He laughed again. “I deserved it.”
“You did.” She extended a hand. “But I’m glad that I didn’t.”
“Because you love me?”
“No, because you come in very handy when I need to stand up.”
“Ah, the painful truth at last.” He drew her from the bed.
She braced her hands against the persistent ache in her lower back. As she stretched, her attention focused on an oblong rectangle wrapped in black velvet and set against the wall. “What’s that?”
“Your Christmas present.”
“It’s not Christmas yet.”
“Should I take it away?” He wasn’t smiling, but the deepening lines around his eyes alerted her to his game.
“No.” She stepped forward. “It looks like a painting.”
“Well, I know that you take art very seriously.”
Even as her lips twitched, she cast him an unimpressed glance. “The Titian looks much better in the duchess’s London apartments.”
“I bow as always to your decision.”
Another unimpressed glance. Their relationship retained a delicious push and pull, resulting in the occasional clash. It was inevitable when two such opinionated people lived together. But the reconciliations were wonderful, and no disagreement assailed the deep-rooted strength of their union. Cam was her lover and her friend and the finest man she knew. Not a day passed when she didn’t whisper a prayer of thanks for his love. “Can I look?”
“Yes.” He regarded the painting. “I want you to see it before our guests arrive tomorrow.”
For their first Christmas as a couple, they played host to their favorite people. The Harmsworths. The Hillbrooks. Lydia and Simon and their baby girl Rose. Sophie and Harry who were so rapturously happy that they barely noticed society’s disapproval. Elias. Marianne Seaton who had proven a good friend to Pen through the repercussions from Harry and Sophie’s elopement.
Lord Leath even planned to stay a day or two. He and Cam weren’t the best of friends, but there were signs of rapprochement. Cam’s canal scheme had proceeded, to the benefit of the Thorne coffers. Leath’s grudging acceptance of Harry gradually changed to genuine respect. Especially since Harry had taken over one of Cam’s estates and showed every sign of making a success of it.
The beau monde might frown at Her Grace, the Duchess of Sedgemoor entertaining so close to her confinement, but these days the Rothermeres paid little attention to gossip.
Which was a good thing. The scandal after Harry and Sophie’s elopement had been appalling. Insults, innuendos, and ribald lies had proliferated. The young couple still faced a degree of ostracism.
Pen knew better than to stew over the world’s spite. To her satisfaction, Cam showed every sign of agreeing. The Camden Rothermere who teased her this afternoon was his own man. If the world didn’t approve, that was the world’s loss.
With a theatrical gesture, Cam lifted the velvet to reveal the painting.
The bristling silence extended until Cam’s delight faded to concern. “Pen, are you all right? I thought you’d be pleased.”
“I am,” she said in a suffocated voice.
She couldn’t tear her attention from the painting. She’d only seen it once before, after the artist completed it. On that single viewing, it had brought tears to her eyes. Now, six years later, she still wanted to cry. Because it was so beautiful. Because it was so true. So heartbreakingly true.
“How did you get it? He swore never to let it out of the studio.”
“I set out to buy it after we got married. It seemed a suitable gift for a new duchess. But he passed away last April and I had to negotiate with his heirs.”
“But why did he change his mind? He said it was his most precious possession.”
“He always intended it to be yours, apparently. There’s a note down in the library that came with the painting. He calls it a gift of love.”
“He didn’t love me.”
“I think in his way, he did.” Cam stared at the picture, reverently tracing its lines. All hint of teasing had vanished. He looked like the man who had begged her to stay, vulnerable and passionate and so dear. “You can see it.”
“I can see love, but it’s my love for you,” she whispered, touching the graceful curve of the girl’s naked shoulder. “What do you see?”
For a long time, Cam studied the beautiful woman in the Goya portrait and then the beautiful woman who, praise all the angels, was his wife. As she’d said with her usual perception, the love was clear to see. In both versions of Penelope Rothermere.
Cam hadn’t realized until the painting arrived today that he’d proffered mere gold for something beyond price. A late masterpiece from a transcendent artist. A glimpse at Penelope in those years when she’d been lost to Cam.
He still shuddered to think that if chance had played differently, she might never have worked her way back to him.
“I see a lovely girl,” he said slowly.
She glanced at him. “You’re not shocked? After all, I’m one fur stole away from naked.”
He shrugged. “Only a prurient mind would see sin here.”
In the days when Pen’s escapades had tormented him with jealousy, he’d devoted too much time to imagining the wanton images on this canvas. But despite the amount of perfect white skin displayed against the shadowy background, the woman radiated an innocence that vanquished criticism. If Cam had seen this portrait before he’d married Pen, her virginity wouldn’t have been a surprise.
Pen kept her back to the viewer. Sable draped diagonally from one upper arm to her hips, baring her to the small of her back. She’d drawn her black hair in a rope across her shoulder to reveal the tender nape of her neck.
She turned to stare out of the frame, eyes huge and glowing, lips parted on a breath. The old painter had caught so much of Penelope. Her defiance. Her intelligence. Her sweetness.
And something else.
“Look at the painting.”
With a puzzled frown, she obeyed. “What is it?”
Cam stared unwaveringly at the real Pen, curling his arm around her shoulders. “What do you see?”
Pen took a long time to answer. “I see a woman in love. Isn’t that what you see?”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t in love with Goya.”
“No, you were in love with me.” He said it without gloating, although her love always made him feel like the luckiest devil alive. “What else?”
He felt her start as she saw it. “The girl in the painting is in love, but she has no hope of happiness.”
“That’s it,” he said on a long hiss of satisfaction that she understood.
The shining eyes of the girl in the portrait were sad. How had Goya captured the truth hidden from Cam until it was almost too late? A mystery of genius, he supposed. But the great Spanish painter had known that Penelope Thorne was young and beautiful and brimming with spirit. And desperately in love with someone who didn’t care.
Cam crossed to the dressing table to retrieve the heavy silver mirror from his mother’s brush set. He returned to Pen’s side. “Look in the mirror.”
For a long time, Pen stared at her reflection. Then she turned unsmiling to Cam. “Now I know what it is to love and be loved.”
“You do.” He paused. “I’ll love you forever.”
Her eyes glistened with tears. “And I have loved you forever.”
He stepped behind her and laced his arms around her thickened waist. He adored this fecund, round version of Penelope. There was something so earthy and sensuous about her. “I’m so happy that you married me.”
The wry smile contrasted with the moisture brightening her eyes. “I’m happy that I married a man who can give me a Goya painting with a mere flick of his fingers.”
He laughed. “I’ll need to come up with something even more spectacular next Christmas.”
“You will at that.” She placed her hands over his where they linked across her belly. “
If you hang the portrait, you’ll shock the neighbors.”
“This painting belongs here.” He smiled. “Your bedroom will soon rival the Royal Academy, my love.”
She choked back a laugh. “So we’ll only shock the servants.”
“I suspect by now the servants are past shocking.” While yet to catch their employers in flagrante delicto, the Rothermere staff must be perfectly aware of the duke and duchess’s insatiable passions.
Pen turned to face Cam, twining her arms around his neck. She rose on her toes and kissed him tenderly. “Thank you, my darling. I love my Christmas present.” The emotion that hovered just behind the teasing thickened her voice. “I love the woman I’ve become since you made me your wife. That girl was sad and lonely and unfulfilled, and you’ve given me so much joy.”
“Oh, my darling,” he whispered, too moved to say more. But when he kissed her this time, hunger mixed with tenderness.
Pen pressed against him with another broken laugh. “Oh, dear, Your Grace, we may be due to shock the servants all over again.”
About the Author
Always a voracious reader, Anna Campbell decided when she was a child that she wanted to be a writer. Once she discovered the wonderful world of romance novels, she knew exactly what she wanted to write. Anna has won numerous awards for her historical romances, including the RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice, the Booksellers’ Best, the Golden Quill (three times), the Heart of Excellence, the Aspen Gold (twice), and the Australian Romance Readers Association’s most popular historical romance (five times). Her books have been nominated three times for Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA Award and three times for Romance Writers of Australia’s Romantic Book of the Year.
When she’s not writing passionate, intense stories featuring gorgeous Regency heroes and the women who are their destiny, Anna loves to travel, especially in the United Kingdom, and listen to all kinds of music. She lives near the sea on the east coast of Australia, where she’s losing her battle with an overgrown subtropical garden.
You can learn more at:
AnnaCampbell.info
Twitter @AnnaCampbelloz
Facebook.com/AnnaCampbellwriter
Will a week of seduction spark a lifetime of passionate surrender?
Please see the next page for an excerpt from the first Sons of Sin novel,
Seven Nights in a
Rogue’s Bed.
Chapter One
South Devon Coast, November 1826
Storms split the heavens on the night Sidonie Forsythe went to her ruin.
The horses neighed wildly as the shabby hired carriage lurched to a shuddering stop. The wind was so powerful the vehicle rocked even when stationary. Sidonie had seconds to catch her breath before the driver, a shadow in streaming oilskins, loomed out of the darkness to wrench the door open.
“Here be Castle Craven, miss,” he shouted through the sheeting rain.
For a second, terror at what awaited inside the castle held her paralyzed. Castle Craven indeed.
“I can’t leave the nags standing. Be ’ee staying, miss?”
The cowardly urge rose to beg the driver to carry her back to Sidmouth and safety. She could leave now with no damage done. Nobody would even know she’d been here.
Then what would happen to Roberta and her sons?
The remorseless reminder of her sister’s danger prodded Sidonie into frantic motion. Grabbing her valise, she stumbled from the carriage. When the wind caught her, she staggered. She fought to keep her footing on the slippery cobbles as she looked up, up, up at the towering black edifice before her.
She thought she’d been cold in the carriage. In the open, the chill was arctic. She cringed as the wind sliced through her woolen cloak like a knife through butter. As if to confirm she’d entered a realm of gothic horrors, lightning flashed. The ensuing crack of thunder made the horses shift nervously in their harness.
For all his understandable wish to return to civilization, the driver didn’t immediately leave. “Sartain ’ee be expected, miss?”
Even through the howling wind, she heard his misgivings. Misgivings echoing her own. Sidonie straightened as well as she could against the gale. “Yes. Thank you, Mr. Wallis.”
“I wish ’ee well, then.” He heaved himself onto the driver’s box and whipped the horses into an unsteady gallop.
Sidonie hoisted her bag and dashed up the shallow flight of steps to the heavy doors. The pointed arch above the entrance offered paltry protection. Another flash of lightning helped her locate the iron knocker shaped like a lion’s head. She seized it in one gloved hand and let it crash. The bang hardly registered against the roaring wind.
Her imperious summons gained no quick response. The temperature seemed to drop another ten degrees while she huddled against the lashing rain.
What on earth would she do if the house was uninhabited?
By the time the door creaked open to reveal an aged woman, Sidonie’s teeth were chattering and she shook as though she had the ague. A gust caught the servant’s single candle, making the frail light flicker.
“I’m—” she shouted over the storm but the woman merely turned away. At a loss, Sidonie trailed after her.
Sidonie entered a cavernous hall crowded with shadows. Muddy brown tapestries drooped from the lofty stone walls. Ahead, the fire in the massive hearth was unlit, adding to the lack of welcome. Sidonie shivered as cold seeped up from the flagstones beneath her half-boots. Behind her, the heavy door slammed shut with a thud like the strike of doom. Startled, Sidonie turned to discover another equally geriatric retainer, male this time, turning a heavy key in the lock.
What in heaven’s name have I done, coming to this godforsaken place?
With the door shut, the silence within was more ominous than the shrieking tempest without. The only sound was the sullen drip, drip, drip of water from her sodden cloak. Fear, her faithful companion since Roberta had confided her plight, settled like lead in Sidonie’s belly. When she’d agreed to help her sister, she’d assumed the torment, however horrid, would be over quickly. Inside this dismal fortress, the horrible premonition gripped her that she’d never again see the outside world.
You’re letting your imagination run away with you. Stop it.
The bracing words did nothing to calm spiraling panic. Bile rose in her throat as she followed the still-silent housekeeper across acres of floor. She felt like a thousand malevolent ghosts leered from the corners. Sidonie tightened numb fingers around her bag’s handle and reminded herself what agony Roberta would endure if she failed.
I can do this.
The stark fact remained that she’d come so far and still might fail. The plan had always been risky. Arriving here alone and vulnerable, Sidonie couldn’t help considering the scheme devised at Barstowe Hall feeble to the point of idiocy. If only her clamoring doubts conjured some alternative way to save her sister.
The woman still shuffled ahead. Sidonie was so rigid with cold that it was an effort forcing her legs to move. The man had offered to take neither her cloak nor bag. When she glanced back, he’d disappeared as efficiently as if he numbered among the castle’s ghosts.
Sidonie and her taciturn escort approached a door in the opposite wall, as imposing as the door outside. When the woman pushed it open, it shifted smoothly on well-oiled hinges. Steeling herself, Sidonie stepped into a blaze of light and warmth.
Trembling, she stopped at one end of a refectory table extending down the room. Heavy oak chairs, dark with age, lined the table on either side. It was a room designed for an uproarious crowd, but as her gaze slowly traveled up the length of board, she realized, apart from her decrepit guide, only one other person was present.
Jonas Merrick.
Bastard offspring of scandal. Rich as Croesus. Power broker to the mighty. And the reprobate who tonight would use her body.
“Maister, the lady be here.”
Without straightening from his careless slouch in the thro
ne-like chair at the room’s far end, the man raised his head.
At this, her first sight of him, the breath jammed painfully in Sidonie’s throat. From nerveless fingers, her bag slid to the floor. Swiftly she looked down, hiding her shock under her hood.
Roberta had warned her. William, her brother-in-law, had been merciless in his excoriations on Merrick’s character and appearance. And of course, like everyone else, Sidonie had heard the gossip.
But nothing had prepared her for that ruined face.
She bit her lip until she tasted blood and fought the urge to turn and flee into the night. She couldn’t run. Too much depended upon staying. In childhood Roberta had been Sidonie’s only protector. Now Sidonie had to save her sister, no matter the cost.
Hesitantly she lifted her gaze to her notorious host. Merrick wore boots, breeches, and a white shirt, open at the neck. Sidonie tore her gaze from the shadowy hint of a muscled chest and made herself look at his face. Perhaps she’d detect a chink in his determination, some trace of pity to deter him from this appalling act.
Closer inspection confirmed that hope was futile. A man ruthless enough to instigate this devil’s bargain wouldn’t relent now that his prize was within his grasp.
Abundant coal black hair, longer than fashion decreed, tumbled across his high forehead. Prominent cheekbones. A square jaw indicating haughty self-confidence. Deep-set eyes focused on her with a bored expression that frightened her more than eagerness would have.
He’d never have been handsome, even before some assailant in his mysterious past had sliced his commanding blade of a nose and his lean cheek. A scar as wide as her thumb ran from his ear to the corner of his mouth. Another thinner scar bisected one arrogant black eyebrow.
What a Duke Dares Page 33
