by Bliss Bennet
Contents
Book Description
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
A Sinner without a Saint
An honorable artist
Benedict Pennington’s greatest ambition is not to paint a masterpiece, but to make the country’s greatest artworks accessible to all. His success in persuading a noted philanthropist to donate his collection of Old Master paintings to England’s first national art museum brings his dream tantalizingly close to reality—until Viscount Dulcie, once the object of Benedict’s illicit adolescent desire, begins to court the donor’s granddaughter, set on winning the paintings for himself.
A hedonistic viscount
Sinclair Milne, Viscount Dulcie, prefers collecting innovative art and dallying with handsome men to burdening himself with anything as dull as a wife. But when rivals hint that Dulcie’s refusal to pursue wealthy Miss Adler and her paintings is due to lingering tender feelings for Benedict Pennington, Dulcie vows to prove them wrong. And if wooing Miss Adler away from the holier-than-thou painter also gets his matchmaking father off his back? Even better . . .
Can a sinner and a saint both win at love?
But when Benedict is dragooned into painting his portrait, Dulcie finds himself once again inexplicably drawn to the intense artist. Can the sinful viscount entice a wary Benedict into a casual liaison, one that will put neither their reputations, nor their feelings, at risk? Or will the not-so-saintly painter demand something far more vulnerable—his heart?
Praise for the historical romances
of Bliss Bennet
A Lady without a Lord
“Bliss Bennet creates the most enticing, delightfully imperfect characters. Watching them finally achieve their happy ever after is bittersweet—you’re happy they’re happy, but dang it, you weren’t done with them yet . . . . A Lady Without a Lord is another splendid historical from Bliss Bennet. It’s intelligent and inventive, poignant and gratifying and a radiant addition to a much-lauded series.”—USA Today Happy Ever After
“Theo and Harry are likeable, attractive and fully-rounded characters whose flaws and insecurities make them seem that much more real. Theo is completely adorable; a loveable rogue who has spent so long believing himself to be the idiot his father kept insisting he was that he fails to see that his intelligence is of a completely different, yet equally valid kind, and that he is gifted in other ways. . . . Ms. Bennet does a terrific job of showing the ins and outs of life on a country estate in the early nineteenth century, and her writing is accomplished, warm, and nicely laced with humor.” —All About Romance
“[Bennet has] the rare, and becoming rarer, ability to create main characters who reflect their times and are in turn uniquely, likeably themselves.” —Miss Bates Reads Romance
A Man without a Mistress
“I was in the mood for a historical kind of happy every after, and boy, did I hit the jackpot. A Man without a Mistress, the second of Bliss Bennet’s Pennington series, is savvy, sensual, and engrossing, and managed a spot-on balance of realism and buoyancy. The hero and heroine are refreshingly equal in all but their gender—they’re a couple of resourceful, damaged, wry, intelligent, lonely and delightful messes.” —USA Today Happy Ever After
“Bennet skillfully weaves mystery, political history, and romance together in this captivating novel. She surprises the reader by including in this story with its threads of grief, guilt, and grimness a couple of humorous scenes that reminded me of my favorite scene in Georgette Heyer’s The Unknown Ajax. But I think her finest accomplishment is the heroine who remains unconventional to the end even when she cooperates in the most conventional of romance fiction’s elements: the HEA.” —Heroes and Heartbreakers
“Now that Miss Bates has read Bliss Bennet’s second romance novel, she can place her in histrom-world with Rose Lerner, Cecilia Grant, and recent discovery Blythe Gifford. They all have the rare, and becoming rarer, ability to create main characters who reflect their times and are in turn uniquely, likably themselves. Their main characters’ constraints are not solely those of personality or circumstance, but political, economic, social, and/or gender strictures. Bennet creates creatures of their time and yet uniquely themselves, approachable and sympathetic to the reader.” —Miss Bates Reads Romance
A Rebel without a Rogue
“A sparkling debut.” —Historical Novel Society Indie Reviews
“A beautifully written love story the this everything you want in a great historical romance: heart-wrenching emotion, heartbreak, and a great HEA. Cannot wait for the next one in the series.” —The Reading Wench
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A Sinner
without
a Saint
Bliss Bennet
To my father
PROLOGUE
April 1807
The Earl Milne, sophisticated man of the world that he was, never permitted himself to be swayed by anything as base as superstition. Turning his chair three times round had never brought him any luck at cards, nor finding a broken horse shoe unhoped-for riches. The burning of three candles in a room, or gazing at a new moon through glass, had never been followed by unexpected death. And as for spitting to avoid bad luck—well, no proper gentleman would ever engage in such uncouth, vulgar behavior. As a peer of George III’s realm, Milne must set the example to his family and his dependents, shunning anything that hinted of the irrational, the unfounded, or the excessively credulous.
Yet each day that his only son and heir walked God’s green earth, it grew increasingly difficult for him to believe it no coincidence that young Sinclair Milne, courtesy-titled Viscount Dulcie, had been born on July 14, 1789, the very same day the French rabble had stormed the Bastille. Just like those ungodly unwashed peasants, Dulcie had a penchant for questioning the natural social order, one that would not stand him in good stead when his father shuffled off this mortal coil and the responsibilities of the earldom fell to him.
Best, then, to nip this latest little rebellion in the bud, before things got dangerously out of hand.
“John, inform Lord Dulcie I wish to speak with him,” the earl instructed the footman who came at his call. “Immediately.”
“Very good, my lord.”
Milne tapped the evidence of his son’s latest peccadillo—a letter written in a looping, boyish hand—against the blotter. Only a scapegrace such as Dulcie would force his father to bring up such unsavory matters in polite conversation.
“Father! Have you changed your mind about the billiards table?” Seventeen-year-old Viscount Dulcie, all smiles and charm, strolled into the library and threw himself into its most comfortable armchair. “Surely you don’t wish me to be fleeced by every boy at school just because I’ve not been able to practice between terms.”
Dulcie’s guinea-gold curls and guileless expression might lead the unsuspecting to mistake him for an angel, lit by accid
ent upon this too mundane earth. But the earl had long ago learned to disregard his heir’s beguiling mien.
“I’ve not summoned you to discuss billiards, Dulcie. I’ve already told you how much it pains me that you waste your time playing at games instead of reading or studying.” The earl rose from his own seat and held out the distasteful letter between two fingers. “I wish to speak to you about this note. Do you recognize the hand?”
Dulcie’s blue eyes, fringed by over-long lashes, narrowed. “Father, that letter is addressed to me. What right had you to open it, or to read it without my consent?”
“It was franked by Lord Saybrook,” Milne answered, drawing the pages back before his son had a chance to jerk them from his grasp. Dulcie had the right of it, of course, but he’d never get to his point if he allowed his son to drag him down that blind alley. “Of course I assumed it was for me.”
“But it wasn’t. And yet you kept reading, even after you realized your mistake.” Dulcie folded his arms across his chest and shook his head. “Really, father, are those the actions of a gentleman?”
“The actions of a gentleman? Who are you to preach to me of gentlemanlike behavior, sir, when you act so shamefully towards poor Saybrook’s son?”
Dulcie crossed a booted ankle over his knee. “Benedict Pennington, Lord Saybrook’s second son and the author of that letter, is one of my fags, and is under my protection. And if I ask him to translate a passage of Greek between terms, rather than to black my boots or fetch me my breakfast while we are at school, is not that a sign of my respect for the boy?”
“Respect? When you ask him to translate such, such—Why, I hardly know what to call this!” The earl struck a hand over the letter, sending its pages aflutter.
“Philosophy, perhaps?” Dulcie said, sitting back in his chair with irritating composure. “Xenophon is, after all, standard fare amongst schoolboys at Harrow. Even in your own day, I would wager.”
“Yes, the history parts, and the fighting parts. But not this immoral filth.” Milne opened the letter, searching for the abhorrent passage. “But the sweetest of all charms are the charms of a boy who yields to you willingly. The sweetest of all and the most erotic is when he fights with you and argues. To enjoy the charms of an unwilling boy seems to me to be more like robbery than lovemaking,” he read, his voice rising with each appalling line.
“Ah, he found that passage, did he? I was hoping he would. It is the height of hypocrisy how everyone praises the ancient Greeks while suppressing the fact that their culture accepted, even celebrated, love between men.”
“Dulcie, this is no harmless intellectual exercise!” Milne paced the room. “Such vile affections may have been tolerated in past times, in other places, but we live in England, a civilized, Christian country. Do you not realize, if the wrong person got hold of this boy’s letter he could be set in the stocks, or even hanged?”
“For a mere translation?” His son’s tone remained nonchalant, but his fingers tapped the arm of his chair. “Surely not.”
“Surely so, when accompanied by such protestations of devotion to his “dearest Clair” as young Pennington has written here. Not to mention the caresses and kisses he professes to dream of sharing with you. Foolish boy, to commit such words to paper.”
“Dearest Clair?” Dulcie said, a hint of color rising in his cheeks. “What else did he write?”
“That is completely beside the point!” Milne snapped, then took a deep, steadying breath. Raising his voice with Dulcie only ever led the boy to resist his elders’ dictates with increasingly mulish determination.
The earl lowered himself to kneel by his son’s chair. “Surely, Dulcie, you have no desire to kiss a boy, or to have one kiss you?”
His son’s blue eyes met his own. “Of course not, sir.”
With another man, such an unflinching response would convince one of the truth of the speaker’s words. But with Dulcie, one could never be quite certain.
“And Saybrook’s son,” the earl persisted. “He means nothing to you, I am sure.”
This time, Milne waited an uncomfortably long moment before his son deigned to respond. But at last, Dulcie gave him the words he needed to hear.
“Yes. Nothing at all.”
With a sigh, Milne rose and tossed the offensive letter onto the small fire that burnt in the grate. He did not want the pain of Dulcie putting the lie to the admission he’d just wrangled from him by trying to charm the foolscap from his very fingers.
“Well, then. Sentimental romances will arise when boys are crowded all together at school. I remember my own infatuation with a young chorister during my time at Harrow. The most lovely smile, and the voice of an angel, he had. But when that boy began to take on the aspects of an adult man, and stopped resembling a beautiful girl, my infatuation naturally faded.”
“Naturally, sir.”
Did Dulcie’s faint smile mock his father’s nostalgic memory? Or was it a sign that the sentiments expressed in young Pennington’s letter, the one he stared at as it curled and burned in the grate, were welcome?
Milne cleared his throat. “You are nearly eighteen, Dulcie. And as my eldest son, you have a duty to marry, and to sire an heir to carry on the Milne line. So it is time for you to put away such childish notions, before you cause real harm to Lord Saybrook’s son, or to some other unsuspecting boy.”
Dulcie jerked his gaze from the fire. “It was only an academic exercise, Father. I never intended to harm—”
“No, you never do intend, do you? Impetuous, headstrong boy. You must learn once and for all that your actions have consequences.”
The earl sat behind his desk, then folded his hands on the blotter in front of him. “If you are well-versed enough in Greek to teach a twelve-year-old to translate Xenophon, Dulcie, you are surely skilled enough to sit for the entrance examinations for Oxford. And if you are not, you will study for them here until you are.”
Dulcie’s spine straightened. “Here? What, am I not to return to Harrow after Easter?”
“Should I allow you to go back and perhaps have this boy tempt you further astray? Even you must realize that such a course would be unwise.”
“But Father, if I promised—”
“No. You will remain here, and allow poor Pennington’s unfortunate infatuation to die a decent death. And we will not speak of such things ever again. Do you understand?”
“As you wish, sir.” Dulcie rose from his chair, his eyes flicking for the merest instant towards the grate before returning to rest on his father. “Am I to be allowed to write to my friend Leverett, to tell him I won’t be returning?”
“Yes, if your letter contains no messages for young Pennington. I will, of course, need to read it before franking it.” A disgraceful demand, but one he felt he must insist upon. How else to impress the weight of his disapproval on his careless son?
But Dulcie stood straight and tall, no hint of shame marring either his features or his figure. “Of course, sir. Will that be all?”
Milne nodded.
His son, ever polite, offered him a bow, then strode from the room.
Once he was certain Dulcie was gone, the earl moved to the hearth and took up the poker. With a muttered oath, he prodded at the fire until he was certain not a scrap of that shameful letter remained for a servant—or Dulcie—to find.
CHAPTER ONE
April 1822
Ghosts, if one was of a turn of mind to believe in such things, appeared to best advantage in the countryside, haunting lonely lanes, picturesque tumbledown castles, or sublimely abandoned ruins. They most assuredly did not frequent the bustling ballrooms, private clubs, or public shops of the world’s largest metropolis. Yet for the last two months, an apparition from his past had frequently and habitually manifested itself at the edges of Viscount Dulcie’s London life, an apparition not of wisps or shadow, but of all-too-solid flesh.
Not that Dulcie would allow a mere ghost, even in the striking form of a grown-to-delicious-m
anhood Benedict Pennington, to distract him today. Not when he was on the verge of proving once and for all that he, not his rival Lattimer Leverett, deserved a position on the governing board of the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom.
“You’re staring again, Dulcie.”
Lattimer Leverett nodded towards the center of the Cockspur Street print shop where Benedict Pennington stood, hands tucked into the hollow of his spine. Everyone else in the room had gathered around the draped easel at the center of the shop, but Pennington’s eyes were fixed on an engraving displayed in one of the several mahogany racks scattered throughout the room. His attention had always been caught by things no one else noticed.
Suddenly, a scowl roiled his handsome features, almost as if somehow that inanimate engraving, rather than a far younger Lord Dulcie, had done him some personal injury, and he was devising how best to extract his revenge.
Only a fool would find such an expression the least bit compelling.
Leverett elbowed Dulcie and sniggered.
Yes, he was gawking, and certainly not at the artwork. But instead of upbraiding his companion for so rudely calling attention to the fact, Dulcie raised his lips in a practiced smile. Containing his emotions behind a mask of dandified indifference had long become second nature, even with a companion as provoking as Leverett.
But Pennington, damn him, seemed to have the power to make that mask slip without even trying. Why had he not remembered that the gentleman had some pretensions to the paintbrush himself, and would likely be among the crowd at Colnaghi’s monthly levee?
