging greater and greater risks. It was no longer enough to secretly mark the forgeries as hers, or to silently rail against her uncle. She needed more. She needed Oliver and the excitement of testing her own nerve.

Robbing Maria Lucca…she shuddered a long exhale at the thought.

“I’ll go with you,” she whispered.

Oliver caught her against his chest and kissed her hard. His tongue plunged into her mouth, pushing, invading. Greta looped her forearms around his neck and succumbed. His passion was nursed by anger, and maybe even by a possessiveness that gave her another private jolt of pleasure. To be his woman. God, what a challenge. What a thrill.

Without another word, he backed her against the room’s outer wall and turned her to face it. Rough, demanding hands lifted her skirts and kneaded her backside. Arousal swept over her like steaming hot water.

“I’ll do this for you,” he rasped. “And you’ll do this for me.”

“Willingly.”

A low growl in his throat made her shiver. His fingers found her most secret folds, stroking and caressing with ever more insistence. From behind, he nestled his pelvis against her and lifted her hands above her head. She was pinned between the wall and Oliver—between his frustration and his desire. With one sure stroke, he pressed his thick, hard shaft inside.

Greta bit her forearm to keep from crying out. No matter her confusion and fear, she gloried in having so much influence over this indomitable man. It was only right, she thought as her climax thundered nearer, because he owned her too.

 

Oliver should not have been surprised to see how well Greta could make herself inconspicuous in the deep evening gloom, but he was. She had a knack for making him feel more foolish and more painfully alive than he’d ever dared. He had stepped into an abyss where her hand was the only thing left to hold.

They slid along the blackened streets. Greta must have obtained a mourning gown, because she was draped from crown to foot in varied black fabrics. He had traded his livery for clothes more befitting a chimney sweep. He had not been so poorly clad since he was a youth, which was fitting because he had not undertaken such a foolhardy enterprise since those wayward days.

Why? He kept asking himself that. Why? Why now, and why with this woman? Perhaps Christoph had been right: he had been hiding for too long. But that still did not satisfy him. Coming out of hiding was a far, wide distance from breaking into the home of the duke’s mistress.

They rounded Waagplatz, staying out of the sight of the Stadttrinkstube. Too many servants and other curious folks might recognize Oliver—and recognize Greta as being too fine a lady for the likes of him.

“This way,” he said.

Pushing his body through a narrow
Durchgänge,
he slipped away from the noisy tavern and onto quiet, deserted Goldgasse. There they walked single file against the pale buildings. Oliver’s heart was a constant thunderclap, beating again and again behind his sternum. Danger. Thrill. He was a demented man to be smiling in the face of this intrigue.

Greta pushed against his back when he came to a stop. He was briefly distracted by the feel of soft, warm woman. Tightly wound nerves sizzled throughout his body. At least he was honest enough with himself to know that, with regard to Greta, desire motivated his decision-making. He was thinking with his pride and his cock, which meant no thinking at all.

Reflex, however, had yet to fail him. He pushed an arm back across Greta’s torso, angling her to better fit into a sliver of shadow. Two tipsy burghers stumbled past, their voices raised high in song. Greta’s pulse matched his own as they waited, neither seeming to breathe. When the drunken men had made their way south, Oliver took his lover’s hand once again. They hurried on toward Maria Lucca’s town home on lower Getreidegasse.

“She’ll have guards,” he whispered, assessing the five-story structure. That was a great deal of territory to search.

“I can distract them.”

“How?”

“Ringing the front doorbell. A woman in distress, this late at night?”

“Absolutely not.”

“You’ll be better able to sneak in without me dragging my gown in through a window. Or I can stay out here.”

Both ideas were tempting. To leave her outside on the street, normally unconscionable behavior for a man of any good repute, seemed positively honorable now. She would be out of harm’s way. But a very wicked, very dark place in his soul demanded that she be there with him. Of all things, this was an adventure. Like their insane flirtation and their dangerous love affair, they were in this together—if only because her eyes were bright and her cheeks had flushed pink.

“You’re enjoying yourself,” he said, aroused by her eagerness.

“Yes, I am. What my life has been, Oliver—you have no notion.”

“You could be ruined.”

“Not my first concern.” She leaned in close and licked his earlobe. “You should know that by now.”

“You’re a madwoman.”

“Finally. Now let me do this.”

Dreams occasionally took on this same cast, like moving through tar and being unable to get free. Time had closed in on itself so that Oliver could no longer see his way back to a moment when anything was certain. That seemed the luxury of another man, one who carelessly took it for granted and called it boredom. He was anything but bored now.

“Go, then,” he said. “I’ll slip in and find you.”

“How?”

“I haven’t the foggiest.” He grabbed her shoulders and dragged her close. A deep breath filled him with her warm essence. A tilt of his head touched his mouth to hers. Lightning sizzled across their lips, burning away the last of his caution. He was a lost man, because he would do anything for that kiss. “Go.”

Rather than slink toward the door, as Oliver had expected, Greta took off at a full run. She slammed against the townhouse door with the whole of her body, then pounded with both fists. “Help!”

Seconds passed slowly before the door jerked open.

“Help me,” Greta panted. Her bonnet and mourning veil sat at a crooked angle. She had cast off one shoe and clutched it like a weapon. “
Bitte,
I beg you. A man! He attacked me!”

Oliver did not wait to see the outcome of her ruse. Made of shadows and smooth steps, he slipped behind the townhouse. A kitchen window was low enough and large enough to serve as his entryway. Calling on old, old skills, he silently lifted the pane. His breath came in shallow puffs but his hands remained steady and calm. He had experienced the same reaction during wartime too. No nerves. Just the calm of being able to do his job well.

He hoisted up and swung his legs in. A large butcher’s block was positioned just below the window. On it rested pots and pans and a series of knifes. All would make a terrible racket if he knocked them over. Patiently, he moved each piece of cookware to either side until he had cleared a path through the middle. With one foot, he tested the block’s stability. The wood neither creaked nor shifted. He was still cautious, however, as he stepped onto it. One catlike jump later and he was on the kitchen floor, crouched low.

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