Saving Grace: Fair Cyprians of London

by Beverley Oakley

  The silence that had followed his mother’s departure after David had again declared his intention to marry Grace had been a welcome contrast to the earlier shouting and shrieking, but it had been ominous, too. Grace already knew to her cost how unyielding—and unforgiving—Mrs Willowbank could be.

  But David had held her close and reassured her—of his feelings and his unwavering devotion and honourable intentions. “There was something about you that felt so right from the moment I touched your hair,” he’d whispered, nuzzling her neck. “I’d dreamed about you so often, I just thought it was me imagining you in a different guise.”

  Not for one moment had Grace imagined they were to enjoy a happy-ever-after. Men like David did not marry girls like her.

  But David had refused to let her leave him, declaring she’d slink back into the underworld where he’d be unable to find her—which was just what Grace had intended.

  Instead, David had helped to lace Grace back into her corset and put on her clothes so that by the time Mrs Willowbank had returned with a barrage of uncles and others she’d brought along to shore up her arguments, she could face her detractors with dignity.

  She’d not even blushed when she’d recognised the family lawyer as a client who regularly enjoyed the offerings of Madame Chambon’s salon though he’d turned crimson when she’d sent him a knowing smile. With her perfectly modulated vowels, her gracious bearing and her cool self possession, Grace could have passed for any of the fine ladies Mrs Willowbank might have introduced to her son, so David told her.

  He’d told everyone else that Grace was infinitely more preferable to him than any of the fine ladies Mrs Willowbank had ever introduced to him. Not that he needed his mother’s help to choose himself a wife—or her approval—he’d added. He’d done that for himself and as he was twenty-one with an independent fortune, he could do what he liked.

  He’d made the most of his authority.

  As the fine linen curtains of their honeymoon villa billowed about them, Grace exhaled gently, twining her hand up behind her to cup David’s beautiful cheek. “In the distance I can see the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte. There are rolling hills—”

  David stopped her words with a gentle finger upon her lips. “A mountain behind, and the red roofs of the village in front. You don’t need to tell me, Grace, for I carried this scene in my heart and my head every day I was in Cambridge and dreaming of when you and I would come to Florence to take up Señor Borteli’s offer.”

  “And now we are here.” She twisted in his embrace to rest her head upon his chest. A strong, muscled and comfort-inducing chest that belonged to a young man who knew his mind. He’d made that clear before Mrs Willowbank had departed with the uncles and lawyers and goodness knew who else.

  And he’d made Grace his wife.

  “Come in,” Grace now called out in reply to the soft rap upon the door.

  “Señor Borteli is here to see you and he’s brought a friend…a sculptor.” The little maid curtsied. “Shall I send them up?”

  Grace drew in her breath and squeezed David’s arm. “A sculptor? Is there something you’ve neglected to tell me, David?” She felt ridiculously gratified to see the light dancing in David’s sightless eyes as he enveloped her in a hug. It was so easy to read him. He’d been keeping this secret until he knew he’d not disappoint her.

  David nodded slightly as he turned towards the maid who was awaiting orders. “I think your mistress needs just a moment to prepare herself, Maisy,” he said. “You’ve always known just what she needs for every occasion so why don’t you fetch the jewels you think she should wear when she sits for the portrait that will make her the toast of Florence.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Grace smiled. Maisy had been invaluable in assisting them in their flight from England. While Madame Chambon’s exorbitant fee had been settled by Mrs Willowbank in advance, Grace knew her employer would not release her without a battle, so Maisy had bundled up Grace’s most valuable belongings and met the eloping couple secretly at the docks. Naturally Grace had been in need of a lady’s maid and the girl had been overjoyed to step into the role.

  “So, not only is my portrait to be painted by Italy’s most famous portraitist?”—Grace cupped David’s face and touched her lips gently to his—“I am to be modelled in clay by the city’s most eminent sculptor?”

  David gripped her wrists lightly, his lips parting in a smile, his eyes alive with warmth and love. “That’s what I hope to become by the time I’ve been properly instructed. And you, my darling, will forever more be—as you were in the old days—my muse.”

  The End

  Forsaking Hope (Book 2)

  FORSAKING HOPE

  Felix has been in love with Hope for as long as he can remember.

  But as the eldest son of Lord Durham of Foxley Manor, he's expected to make a match befitting his station rather than follow his heart.

  When Felix learns that Hope, the Vicar’s wild and wilful daughter with whom he’s just shared the most passionate kiss of his life, is to be sent to Germany to become a governess, Felix’s heart will no longer be denied.

  But the romantic rendezvous during which he plans to declare his undying love comes to naught when Hope fails to appear.

  Two years later, Felix’s friends arrange a ‘special birthday gift’ for him: a night with notorious brothel owner Madam Chambon’s most sought-after girls.

  When Hope appears in his bed, Felix’s heart is torn in two. The passionate, ambitious girl of his dreams seems to have been replaced by a world-weary prostitute who treats him like a transaction.

  But while love appears to have forsaken Hope, there are chinks in her armour.

  Can Felix unravel the mystery surrounding Hope’s terrible transformation in time to prevent an even greater tragedy?

  For readers who enjoy highly charged, passionate stories of love and redemption with a heartfelt ending.

  Also by Beverley Oakley

  Do you enjoy intrigue-filled romances with unexpected plot twists?

  The Daughters of Sin series follows the intertwining lives and sibling rivalry of Lord Partington’s two nobly born - and two illegitimate - daughters as they compete for love during several London Seasons.

  With Hetty and Araminta both falling for men on opposing sides of a dastardly plot that is being investigated by Stephen Cranbourne, now a secret agent in the Foreign Office, there’s lashings of skullduggery and intrigue bound up in the central romance.

  And, just in case you’re ever worried that someone doesn’t get their happy ending, or just desserts – rest assured that they will do, either in their book, or by the end of the series.

  What Readers are Saying About the Series which is now available as a complete Box Set.

  “…lies, misdeeds, treachery, and romance. What an impressive story! Ms. Oakley has a unique way of telling her stories, bringing unknown heroes/ heroines into the spotlight, as they navigate a world of espionage, and intrigue, all while trying to survive and find their HEA. Magnificent and mesmerizing!” ~ Amazon reader

  “Full of secrets, murders, intrigues and you feel you know the characters and want to strangle some of them, especially Araminta!!! I have since read all in the series and can’t wait for Book 5... This is a series I will read again and again.” ~ Amazon reader

  Below is the order of the books:

  Book 1: Her Gilded Prison

  Book 2: Dangerous Gentlemen

  Book 3: The Mysterious Governess Book 4: Beyond Rubies

  Book 5: Lady Unveiled: The Cuckold’s Conspiracy

  She was determined to secure the succession, he was in it for the pleasure. Falling in love was not part of the arrangement. *** When dashing twenty-five-year-old Stephen Cranbourne arrives at the estate he will one day inherit, it’s expected he will make a match with his beautiful second cousin, Araminta. But while proud, fiery Araminta and her shy, plain sister, Hetty, parade their very different charms before him, it’s their m
other, Sybil, a lonely and discarded wife, who evokes first his sympathy and then stokes his lustful fires.

  Buy Her Gilded Prison.

  Shy, plain Hetty was the wallflower beneath his notice…until a terrible mistake has one dangerous, delicious rake believing she's the "fair Cyprian" ordered for his pleasure. *** Shy, self-effacing Henrietta knows her place—in her dazzling older sister’s shadow. She’s a little brown peahen to Araminta’s bird of paradise. But when Hetty mistakenly becomes embroiled in the Regency underworld, the innocent debutante finds herself shockingly compromised by the dashing, dangerous Sir Aubrey, the very gentleman her heart desires. And the man Araminta has in her cold, calculating sights. Branded an enemy of the Crown, bitter over the loss of his wife, Sir Aubrey wants only to lose himself in the warm, willing body of the young “prostitute” Hetty. As he tutors her in the art of lovemaking, Aubrey is pleased to find Hetty not only an ardent student, but a bright, witty and charming companion. Despite a spoiled Araminta plotting for a marriage offer and a powerful political enemy damaging his reputation, Aubrey may suffer the greatest betrayal at the hands of the little “concubine” who’s managed to breach the stony exterior of his heart.

  Buy Dangerous Gentlemen

  Two beautiful sisters – one illegitimate, the other nobly born – compete for love amidst the scandal and intrigue of a Regency London Season. Lissa Hazlett lives life in the shadows. The beautiful, illegitimate daughter of Viscount Partington earns her living as an overworked governess while her vain and spoiled half sister, Araminta, enjoys London’s social whirl as its most feted debutante. When Lissa’s rare talent as a portraitist brings her unexpectedly into the bosom of society – and into the midst of a scandal involving Araminta and suspected English traitor Lord Debenham – she finds an unlikely ally: charming and besotted Ralph Tunley, Lord Debenham’s underpaid, enterprising secretary. Ralph can’t afford to leave the employ of the villainous viscount much less keep a wife but he can help Lissa cleverly navigate a perilous web of lies that will ensure everyone gets what they deserve. THE MYSTERIOUS GOVERNESS is Book 3 in the Daughters of Sin series but can be read as a stand-alone as it features the sibling rivalry between Viscount Partington's two nobly-born and three illegitimate daughters from a completely different perspective. Heat rating: sensual. The Daughters of Sin series has been described as a Regency-set 'Dynasty'.

  Fame. Fortune. And finally a marriage proposal! Book 4 of the Daughters of Sin series introduces Miss Kitty La Bijou, celebrated London actress, mistress to handsome Lord Nash and the unacknowledged illegitimate daughter of Viscount Partington. Having escaped her humble beginnings, Kitty has found fame, fortune and love, but the respectability she craves eludes her. When she stumbles across Araminta, her legitimate half-sister, on the verge of giving birth just seven months after marrying dangerous Viscount Debenham, Kitty realises respectability is no guarantee of character or happiness. But helping Araminta has unwittingly embroiled Kitty in a scandalous deception involving a ruthless brothel madam, a priceless ruby necklace and the future heir to a dazzling fortune. And when Kitty finally receives an offer of marriage she must choose. Respectability or love?

  Kitty has the love of the man of her dreams but as London’s most acclaimed actress and a member of the demimondaine, she accepts she can never be kind and handsome Lord Silverton’s lawful wedded wife. When Kitty comes to the aid of shy, accident-prone and kind-hearted Octavia Mandelton, her sense of justice leads to her making the most difficult decision of her life: Give up the man she loves for the sake of honour. For Octavia is still betrothed to Lord Silverton who’d rescued Kitty in dramatic circumstances only weeks before. Cast adrift, Kitty joins forces with her sister, Lissa, a talented artist posing as a governess in order to bring to justice a dangerous spy, villainous Lord Debenham. Complicating matters is the fact Debenham is married to their half-sister, vain and beautiful Araminta. However, Araminta has a dark secret which only Kitty knows and which she realizes she is duty-bound to expose if she’s to achieve justice and win happiness for deserving Lissa and Lissa’s enterprising sweetheart, Ralph Tunley, long-suffering secretary to Lord Debenham. All seems set for a happy ending when Kitty tumbles into mortal danger. A danger from which only a truly honorable man can save her. A man like Silverton who must now make the hardest choice of his life if he’s to live with his conscience.

  Read the Daughters of Sin Box set and save.

  Daughters of Sin Box set

  Buy the Daughters of Sin Box set

  A duchess disguised as a lady’s maid; a viscount parading as a highwayman.

  She’s on the run from a murderer, he’s in pursuit of one…

  In a remote Norfolk manor, Lady Phoebe is wrongfully accused by her servants of her brutal husband’s murder.

  There’s little local sympathy for the duchess who’s taken a lover and made clear she despised her husband. The district’s magistrate also has an axe to grind since Lady Phoebe recently rebuffed his advances.

  When Phoebe is discovered by a highwayman in the forest wearing only a chemise stained with the blood of her murdered husband, she resorts to subterfuge to save her life. If she can convince the handsome adventurer who is himself on the run that she’s merely a lowly lady’s maid, surely her chances of survival are improved?

  But Hugh Redding has his own reasons for hunting down the very man who would have Phoebe tried and hanged for murder and he’s highly suspicious of Phoebe and her motives.

  Only if they can break down the barriers between them and admit to their mutual attraction can they form the united front necessary to thwart their sinister and tenacious nemesis, Wentworth.

  But first they need to learn how to trust one another.

  Buy The Duchess and the Highwayman

  Get Two Free Books

  If you love stories filled with passion and intrigue set during the glittering Regency era, you can sign up to my newsletter to get the first in each of my series.

  Yes, please send me my Two Free Books!

  About the Author

  Beverley was seventeen when she bundled up her first 500+ page romance and sent it to a publisher. Rejection followed swiftly. Drowning one’s heroine on the last page, she was informed, was not in line with the expectations of romance readers.

  So Beverley became a journalist.

  After a whirlwind romance with a handsome Norwegian bush pilot she met in Botswana's beautiful Okavango Delta, Beverley discovered what real romance was all about, saved her heroine from a watery grave in her next manuscript and published her first romance in 2009.

  Since then, she’s written more than eighteen sizzling historical romances laced with mystery and intrigue under the name Beverley Oakley.

  She also writes psychological historical mysteries, and Colonial-Africa-set romantic suspense, as Beverley Eikli.

  With an inspiring view of a Gothic nineteenth-century insane asylum across the road, Beverley lives north of Melbourne with her gorgeous husband, two lovely daughters and a rambunctious Rhodesian Ridgeback called Mombo, named after the safari lodge where she and her husband met.

  You can read more at www.beverleyoakley.com

  www.beverleyoakley.com

  beverley.oakley@gmail.com

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