She grasped both his shoulders and pushed herself away from him.
“Mr. Doverspike!”
“Larla,” he whispered.
She scrambled to her feet. “Kindly remove yourself this instant.”
He stood and cocked his head at her. “You’re giving me the sack because you enjoyed kissing me?”
“Yes. I mean no,” she stammered, realizing she’d admitted to warming to his kiss. She backed several paces. “I mean this should never have happened. There are certain proprieties that must be observed.”
He looked down at his bare body. His c*ck bobbed merrily. “How can there be any propriety when one of us is nak*d as Adam?”
“You don’t understand anything about art.” Deep in her throat, she made a noise of frustration. “You’re making a mockery of everything I’m trying to accomplish.”
He cast her a sideways glance. “You arrange matters so you spend long hours alone with nak*d men in circumstances that demean them. I think you need to ask yourself what it is you’re really trying to accomplish.”
Her eyes flared, then narrowed. “Get out.”
He bent to retrieve his robe and caught a flash of movement. Behind her, he saw a figure at one of the windows.
A man was grappling with an awkward black box on a tripod. It looked suspiciously like daguerreotype equipment. If that blighter had captured him kissing the duchess on one of those copper plates . . .
“I mean it, Mr. Doverspike. I want you gone this instant, do you hear?” She stamped her aristocratic foot like an empress. “At least do me the courtesy of looking at me when I speak to you.”
Trev shrugged on the robe and knotted the sash at his waist, never taking his eyes off the man at the window. The photographer realized suddenly that he’d been discovered. He snatched up his equipment and took to his heels.
“Excuse me, Your Grace.” Trevelyn pushed past her and mounted the sill. He threw open the window and turned back to her. “I’ll return shortly so you can continue to tell me how much you dislike me and want me gone.”
He dropped out of the window and disappeared into the wilds of the duchess’s overgrown garden.
Chapter 7
Clarence Wigglesworth had struck gold more surely than the horde of fools rushing off to the wastes of California. The images he just captured of the Duchess of Southwycke and her low-born model were priceless. It was more than he’d dared hope for when he convinced his editor to invest in this expensive daguerreotype equipment. Thank fortune, the newest cameras allowed the exposure time to be sliced from fifteen minutes to only one. Still, that kiss had been a protracted affair. Now Clarence’s foresight and ingenuity were about to pay off. Handsomely.
For a moment, Clarence wondered if the duchess would pay him more for the daguerreotypes than The Tattler. No, he told himself. He was a journalist, not a black-mailer. The public deserved to see one of the peers of the realm practically in flagrante delicto, taking advantage of a poor common fellow. Though truth to tell, it looked as if the bloke welcomed the duchess’s abuse. Still, the public had a right to know that the high and mighty’s feet were also made of clay. The titled gentry were just as weak, just as ordinary in their vices as anybody else.
Oh, how misery loves company.
And Clarence now had proof of Her Grace’s weakness. If only he could remember the way back through this higgledy-piggledy mess of a garden to the gate at the rear of the property. His informant had left it unlocked and the directions to the part of the house where the duchess kept her nefarious ‘studio’ were most explicit. He’d been curious to see art in progress.
Art, indeed.
So that’s what the upper crust calls it, he thought. Looked to him like a good old game of ‘hide the sausage’ in the making. What he’d seen through the window was no more artistic than what went on in your average bawdy house, though to his sorrow, he could rarely afford to visit those establishments of fleshly bliss.
It was worse, actually, he decided. After all, in Her Grace’s studio it was the man who was groveling nak*d on the floor.
That turn-about was enough of an affront to his sensibilities, but then when the duchess knelt down on the floor with him, well . . . it was shocking.
Deliciously shocking.
Now if he could just—
The sound of feet pounding after him down the well-worn path interrupted his thoughts. Clarence glanced back in time to see the duchess’s model bearing down on him. The man’s robe flapped about him like a demon’s tattered wings. Panic gave Clarence extra speed, but the fellow caught up to him, grabbed him and threw him to the ground.
His precious equipment clattered to earth as he rolled with his half-dressed assailant, finally coming to rest beneath the incensed artist’s model.
“What do you think you’re doing, skulking about a lady’s home like a two-penny peeper?” The man rolled Clarence onto his stomach, ground a knee into his spine and pinioned both his hands behind him.
“I’m no peeper. I’m a member of the press, a writer for The Tattler,” Clarence whined, twisting his neck so he could eye the man who had him subdued in so demeaning a fashion. “I’m only doing my job . . .” He stopped long enough to study his attacker for a moment. “Lord Deveridge?”
“No, that would be my brother,” the man said.
Clarence remembered that the Earl of Warre had two sons, twins if his memory served. So this must be the unlucky younger one. “Damned shame to miss a title by a matter of minutes, eh, guv?”
“That’s none of your concern. If you wish to be released without having your face rearranged, give me your name and be quick about it.”
Deveridge smiled as he spoke, but it was a cold smile and Clarence didn’t doubt he was in peril of a beating.
“Wigglesworth, Clarence Wigglesworth,” he said, screwing his courage to the sticking point. “You may have been born a gentleman, but I can take a bloke like you down a peg with just a few strokes of the pen. Best you remember that. You don’t want to tangle with a member of the press.”
“If you reported on the work of Parliament or the deplorable condition of drains in the city, I’d agree with your characterization of your employment. But I’ve only apprehended a sneak-thief.”
“I never stole in my whole living life,” Clarence protested. Apples from vending carts and the occasional hot bun didn’t count.
“You steal people’s good names, people who’ve not done you any harm, assassinating their characters with the poison that drips from your pen.” Deveridge leaned down menacingly. “You will not write another syllable, good, bad or indifferent, about the Duchess of Southwycke.”
“But—”
“If a breath of scandal touches Her Grace in that rag you write for, believe me, you will answer for it.”
“What will you do? Sue me? I rarely have more than two coins to rub together.” Now that he recognized the man as an aristocrat, Clarence felt a little bolder. What did these cultured types know about scrabbling to make a living in London? “What can you threaten me with that’s worse than an empty belly?”
“Mr. Wigglesworth, I never make threats. I make promises,” Deveridge said with a wolfish grin. “I don’t care a fig what you might write about me, but if you sully the duchess’s name in any way, I’ll kill you.”
Judging just by his tone, Deveridge might have been making a comment on the weather, but the casualness of his lethal promise made it all the more chilling. Clarence felt his throat constrict.
“Now that we understand each other, allow me to assist you to your feet.” Deveridge stood and offered Clarence his hand. “Pity about your equipment. I hear those things are deucedly expensive.” He strolled over and yanked the damning copper plates from the daguerreotype.
For one or two heartbeats, Clarence considered fighting the man for his hard-won coppers, but Deveridge’s cold-blooded promise still threatened to loosen his bowels.
“Now if you’re interested in a true journalistic effort,” Deveridge continued pleasantly, “might I offer you a tip?”
Clarence gathered up the remains of his photographic debris, his chest heavy. His employer would have his hide for this debacle. “No, thanks. You’ve done quite enough for me already this day.”
The man shrugged in a lordly way. “Suit yourself. I was only going to suggest you make the acquaintance of Basil Philpot, the bailiff for the House of Lords. He knows everything that happens there, on and off the floor, and is quite voluble after only a pint or two. He’d be a good source for a real journalist.”
“I am a real journalist,” Clarence said. “You just don’t like my brand of news. Don’t you understand we have to give the public what they want?”
“Perhaps it’s time someone gave them what they need,” Deveridge said softly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his robe. “Good day, Mr. Wigglesworth. I’m sure you know the way out.” He strolled away as if he’d only been taking the air in the duchess’s wild garden. Then he stopped and looked back at Clarence with a wintry glare. “Remember my promise.”
Clarence swallowed hard and nodded. If he wrote another scurrilous word about Her Grace, he had no doubt Deveridge would make his promise good.
* * *
Artemisia swiped away the last of her tears just in time. Mr. Doverspike was climbing back through the window. She sniffed loudly and hoped to heaven her nose wasn’t red.
“How can one hope to have a civilized discussion with you if you insist on escaping out windows?” she blustered in an attempt to hide that she’d been crying. “Well? What have you to say for yourself?”
“You said you wanted me gone.” He shrugged and spread his hands in a self-deprecating gesture. “The truth is you had a reporter from The Tattler at your window just now. He and I had a little chat in your garden.”
“Is that what—” Artemisia’s breath hissed over her teeth. Her day was going from bad to worse. “Then he was at the window when we—”
“Yes, but don’t fret, madam. I am in possession of some coppers that will never see the light of day.” He pulled the fading daguerreotype plates from the pocket of his robe. The images were shadowy, but she could definitely make out two forms in a shocking embrace. The reclining nude was rampantly aroused and though the image was blurred, his hand was definitely reaching for her breast.
Mr. Doverspike was right. He wasn’t nude. He was nak*d. Blatantly, unabashedly as bare as Adam and the answering warmth between her own legs reminded her she’d been playing with Eden’s fire.
“This is dreadful.” Her mother would be furious. The publication of a damning article in The Tattler would probably coincide with Constance Dalrymple’s masked fete. “Even without a picture, there’ll be a piece about it and my reputation will be thoroughly ruined. Not that I care so much for myself, but my sisters will suffer horribly for my indiscretion.”
“I doubt it,” he said smugly. “There will be no article. We came to a not-so-gentlemanly agreement. The reporter in question will refrain from writing about you.”