Art of Temptation (Regency Chase Family Series, Book 3)

by Royal, Lauren

  She had a point. A lot of points, actually. But Lincolnshire's happiness wasn't the only consideration. "He's going to find out regardless. I'm not an artist, and I seem to keep proving that, over and over. The earl may be physically deteriorating, but his mind is sharp as a knife. It's only a matter of time before he realizes I cannot possibly be an accomplished landscapist, which means I cannot possibly be his nephew. How will he feel then? Wouldn't it be better for me to admit the truth than for him to discover it himself?"

  "I'm an artist. I can cover for you. I can help you keep up the masquerade."

  "You're not around enough to do that."

  "I can be around enough. I'll visit Lord Lincolnshire every day. I'll keep close. You won't mind that, will you?"

  Sure, he wouldn't mind. He liked torturing himself, lived to spend hours in her presence, bunching his fists to keep from touching her.

  She licked her spoon again, an act so innocently sensuous, it took everything he had not to kiss her on the spot.

  He grabbed the spoon instead. "I won't mind," he muttered, only adding to his legion of lies.

  FIFTEEN

  TEA BUNS

  Mix a lot of Flower with some Sugar and a little Salt in a bowl, then put in Egges, Butter, halfe a cup of Milk and a measure of Yeast to make a thick dough. Allow to rise, then flatten and make rounde buns and allow to rise again before you bake.

  A most genteel addition to afternoon tea, these buns encourage serenity.

  —Georgiana, Countess of Greystone, 1806

  YESTERDAY'S discovery that John Hamilton was really Sean Delaney—well, that and constantly reliving the kiss—had kept Corinna too distracted to take notice of the calendar. But today she'd realized it was May. The second of May, to be precise. Lady A's reception was on the fourteenth, and Summer Exhibition submissions were due on the nineteenth.

  It usually took her at least two weeks to complete a painting. And for this one, she had yet to choose a subject.

  Griffin had been gone a day longer than he'd said he would, yet with all the peace and quiet, she still wasn't making progress. The thought of that had kept her mind buzzing the entire afternoon at Juliana's home. Family and friends had assembled there, in Stafford House's beautiful Palm Room, to pen the invitations to the reception Lady A was planning to introduce Corinna to the art world.

  All of Corinna's female relations had come, as well as ladies related to her relations. Alexandra and Juliana, and their three cousins, Rachael, Claire, and Elizabeth. A hugely pregnant Aunt Frances. Lady Avonleigh, of course, and her two sisters, Lady Balmforth and Lady Cavanaugh, who was also Juliana's mother-in-law.

  It was touching. Corinna had never considered herself the sentimental type, but the thought of all of them them helping her made her throat feel tight.

  "It was so kind of you all to come," Lady A said now as she rose to fetch her pelisse. "I was dreading writing these invitations, but with all the help, we finished in no time."

  Juliana piled the leftover tea buns she'd served into a basket. "Have you need of any more assistance, Lady Avonleigh? With anything else at all?"

  "Just encourage everyone to attend, please, all of you. Royal Academicians in particular, but anyone else influential as well. You all know the wording for the invitations now, so feel free to write out more should you think of anyone else who might be able to further Corinna's career. Above all, we must make certain the committee members all attend." Buttoning the pelisse, she turned to Corinna. "I'm sure John Hamilton will accept, as he's your personal acquaintance—"

  "I wouldn't call him that," Corinna interrupted, suddenly nervous.

  "You've danced together, my dear."

  "He's a very busy man." Sean couldn't attend the reception—the Academy members would surely expose him as a fraud. "And you know he doesn't like to appear in public."

  "Now that he's inheriting Lord Lincolnshire's title, I'm certain that will change. Don't fret, my dear; he shall attend." Lady A leaned closer and kissed Corinna's cheek, enveloping her in a cloud of gardenia and camphor scent. "Should you run into the man, you might encourage him to see that the other committee members accept as well."

  Lady A certainly seemed more confident than Corinna felt. "I don't know.…"

  Shrugging into her own light pelisse, Rachael paused. "Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine," Corinna fibbed. "Perfectly fine."

  She couldn't help wondering if she'd done the right thing encouraging Sean to continue deceiving Lord Lincolnshire. In fact, it seemed she could think about little else. Besides the kiss. And the reception. And her looming deadline to finish her portrait.

  But she was fine. Perfectly fine.

  And she was lying to herself again.

  Rachael patted her shoulder. "Don't get yourself in a dither. I know this reception is important to you, but we shall all contrive to make certain it's a wild success."

  Lady A's sisters reached for their reticules as Alexandra lifted baby Harry out of his pram. "Yes, we will," they all confirmed in unison.

  Aunt Frances pushed slowly to her feet. "Yes, we will," she echoed, sounding a little bit breathless.

  Apparently noticing that, Juliana laid a hand on her arm. "Are you feeling poorly, Aunt Frances?"

  "No, just fat and ugly and short of breath. My friend Lady Mabel swears this city isn't good for the lungs once a lady reaches a certain age, but then again, she has asthma." Frances laughed. "I'm only with child."

  Elizabeth grabbed her cloak, but as it was a warm day she didn't put it on. "Our mother always said that about the London air, too. But I don't remember her ever having any trouble breathing."

  "That's because she refused to come to London," Claire said, and turned to Juliana. "I hope you put those extra tea buns in the basket for us. Mama used to make them, but we haven't had them in years."

  "I figured as much." Juliana handed her the basket. Leaving Corinna and Alexandra behind, she started walking the rest of her guests toward the door. "Your mother copied the recipe into our family cookbook. She said the tea buns encourage serenity."

  "Is that why you made them?" Rachael asked. "Do you think Corinna feels a need for serenity?"

  Before Corinna could go after them and speak for herself, Juliana answered. "Of course she feels a need for serenity. Her entire future hangs in the balance!"

  Corinna heard everyone laugh before they said their good-byes. Then she heard the door shut, and Juliana returned to the Palm Room.

  Going to a sideboard that had gilt legs carved to look like palm trees, Juliana poured three glasses of sherry before joining her sisters on one of the many sofas covered in palm tree-themed satin fabric. "Here," she said, handing Corinna a glass. "I expect you'll find this encourages serenity much more than tea buns."

  Corinna sipped gratefully. "I didn't expect to be nervous about this reception."

  "That's natural," Alexandra said, shifting Harry in order to take a sip.

  "And you're nervous about something else, too." Juliana crossed her legs. "I can tell. Out with it, Corinna."

  They knew her too well; there was no sense pretending. She sighed. "I have a secret."

  Her sisters exchanged meaningful glances. "Well?" Alexandra asked.

  "Lord Lincolnshire's nephew isn't John Hamilton," Corinna confessed in a rush. "I mean, John Hamilton is his nephew, but the man you met at Lady Partridge's ball isn't. He's his brother-in-law. He wanted to tell Lord Lincolnshire the truth, but I convinced him not to, and now I'm not sure that was right."

  "Whoa." Juliana's sip of sherry was more like a gulp. "Explain that again. Slowly, and with more detail."

  Corinna did so, telling the whole long complicated story. Then she held her breath before asking, "Was I wrong? Should he tell Lord Lincolnshire the truth?"

  Juliana shook her head. "Absolutely not."

  "I agree." Alexandra patted her son's back. "Lord Lincolnshire deserves a happy ending."

  Corinna blew the breath out. "You're right. I
love Lord Lincolnshire."

  "So do we," Alexandra assured her.

  "I'm going to visit him more often. I promised Mr. Delaney I would, to help him keep up the pretense that he's an artist."

  "You'll get to see more of Mr. Delaney that way too, hmm?" Juliana's eyes danced. "That shouldn't be a hardship."

  Alexandra looked to Corinna. "She's meddling again, isn't she?"

  "Doesn't she always?"

  "I can tell you're attracted to the man," Juliana said defensively. "And I cannot say I blame you. He's a handsome devil—"

  "You're a married woman!" Corinna interrupted.

  "A very happy one," her sister agreed. "But a lady doesn't go blind when she takes her marriage vows. Or deaf, either. That accent—"

  "You make him sound like a pretty box. You know nothing about the man inside." Neither did she, for that matter.

  "I know he's being very nice to Lord Lincolnshire. And that his sister is married to John Hamilton, which means he's connected to the right people."

  "He's not a peer, Juliana. He owns property."

  "Doesn't every gentleman own property?"

  "I mean he buys and sells buildings for a living. Among other things." She wondered what. "And he's Irish." With that Irish accent. She'd gone back to the bookstore to buy Children of the Abbey this morning, and she'd already read up to page 43, where Amanda thought, the harmony of his voice imparted a charm that seldom failed of being irresistible.

  "Does his being Irish bother you?" Juliana asked.

  "Of course not." Just thinking of that melodic Irish voice made her imagine hot kisses, which hardly bothered her. Well, maybe it did, but not in the way her sister meant. "But it might bother Griffin."

  "Griffin would be a hypocrite if it did," Juliana scoffed. "His own name comes from an Irish ancestor."

  "That's right," Alexandra put in. "Our fifth or sixth or seventh great-grandfather, wasn't he? Aidan Griffin, Baron Kilcullen from Ballygriffin, Ireland. Born 1568, died 1648 at Cainewood."

  "How do you remember such things?" Corinna asked.

  "Family is important to me." She smiled at little Harry, who was named after her husband's uncle. "Besides, you remember every word you've ever read."

  "That's different. I can't help it. And I don't even like it. My brain is always filled with all those stupid lines." She sighed. "In any case, I'm not interested in Mr. Delaney that way." Maybe for a few kisses, but that was a far cry from what Juliana had in mind. "I have only seventeen days left to finish my portrait. And spend some time with Lord Lincolnshire while I still can."

  Juliana nodded so thoughtfully that Corinna could almost see the scheming going on in her head. She hadn't given up. But apparently she'd decided to back off for now. "I think that's very kind of you," she said. "You should bring Lord Lincolnshire a sweet to brighten his last days."

  "Corinna doesn't bake," Alexandra reminded her.

  Corinna couldn't bake. The women of their family were famed for their sweets, and she was the only Chase female in history with no talent in the kitchen. She couldn't measure anything properly; she couldn't mix without creating lumps. If she so much as approached the oven, biscuits burned and cakes collapsed.

  "I didn't say she should make it," Juliana pointed out. "I only said she should bring it. I'll make something for her to bring."

  "Thank you," Corinna said sweetly. It wasn't so bad being a bungler in the kitchen, really. In truth, she'd much rather paint.

  SIXTEEN

  "I WONDER WHY Corinna's so nervous," Rachael said to her sisters during the drive home in their carriage. "There's the reception, of course, but she seems to be worrying about more than that."

  Corinna had been very far from calm and collected. As a person who wasn't quite herself these days, Rachael recognized the signs. Griffin was supposed to have returned yesterday, and she was on pins and needles waiting to hear what he might have discovered.

  "I don't know what's bothering Corinna." Elizabeth shrugged. "But I've been thinking."

  "That's a novelty," Claire teased.

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue. "I meant I've been thinking about something else. I've been thinking about how Mama never wheezed like Lady Mabel."

  "I told you, that's because she refused to come to London." Claire fiddled with a new amethyst ring she'd made, twirling it on her finger. "She knew better than to aggravate her condition."

  "But Mama was very quiet," Elizabeth pointed out. "I'm wondering if she actually suffered from asthma at all. Maybe she just didn't want to socialize, so she made that up as an excuse."

  Claire stopped twirling. "You think Mama lied?"

  "I didn't say she lied. I said she might have used it as an excuse."

  "She would never have—"

  "Mama wasn't perfect," Rachael interrupted. An understatement, considering the woman had hidden the truth from her all of her life. "It's possible Elizabeth could be right." Thinking back, she couldn't remember her mother ever having difficulty breathing. "Mama never attended large social gatherings. She always preferred to stay home with her needlework and her watercolors and her children."

  "She went to Cainewood," Claire argued. "Often."

  "But only to visit with family. Never for a ball or any other major occasion."

  "I don't believe it," Claire said, looking pouty.

  "Well, it doesn't signify anyway, does it?" Rachael sighed. "We'll never really know."

  They all rode in thoughtful silence until the carriage came to a stop before their town house in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Elizabeth climbed out first, then emitted a little yelp.

  "What are you doing here?" she cried.

  Rachael followed Claire out to find Griffin standing in the courtyard.

  "Good afternoon, ladies," he said with the crooked smile she always found disconcertingly attractive. But when his gaze swung to meet hers, his expression grew more serious. "I've been waiting for you. I have news."

  "What news?" Claire demanded.

  "I'll explain later," Rachael told her sisters. She didn't want an audience when she heard what Griffin had learned. "Go inside. Griffin and I will talk in the square."

  Grumbling all the way, her sisters entered the house while Rachael and Griffin crossed the street and went through the gate to the private park in the center of the square. It was a nice day, sunny but not hot, and Lincoln's Inn Fields was filled with people enjoying the fine weather.

  Choosing a bench beneath a large tree, where the shade would hide them from view of the houses all around, she sat and smoothed her pelisse's thin lavender skirts. "You took longer than I expected."

  Angled toward her, he pulled her father's jeweled badge from his pocket and placed it in her palm, folding her fingers around it. "Rachael…I know who he was."

  "Was," she repeated. "He's dead, then."

  In a cousinly, concerned way, he took one of her hands in both of his. "You knew that, didn't you?"

  "Yes. Yes, of course." But apparently part of her had hoped that wasn't true, because a pang of disappointment seemed to spear her in the vicinity of her heart.

  "There's more," he said, squeezing her fingers. "Not all of it good."

  She nodded and pulled her hand free, staring down at the badge she held. She couldn't think straight with him touching her. "Start at the beginning. Please."

  He took a deep breath. "I searched all the records for the time in question and found a member of the Tenth who took leave to wed a woman the month before you were conceived. An officer, a lieutenant. His name was Thomas Grimbald."

  "Grimbald," she echoed, testing the word on her tongue. She should have been Rachael Grimbald, but that sounded so very wrong. "Are you sure he was the right man?"

  Griffin nodded. "He married a woman who was thereafter known as Lady Georgiana Grimbald."

  Startled, she looked up at him. "He was titled, then?"

  "No. She must have been a peer's daughter."

  "But my mother was a commoner
. She was born plain Georgiana Woodby, not a lady. She always said she was uncommonly lucky to have wed an earl. You found the wrong man."

  "I also thought so at first. That's why I was gone the extra day. I combed the records going back years, in case your mother married long before conceiving you. But very few men from the Tenth wed in the correct time frame, and no one else married a woman named Georgiana."

  "You're sure it was her, then?"

  "There's no other explanation. Your mother acted the lady through and through, didn't she? And wouldn't she have thought herself, a woman ripe with another man's child, uncommonly lucky to have wed at all? It cannot be a coincidence that Grimbald's wife had the same given name. He had to have been your father."

  "Maybe." The name sounded wrong, but she still couldn't seem to think straight. She focused on a wooden stand in the distance, where lemonade was sold in the square. "This Grimbald…did the records say how he died?"

  "They did."

  She waited, but no more information seemed to be forthcoming. She waited some more. When she finally looked back to Griffin, his green eyes were flooded with sympathy.

  She didn't want sympathy; she wanted the truth.

  "What?" she asked, but still he didn't answer. She clenched her hand around the badge. "Out with it, damn it! I've already learned that my mother lied to me all of my life, came from a different family than she claimed, and my name should be Rachael Grimbald." Grimbald, for heaven's sake! It wasn't a cold day, and she was wearing a pelisse in any case, but she wrapped her arms around herself as though she might ward off a chill. "What could you possibly have to tell me that would be more upsetting than all of that?"

  Griffin blew out a breath. "He was executed, Rachael. For treason."

  She opened her mouth to respond, but suddenly all the air seemed to have been sucked right out of her. The birds in the tree overhead sounded entirely too cheerful. The people strolling by, chatting and drinking lemonade, sounded too cheerful, too.