Portrait of Seduction (24 page)

“You have a remarkable gift.”

She laughed softly. “You were a very patient subject.”

“I’ll repeat the favor every night, if you wish.”

“I may take you up on that.”

As if realizing the implication of her words, Greta took her sketchbook and stood away from the bed. He watched her progress as she entered the adjoining studio. Only then did he see that she had stacked her ruined canvases against the far wall. He took a deep, pain-laced breath at the thought of how difficult that task must have been to perform. All her work…ruined.

Oliver winced as he stood, but the ankle felt much improved. The swelling had reduced. He carefully made his way to the studio, pausing to lean in the doorway.

“Oliver? My uncle will be returning tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

She met his gaze, her eyes bright and glassy. “Herschel said his plans remain unchanged. He’s bringing the girls back here.”

So it would be over. Soon. All this feeling, all this wonder and freedom—tomorrow it would end.

He crossed the room, his ankle a mere nuisance compared to his need to hold his woman. He gathered Greta into his embrace, clinging to her as if he had the right to do so. She looped trembling arms around his waist, her cheek pressed flush against his bare chest.

“What do you want?” he asked against her temple. “What can I do?”

“Nothing, I’m afraid. This will be between me and Thaddeus. There won’t be any avoiding his disappointment in how I’ve behaved with you.” She signed heavily. “And of course he’ll have choice words about my parents.”

He guided her to a bench and urged her to sit in his lap. She was warm, soft, beautiful. And she sat with him as if it were the most natural act. “You’ve mentioned your parents before. Will you tell me? What happened?”

“You always seem as if you know everything,” she said with a rueful little smile. “I assumed you would’ve learned by now.”

Oliver acknowledged the gentle reproach in her words, knowing she was nearly right. He could have learned. But part of his regard meant restraining the impulse to pry into her secrets. “I wanted to hear it from you, if at all.”

She released a slow exhale, then tugged the fallen blanket around them both. “My mother was supposed to marry a minor nobleman who had a great deal of money.”

“This already sounds familiar,” Oliver said, his throat filling with tiny daggers.

“Yes, it does. Perhaps that’s why I resisted so long. I knew history was repeating.” She closed her eyes, then nodded as if giving herself permission to continue. “She was in love with a professor. He studied theology and music and astronomy. A brilliant man. He was actually my uncle’s tutor for a time, which is how they met. So when my grandparents died, she defied her brother and married against his wishes. I suppose she thought she could resist his will, even if she might not have resisted her parents.”

A professor. Not exactly a socially repulsive position. Oliver wanted to crawl out of his own skin and become someone worthy of her affection, if only to keep her from further pain. But he could not. He was still obligated to Christoph, to the deception from which he had not yet extricated himself. So he simply smoothed his palm over her upper arm, silently urging her to continue.

“Uncle Thaddeus made their marriage a nightmare. He belittled my father at every opportunity, pointing out his lack of breeding and etiquette. He gave her expensive presents that my father had no hope of affording. My mother was…to be kind, she was not the most constant woman. Sometimes she would defy him and refuse the gifts, or cry, but she never once asked him to stop. Every gesture became a competition. The strain of it—I remember feeling that strain even as a child. I never wanted to be in the same room with both men, as if I would become their battleground too.”

She shivered, her eyes distant. “Eventually it become too much, I think. My father determined to be free of all contact and financial support. Mother…she didn’t go with him. I never knew why, although Thaddeus has always claimed it was a weakness in her character, that she could not follow through with the daring she had perpetrated.”

Oliver tucked her close, his lips against her temple.

“Father went to live in Salzburg on his own and died three months later of pneumonia. Mother was devastated. I don’t believe she ever recovered. She blamed herself, except for one terrible row when she blamed my uncle. He was so incensed, he threw her out of the manor. I never saw her again—not until the funeral a year later. She had been…”

Her voice broke. Oliver tightened his hold, but no caress could protect her from the memories. “She had been living rough, used by men. Thaddeus insisted that the coffin remain open so I could see what her defiance had wrought.”

“Monstrous,” he whispered. “And you’ve been living with his scorn ever since? Accepting the brunt of his displeasure?”

“He never leveled it at me directly,” she said. “Only little snubs against my father, or unflattering comparisons to my mother’s flighty nature. Eventually, when my penchant for painting came to light, I saw it as a means of earning his acceptance. Maybe even his affection.” She lifted her head to look at him directly. “I’ve been a fool, haven’t I?”

Oliver smoothed the hair back from her wet cheeks, his heart full. “We all are, it seems, when it comes to the need to belong.”

A messenger arrived the next day, bearing news for Oliver.

He read the letter, absorbing its message, even as he tried to find his way clear of the mess he had made with Greta. Shoving the folded paper into his coat, he watched her prepare her paints and materials—the simple, contented joy he had learned to need as much as her smile. She wanted to finish a painting of him before her uncle returned to the manor. Oliver had heard the unspoken message—before they would separate.

He had declared himself. She had refused to return his feelings, at least not aloud.

After learning her parents’ past he could hardly blame her too stridently. But a very selfish part of his heart, a part he was not used to acknowledging, wanted more than a hint of feeling, and certainly more than just sex. For too many weeks he had imagined her body naked beneath his. That was no longer enough. He was being unreasonable and fanciful and all those other foolish emotions he could hardly merit, but he loved her. He wanted Greta. All of her.

“I have to return to Salzburg,” he said.

“Mmm?”

“Greta.”

She blinked and looked down at the mortar and pestle in her hands. Once again, every brush was lined up with care along a paint-stained worktable. He got the impression that she would organize those stains if she could, so precisely did she approach the tools of her craft. He could watch her work for hours, watch the magic she could render on canvas. But that would wait…or it would never be at all.

“This letter is from Christo—from Lord Venner.” He grimaced inwardly. A valet never referred to his master by his given name. Had he become so comfortable with her that he could indulge in such a slipup? “Napoleon’s armies are within sight of Salzburg, with an ultimatum to surrender. Venner is working with the duke to negotiate terms, but he needs me there to help prepare for a possible evacuation. With that and Karl’s request to meet, I must return.”

She nibbled her lower lip. “Is there no one else to take your place?”

“You don’t want me to go.”

“No.”

Oliver tried to keep his smile in check—a difficult task. “Tell me why.”

“Because I have much more enjoyable uses for your talents.”

“I’m in earnest, Greta.”

“As am I.” She stood from the bench and wiped the pigment off her fingers. “My uncle is returning. I want you here.”

“If I stayed, would you admit to him that we’re in love?”

Her silence stretched until it became a razor against Oliver’s skin. He should not have pressed. Pressing would only reveal answers he did not want to know.

“I told you about my parents for a reason,” she said, eyes averted. “I hoped…I hoped you would understand what stands in our way.”

His temper was building at a speed out of keeping with their conversation. But it was more than this one moment. It was months of wanting and receiving less in return. He knew she still needed time. She was young, privileged and bore the burden of her parents’ example. No matter how much he craved it, he could not imagine her abandoning an entire life for him.

But neither could he deny Christoph’s request, nor his need to finally finish matters with Karl.

He stood and crossed to the window, looking out over the immaculate Leinz grounds. “We would not have to have anything more to do with your uncle. He would not determine any more of your future.”

“You would work for Venner.”

“Yes,” he said with as much pride as he could muster. Her doubtful tone, however, made that difficult.

Not for the first time, he wanted to admit his parentage. The words formed in his brain. His tongue even prepared to say them. But he could not. Still too much depended on secrecy. Christoph’s negotiations would affect the safety and security of the entire city. He needed Oliver to be as dependable and as invisible as ever. To be sidetracked with the scandal of having an illegitimate brother as an incognito household spy—a man caught seducing Thaddeus Leinz’s niece—would waste valuable credibility.

And time. They were running out of time.

More selfishly, he wanted her to take a chance. On him. No promises and no discussions of his parentage.

“Yes, that is what I’m saying. We would make our own way. You would be able to paint. The Venners would always be able to provide me with a good living.” He met her gaze squarely, his heart in his throat. “We would be together.”

“My parents thought the same thing, but my father died. What was left for my mother, then, but living under Thaddeus’s auspices? And in the end she didn’t even have that!”

“I won’t let anything happen to us. You wouldn’t be left alone.”

Greta swallowed. She turned to her row of paintbrushes and reordered them, this time according to the thickness of the handle. “You cannot promise such a thing, Oliver.”

“But you want me to stay. Why? So you won’t have to choose?”

She blanched.

“Ah, that’s it, then,” he said. “I stay here like a dog, always at your beck and call. Your secret. Was that always part of the thrill?”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“I’m not. You were perfectly fine taking risks with me, as long as you never had to face the ultimate risk—telling your uncle the truth.”

“You don’t know what he’s like!”

“I’m sure he’s terrifying.” He crossed to stand nearer, even daring to take her hands. His temper said that was hardly a brilliant idea, but he needed to touch—as if that contact might be the key to convincing her when sincerity failed. “I’m sure that to you, standing up to him will be one of the hardest tasks you ever undertake. But you’re a woman bent on taking chances. Wouldn’t this be worth the risk?”

Greta looked into Oliver’s eyes of clear ice blue and felt her insides crumble.

Take a chance.
On them.

Why did she hesitate?

The warmth of his hands enveloping hers was suddenly too much. She let him go.

“I cannot,” she whispered.

The brightness and fire in Oliver’s ardent gaze slipped away. “Do I get a reason?”

None of the reasons in her mind made sense. He was a valet. That was the most prominent. They would always be poor. Every connection she had to good society would be severed forever. Her cousins would never be able to speak to her again. What if she did not realize what she had until it was gone? What if her dalliance with Oliver was passing fancy? Her parents had demonstrated what a stalwart love was required to beat back such censure—one they hadn’t always shared.

She feared that, when put to the test, her feelings for Oliver would not hold true. Nor would his love for her endure.

To tell any of that to Oliver? It all seemed paltry and insulting. But in her mind and in her heart, they were overwhelming. Panicking and so terribly afraid, she took a deep breath and lied. She lied to the man who could detect any falsehood.

“I don’t love you.”

He blinked. “You don’t.”

“I’m sorry, Oliver. I…when faced with the bare facts of how we would live—I’m sorry.”

She wanted him to do that magic trick of his, where he could tell at an instant whether someone was being deceitful. She wanted him to see right through her, to drag her away. Her uncle could never accuse her of her mother’s folly. She could have Oliver without needing to make the hard choice.

But he simply closed his eyes. Maybe even his skills failed when his heart was breaking.

“Are you leaving, then?”

“I must,” he said, his voice wooden and deep. “What will you do?”

She twisted her fingers into knots. Even now she had no notion of how she would explain that to Thaddeus. “I’ll tell him about the paintings and…he’ll look after me.”

“As he always has.” An uncharacteristic bitterness tainted his words. “By what, marrying you to that whale Weiser? You’re a coward, Greta.”

“You can say that, but you have everything to gain by being with me!”

His jaw locked. “Which, by contrast, implies that you have so little to gain by being with me.”

“That’s not fair. You know the way of the world.”

“I knew this would be difficult for you—for both of us. But I never imagined it would take this turn.”

“Why not? Did you really expect that I could abandon my entire life to be with you?”

“Yes,” he said. “I thought you could.”

Greta choked back a sob, wanting to call him back as he collected his meager possessions. Boots. Hat. Overcoat. A hundred times in those few seconds she tried to find a way around the maze. But no. She was still too scared. She, Greta Zweig, had always wanted more adventure. And when faced with the biggest adventure of all, she backed away in complete fear.

Oliver paused in the doorway. He turned slightly, so that the sharp line of his nose was in perfect profile. Greta found herself trying to memorize his dear features—this time for the last time.

“Lock the door behind me. No one but your lady’s maid until your uncle returns. Will you give me that, at least?”

“I will,” she said, then watched in stunned shock as he walked out the door.

Greta lived in agony for nearly twenty hours.

Every waking moment forced her to revisit the argument. Sometimes she wondered why she let her fears drive him away. Sometimes she could hardly breathe past the terror. Oliver would never hurt her on purpose—she knew that like she knew his taste. But where would she be if anything happened to Oliver? To defy the rules for love was one consideration. Facing the world on her own was quite another.

If the days were agony, the hours of evening were unimaginable nightmares. Every kiss, every touch, every breathless cry returned as an intimate torment. Sleeping beside him had been a comfort even more precious than the way he pleasured her. The soft rumble of his laughter, when humor caught him by surprise, was just a memory. The true, honest companionship he offered without demand left a void in her heart. The fierce, protective shelter of his unselfish love was gone.

So she waited. Sitting in a window seat that overlooked the grounds, she waited for her uncle. His carriage was in the courtyard. The grooms were already unbuckling the horses’ harnesses. Soon he would barge up those steps and she would need to tell him.

But tell him what?

Standing away from the window, she looked at her half-finished painting. It was Oliver standing in the corridor downstairs, exactly as she’d seen him the night of the ball. The livery clung to him like a cage, a most uneasy disguise for the gracious, clever man beneath. He was singular. Alone. Reserved, yet so enticingly composed within himself. Even when Greta had barged into his life and ruffled his calm, he remained Oliver.

Dear God, I love him.

A knock at the door shocked her into uttering a little squeak.

She loved him. Now, when he was so far away, when she could no longer beg his forgiveness or declare her feelings—
now
she realized the truth.

Another knock, this time more insistent. “Margaret, open this door,” said her uncle.

With one last look at the painting, she blew her rendering of Oliver a kiss and tossed a tarp over the easel. “Coming.”

She hurried to the door and sucked in a quick breath.

Thaddeus stood in the doorway, his arms crossed and a frown heavy on his brow. His bald head shone with a glimmer of sweat. “You will explain yourself, young lady.”

“Come in, uncle.” Her fingers danced with nervous energy as she waved him inside. But oddly enough, she was no longer frightened. She had sent Oliver away. No other moment could be so terrible. This was nothing—nowhere near so heartbreaking. “I am happy to see you safely returned. How are the girls?”

“They’re downstairs. But you will explain why you left Salzburg. This instant.”

He stood in the center of her studio like a thunderstorm gaining furious strength. Only one other time had she seen him so terribly riled—on the day when their last terrible fight had sent Mother away. Father had been dead, but Uncle Thaddeus had sent her out into the world with nothing.

Righteous anger straightened her shoulders and made her spine into a strong column. What right had he? By what right had he made her parents so miserable? And by what right did he claim ownership of her skills, her loyalty, her future?

Her future belonged to Oliver. She knew that now. But she had to be smart, knowing Thaddeus already assumed the worst about her character—and knowing that Herschel had likely already informed him of Oliver’s presence. If she confirmed the worst voluntarily, she might be able to escape most of the humiliation. Maybe breaking with her uncle and her cousins wouldn’t have to be permanent.

“Uncle, I know you will be…oh, God, you will be so disappointed with me.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“I came here with a man. With that valet who’d saved my life.”

His face darkened to an unbecoming shade of pink, all the way over his bald crown. “You idiot girl. How could you be such a simpleton? You’re no better than your mother. Worse, even.”

“Leave Mother out of this.”

“I will not! Is this how my generosity is repaid? By a niece who invites servant trash into her bed?”

“
Repaid?
I believe my work for these last few years has been payment enough. But that wasn’t enough for you, was it?”

“I have told you before,” he said, advancing on her. Greta backed away but was stopped with the workbench at her back. “My business is none of your concern.”

“Oh, isn’t it?” A remarkable calm had overtaken her. She felt steady and sure, even in the face of his glower. “I wonder what business you could conduct without my forgeries to sell. And if you’re not careful, you won’t even have the originals to sell after the war.”

“What?”

“In the basement. In storage. Someone has replaced four of the originals with my copies. Someone, my dear uncle, has been stealing from you.”

A tick in his right cheek intensified. “I don’t believe you. This is some ruse to distract me from how you’ve behaved.”

Greta stepped away from the table, toward him, daring him to stand in her way. “You’re the one who’s short four masterpieces. I, however, am the person who’s short ten years’ worth of work.”