“What name are you using now?” His eyes never left Lena’s face.
“I don’t need to hide anymore.” Lena smiled. “I am Helena Winters, daughter of the late Baron Winters of Derbyshire.”
He slipped down onto one knee. “Helena Winters, would you be willing to change your name once more—to Lady Clive Somerville—and be my wife? I will be happy watching you paint for the rest of my days.”
“I will marry you, but on one condition.” Lena clasped his hand and drew him to his feet. “We must always be equal: if I paint, you must continue your researches and your investigations, and when they catch my attention, you must allow me to work beside you.”
He grabbed her up in his arms and swung her around in a circle, kissing her, a long, passionate kiss that felt like it touched their very souls.
When Clive set Lena’s feet back on the floor, Aidan, Sophia, and Horatio had slipped from the room, leaving them to kiss, and kiss again, until they both felt equally satisfied.
Epilogue
Four years later
“It is stunning.” Clive gestured toward the frescos above their heads. “It’s a quite different experience to see it piecemeal as you worked than now when it’s finished.”
“I’m still grateful that Sophia and Aidan were willing to let me work on it in stages, rather than hire another painter, even though it took far longer that way.” Lena studied the ceiling, making sure, for the four hundredth time, that all was as she had wished it to be.
“They had no choice really.” Clive studied the six putti surrounding the center medallion.
“Did you threaten them, darling?” Lena stretched out her hand and found Clive’s.
“I don’t threaten. I merely point out the options.”
“What were the options here?” Lena squeezed his hand.
“Hire an inferior painter, and forever regret it. Or extend the timeline, allowing the finest painter this side of St. Petersburg to come to London for a month at a time to work.”
“You remembered that?” Lena’s eyes grew wet with joy and gratitude.
“I remember everything. Every moment.” Clive pointed to the medallion. “I quite like the putti here in the center. Is that our Elisabet Louise on the right and our Charles Laurent on the left?”
“Actually, if you look closely you’ll see that all the putti are Elizabet and Charles. For some reason, when I imagined the faces of the putti, I could only imagine our darling children in various moods.”
“I can see giddy, silly, and joyous.” Clive brought her hand to his lips and kissed each of her fingertips.
“I thought it better to preserve those than their other moods, both for the sake of Sophia’s ceiling and ours when Elizabet and Charles are old enough to discover the cherubs wear their faces.” Lena leaned her head on Clive’s shoulder. “Do you really like it?”
“I thought that your Waterloo panorama was spectacular, but this—it is a tour de force. After Sophia’s grand ball tonight, you will be offered more commissions than you can paint in a lifetime, and soon you will find yourself a painter to the royal family.”
The doors at the end of the great hall swung open, and Sophia walked toward them.
“Should we get up?” Lena rolled on her side and studied her husband’s face, still as handsome as the day she’d first met him.
“Why? You painted much of it lying on your back. We are just following in that tradition. Besides, after this, we’ll have fewer opportunities to lie on the floor in my brother’s dining hall. But lying here with you is so delightful—perhaps you should paint a fresco in our bedroom!”
Lena swatted his shoulder, laughing. When she looked up, Sophia stood over them, smiling.
“I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve lain on this floor staring at our ceiling,” Sophia confided. “It’s simply too much to take in while standing.”
“Then join us, Sophie.” Clive held out an inviting hand. “It’s hours yet before your guests arrive, and it’s not as if you’ve already dressed for the ball.”
Sophia shook her head. “It’s good to know that Clive will never lose his candor.” She looked to the door, then at the ceiling. Without another word, she lay down beside Lena. “It’s more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. You couldn’t be in London for the great success of your first panorama, but you will be here for this unveiling. And it will be the start of your new career—no one in the ton will be able to ignore such a performance.”
The doors swung open again, and in a few moments, the duke joined them. He didn’t ask why they were lying on the floor; he merely took his place by Sophia’s side.
They lay in silence, taking in the richness of the colors and the vibrancy of the designs.
The duke spoke first. “I’ve never noticed before—perhaps because of the scaffolding—but the design of the ceiling seems to have shifted.”
“How so?” Clive asked, noting that Lena had grown strangely quiet.
“I thought this was to be a ceiling in praise of extraordinary women. And it is. The portraits of the ladies of the Muses’ Salon are exceptional, and the historical figures are depicted with grace and wit. But some of the stories—there along the edges—seem to include men.”
“Are you referring to the section over the far doors? It’s a family portrait—but in Ophelia’s sense of family—depicting your siblings, their spouses, children, friends, and pets.”
“No, I mean the long scenes over the windows.” The duke’s voice grew suspicious. “In particular, I mean that section where someone who looks like me appears to be . . .”
Lady Wilmot cut him off. “It is such a large space, that as the ceiling developed, Lena and I decided to ask the Muses to tell their stories in the panels along the upper wall. Lena and I chose to depict each of you in a heroic act that reveals your character, albeit that depiction is somewhat metaphorical.”
“How have I never noticed that before?” Clive looked pleased.
“Which is yours?” Aidan followed the line of Clive’s finger. Aidan studied the image carefully: a man lifting a woman into the sky. “Are you a circus performer?”
Clive smiled broadly. “I quite like it. If I read the metaphor correctly, I provide a ground from which Lena can soar, as she does for me.”
“That’s exactly right.” Lena smiled radiantly, then she kissed him as if she hadn’t been kissing him every day for the last four years.
Aidan studied the other panels. “Why are some of the panels still unpainted?”
“Why darling, that’s easy.” Sophia tucked her head into the curve of his arm. “This room is, in part, a record of the Muses’ Salon, and our work is not yet done.”
photo credit: Richard E. Porter
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rachael Miles has always loved a good romance, especially one with a bit of suspense and preferably a ghost. She is also a professor of book history and nineteenth-century literature whose students frequently find themselves reading the novels of Ann Radcliffe and other gothic tales. A native Texan, Rachael lives with her indulgent husband, three rescued dogs, and an ancient cat. Visit her at www.rachaelmiles.com.
JILTING THE DUKE
Broken Promise, Broken Heart
Aidan Somerville, Duke of Forster, is a rake, a spy, and a soldier, richer than sin and twice as handsome. Now he is also guardian to his deceased best friend’s young son. The choice makes perfect sense—except that the child’s mother is the lovely Sophia Gardiner, to whom Aidan was engaged before he went off to war. When the news reached him that she had married another, his ship had not yet even left the dock.
Sophia does not expect Aidan to understand or forgive her. But she cannot allow him to stay her enemy. She’s prepared for coldness, even vengeance—but not for the return of the heedless lust she and Aidan tumbled into ten years ago. She knows the risks of succumbing to this dangerous desire. Still, with Aidan so near, it’s impossible not to dream about a second chance . . .
CHASING THE HEIRESS
Heiress on the Run
Lady Arabella Lucia Fairborne has no need of a husband. She has a fine inheritance for the taking, a perfectly capable mind, and a resolve as tough as nails. But what she doesn’t have is the freedom to defy her cousin’s will—and his will is to see her married immediately to the husband of his choosing. So is it any wonder that she dresses herself as a scullery maid and bolts into the night?
Colin Somerville’s current mission for the home office is going poorly. Who would have expected otherwise for a rakish spy tasked with transporting a baby to the care of the royal palace. But when, injured and out of ideas, Colin stumbles upon a beautiful maid who knows her way around a sickroom, it seems salvation has arrived. Until he realizes that though Lucy may be able to help him survive his expedition, he may not escape this ordeal with his heart intact . . .
TEMPTING THE EARL
A Double Life
Olivia Walgrave is finished with being a countess. Writing under a pen name, her controversial column for the scandal sheets provides her with some income and far more excitement than managing a country estate. Besides, in the three years since the wars have ended, her dashing husband hasn’t spent one night under their roof. So Olivia has prepared a plan, and an annulment. All she needs is his consent . . .
Harrison Walgrave, the Earl of Levesford, let his father coerce him into marriage, but his true devotion is to his Parliamentary career—and his secret work for the Home Office. Yet now, with freedom in his grasp, he finds he cannot so easily release his wife. Seeing her stirs a hunger no other woman has reached. A distraction now, when he is a breath away from revealing a ring of traitors, could be deadly. Still, wherever his investigations lead, the thought of Olivia lingers. It might be obsession. It might be treason. But the only way to escape the temptation is to succumb . . .
Reckless in Red Page 33
