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  Copyright © 2016 by Susanna Ives

  Cover and internal design © 2016 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover art by Paul Stinson

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

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  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  An Excerpt from Wicked, My Love

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  One

  London

  Spring, 1879

  A day without Lilith Dahlgren was a fine day indeed, George, Marquess of Marylewick, mused as he eased back in his brougham seat.

  He was finally heading home after surviving another insipid musical evening of delicate young darlings in dainty gowns gently butchering Bach or Mozart. He removed his top hat, tugged his tie loose, and gazed out at the night. Gold halos glowed around the gaslights, turning the London night a silken deep gray. The moody atmosphere reminded him of Joseph Mallord William Turner’s paintings. Turner was a real painter, unlike Lilith’s ramshackle bohemian friends whose art resembled the plum jelly drawings a four-year-old George had created on his nursery walls. These new artists should be punished for their pathetic attempts at art the same way he had been: their hands dipped in iced water and then slapped with a leather strap. Indolent wastrels, all of them.

  George released a long stream of tired breath and reviewed his day to make sure he had squeezed every drop of productive juice from it. He had attended the boxing parlor as he did every morning. He had danced about the ring, thinking about the metaphorical punches he needed to deliver in the heated debate of the contentious Stamp Duty Extension Bill. After a brief breakfast with his sister, he had reviewed estate, bank, and stock accounts with his man of business. Then he had legged over to White’s to pass the remainder of the morning making political battle plans with the lord chancellor. Two more hours had been allocated in the afternoon for the business of his numerous wards and dependents, including the sugar-coated orders from his mama as she readied Tyburn Hall for the upcoming house party. Three Maryle relatives had appointments and were each given fifteen minutes. George believed that was sufficient time for them to express the matter at hand without lapsing into tears or drama. He abhorred sentimentality and rapturous overtures of any kind—all the things that characterized Lilith.

  After his relatives had left, he had lingered in his study a few minutes longer, in case Lilith graced him with an appearance. Acting as her trustee was a taxing and thankless responsibility. She never bothered with appointments, but breezed in as the mood struck her, staying well beyond her allotted fifteen minutes. She always had a new ploy to wheedle money from her grandfather’s trust to help some degenerate artist pollute society with his rubbish. When George was convinced that she wasn’t calling, he had breathed a sigh of relief, donned his wig, and headed for Parliament with an extra spring in his step.

  Now, having survived a grueling session of Parliament and the equally grueling musical party, he could look forward to donning his nightshirt, sliding under crisply ironed sheets, and reading Colette and the Sultan.

  The latest chapter in author Ellis Belfort’s serial had been wagging on everyone’s tongues that evening. How would Colette escape her evil pursuer, Sultan Murada? The story had set London society ablaze, but George had been enthralled with Colette from the very first installment. In a sense, he felt her story was his for having discovered it before everyone else.

  As his carriage rolled along Piccadilly, George imagined the gentle Colette. He envisioned her possessing ebony locks that flowed over her breasts, almost reaching her waist. The black waves shone like onyx in sunlight. Her enormous eyes were the green of country fields after rain. He chuckled to himself. Colette didn’t exist, yet in his mind she seemed so real. As if she rubbed elbows against him in Trafalgar Square, or had just left the circulating library as he entered. As if she—

  “Damnation, Lilith!” he thundered.

  Down Half Moon Street, bright light and raucous laughter and music—loud enough to penetrate the inner sanctum of his carriage—blared from the home Lilith shared with her late father’s cousins, Edgar and Frances Dahlgren.

  “Hell’s fire!” He should have known he couldn’t have a day free of Lilith.

  He had a good mind to ignore her and drive home to his crisp sheets and fictional Colette, but then a horrible image of being summoned to police court for Lilith filled his mind.

  He rapped the carriage window with his cane. Without his having to issue a command, the groom, reading his master’s mind, turned the brougham. George prepared for battle, rebuttoning his collar and retying his white tie. The carriage lurched to a stop before a brick townhouse. On the door was a brass plaque that read “Dahlgren Ateliers.” George stabbed the walk with his cane as he stepped unassisted from his carriage. “Around the block,” he ordered his groom.

  At the door, George was impeded by two young men reeking of a distillery.

  “Art is death, my good fellow,” declared one of the gents. He wore a crumpled coat, a loose scarlet cravat, and a tragic expression on his pallid face. “The loss, the separation, the mystery.”

  “Death, death, death,” retorted the other man, shaking his Byronesque locks. “You are obsessed by death. But there is no meaning in death as there is in life. Art is the lost, sensitive soul grappling for meaning amid our meaningless, empty existence.”

  “You are meaningless!” cried the scarlet cravat. “I ask this chap here.” He stumbled into George, giving him a shot of his liquored breath. “Is art about death or finding meaning?”

  George paused, having never had the absurd question put to him. “It’s something pleasing to look upon while dining or passing time at a tedious musical evening,” he mused. “Anything beyond that is the conjecture of selfish, grown boys unwilling to contribute to society except to aggravate it with their indulgent, nansy-
pansy rantings. Good evening.” He brushed them off as if they were lint on his immaculate sleeve. He knocked at the door.

  Was art about death or finding meaning?

  He pondered the question while waiting. When he found himself pondering for more than thirty seconds, he started to knock again but the door swung open. A blond woman in a revealing purple gown peered at him.

  “Aren’t you handsome?” she purred. She removed his top hat, letting her finger draw a tiny circle on his cheek. “A Donatello in the flesh. Simply exquisite. Absinthe?”

  “No, thank you.” George reached for his hat.

  She laughed and hid it behind her back. “I meant, do you have any absinthe, my dazzling Donatello?”

  “No, ma’am. As a general rule, I do not willingly ingest poison. Please restore my hat.”

  “Hmmph.” She tossed his hat against the wall with a flick of her hand and sauntered away, her bustle wagging behind her.

  He stepped inside, retrieved his hat, and dusted it off. People crammed the parlor and adjacent back room. They conversed in small circles, drinks dangling from their hands, eyes lit with animation. Their conversations merged to form a loud roar over the music. Their energy soaked into his veins. A thought bubbled up—“Damned sight better than that blasted musical butchery”—before he could pop it. He had to remind himself that these were artists and Lilith’s friends, never a good recommendation. They were probably rapturous over the subtle depth in a certain shade of blue or the hidden symbolism in some obscure poem or other such nonsense.

  He edged along the wall. Just find Lilith, he told himself, trying to keep his mind from straying into the guests’ ridiculous conversations. Then he heard a female voice say, “Colette? Why, it’s all about coitus.”

  He halted.

  “Coitus. Fornication. All of it,” the woman prattled on, affected cynicism oozing from her words. “See how the author cleverly disguises his meaning: ‘Kiss me, dearest, know the sweet nectar of my lips.’ I daresay the uneducated masses assume he is referring to the lips on her mouth.”

  His innocent Colette’s lips. Those lips. How dare someone suggest that of his pure Colette? Had these so-called “artists” no respect for what was decent and honest? No, they were obsessed with carnality and the darker aspects of human desires and viewed all humanity through their warped lens. He was about to say as much when someone shouted in his ear, “Do you like the painting?”

  George swiveled and found himself staring at a painting of what appeared to be the blurred image of a woman with flowing hair. Or was that a flowing gown? In any case, something was flowing around her. Blobs of blue and green paint were splattered along her feet and around her head—if that indeed was her head and not another random blob.

  “Good heavens, what blind sot vomited that?” George wondered.

  The man’s jaw dropped. Tears actually misted his eyes. “I—I did.”

  Damn. George should have known as much. “I’m sorry, my good man, I didn’t mean… It’s most colorful,” he grappled. “I admire the subtle depth in the shades of blue and so much symbolism in those…well, whatever those splotches are at the bottom.”

  “Water lilies, Lord Marylewick,” a familiar dusky voice said. Behind the man, Lilith materialized in all her brilliance. “It’s A Muse Amongst the Water Lilies,” she stated as if it were readily apparent Dutch realism.

  Whenever Lilith appeared, George had the sensation of walking from a pitch-black room into the piercing sunshine. He needed time for his eyes to adjust. When they did, he didn’t approve of what he saw. Her lustrous auburn locks, adorned with flowers, were loose and flowing over her azure robe and gauzy shawl. From the way the thin silk of her robe rested on her ripe contours, he could only guess that she wore no semblance of undergarments. That tiny vein running over his temple began to throb, as did another part of his body.

  “There, there.” She hugged the distraught artist. “Don’t let the horrid Lord Marylewick distress you. He has the sensibilities of a dishcloth.”

  She impaled George with a glare. “You see, Lord Marylewick, it’s about capturing the ethereal and fleeting. Those moments when the beautiful morning light illuminates the garden in all its blues, greens, and golds. It is not a representation of reality, but a sensation captured in time. A sensual impression of a moment. And philosophically, we could argue that all we have are mere impressions of a greater reality.”

  George’s mind had left off after the “impression of a moment” part. With Lilith now standing beside the painting, he could see the resemblance in the flowing gown and hair and splotches.

  “Lilith!” he barked. “That had better not be your impression in those ethereal blobs.”

  By God, she was a grown toddler. He couldn’t turn his back on her for a moment or she would be playing near fire or gleefully shedding her clothes for some filthy-minded artist. He didn’t wait for her answer but seized her wrist and dragged her through the nearest door, which led to a paneled study with a leather sofa stacked with pillows. Cluttering the walls were paintings of pale-skinned, nude ladies gazing off to some sorrowful horizon. Luckily, these paintings appeared to be from King George III’s reign, when Lilith hadn’t been born yet to pose for them.

  He shut the door behind them. She sauntered to the mirror and began to curl her locks around her finger and then let them unfurl in spirals about her cheeks. There was a dangerous, ready-for-battle tilt to the edge of her mouth, lifting the little mole above her lip.

  “Lilith, did you pose for that…that…Tart Amid Blue Pigeon Cack painting? And in a rag even a Covent prostitute would think twice about wearing for fear of attracting the wrong clientele?”

  Anger flashed in her eyes for a half second, and then a delicious smile curled her lips. A warm shiver coursed over his skin.

  “And what if I did?” Her eyes, the color of coffee, gazed at him from under her thick lashes. He couldn’t deny their sultry allure. “What would you do? Tuck me away to another boarding school? But I’m all grown up.” She shook her head and made a clucking sound. “What to do with a grown woman who dares to have a mind of her own?” She snapped her fingers. “Ah, why not control her by taking away her money?”

  With gentlemen and ladies of his set, he might say that he “spoke on the level” or “gave the news straight.” There was nothing straightforward or level about Lilith. She was all curves and turns. Conversing with her was akin to Spanish flamenco dancing with words.

  “I never took your money away,” he said, feeling like a weary father cursed with an errant, irresponsible child. “And if I truly controlled you, I would never have consented to your living with your father’s cousins. Your grandfather warned me about the Dahlgrens. Nor would I have consented to use his hard-earned money for this ridiculous party. Or allowed you to pose for illicit impressions of fleeting moments.”

  “Good heavens, I never posed for anyone! The painting was in the man’s imagination—that mental faculty you are woefully missing, darling. I merely dressed as the muse in the painting as a lark for the exhibit opening.” She tossed back her wrists. “You know, a muse who inspires artists to great heights of fancy.”

  “Lilith, the only people you are inspiring are unsavory men to low depths of debauchery.”

  “Unsavory men?” She raised her arms and draped her gauzy shawl across his head and over his eyes. “I didn’t know you found me inspiring, Georgie.” The peaks of her unbound breasts lightly brushed against his chest. Ungentlemanly desire pooled in his sex.

  “Lord Marylewick,” he corrected in a choked voice and pulled her garment from his person. “And try to behave with some semblance of propriety.”

  “Propriety, propriety, propriety.” She tapped her finger on the side of her mouth, as if she were searching her memory for the meaning. “I remember now. It’s when you address a lady, such as myself, as Miss Dahlgren.”

&nbs
p; “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize I had addressed you inappropriately. But if one insists on acting like a child… You are, what? Three and twenty, and continuing to romanticize this ramshackle lifestyle that any lady of good sense would—”

  “It’s the Lord Marylewick patronizing play!” She clasped her hands. “I adore it! In fact, I know every line. Wait. Wait. No, don’t continue.” She withdrew the cane and hat from his hand, letting her fingers flow over his skin. “Allow me.” She placed the hat over her head, the flowers sticking out around the brim. She scrunched her eyebrows. “It’s high time you grew up, my little lamb, and threw yourself to the wolves of high society.” She croaked like a stodgy man of seventy-five, not George’s thirty-one years.

  He regretted coming here. He should have driven home to gentle, fictional Colette. And when they hauled Lilith into police court, he would say to the judge, “You see what I must suffer?”

  “You need a husband to temper your reckless ways, young lady,” she continued her performance. “One who meets my approval. Someone like me—controlling, overbearing, starchy, and unbending.” Her old man voice began to fall away as her pitch rose in a crescendo. “A husband who will dress you in lace, place you on a cold marble pedestal, silence your voice, bleed your wild heart dry, and destroy your gentle, yearning soul.” After delivering this melodrama, she pressed the back of her hand to her forehead and fainted onto the sofa.

  He crossed his arms and gazed at her supine and curvaceous body. “I don’t recall using the terms ‘destroy your gentle, yearning soul.’ It has always been my objective to ‘shatter’ or ‘squash’ your wayward soul. And I have never fainted in my life.”

  She opened one eye and regarded him. “Ah!” She jumped to her feet and pointed at his face. “I saw it. Don’t deny it. Your lip trembled. You wanted to smile.” She clenched her hands into tight balls. “Fight the urge with that iron will of yours. Fight it! First smiling, then a tiny chortle, and then before you know it, full-blown, vulgar, belly-deep laughter! And then where would you be? Almost human.”