Delectably Undone! by Elizabeth Rolls Read Free Book Online Page A

tenderness…. Only the mist was now swirling between them, and she was fading, fading into it. Or the mist was fading into her.
    He woke, her name on his lips tearing the darkness as he spilled himself in his empty bed. And he remembered his dream. Loveday. The murals. He fell back against the pillows with a groan and covered his face with his hands. It was Loveday who had been haunting his dreams. And Loveday who had modelled for those curst murals. Loveday. The woman he wanted above all others.

    Unable to sleep again, in the end Evelyn rose, found a robe, and went down to the library. To his surprise, a lamp was burning in there.
    A familiar voice spoke from near the fireplace. “Up rather late, aren’t you, Eve? Can’t you sleep, either?”
    David Winslow, one of his guests, sat there in the dancing shadows, nursing a large brandy. At least Evelyn assumed it was brandy, since the brandy decanter was on a wine table beside him.
    “No. What are you doing in here?” He hadn’t seen much of David since his friend’s recent return from Italy, and there was rarely time at a house party to really talk to anyone. Unless you were meant to be courting them.
    David shrugged. “I had plans for the evening. They involved spending the night in Lady Beaumont’s chamber, but her husband showing up just before dinner put paid to that. Apparently he had the same idea.”
    “Ah. How tactless of him.”
    “Quite. Heard you were having some murals painted.”
    Evelyn froze. “Yes. That’s right.” David had known Lionel, as well.
    “By Lionel,” said David. He picked up the decanter and poured another glass of brandy, took a swallow. “Hmm. Excellent. Are you having one?”
    “No.” Evelyn needed to think. He walked over to his desk and sat down. He wondered how his family was going to react when he announced that he was going to wed the penniless sister of an indigent artist. He didn’t care, any more than he should have cared six years ago. More to the point, was the indigent artist himself going to permit it?
    “Just one problem,” continued David. He rose, picked up the decanter and strolled across to the table where it usually sat.
    Evelyn shot him a glance. “What? With my brandy?”
    David shook his head, pouring an extra glass and swirling the amber fluid around, squinting at it in the lamplight. “No. Brandy’s excellent. Problem’s with Lionel.”
    His casual tone chilled Evelyn. “What’s amiss? Have you seen him?”
    “You haven’t, obviously.”
    Obviously? “No. We arranged it by letter. Why?”
    David regarded him thoughtfully. Without answering, he walked over to offer him the brandy.
    Evelyn looked at it. “I told you I didn’t want one.”
    Raising an eyebrow, David set the glass down beside him, anyway. “Lionel died in Italy six months ago. I helped Loveday bury him.”
    Very carefully, Evelyn picked up the brandy glass and drained it.

    He was on the way back to London before the sun rose, leaving a brief note for his aunt that explained only that he was gone, another for Phoebe Angaston thanking her for excellent advice, and a very confused and sleepy groom who had come down to find out exactly why a horse was being saddled at dawn.
    He got into a fight, Loveday said. At the local tavern. Some bruiser didn’t like Lionel painting his girl. Beat him up. A few days later, apparently his sight failed. Gone. Just like that in both eyes. I’d been visiting them and Loveday wrote to beg me to come back and help. She said he was in despair.
    Winslow’s mouth had been grim.
    By the time the letter reached me Lionel was dead.
    David hadn’t been able to tell him very much more. Only that he had arranged safe passage back to England for Loveday with a lady wanting a companion. That she had brought most of Lionel’s remaining work with her…and her own.
    The difference Evelyn had seen in Lionel’s style had been because it hadn’t been her brother’s work at all. It was Loveday’s. She