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

by Royal, Lauren

  The Chases' town house at 44 Berkeley Square has been described as "the finest terrace house of London." It was designed in 1742 by William Kent for Lady Isabella Finch. Unfortunately, you cannot visit, because the building is currently being used as a private club, but if you go to Berkeley Square, you can see it from the outside. Look for the blue door.

  Stafford House, Juliana's home in St. James's Place, is based on Spencer House, one of the great architectural landmarks of London. Built in the eighteenth century by John, 1st Earl Spencer (an ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales), it was immediately recognized as a building of major importance. Should you ever find yourself in London, I highly recommend a visit. Spencer House is open to the public every Sunday except during January and August.

  To see pictures and learn more about the real people and real places featured in The Art of Temptation, please visit my website at www.LaurenRoyal.com, where you can also find modern versions of all the recipes in this book, sign up for my newsletter, and enter a contest to win Corinna's claddagh necklace.

  If you missed Alexandra's story, you can find it in Lost in Temptation, the first book in my Regency Chase Family Series. Juliana's story was told in the second book, Tempting Juliana.

  And if you'd like to read about earlier generations of the Chase family, check out my book Amethyst, the first title in my Chase Family Series. You'll find an excerpt in the back of this book. Amethyst, set in 1666, features Colin Chase, an ancestor of Rachael's brother and sisters. And the second Chase Family Series book, Emerald, is the story of Jason Chase, an ancestor of Griffin and his sisters.

  To hear about my upcoming releases, my contests, and other news, please sign up for my newsletter, friend me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter (@readLaurenRoyal) or Pinterest. I love to keep up with my readers!

  I hope you enjoyed The Art of Temptation—thank you for reading!

  Till next time,

  BOOKS BY LAUREN ROYAL

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  Chase Family Series

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  Meet more of the Chase family in…

  AMETHYST

  Book One of the

  Chase Family Series

  Amethyst Goldsmith makes dazzling jewelry, but her future isn't nearly as bright as the pieces she creates. Though custom dictates she wed her father's apprentice, her heart rebels against the match. In mere days Amy will be condemned to a stifling, loveless marriage, and she sees no way out—until the devastating fire of 1666 sweeps through London, and tragedy lands her in the arms of a dashing nobleman who knows a diamond in the rough when he sees it...

  Colin Chase, the Earl of Greystone, has his future all figured out. He's restoring his crumbling castle and estate to its former glory, and the key to its completion is his rich bride-to-be. But the Great Fire lays waste to his plans, saddling him with trouble—in the form of a lowly shopkeeper's daughter with whom he's most inconveniently falling in love...

  Read an excerpt…

  London

  April 22, 1661

  THE LAST TIME Amethyst Goldsmith saw her king, she was five years old and he was about to have his head severed from his body. Now, twelve years later, she sincerely hoped his son would have better luck.

  She shouldered her way through the crowd, her parents and aunt murmuring apologies in her wake. "Here, there's room!" Finally reaching a few bare inches of rail, she clasped it with both hands and turned to flash them a victorious smile. "Come along, it's starting!"

  Hugh and Edith Goldsmith joined her, shaking their heads at their daughter's tenacity. Hugh's sister Elizabeth squeezed in behind. Ignoring the grumbling of displaced spectators, Amy spread her feet wide to save more room at the front. "Robert, over here!"

  Robert Stanley tugged on her long black plait as he wedged himself in beside her. She shot him a grin; he was fun. Although he'd arrived just last week to train as her father's apprentice, Amy had known for years that she was to marry him. So far they'd gotten along fine, although he'd been surprised to find she was far more skilled as a jeweler than he. Surprised and none too pleased, Amy suspected. But he would get over those feelings.

  She might be female, but her talent was a God-given gift, and she'd never in this lifetime give up her craft. Robert would have to learn to accept that.

  With a sigh of pleasure, Amy shuffled her shoes on the scrubbed cobblestones. "Look, Mama! Everything is so clean and glorious." She breathed deep of the fresh air, blinking against the bright sun. "The rain has stopped…even the weather is welcoming the monarchy back to England! Have you ever seen so many people? All London must be here."

  "These cannot all be Londoners." Her mother waved a hand, encompassing the crowds on the rooftops, the mobbed windows and overflowing balconies. "I think many have come in from the countryside."

  A handful of tossed rose petals drifted down, landing on Amy's dark head like scented snowflakes. She shook them off, laughing. "Just look at all the tapestries and banners!"

  "Just look at all that wasted wine," Robert muttered, with a nod toward the fragrant red river that ran through the open conduit in the street.

  Amy opened her mouth to protest, then decided he must be fooling. "Marry come up, Robert! You must be pleased King Charles will be crowned tomorrow. Twelve years of Cromwell's rule was enough. Now we have music and dancing again." She felt like dancing, like spreading her burgundy satin skirts and twirling in a circle, but the press of the crowd made such a maneuver impossible, so she settled for bobbing a little curtsy. "We've beautiful clothes, and the theater—"

  "And drinking and cards and dice," Robert added.

  "That too," Amy agreed, turning back to ogle the mounted queue of nobility parading their way from the Tower to Whitehall Palace. Such jewels and feathers and lace! Fingering the looped ribbons adorning her new gown, she pressed harder against the rail, wishing she too could join the procession.

  "Where did they possibly find so many ostrich feathers in all of England?" she wondered aloud, then burst into giggles.

  Her aunt laughed and wrapped an affectionate arm around her shoulders. "Where do you find the energy, child? You must come to Paris. Uncle William and I could use your happy smiles."

  Feeling a stab of sympathy, Amy hugged her around the waist. Aunt Elizabeth had lost her three children to smallpox last year.

  "We need her artistry here," Amy's father protested, poking his sister good-naturedly. "Your shop will have to do without."

  "Ah, Hugh, how selfish you are!" Aunt Elizabeth chided. "Hoarding my niece's talent for your own profit." She aimed a mischievous smile at her brother. "No wonder we moved to France to escape the competition."

  Amy grinned. Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle William had been forced to move their shop when business fell off during the Commonwealth years. But they'd flourished in Paris, becoming jewelers to the French court, and wouldn't think of returning now.

  "I'm glad you came for the coronation, Auntie. It wouldn't be the same without you."

  "I wouldn't have missed it," Elizabeth declared. "Old Noll drove me out of England, so my home is elsewhere now. But it's God's own truth that no one here is happier than I."

  "Listen!" Amy cried. A joyous roar rolled westward toward them, marking the slow passage of His Majesty in the middle of the procession. "Can you hear King Charles coming? There are his attendants!" The noise swelled as the king's footguards marched by, their plumes of red and white feathers contrasting with those of his brother, the Duke of York, whose guard was decked out in black and white.

  All at once, the roar was deafening. Amy grasped her mother's hand. "It's him, Mama," she whispered. "King Charles II." Glittering in the sunshine, the Horse of State caught and held her gaze. "Oh, look at the embroidered saddle, the pearls and rubies—look at our diamonds!"
>
  Amy didn't care for horses—she was terrified of them, truth be told—so she paid no attention to the magnificent beast himself. But three hundred of her family's diamonds sparkled on the gold stirrups and bosses, among the twelve thousand lent for the occasion.

  "Oh, Papa," she breathed, "I wish we could have designed that saddle."

  Aunt Elizabeth's hand suddenly tightened on Amy's shoulder. "Charles is looking at me," she declared loudly.

  Amy's father snorted. "Always the flirt, sister mine."

  Amy's gaze flew from the dazzling horse to its rider. Smiling broadly beneath his thin mustache, the tall king waved to the crowd. His cloth-of-silver suit peeked from beneath ermine-lined crimson robes. Rubies and sapphires winked from gold shoe buckles and matching gold garters, festooned with great poufs of silver ribbon. Long, shining black curls draped over his chest, framing a face that appeared older than his thirty years; the result, Amy supposed, of having suffered through exile and the execution of his beloved father.

  But his black eyes were quick and sparkling—and more than a little sensual. Some women around Amy swooned, but she just stared, willing the king to look at her.

  When he did, she flashed him a radiant smile. "No, Auntie, he's looking at me."

  Before her family even stopped laughing, the king was gone, as suddenly as he had arrived. But the spectacle wasn't over. Behind him came a camel with brocaded panniers and an East Indian boy flinging pearls and spices into the crowd. And then more lords and ladies, more glittering costumes, more decorated stallions, more men-at-arms, all bedecked in gold and silver and the costliest of gems.

  Yet none of it mattered to Amy, for there was a nobleman riding her way.

  It wasn't the richness of his clothing that caught her eye, for in truth his garb was rather plain. His black velvet suit was trimmed with naught but gold braid; his wide-brimmed hat boasted only a single white plume. He wore no fancy crimped periwig; instead his own raven hair fell in gleaming waves to his shoulders.

  Deep emerald eyes bore into Amy's, singling her out as he angled his horse in her direction. His glossy black gelding breathed close, but she felt no fear, for the man held her safe with his piercing green gaze. It seemed as though he could see through her eyes right into her soul. Her cheeks flamed; never in her almost-seventeen years had a man looked at her like that.

  He tipped his plumed hat. Flustered, she turned and glanced about, certain he must be saluting someone else. But everyone was laughing and talking or watching the procession; no one focused their attention his way. She looked back, and he grinned as he passed, a devastating slash of white that made Amy melt inside.

  Long after he rode out of sight around the bend, she stared to where he had disappeared.

  "Amy?" Robert tugged on her hand.

  She turned and gazed into his eyes: pale blue, not green. They didn't make her melt inside, didn't make her feel anything.

  Robert smiled, revealing teeth that overlapped a bit. She hadn't really noticed that before. "It's over," he said.

  "Oh."

  The sun set as they walked home to Cheapside, skirting merrymakers in the streets. Her father paused to unlock their door. Overhead, a wooden sign swung gently in the breeze. A nearby bonfire illuminated the image of a falcon and the gilt letters that proclaimed their shop GOLDSMITH & SONS, JEWELLERS.

  There came a sudden brilliant flash and a stunned "Ooooh" from the crowd, as fireworks lit the sky. Amy dashed through the shop and up the stairs to their balcony.

  Gazing toward the River Thames, she watched the great fiery streaks of light, heard the soaring rockets, smelled the sulfur in the air. It was the most spectacular display England had ever seen, and the sights and sounds filled her with a wondrous feeling.

  If only life could be as exhilarating as a fireworks show.

  When the last glittering tendril faded away, she listened to the fragments of song and rowdy laughter that filled the night air. Couples strolled by, arm in arm. Robert stepped onto the balcony and moved close.

  His voice was quiet beside her. "This is a day I'll never forget."

  "I'll never forget it, either," she said, thinking of the man on the black steed, the man with the emerald eyes.

  Robert tilted her face up, bending his head to place a soft, chaste kiss on her lips. It was their first kiss; she was supposed to feel fireworks.

  But she felt nothing.

  Five years later

  August 24, 1666

  "ARE YOU telling me you made this bracelet? A girl? This shop is Goldsmith & Sons, is it not?" Robert Stanley puckered his freckled face and made his voice high and wavering. "Where are the sons?"

  From where she stood by the stone oven, Amethyst Goldsmith's laughter rang through the workshop. "Lady Smythe! A perfect imitation."

  "Well done, Robert." Her father smiled as he brushed past them both and through the archway into the shop's showroom.

  Robert's pale blue eyes twinkled, but he stayed in character, cupping a hand to his ear. "Imitation? Imitation, did you say? I was led to believe this was a quality jewelry shop, madame. I expect genuine—"

  "Stop!" Amy fought to control her giggles. "You'll make me slip and scald myself."

  Robert's gaze fell to Amy's hands. As he watched her pour a thin stream of molten gold into a plaster mold, his expression sobered. "I like Lady Smythe," he muttered. "At least she buys the things I make."

  "Oh, Robert." She sighed. "Why should it matter who made something, as long as we're selling a piece?"

  "I'm a good goldsmith."

  "You're an excellent goldsmith," Amy agreed. Although she also thought he was a bit unimaginative, she kept that to herself. "What does that have to do with anything?"

  "You're a woman."

  She clenched her jaw and tapped the mold on her workbench, imagining the gold flowing to fill every crevice of her design. "I'm also a jeweler," she said under her breath.

  "Never mind." He walked to his own workbench and plopped onto his stool, lifting the pewter tankard of ale that sat ever-present amongst his tools.

  Ignoring him, Amy picked up a knife and a chunk of wax, intending to whittle a new design while the gold hardened. The windowless workroom seemed stifling today—hot, close, and dark. She dragged a lantern nearer, but the artificial, yellowish glow did little to lift her mood.

  Five years she'd lived and worked with Robert Stanley, and he still didn't understand her. She couldn't believe it. She was marrying him in two weeks, and she couldn't believe that, either.

  Once it had seemed like a lifetime stretched ahead of her before she had to wed. She'd put it off, and put it off, then last spring her father had announced she was twenty-two and it was time to get on with it.

  He'd set a date, and that had been that. No matter that Robert thought his wife should stay upstairs and mend his clothes; no matter that he resented it when her designs sold faster and she received more custom orders than he did.

  No matter that she didn't love him. Not the way a wife should love a husband. Not the way it was in the French novels she read. Not the way she had felt, five years ago at the coronation procession, when that nobleman's emerald eyes had locked on hers.

  She'd never forgotten that feeling.

  She would learn to love Robert, her father said. But it hadn't happened—not yet, anyway. Not even close.

  Amy sighed and lifted the plait off her neck, rubbing the hot skin beneath. She'd set out to talk to her father dozens of times, but her courage always failed her. Since the death of her mother in last year's Great Plague, it seemed she could take anything but her father's disapproval.

  When the casting was set, Amy plunged it into the tub of water by Robert's workbench. She rubbed the mold's gritty plaster surface, feeling it dissolve away in her hands, watching Robert's knife send wax shavings flying as he sculpted a model.

  She scowled at his curved back. "I believe I fancied you more as Lady Smythe."

  Robert turned and stared at her for a mom
ent, then hunched over suddenly. His face transformed, taking on a Lady Smythe look. "Are you certain, madame?" he asked in that high, wavering tone. "I hear tell you've had dancing lessons and speak fluent French. Such pretensions. I don't hold with women reckoning account books, you know. Not at all." His voice deepened into his own. "Or making jewelry, either."

  Amy flinched. She pulled the casting from the water and carried it to her workbench to brush off the remaining bits of plaster.

  He rose and came up behind her, tilting her head back with a hand beneath her chin. "Two more weeks, and a proper wife you'll be." With little finesse, his mouth came down on hers.

  The faint scent of his breakfast had her squeezing her eyes shut and praying for the end to this torment.

  "Part your lips, Amy," he demanded against her mouth.

  She didn't. She wished he'd use one of those newfangled little silver toothbrushes Aunt Elizabeth had sent from Paris.

  Finally he raised his head. "Two weeks," he repeated.

  Her eyes snapped open and burned into his. "Papa would never allow you to keep me from making jewelry." Looking down, she brushed at the casting harder.

  "Hugh Goldsmith won't be here forever." His hand moved to snake down her bodice.

  Amy's gaze flickered toward the showroom in warning.

  Wrenching away, he strode back to his workbench, back to his ale. "At least soon he won't be able to threaten me with bodily harm for sullying his virginal daughter," he spat, raising the tankard in a salute. "Two weeks," he added with a grin.

  A grin that Amy had once thought boyish, engaging…but of late had made her uneasy.

  They both turned as the bell on the outside door tinkled. Amy stood and whipped off her apron. "I'll get it."

  "Your father is out there," Robert reminded her. "He can handle it."