I made it through dinner with out bursting into tears. I excused myself early and went to bed, saying that I had a slight headache. I ran to my room, threw myself on the bed and burst into tears. I felt guilty like I deserved this treatment. I had acted like a common trollop and now I was being treated like one. I had not made him make any promises to me and I barely even knew the man. I went off of pure animal attraction. It was the downfall of many ladies in society. For that at least I should be grateful, that no one found out about our secret rendezvous. This all could be much worse. I wiped the tears from my eyes and fell asleep. Tomorrow will be a new day. It will be a better day. I could forget about all that had happened and I could forget about Mr. Grace.
The next morning, I was still very sad but I would not let that defeat me. I got dressed and went downstairs. I spent the day walking the gardens in solitude. When I returned to the house I walked past William’s study. My heart dropped to my stomach as I heard the familiar voice of Mr. Grace. He had returned. I was furious and I wanted to charge in there and give him a piece of my mind. Then I heard the footsteps of their boots head toward the door and I ran to the parlor. Abigail was sitting there.
“Regina, there you are! I’ve been looking for you. You are in for such a surprise, I can not wait,” she said as she jumped up and down.
“What? What do you speak of Abigail?”
Just then William entered the room, “Regina may I have a word with you? In private?”
Oh no, I thought. I had been found out. William was going to cast me out of his house. I was mortified.
“Mr. Grace has returned and just informed me of some spectacular news,” he said.
I held my breath. I could not believe that Antonio had told him about our secret. I wanted to cry.
“Mr. Grace, has asked for my permission for your hand in marriage.”
I almost laughed out loud at the notion, but I kept it under control. I was in shock and I felt giddy with delight. I wanted to jump up and down in joy. He had not abandoned me as I had thought. In fact it was the opposite.
“Since you are staying here in my house and I am the man of this house, he took it upon himself to ask me. He wants permission to ask you. How should I advise him?” he asked.
I sat silently with the biggest grin on my face. I didn’t need to think about it.
“Yes, I accept. Please tell him I accept.”
William smiled and left the room. Within seconds Antonio walked in. He took me by the hand and kissed me. Then he knelt down in front of me and held out a large antique diamond ring.
“Regina you have captured my heart. Will you have my heart and consent to be my wife?”
“Yes!” I yelled.
I hugged him and he placed the ring on my finger.
“Do you like it? I rushed north to grab it from my estate. It was my grandmother’s ring,” he said.
My eyes watered over. I loved it so much. It was the most beautiful ring I had ever seen.
“It is perfect Antonio! I love it,” I hugged him and kissed him. I felt stupid for thinking that he had abandoned me when in fact he had just gone to get this ring.
Abigail and William rejoiced with us.
“This calls for celebration!” William said.
William ordered a grand dinner for the evening and we invited all our closest London acquaintances to join us. It was a very lavish dinner and I was the talk of London. No one could believe that I was able to get the adventurous Mr. Grace to propose marriage. He had a reputation of being unattainable.
Antonio and I played flirtatiously just for show to the others. They had no idea that we already knew each very well. Within two weeks Mr. Grace and I were married. We moved to his estate in Bath and made our lives there. It made me laugh to think I had scolded Abigail for bringing this man into her home under the pretence of setting me up with another boring husband, and yet here I was marrying the very same man. I couldn’t be happier, me Mrs. Regina Grace. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.
*****
Colored By Desire
An Erotic Regency Romance
By Holly Marie
CHAPTER ONE
I was at the Royal Academy of London Art gallery looking at the exhibit of paintings with my sister Annabelle and her husband William. The year was 1850 and a group of sort of radical artists had hit the London art scene. They broke through conventional ways of thinking and lived and loved on their own terms. I ended up giving myself too and falling in love with one of them. His name was Leonardo Drivatti and he had a passion that exuded from at all times You could see it in the air. He had long curly dark unruly hair and he dressed strange. That is, he wore the attire of the day of trousers and shirt and vest, but also wore a silk scarf tied around his neck in the place of a simple bow tie like most men. He wore a stylized hat that was almost western in a sense, but still felt modern. He wore pointing boots when the style was round toed. He was an artist in all sense and he and his group of artist friends dressed this way and had a way of helping you suck the marrow out of life. When Leonardo walked into the gallery that day I stopped in tracks frozen.
“Eudora, are you alright? You look pale,” Annabelle said to me as she placed her hand on my arm.
She followed my gaze to the charismatic Leonardo across the room, who had locked eyes with me.
“Who is that man? He’s looking at you as though you have no clothes on,” she said in shock.
“I have no idea. I’ve never seen him before. Will you ask William who he is?” I said.
Annabelle inched her way toward her husband while I stared inappropriately at Leonardo. He smiled this arrogant smile at me and then pulled a flask out of his lapel and took a discreet, but not so discreet swig.
He was a rule breaker and unconventional and I was hooked at that moment.
“William says that is the painter, Leonardo Drivatti. He’s half Italian and staying with his very rich patron here in London while he paints,” Annabelle whispered in my ear.
I hardly heard her, as I was in a deep trance.
Annabelle disapprovingly pulled me into another gallery room away from the wicked man. I pretended to not be interested. Eventually I pulled away from Annabelle and her husband and made my way alone into another gallery. I felt Leonardo’s eyes on me. My race pulsed and my heart fluttered as I felt him closing in.
“Are you discreet?” he whispered over my shoulder. He stepped away circling me as I stared at the painting on the wall.
“What are you talking about?” I whispered and swallowed hard.
“Are you discreet?” He asked with an air of arrogance.
My face turned bright red. He walked across the room and came inches away from my body. The energy moving between us was magnetic and I could sense that it was building up to something. I wanted to reach out and touch him. He turned toward the doorway to make sure no one was coming and then leaned in close to my ear and whispered, “Can I trust you to be discreet?”
My head was spinning. Maybe it was from the champagne or maybe it was from his manly scent filling the air around me. I felt like I might have to hold onto the wall in order to keep my balance.
“Discreet?” I asked.
“Do I have to spell it out for you?” he grinned in amusement.
He was so arrogant it drove me crazy. I looked up at him and forced myself to smile.
“Discreet? Meaning you’re trying to get me into your bed sir?”
He froze and said nothing. He looked at me up and down and I felt like I was being judged by his dark brown eyes. Then he started laughing. I immediately felt mortified. Why did I just say that? I’m sure that my face was bright red now.
“No, I was talking about modelling for me,” he whispered.
“That’s what you meant by discreet?” I barely got the words out in my extreme embarrassment.
“Yes, I know it’s probably against the rules from a polite lady like you, but I thought you could be discreet about it. Bend
the rules just a little, for me. You are too perfect not to paint,” He grinned again at me. I’m sure he had never had a woman say no to him in his entire life.
“Oh, I see.”
I stared at him, feeling stupid for making such an assumption. Why did I think that in the first place? How could I have thought he wanted to have sex with me? Look at him. He could have any woman on the planet just by smiling. Men like him don’t want a woman like me. I was poor without a dowry and only barely on the outskirts of elite society and that was only because my sister had married well. Leonardo was a famous artist. Then he continued with the compliments.
“You are absolutely captivating. You possess a quality that I can’t put my finger on. But I must have absolute discretion. Other artist are always trying to copy my style you see, so if they know you are my model, they will find another that looks like you,” he said with that arrogant grin.
I quickly jotted our street address down on a piece of paper. I handed it to him, but he didn’t take it from my hand. He paused and looked me over and said, “Stick it in my pocket.”
I looked up at him looking for a sign that he was kidding. That dashing grin was gone. He was being serious.
“I’m not going to do that.” I said taking a step backwards.
He laughed again at me. It was something that was starting to make me uncomfortable with every second. He grabbed the paper pulling it slowly out of my hand. He reached his hand into his pocket, going deep. He left his hand in there for a second and then winked at me.
“Thank you,” he said.
He turned and walked out. I sighed a breath of relief. I was so thankful that he was gone. But I spent the entire night thinking about him.
CHAPTER TWO
He had begun to occupy not only my thoughts but also my dreams, which had turned incredibly sexual. I tried to keep myself occupied with lady luncheons and tea. I went for walks around Hyde Park with parasols and nice conversation. However, it did not matter. I was only going through the motions of it all as I could not stop thinking about Leonardo and I wondered if he would call for me.
I decided to go back to the art gallery. I convinced the carriage driver to take me there and escort me to the front door. Once I was inside, it was indecipherable to tell that I was a lady with out an escort.
I walked to the front door when I heard, “Are looking for me?”
I turned to see him standing in the gallery. I was shocked and startled.
“What are you doing here?” I asked nervously.
“I came for a piece.” He grinned at me.
I dropped my bag from my hand. I nervously looked at him. He did that thing where he looked me up and down. My body flushed with excitement. Was he here for me this time? Had he been thinking about me as much as I had been thinking about him?
“What?” I asked.
He walked slowly toward me. I could feel my breathing getting heavier as he glided confidently across the room. When he squatted down to the floor and picked up my bag, he looked at my feet and let his gaze linger. He rose slowly and his gaze followed. It went from my feet all the way up my body until he was standing up. He towered over me. I looked up at him with desire in my eyes. The amount of lust I had for this man was undeniable.
He handed me my bag and said, “Though it might be too late for me to have it?”
My heart pumped louder and I was sure he could hear it. “Have it?” I asked.
He raised one eyebrow at me and said, “The piece?”
I felt confused, but his close proximity to me was interrupting my clarity. I stood in silence until he said, “I want the big one there.”
He stepped away from me and went to look at a painting on the wall. Of course, I thought. He wanted to buy a piece. This was an art gallery after all. I felt silly and quickly pulled myself together and joined him.
“This is it. I want this one.”
“I see.”
He was silent as he stared at me. I started fidgeting because it was an awkward moment of silence. I didn’t know what he was thinking. He was obviously processing something. I seemed to make a fool of myself when I opened my mouth around him, so it was better that I kept it closed.
“Have you ever been to Venice Ms…?”
“Eudora. Ms. Eudora Sterling, and no, I have not.”
“I see, yet another reason you should model for me. I take my models with me all over the world. I have a palazzo overlooking a canal in the heart of the most romantic city in the world, Venice.”
It all sounded so grand. No, it was a dream. I could only imagine how wonderful it would be to go to Venice with this glorious enchanting man before me. He was striking and passionate. He was a creative genius and I wanted him. I had never had such strong feelings for a man before and it shook me to the core.
“Here is my card. In case you change your mind. If you do change your mind, then come to me at noon tomorrow. I will be expecting you,” he said.
Then, as soon as he had appeared. He disappeared. I stood in the empty gallery alone with a new exciting path beckoning me. Could I leave the safety of a stable environment and embark on a new and unpredictable journey along side a man I had been dreaming about?His presence made my brain shut down. I was not able to ask questions while I was concentrating on struggling to just be a normal person. I paced the gallery wondering what I should do. Up until this point my life was very boring. I did not like any of the suitors that came around for me. I found them dull and with each one I would see a very boring life in store for me. However with Leonardo Drivatti I did not see that. I saw excitement and a world I did not know. I wanted to experience that. However, I knew that doing so would put me in great danger of a scandal. Modelling was not a respectable thing for a woman to do unless she was having her portrait done. In that case the artist would come to the home and never be left alone with the lady. This, however, would be different. Most painters ended up using prostitutes as models because they were often painted nude. Modelling was considered only one step above prostitution. However, even knowing this I still wanted to do it. I wanted to have the sensual experience of being painted by a famous painter and I wanted to spend more time with Leonardo. That was it. I had decided that I would go.
The next day I paced my room nervously. I put on a green dress and pulled my long dark curly hair into a bun on top of my head. I pinned my hat on and pulled on my lace up boots. I was ready, and had practiced my excuse over and over. I went downstairs and found that Annabelle and William were out. I left instructions with the maid that I went to have tea with lady friend. I picked a lady friend that was located on the outskirts of London to make up for the hours I needed to be gone. Then I took the carriage and told the driver the address a few blocks away in Mayfair. I pulled the curtain closed on the window as not to be seen. I was very nervous and jittery and wished I had a tonic or cherry to calm my nerves. If I were to get caught it would ruin my reputation forever. I was risking a lot to be in the presence of this beautiful man. He really did have a hold on me.
The carriage pulled in through a large gate and my mouth dropped at the sight before me. A large historic and monumental house stood on the property. It was two stories high with white limestone walls and a blue roof. It was very grand indeed. The park surrounding it sprawled out on the property. I did not know the patron that Leonardo Drivatti was staying with, but by the looks of it, he was a very prominent figure in the community. I carefully stepped out of the carriage with the help of the footmen who were waiting by the front door of the house. Was this real? It was so elegant and rich.
The maid met me inside the doorway and took my coat. Then she led me a little further in, into the atrium. She didn’t speak and quickly walked off. I didn’t follow her. I was alone in a vast hall. The butterflies in my stomach tripled as I realized that he must think I’m a whore for showing up like this. I began to fidget again. It was unusual that I wasn’t shown to some sort of sitting room to wait. Instead I just stood there. The atrium
had a white marble floor that led to a grand staircase in the back of the room. The wood banisters were elegantly carved and there was a baroque theme through out the house. The walls were high and covered in paintings and tapestries. No doubt the patron was a lover of the arts. No wonder Leonardo Drivatti was staying here and working here. The patron probably thought it was quite exciting to have a famous painter working under his roof. It was a spectacle to be talked about at parties and balls that the patron could take great pride in. This way whatever masterpiece was painted here, the patron could always gloat that it was painted at his estate. I followed the staircase up with my gaze as it led to the upstairs galleries that overlooked the atrium. I saw a tall looming figure standing there. There he was, standing there staring down at me. I felt small as he looked at me from his place up high. Like I was a courtier visiting a king in his castle.
“Eudora, I’m glad you came,” he said as he descended the stairs.
“Thank you for having me,” I replied. I tried to keep my eyes on his face instead of letting them go up and down on his long lean body. I had to remember I was here for business and not pleasure. If I kept repeating that in my mind maybe I would believe it. He was the perfect specimen of a human being. He walked towards me and I would have felt nervous if I could control my own mind. I felt out of control of myself. My blood felt like it was boiling in my veins as I became hot, flushed, and turned on by his presence. I wanted nothing more than to surrender myself to him.
“Follow me,” he said as he swept pass me.
I followed him through the large house entering and exiting one cavernous room after another. We exited through the back of the house and onto a large portico. There was a table set with an elegant lunch. I tried to keep my mouth closed, as I wanted to gape at the vast gardens and enormous fountain that was so beautifully landscaped.
Billionaire: Billionaire Romance: Billionaire Tiger (A Billionaire New Adult Shifter Contemporary Romance) Page 33
