Portrait of a Forbidden Love--A Sexy Regency Romance

by Bronwyn Scott

  ‘We’ve got the classrooms framed downstairs. You could easily teach classes there next autumn and I might even have time then to take one.’ He winked mischievously, wrapping his arms about her. ‘Although I’d miss my private lessons.’ They’d made a habit out of keeping Sunday for themselves, packing a picnic and drawing on the beach together. Darius’s already commendable skill had improved greatly and she had hopes he would choose to place his work in their modest end-of-year exhibition.

  ‘What about the dormitory rooms on the second floor?’ Artemisia asked, turning in his arms to face him. She popped the rest of the biscuit into his mouth, making him talk around the crumbs.

  ‘They’re coming along. Are you getting tired of sharing your house with eight girls?’ Darius laughed. It was admittedly an unorthodox start to married life.

  ‘No, it’s just that we might need one of those rooms back in a few months,’ Artemisia offered coyly after he swallowed. She had news to share with him that might cause a choking hazard.

  ‘Why? Is your father moving in?’ Consternation flared across Darius’s usually confident features, proving even an earl’s heir could be intimidated by the prospect of one’s father-in-law sharing his roof.

  ‘No.’ Artemisia gave a slow smile. ‘But someone else might be, a little someone else about this big.’ She made a cradling gesture with her arms and watched Darius’s jaw drop.

  ‘A baby? We’re having a baby?’

  The euphoria in his face nearly brought her to tears, so touching was the sight of his abject happiness. Had she ever made anyone so happy? The idea that she could was still new to her. Then the euphoria was gone, replaced by worry.

  ‘Is it what you want, Artemisia? I thought we’d decided to wait.’

  They had decided to wait, feeling that the school was a big enough venture without adding parenthood to the mix, but nature seemed to have other ideas on that account.

  She offered him a broad smile. ‘It’s fine, Darius. More than fine.’ She paused, fiddling with his neckcloth. ‘I suppose now your parents will have a reason to visit.’

  That was another rough area. His father’s reaction to their marriage remained uncomfortable territory. On the surface, he gave nothing away as to his discontent, as was the Rutherford way. But beneath that surface, his displeasure was evident. While two dukes had sent emissaries to the school’s opening, England’s largest collector of art had not made an appearance, although his wife had.

  There was hope in that, Artemisia thought. Lady Bourne had made herself a regular correspondent with her son and her new daughter-in-law. Artemisia knew little of mothers, having lost hers so early, but she knew a mother valued a son’s happiness above all else. Lady Bourne was undoubtedly torn between her son and her husband, but she was finding her own power. She’d even made a small speech at the school’s opening about the importance of encouraging women’s talents in the same way men were professionally encouraged.

  ‘When shall we tell the others?’ Darius asked, kissing her throat and making it clear the hallway wouldn’t be private enough soon.

  ‘Tomorrow, at Addy’s Christmas party.’ Artemisia smiled. ‘She declares it’s become a tradition since it was so successful last year.’ Last year’s party had been marked with the surprising return of Elianora’s fiancé, Owen Gann’s younger brother.

  ‘Well, big news will certainly become the tradition. First Elianora’s announcement and this year, ours,’ Darius murmured against her ear. ‘I wonder what the big news will be next year?’

  ‘That your father is coming for the holidays?’ She laughed, but she was serious, too. She would like nothing better than to seal her husband’s happiness and see that rift overcome.

  Darius raised a dubious brow. ‘One can always hope.’

  ‘Right now, I hope you’ll come upstairs with me,’ Artemisia whispered, ‘We have time before dinner to celebrate on our own.’ She took his hand and led him upwards. There were many things she hoped would come to pass. She hoped Bourne would come, that Bourne would accept his son’s marriage. She hoped the Academy would one day rescind their decision on her rank. But she would be happy without those things because she’d found something more, something better.

  She shut the bedroom door behind them, her eyes fixed on her husband stripping out of his clothes. There was no more glorious creature than a man well-loved by a woman unless it was a woman well-loved by her man.

  * * *

  If you enjoyed this book, why not check out

  Bronwyn Scott’s The Cornish Dukes miniseries

  The Secrets of Lord Lynford

  The Passions of Lord Trevethow

  The Temptations of Lord Tintagel

  The Confessions of the Duke of Newlyn

  And look out for the next book in

  The Rebellious Sisterhood miniseries,

  coming soon!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Unexpectedly Wed to the Officer by Jenni Fletcher.

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  Unexpectedly Wed to the Officer

  by Jenni Fletcher

  Chapter One

  Belles Biscuit Shop, Bath—November 1806

  The door hit Sebastian Fortini squarely on the nose.

  It was, he considered, a case of monumentally bad timing. If he hadn’t been looking sideways, wondering why the dresser that had spent two decades in one particular corner of the kitchen had suddenly moved to the wall opposite, then he wouldn’t have turned so sharply at the creak of a floorboard in the hallway, which meant that the door, when it opened, would have had only its own and not his additional impetus to wield against him. But unfortunately he had, and he was, so it did.

  If only the chain of catastrophes had ended there...

  Alas, his nose proved to be just the first victim as the full and somewhat considerable weight of a heavy oak door being violently rammed rather than gently pushed open knocked the rest of him off his feet and into an inelegant heap on the floor.

  Between the impact of the wood on his face and the stone flagstones on his posterior, it was actually difficult to tell which was the most painful, a fact that did nothing to curb the flow of expletives that immediately burst from his lips, which appeared to be coated in some warm, sticky substance.

  He reached a hand to his nose, felt blood and sucked in a breath, readying himself for a fresh burst of eloquence, when a female figure suddenly sprang out of the darkness of the hallway, armed with what appeared to be the contents of a coal bucket.

  ‘Get out!’

  Sebastian raised himself up on his elbows, squinting at his attacker through the murky flickers of light cast by the still-glowing hearth. Unexpected as it was to find himself being threatened in the dead of night by a shovel and pair of fire tongs, he was frankly more perplexed than alarmed. His sister’s voice, he was further surprised to notice, had developed something of a west country burr in the two years since he’d last been home on shore leave. More bizarrely, she’d grown in height, too. In fact, her whole appearance had undergone some kind of radical transformation...

  ‘What the blazes?’ He drew his brows together, belatedly acknowledging that she was not, in fact, his sister after all. Not unless the blow to his head had affected his sight, which seemed unlikely since there was nothing blurry about the vision of golden loveliness before him. She was about as different in appearance to Anna as it was possible to be—willowy, golden and, at that moment, clad in a white nightgown short enough to reveal a pair of slender, shapely calves and positively minuscule ankles. In other circumstances he might have been quite delighted to find himself lying beside them. Unfortunately, she’d just knocked the sense out of him an
d the words racing through his mind were a great deal less than charitable. Ankles be damned, his nose felt as though it was about to explode.

  ‘Oh!’ She started forward at the sight of blood and then checked herself, jerking her chin upwards and scowling defiantly instead.

  ‘You might give a man some warning when you’re about to open the door.’ He scowled back, clenching his jaw against the impulse to swear some more. He’d barely scratched the surface of his extensive sailor’s vocabulary. ‘I think you just broke my nose.’

  ‘Good!’ Her grip on the shovel only tightened. ‘That’ll teach you to break into people’s property in the middle of the night! Now get out or I’ll scream for the night-watchman.’

  ‘Wait!’ He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, waving it in the air like a flag of surrender before using it to wipe the blood off his face. After two days of travelling in a series of cramped stagecoaches from Plymouth, the last of which had arrived three hours late thanks to a loose wheel, being hit in the face by a door wasn’t the welcome home he’d been hoping for, but, injured party or not, the last thing he wanted was to be hauled off to gaol in the middle of the night. ‘I didn’t break in. I have a key and I was trying not to make any noise, if you must know, only things seem to have moved around since I was last here.’

  He threw another speculative look around the kitchen. The pale yellow walls, oval-shaped oak table and threadbare armchair by the hearth were familiar, but actually quite a lot had changed since he was last there. To begin with, there was the broom he’d knocked over when he’d opened the back door, then there was the sack of flour he’d stubbed his toe against, then a set of shelves he definitely hadn’t seen before, not to mention the dresser... Presumably his sister had decided to move a few things around, but where was she anyhow?

  ‘Where’s Anna?’ He cocked his head to one side enquiringly.

  ‘You know Anna?’ The woman blinked, apparently surprised enough to lower the shovel a few inches.

  ‘All my life.’ He glanced from her face to her makeshift weapons and then back again. It didn’t seem as though she had any real intention of using them, but considering the various sharp edges and their potential uses, it was probably best to be sure. ‘By the way, would you mind putting those tongs down? I’m afraid to ask what you intended to do with them, but they’re making me want to cross my legs.’

  ‘Oh.’

  His lips twitched as a furious blush spread across her cheeks. Now that the pain in his nose was receding, it occurred to him that if he really had to be hit in the face by a woman, then she might well be the one he would have chosen to do it. Even scowling and wielding a pair of tongs, she was quite stunningly pretty. Beautiful in fact, with delicate, elfin features set in a peaches and cream complexion, albeit one that was currently claret-coloured.

  ‘No!’ She was adamant despite her embarrassment. ‘Not until you tell me how you know Anna.’

  ‘Well...’ He braced his hands on the floor, pushing himself to his feet so abruptly that she leapt part way into the air, the tongs wobbling precariously in her grasp. ‘I believe that we first met in the cradle. She used to sing me lullabies, as I recall. Allow me to introduce myself. Sebastian Fortini, at your service.’

  ‘Anna’s little brother?’

  ‘The one and only.’ He winked and made an elaborate bow, enjoying her gasp of surprise as he flourished the now bloodstained handkerchief out in front of him. ‘As for you, I can only assume that you’re a figment of my imagination caused by the blow to my head.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’ A horrified expression crossed her face. ‘Sorry about that. I really thought you were a burglar.’

  ‘Quite understandable.’ He lifted his shoulders, conceding that it was, in fact, entirely understandable since he hadn’t sent any advance notice of his arrival. There hadn’t seemed much point when he could travel in person just as fast as a letter, but then he hadn’t reckoned on his coach’s late arrival. That had struck him as somewhat unfortunate, coinciding as it did with the middle of the night, but he’d assumed that he could simply let himself in, sleep in the armchair by the hearth and wait to surprise his sister in the morning. What he hadn’t expected was to trip over half the kitchen furniture and wake anyone else up.

  ‘My name’s Henrietta Gardiner.’ The woman placed the tongs and shovel down by the hearth and clasped her hands together primly in front of her.

  ‘Delighted to meet you, even under the circumstances.’ He suppressed a smile at the primness. There was something charmingly incongruous about it when she was standing in front of him wearing nothing more than a white nightgown, particularly one that, whilst not exactly sheer, did only a partial job of concealing the luscious curves beneath. He allowed himself a few seconds of appreciation before pulling his gaze reluctantly back to her face. ‘So, Miss Gardiner, has my sister employed you to guard the shop against night-time marauders?’

  ‘Not exactly. I’m the new manager.’

  ‘Manager?’ He forgot instantly about the nightgown, seized with a rush of panic. ‘Why is Anna employing a manager?’

  ‘Because she’s—’ She stopped mid-sentence, regarding him askance. ‘Wait, didn’t you get any of her letters?’

  ‘No. My ship’s been stuck out in the Pacific for the past year. I haven’t heard anything from home in the whole time. What’s happened?’ He took a step forward impatiently. ‘Is she all right? Has something happened to our mother?’

  ‘Oh, no, everything’s all right. They’re both perfectly well, only—’ She stopped for a second time, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth in a way that made him acutely conscious of her nightgown again. ‘I think I’d better put the kettle on. Are you hungry? There are some leftover biscuits somewhere.’

  ‘You mean Belles?’ He pulled a chair out and settled himself down at the table, feeling relieved by her assurances. The thought of one of his family’s famous biscuits was comforting, too, telling him he was finally home at last. ‘I can’t remember the last time I had one of those. I hope Anna hasn’t been messing around with the recipe.’

  There was a conspicuous pause before Miss Gardiner answered, a glint of amusement in her eye as she deposited a plate of biscuits on the table in front of him. ‘You might be surprised by what Anna has done. Welcome home, Mr Fortini, we have a lot to talk about.’

  * * *

  ‘Let me get this straight. My sister—my sister Anna—who despises the aristocracy and everything they stand for, married an earl and now she’s a countess?’

  Sebastian wasn’t sure how many times he’d repeated the question—or repeated the same combination of words in a variety of different ways. He’d started off with the vague idea that if he kept on repeating them, then they might start to make sense, but the tactic seemed to be having the opposite effect. Everything that he’d heard over the past half an hour was so bewildering and unbelievable that he was seriously wondering whether he ought to consult a doctor about the blow to his head, after all.

  ‘I know it’s a lot to take in and it sounds far-fetched, but I assure you it’s all true, Mr Fortini.’

  Miss Gardiner was regarding him across the table with an expression of tolerant sympathy, her delectable figure now modestly hidden beneath a green woollen dressing gown, more was the pity. She struck him as somewhat unbelievable, too, and not just because he’d been living among men for so long. If he’d tried, he could hardly have dreamt up a more exquisite-looking specimen of femininity, although, considering the circumstances, she surely had to be real. If she were a figment of his imagination, then they’d be doing a lot more than drinking tea and eating biscuits at midnight. They’d be on the same side of the table for a start, if not on top of it, and she wouldn’t be wearing that dressing gown either. Not to mention that he’d be far more intimately acquainted with those ankles...

  ‘But a countess?’ He dragged his mi
nd back to the subject in hand.

  ‘Of Staunton, yes.’ In addition to her more obvious attractions, Miss Gardiner appeared to have limitless amounts of patience. ‘They held the wedding here in Bath six months ago. I was a witness.’

  ‘You were?’ He leaned forward. ‘Tell me, how did Anna seem?’

  ‘Very happy.’

  ‘Are you certain? Forgive me, but I know how Anna feels about the aristocracy. She detests the whole lot of them. Are you sure she wasn’t coerced into anything?’

  ‘Coerced?’ Miss Gardiner looked baffled. ‘I believe that she had mixed feelings at first, but I’ve never heard of a shopkeeper being coerced to marry an earl.’

  ‘No, but perhaps there was some compelling reason...?’

  She stared at him blankly for a few seconds before emitting a high-pitched squeak of indignation. ‘Absolutely not!’

  ‘What about financial reasons, then?’ Sebastian wasn’t prepared to let the subject drop so easily. ‘Perhaps she felt she needed the security?’

  ‘Anna would never have married for money!’ Miss Gardiner pushed her chair back, apparently on the verge of storming away. ‘Or for any reason except affection and respect! It’s insulting that you would even suggest such a thing!’

  ‘I would never insult my sister.’ Sebastian held his hands up in a placatory gesture. ‘I just need to be sure that she got married of her own free will and that she was happy about it. I’d hate to think of her being forced into anything because I wasn’t here to help her in a difficult situation.’

  ‘Mmm.’ She sat down again, her expression softening slightly as she tucked her chair back under the table. ‘Well, in that case, you can put your mind at ease. Anna’s marriage was a love match. She married the Earl despite his rank, not because of it.’