An Invitation to Sin Page 2

  Zachary glared at him, his jaw clenched so tightly that the muscles trembled. “I’m a third-born son in a noble family, Seb. My opportunities—”

  “Are more than sufficient, if you would make a choice and abide by it.”

  “I have made a choice. Thank you for the advice.” Turning on his heel, he strode for the office door.

  “Zachary, you—”

  “I what, Sebastian? We’re at an impasse. And while you might have the ability to prevent a Griffin from joining the military, I can pretend to be someone else.” He stopped, taking a breath and hoping he hadn’t just foiled his own plans. He really needed to learn when to stay silent and just leave the room. “I know what you’re afraid of,” he continued anyway. “And I’m sorry Charlotte died. I know how much you loved her. But you—”

  Melbourne shoved to his feet with enough force that his chair went over backwards. “Enough!” he roared. “My wife has nothing to do with this.”

  “She has everyth—”

  “You will escort Aunt Tremaine to Bath,” Melbourne snapped, his gray eyes glinting with barely suppressed anger. “When you return and if you have proven to me in the meantime that you can show some patience and restraint and a reasonable level of responsibility, and if you’re still determined to join the army, we will continue this discussion.”

  Zachary took a deep breath. As usual, he’d gotten angry and said the wrong thing, and now that Melbourne had handed down his proclamation, he couldn’t take it back. “I apologize, Sebastian,” he said.

  “Don’t.” His oldest brother strode to the door and back, obviously in an attempt to regain his usually even temper. That in itself was unusual; Melbourne rarely let anyone see him out of countenance.

  “All I meant to say was that you can’t keep all of us safe in glass cabinets and expect us not to try to get out,” Zachary said more quietly.

  “I suggest you go pack a trunk,” Melbourne returned in the cool voice his siblings dreaded hearing. “You’re leaving in an hour.”

  “Very well. One day though, Melbourne, you’re going to give one order too many, and you’ll find that all of your troops have deserted.”

  Damn it all. They both knew that the threat was empty, but at least his brother didn’t laugh at him. Zachary had his own generous monthly income, but it had all been set up by Melbourne. If he pushed too hard, the duke could simply cut the purse strings—which would ensure that his next career choice would be the one he stayed with.

  Chapter 2

  Caroline Witfeld pressed her pencil so hard against the sketch pad that the lead snapped. “Grace, will you please stop fidgeting?”

  Her sister scratched her left ear. “It’s not my fault. This hat itches.”

  “It’s not a hat. It’s a turban. And please sit still. I only need two more minutes.”

  “That’s what you said five minutes ago, Caro. And it still itches.”

  For the space of a breath Caroline closed her eyes. Trying to focus on a subject who squirmed every which way was giving her nothing but an aching head. That didn’t mean, however, that she had any intention of giving up. Patience might be a virtue, but in this instance it was also a necessity. “It’s taking longer because you keep moving. And you’re the one who wanted to be a Persian princess.”

  High-pitched voices echoed up from the foyer two stories below. “Grace! We’re going! Hurry up!”

  Damnation. Caroline grabbed another pencil and began sketching madly, concentrating on the wisps of her sister’s blonde hair where it curled from beneath the silk turban. She could sketch the turban sans occupant later. “Wait, Grace,” she muttered as she drew. “You promised.”

  The wisps of hair began edging for the door, along with the rest of her sister. “They’ll leave without me,” she protested, “and I need a new bonnet.”

  “Grace—”

  The turban hit the hardwood floor. “Sorry, Caro,” Grace called over her shoulder as she hurried down the hall toward the stairs. “I’ll be back after luncheon!”

  “But the shadows will be diff…,” Caroline started, then trailed off. With a grimace she set down her pencil and stood to stretch her back. Grace didn’t care about light or shadows; she cared about a new bonnet.

  She could recruit another sister, she supposed, but as she went to the window and looked down at the drive, she counted six bonnets wedging themselves into the Witfeld barouche. Apparently all of her siblings needed new bonnets.

  Of course the urgency they felt to visit Trowbridge might have had something to do with the fact that it was Tuesday—and that Mrs. Williams’s son Martin, recently returned from the Crimean, helped restock her linen shop on Tuesdays. Caroline smiled. Poor Martin. After three months of Tuesday torture, she would have changed restocking day, or at least done it after hours. Of course the shop sold more on Tuesdays than any other day of the week, so perhaps Martin’s appearance in the middle of the morning wasn’t a coincidence at all.

  Caroline retrieved the turban and set it on a stack of books at the appropriate height, then returned her attention to the sketch pad. By now she could probably draw any of her sisters from memory, but the slant of the head, the light in their expression—she’d never been able to capture any of that without the subject in front of her. She could finish the hat, however.

  “Caro?”

  She started, blinking. “Up here, Papa. In the conservatory.”

  “What do you think of this?” her father asked as he walked into the room. In his arms he hefted a wooden box filled with a tumbled chaos of miniature papier-mâché columns and blocks of faux stone. “It’s not to scale, of course.”

  Edmund Witfeld looked how she imagined any father of seven daughters would—fingertips stained black from doing the accounts and trying to come up with a way to provide seven dowries, hair silver and beginning to thin now that five of those daughters were of a marrying age, jacket a little loose across the shoulders and a little snug around the waist from worry and frustration and the inability to do anything about it. He was, after all, badly outnumbered.

  Caroline looked over the meticulously arranged diorama. “Those are new,” she said, indicating the pair of broken columns resting beside the miniature painted streambed.

  He smiled. “Yes. I thought adding a sixth and seventh column on the north side would balance the quarter-wall on the south.”

  “It’s beginning to look like the Parthenon in ruins—or what I imagine it would look like, anyway. Antique and romantical.”

  “Ah ha! That’s what I was attempting to evoke.” He kissed her cheek. “I’m going to order the additional columns for the meadow tomorrow.” Muttering figures to himself, he toted the box into the hallway. “Oh, I nearly forgot.” He reentered the conservatory. “The post just came. You have a letter.”

  Her body turned to ice. “Is it a reply?” she asked.

  He fumbled in his pocket with his free hand. “I think so. Here. Hold this a minute.”

  She took possession of the miniature ruins. “Papa.”

  “I’m not trying to torture you, but I knew I’d never get an opinion from you about the ruins after I told you about the letter. Ah. Here it is.” He pulled a letter from his inside jacket pocket.

  Caroline took it, nearly dumping his diorama as she handed it back. Her fingers shaking, she turned the missive over to view the address. “It’s from Vienna. The Tannberg artists’ studio.”

  “Open it, Caro.”

  Sending up a quick prayer, she slid a finger under the wax seal and unfolded the letter. Her heart hammering, she read through it—and the breath froze in her throat. “Oh, my goodness. Oh my, oh my.”

  “Well?” her father prompted, carefully setting the diorama on the floor. “Do they accept you? It’s past time somebody showed some damned sense.”

  She cleared her throat to read it to him. “‘M. Witfeld, Thank you for the series of portraits you sent with your application. I see no reason you should not be admitted into our appre
nticeship program. For final consideration,’” she continued, her voice shaking with a sudden wave of breathless excitement, “‘please submit a portrait of an aristocrat, along with a signed affidavit from said aristocrat attesting to his or her satisfaction with your work. Yours in anticipation, Raoul Tannberg, director, Tannberg Studio.’”

  “That seems a reasonable request,” her father said, nodding. “All the money in portrait painting likely comes from commissions from wealthy citizens. They probably want proof that you can bring the studio income and clients.”

  She didn’t know how he could be so calm. Caroline could scarcely breathe. It wasn’t an unconditional acceptance, but it wasn’t one of the twenty-seven rejections she’d received previously, either. One more step, and she would be able to grasp her dream. No more fighting to make her sisters sit still while she tried to shape them into something a studio would find artistic. No more having to ask Cook if she could borrow dinner for half an hour in order to perfect the sketches of chicken or quail beaks. It would be real. It would be heavenly.

  “I suppose you’ll be calling on Lord and Lady Eades, then.”

  The excited bubble of her dream popped.

  She’d painted the earl and countess before, actually, and the portraits hung in Eades Hall. But this was the most important work of her life, and the local aristocrats were two of the most eccentric people in Wiltshire. She wasn’t about to submit Lord and Lady Eades as Egyptian Pharaohs to Vienna. Raoul Tannberg, director, would laugh her off the Continent.

  “You need to secure their agreement for this,” Edmund Witfeld pursued, his voice solemn.

  “Yes, I’ll manage something.” Perhaps she could switch paintings. Lord and Lady Eades would never know. All she needed was a letter expressing approval—it didn’t have to describe the painting.

  “This is good news, Caro,” her father said, taking the missive from her to read it again himself. “I hadn’t wanted to say anything, but now that you have a letter, you need to know.”

  She frowned, her chest tightening. “What’s wrong, Papa?”

  “Nothing. But you’re three and twenty. And as your mama keeps reminding me, you have six younger sisters all eager to marry. For their sakes we can’t keep doing this.”

  “Doing what? I’m not hurting anything. This is my dream, Papa. It has been forever.”

  “I know that. And that’s why I’ve been encouraging and supporting your efforts. Lord knows I understand what it’s like to have a dream. But you are hurting something—your sisters’ chances at finding husbands. This is a small estate with a limited income and a desperate need to find dowries for seven dau—”

  “Six,” she interrupted, tears trying to push to the front of her eyes. She felt what she wanted so clearly that she tended to forget that her sisters wanted different things. So now she was a roadblock to what they all considered to be their path to happiness. Marriage. “I’ve asked you to pass me by.”

  “I accept that, my dear. But you are still a part of a household with limited resources. Paints and canvases and—”

  “I pay for most of the supplies myself,” she broke in.

  “Don’t get upset now that you have good news,” he returned, handing back the letter. “But I wanted you to know. This is the last year we can allow this.”

  “So what happens if I’m rejected by Monsieur Tannberg?”

  “You won’t be, of course.”

  “But if I am, what happens?”

  He drew a heavy breath. “Then at the end of the summer you will either marry, or you will accept the governess position generously offered to you by Lord and Lady Eades. They would love you to teach their children how to paint.”

  “Their chil…” She trailed off. Horror. No other word could describe the ice that gripped her heart at the thought of teaching wealthy, spoiled children how to paint posies.

  “But you don’t have to worry about that now, do you?”

  From his mouth to God’s ear. “No, I suppose not.”

  “That’s the spirit.” He lifted his box again. “I’m going to pace off the new columns,” her father said, leaving the room again, “and to tell your mother that you’ve been all but accepted at the Vienna studio. We’re all relieved.”

  She watched him go down the hall, then sat again. The situation was worse than she’d realized. The frustration and the humiliation of being repeatedly rejected because she was a female, or because the studio had too many applicants, or because she couldn’t afford the attendance fees, was nothing compared to being a governess. She’d have to put away her brushes, and would never have an opportunity to pick them up again. No more painting, no more feeling that…lift inside her when she captured part of someone’s life on canvas. It would be like cutting out her own heart.

  Thank God her father had told her the consequences of failure this time. She would convince Lord and Lady Eades to dress in their present-day finery, and she would be accepted as an apprentice at the Tannberg Studio.

  There was no other choice.

  “Zachary, if that blasted thing bites my toe one more time, I am going to have someone serve it up for dinner.”

  With a sigh Zachary leaned down and grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck, returning it to the carriage seat beside him. “Apologies, Aunt.”

  Gladys, Aunt Tremaine, looked at his new companion. “What is it, anyway?”

  “I believe it’s half foxhound and half Irish setter,” he returned, absently wriggling his fingers so the pup would consume him rather than his aunt.

  “And you’ve acquired it for what reason?”

  “Melbourne said I should get a dog. Apparently to him it demonstrates patience and responsibility.” He winced as a sharp tooth grazed one finger. “I named it Harold.”

  “That’s your brother’s middle name.”

  “It is? What a coincidence.”

  His aunt turned over her embroidery hoop and lifted it to bite off the blue thread she’d knotted. Without pause she pulled a spool of green thread from her sewing basket.

  “I have a knife, you know,” Zachary said, watching from the opposite seat as she measured a length of thread and bit that off, as well. “And a sharp-toothed attack beast.”

  “This is faster,” his aunt returned, deftly threading her needle and going back to work. “You never know when it might be handy to be able to embroider in an emergency.”

  “Yes, one never knows when one might need one’s initials put onto a handkerchief,” he said dryly, the sight of the intricate stitches making his eyes want to cross in sympathy.

  “Make fun now, but I have thirty more years of wisdom than you, my boy.”

  “But you’ll be blind by the time we get to Bath, trying to embroider in a moving carriage, and toothless from chewing off the threads.”

  She chuckled. “I’ve been doing this since before you were born, Zachary. It passes the time better in a moving carriage than attempting to read, or than sitting about while a wild dog attempts to chew off my foot.”

  He had to agree with part of the statement, anyway. Zachary eyed the book his brother Charlemagne had foisted on him yesterday morning when they’d left, as if two dozen Byron poems would compensate him for being exiled to Bath. Harold obviously felt the same; he’d already torn the cover off. And in addition to the feeble quality of the bribe, he was certain it was worse than that. No, he didn’t doubt at all that Aunt Tremaine had instructions for her gout not to subside until she received word from Melbourne that he’d found a way once and for all to prevent his brother from joining the army.

  Yes, Melbourne’s delaying strategy annoyed Zachary, but whether it took a week or a month, it wouldn’t stop him. He needed a change. And unless the almighty Griffin clan came up with some miraculous plan before then, he was going to join Wellington on the Peninsula. At least there he could be more than the extraneous third brother, the spare’s spare, the token escort for the family’s females, famed more for his healthy appetite and popularity with
chits than for any other attribute or interest he might have.

  “I was actually going to recommend napping,” he put in when he realized his aunt was eyeing him.

  “You could ride,” she suggested. “You did go to all the trouble of bringing your horse along. And I’m perfectly happy to embroider in solitude.”

  His first response was to ask why his presence was necessary at all, then. Everyone knew, however, that he wasn’t journeying to Bath for Aunt Tremaine’s health but for his own. Zachary pulled out his pocket watch and glanced down at it. “We only have another hour to the inn. Harold and I will just stay and doze, if you don’t mind.”

  Aunt Tremaine shifted her large frame. “Actually, I arranged for Phipps to take us on a short detour.”

  “What sort of short detour?” he returned suspiciously, straightening again. They’d better not be trying to lock him into a monastery somewhere.

  “I thought we might spend a night or two at Witfeld Manor so I might visit with my friend Sally Witfeld.”

  Zachary looked at her for a moment. “This isn’t a Melbourne-devised detour, is it?”

  “Heavens, no. Sally and I went to finishing school together. It’s only an hour out of our way, and I have a standing invitation to visit. I haven’t seen her for nearly six years.”

  He held up his hands in surrender, then had to block Harold with his elbow when the pup tried to leap onto his chest. “Bath or Witfeld Manor—it’s all the same to me. Far be it for me to stand in the way of finishing school friendships.”

  “You are a wise young man.”

  With a grin Zachary settled back into the leather cushions again, wrapped his fingers into Harold’s collar, and closed his eyes. Inconvenient though the entire journey might be, he did like his aunt. And under the circumstances, if napping the afternoon away in a warm, well-sprung carriage had any drawbacks, he couldn’t see them.

  In another twenty minutes the coach turned off the main road and onto the deeply rutted and pockmarked route that turned off to the south. Zachary opened his eyes again as he nearly jolted off the seat. Napping was obviously finished with. In fact, he anticipated having a black-and-blue backside by the time they arrived at Witfeld Manor. He grabbed one of the coach’s hanging straps and held on, while the dog bounced to the floor and dove between his Hessian boots to cower. Good God, who lived at the other end of this road—wild, blue-faced Celts? Aunt Tremaine, of course, continued her needlework, though he wouldn’t care to wager on how straight her lines would be.