“Too much white!” Oliver pronounced. “And no dogs!”
“Please, Papa!” one twin begged. “Leonardo and Raphael must be painted too.”
Castleton looked up and looked stuffy. “The dogs stay.”
“I hate painting dogs.”
Stuffiness turned to pure wickedness. “Would you rather paint two bichons or a pack of foxhounds with attendant horses?”
Caro giggled, the girls cheered. Oliver sighed.
“Very well, Thomas.” He picked up his brush and consoled himself with the thought that The Duke and Duchess of Castleton and Their Children would be the sensation of next year’s exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts.
Author’s Note
After the fun of endowing the members of the Burgundy Club with fabulous volumes to make any bibliophile drool, I turn to art collecting in this new series. I invented the Farnese Venus, drawing my principal inspiration from Titian’s Venus of Urbino in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. I imagine Oliver Bream’s “modern” Venus to resemble Goya’s Naked Maja, which hangs in the Prado in Madrid. I look forward to raiding the great art collections of the world as the series continues.
The game of charades played by Caro and her friends, in which the teams put on little plays to act each syllable of a word, is the version I learned growing up in England. Evidently it goes back some time. It shows up in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, published in 1847 but depicting Regency-era events, and was performed with Bollywood-style excess in the Reese Witherspoon movie.
As always, I would never have written this book without the help and support of many. Special thanks to Jill Tuennerman, Kathleen Greer, Caroline Linden, Sabrina Darby, Megan Mulry, Isobel Carr, Candice Hern, David Ross (who found out what champagne corks were like in 1800), the #1K1H group on Twitter, the ladies of the Beau Monde, my fellow members of The Ballroom Blog, and my agent Meredith Bernstein. Thanks also to the entire team at Avon Books, especially my wonderful and talented editor Esi Sogah, who always makes my books better.
About the Author
MIRANDA NEVILLE grew up in England before moving to New York City to work in Sotheby¹s rare books department. After many years as a journalist and editor, she decided writing fiction was more fun. She lives in Vermont. She loves hearing from readers and may be reached through her website, www.mirandaneville.com.
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By Miranda Neville
The Importance of Being Wicked
Confessions from an Arranged Marriage
The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton
The Dangerous Viscount
The Wild Marquis
Never Resist Temptation
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING WICKED. Copyright © 2012 by Miranda Neville. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition DECEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062199041
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062199034
FIRST EDITION
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