Page 92 of What a Lord Wants

“Youdonated this?” Dom demanded. That explained how she received an invitation without him knowing. He’d had nothing to do with the auction, and Constance had somehow discovered that.Thiswas how she was seeking her revenge.

“Yes.” She sent him her most flirtatious smile. Beside him, Eve tensed. “And I can definitely say that I know without a doubt who painted it. Because I was there in his London studio posing for it, as you can see.” A heartbeat’s pause as the crowed tittered at that reference to her naked image. “As late as yesterday afternoon, in fact.”

Eve flinched, and Dom tightened his hold on her arm. He wouldnotlose her. Not now. Not to lies and fraud.

“You can see for yourselves that the paint isn’t yet completely dry from where Vincenzo put the final touches on my…” She waved a hand at the painting and censored herself. “My canvas.”

“Vincenzo was nowhere near yourcanvas,” Dom replied, his anger seething, but Eve’s pallor only deepened with each attempt he made to disavow the painting. “I don’t know who created that, but it wasn’t Vincenzo.”

“Oh?” Constance challenged with exaggerated innocence, stealing a fleeting yet pointed glance at Eve. “And how,exactly, do you know that, my lord?”

Her simple question stopped his heart, and around him, his world came to a grinding halt. In that moment, he took it all in—Eve’s betrayed expression, the knowing gleam in Constance’s eyes, the confusion and growing anger pulsing through the gallery—and he knew what Constance’s endgame had been all along for this painting, for tonight…for him. It was a calculated shot across the bow of his career, and an orchestrated destruction of his marriage.

His gaze darted to Eve, who stood still as a statue, completely stunned and barely able to hold in her scream. Pain seared his chest as he looked at her, helpless to ease the churning betrayal she felt. The painting might have been a warning shot for him, but it had caught Eve directly in the heart.

“Yes, my lord?” Constance pressed with a flirtatious fluttering of her lashes that indicated a familiarity they hadn’t had since he met Eve all those months ago. Then she turned toward Eve, and the underlying threat was clear— “Mylady?”

He was trapped. The only way to challenge her was to reveal his identity as Vincenzo and, with that, destroy his reputation and all he’d worked so hard to accomplish as Ellsworth, both in the Lords and for the title’s legacy. More, destroy his career as an artist.

But if he didn’t, if he gave in to her demands and remained silent, he’d lose the love of his life.

Eve or his art…The snare closed in upon him.

Dragging in a deep breath, he admitted quietly, “I know because I am Domenico Vincenzo.”

He’d never before dared to utter those words publicly as the Marquess of Ellsworth, but what mattered was his marriage, his love for Eve and their baby, for all the babies they’d yet to have. All the future days and nights he wanted to spend only with her.

The rest be damned.

“Iam Vincenzo,” he repeated, this time loudly enough for the entire gallery to hear. He pointed at the canvas. “And I certainly didnotpaint that.”

Eve stared at Dom, stunned. She didn’t dare believe that she’d heard correctly. He was exposing his secret. No, he wasdestroyingit, along with his art…what he held most dear in his heart—

Notwhat he held most dear. Her hand went to her belly. Not anymore.

Her soul warmed to realize it.

Gasps went up, along with laughs and disbelieving guffaws. The superintendent and his assistant stared at him incredulously, so did the other artists who had paused in their last-minute touches to gawk and gape. Everyone glanced dubiously from Dom to the painting and back. Then again. And again, until they didn’t know what to believe—their own eyes as they stared at a painting that was clearly in Vincenzo’s style, or Ellsworth’s untarnished reputation.

Only Constance kept her gaze fixed on Dom, just as stunned as everyone else that he’d revealed himself. Her eyes narrowed into furious slits.

“This is absurd!” Constance grabbed the superintendent’s arm. “This painting is a Vincenzo. I posed for it, for heaven’s sake! Are you telling me that I do not know the man for whom I removed my clothes?”

That sent up a new round of embarrassed whispers and tittering from the scandalized ladies, more loud opinions from the confused men.

The superintendent’s face flushed scarlet at the pandemonium unfolding around him. “Enough!” He waved his arms in the air to silence the crowd. “Ellsworth! What is the meaning of this?”

Dom reluctantly released Eve’s hand, and she felt the loss of his touch as if a ribbon that had been connecting them had been cut. She caught her breath and resisted the urge to grab for him. Dread and panic still pulsed inside her over the game Constance was playing, and how far Dom would go to prove himself to her.

“When I lived in Italy before I inherited, I studied art with Giuseppe Carracci,” he explained. “And I became a painter.”

“A great one,” Eve whispered. Although he didn’t turn toward her, he reached to affectionately squeeze her arm.

“But you all knew my brother.” He directly addressed the crowd pushing in around them. “How well would Timothy have taken the news that I wanted to paint, and paint nudes at that? So I took the identity of Domenico Vincenzo, the Italianized version of my Christian names. There I was an artist. Here I was Lord Dominick James Mercer. The two men never crossed paths.”

Until tonight. Tonight, his entire life had been changed. Again.

“I intended to live out my life in Italy as an artist. But then my brother died, and I had to return to England. I refused to give up painting, so I set up a secret studio in Chelsea.” His shoulders remained firm beneath the revelation of his identity and the murmurs and whispers of doubt increasing around them. “Miss Devereaux was one of my former models whose employment was terminated last spring. That painting”—He gestured at the canvas—“isnotone of mine. It’s nothing but a very good forgery.”