‘Love and hate are inextricably intertwined.’ She sighed. ‘Just look at me and Rayne.’ Somehow, he had known she would understand. ‘I loathed myself too after that.’
‘I was so damn disgusted and furious at myself it was making me ill. Bile in my mouth, this awful, painful knot here.’ Piers pointed to his throat which was now blissfully knot-free. ‘Then Lisbon happened and I was posted back to London, and without Constança in my life all those pains went away. Or they mostly did. Every single time someone mentioned her, or I had to think about her as I did during the divorce trial, they returned. So I dealt with them by not thinking about her and never talking about her and I now realise that gave her power over me. The moment I knew she was headed here it resurfaced again and typically I tried to ignore it. I rationalised, quite logically, that those buried insecurities had absolutely nothing to do with us and would go away as quickly as she did.’
‘That plan went well.’ Faith did sarcasm so well. ‘If all it took was one silly dance to make your thick head explode.’
‘Something snapped when I saw you dancing with Edward Tate and sent all the suppressed emotion shooting to the surface like steam in a kettle. Because I realised something earth-shattering, Faith… I realised that I wasn’t just falling in love with you—which already seemed daunting enough as you know—but that I was already in love with you. Hopelessly in love, in fact.’ Her spontaneous and delighted smile at this revelation warmed his heart. ‘And in my panic, all those buried nagging doubts became entangled with how I felt about you. I suppose, deep down, among all that destructive and obstructive self-loathing, I still feared history might repeat itself.’
Her lovely face was full of sympathy. ‘Do you still?’
‘That’s the damnedest thing of all. Even as I said those awful things to you, I didn’t truly believe them. Not here.’ He touched his heart. ‘Where it matters.’
‘Good, because Edward…’ Piers placed his finger on her lips.
‘You don’t need to explain, Faith. You never need to explain. A relationship without foundations built in trust is doomed to collapse and only a complete idiot believes he can prevent that from happening by forbidding inconsequential nonsense like dances. Or stupidly trying to dictate who you can see or not see. I am not an idiot…not usually at least…and that is not the sort of relationship I want for us.
‘I also realised that the fact I was panicking was also significant. It meant that despite my reserved, staid and pragmatic character, even I cannot suppress my emotions when the stakes are high enough. And while my idiotic jealousy was completely misplaced and wholly unwarranted, it made me realise I would do anything to fight for us.’
She smiled as her thumb stroked his palm. ‘That was quite a pretty apology, but how do I know it won’t all flare up again if somebody mentions Constança or something I do reminds you of her?’
‘Because it only took one look at Constança to confirm without a shadow of a doubt that it could never possibly be that way with you. I was really dreading seeing her again. All week, the mere thought of it unsettled me—another reason for my panic—but instead it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. Because I saw her and felt nothing.’ It was like the entire weight of the world being lifted from his shoulders.
‘No hate. No anger. No stomach pains. No bile. No anything except indifference and the overwhelming relief that she wasn’t a part of my life any more. In a strange sort of way, it released me from the prison I’ve been locked in, one entirely of my own making, and proved it was long past time I moved on.’ He took her hand, marvelling in his good fortune that fate had sent him her when he had least expected it. ‘I know this is fast. I know this is reckless. But you would make me the happiest man in the world if that could be with you.’
She stared down at her fingers and then deep into his eyes. ‘Then what are you waiting for? Just kiss me, idiot.’
He did not need her to ask twice, and scooped Faith off her chair and into his lap with such speed she giggled as she clung to him. But then her laughter turned to a contented sigh as he brushed his lips over hers. ‘I’m going to do more than kiss you, woman!’
Like all their kisses, this one heated quickly and she welcomed that, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck so he could properly plunder her mouth. But unlike those others, and despite the palpable lust hanging heavy in the air, neither of them were in a rush. They both understood that this time things were different. They no longer needed to be wary, didn’t need to shy away from it, didn’t need to apologise for the sheer intensity of their desire. They kissed instead like two people who knew exactly where it was heading, and revelled in it all the more as a result.
‘What time do I need to get you home?’ His mouth barely lifted from hers.
‘Before the house wakes at six.’
He reached beneath her and pulled out his pocket watch and then smiled wolfishly as he glanced at the dial. ‘That gives us three whole hours.’ His talented lips found her ear. ‘And I don’t intend to waste a second.’
As he kissed her, his hands roamed lazily over her body until they found the hem of her gown, then they wandered beneath it, smoothing up her leg with aching slowness, then back down again taking her stocking with it. Then he did the same with her other leg. When both were completely bare, his finger went to the pins in her hair, removing them leisurely one by one, twirling his fingers in the curls as his tongue tangled with hers.
Faith unknotted his cravat and unwound it, then nuzzled his neck with her teeth while she pushed his jacket from his shoulders, enjoying the feel of the corded muscles beneath his shirt and the way they bunched at her touch. His waistcoat went next, and because she was impatient, so did his shirt and she felt his rapid heartbeat beneath her palms as she explored his bare chest, then tasted it with her lips. ‘It has just occurred to me that you have deftly avoided sitting for me and I still need to sketch you.’
‘You have sketched me.’
‘For my father’s tableau—not for mine. I want to draw you differently.’ She tugged him to stand, her fingers reaching the buttons of his falls. ‘I want to draw you naked…’
His mouth paused on her shoulder. ‘You cannot put me naked in my mother’s portrait.’
She pushed the waistband from his hips, then boldly traced the shape of him. ‘It’s not for your mother’s portrait. It’s a picture just for me.’
His compelling eyes darkened, and his breathing became erratic. ‘You can draw me naked any time you want as long as you are naked too.’
‘Oh, I think I can guarantee that.’ Wantonly, she turned her back to him and lifted her hair in invitation, enjoying the way his fingers became clumsy in his haste to unlace her dress. She let the garment slither to the floor in a puddle of silk at her feet, gasping as his fingers brushed her bare skin as the final set of laces of her corset were undone. Then turned and watched his eyes rake her body encased in only her thin chemise.
Still, he refused to hurry, preferring to tease them both by exploring her curves thoroughly again over the flimsy barrier of her chemise. Smiling as she shuddered when his thumbs finally found her pebbled nipples and she thrust her breasts towards his hands. He trailed soft kisses down her neck and across her collarbone, pushing the chemise away only as far as he needed to expose her shoulders to his lips.
Again, it was Faith who hastened things, wriggling out of the garment and then feeling beautiful and powerful as he devoured her with his eyes until he simply had to touch her.
Trailing just the pad of one finger, he traced the shape of one bare breast. ‘That is a pretty flower you have in your hair, Miss Brookes.’ Then he smiled wickedly as he retrieved it and used that to slowly trace her body instead, until she growled her impatience and he tugged her to his chest. The feel of his skin on hers was divine, his mouth on hers sublime. She pressed her hips against his hardness and felt him trembl
e.
That was when the lust consumed them and they let it have free rein, clinging to each other breathless—mindless—shameless until even that wasn’t enough. She tried to drag him to the floor and he shook his head. ‘Not there…not yet.’
‘The table?’
Then she smiled and hauled her body upwards so that her legs were hooked around his waist. ‘The armchair first…obviously.’ And as they laughed at the irony, he carried her to it, fell back on to it while she straddled him and then kissed her some more.
Hot, fevered, desperate kisses turned poignant and tender, then stopped completely as they sensed the significance of the moment. His eyes locked with hers as she shifted her hips to take him and remained locked as her body encased him to the hilt. Then lost themselves to passion. The world blurred, tilted and disappeared altogether, taking all the past and all the pain and all the doubt with it and leaving only the breathless promise of tomorrow in its place.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Two hours later, Faith sighed contentedly against his chest, wondering how they came to be under the table. ‘I feel cheated.’
Half-asleep, he kissed the top of her head. ‘How so?’
‘I was promised staid, dull, reserved and unexciting, and that was anything but.’
She could hear his smug smile in the tone of his voice. ‘Clearly you bring out the worst in me.’
‘Or the best. You are particularly wonderful in an armchair.’
‘It’s where I am at my best.’
She propped herself on her elbow to stare down at him, and his fingers idly toyed with the curtain of her hair. ‘The one in here is particularly comfortable. Do you think the palace would sell it to us?’
‘I’ll have a special one made to its exact specifications and it will have pride of place in our house.’
‘Are we going to have a house?’
He chuckled. The delicious rumble vibrating through her skin. ‘I was going to rent you a little one in Bloomsbury…’
‘That’ll be nice. We can share it until I leave you for a duke.’
‘I absolutely forbid you from ever leaving me or my trusty armchair.’
She trailed her finger down the intriguing arrow of dark hair on his abdomen. ‘You…forbid me?’ She smiled at his sharp intake of breath as her fingers drifted lower. ‘You can go to hell, sir. Unless we are now officially courting, Piers, in which case I might make just one exception…’
He turned her to lie beneath him so swiftly, she gasped. ‘What say you we bypass the courting and dash recklessly, rashly, lustfully and scandalously headlong into for ever instead?’
Faith smiled contentedly against his lips.
‘I’d have to finish your mother’s picture first, of course—but then I’m game if you are.’
* * *
In a shocking but not unforeseen revelation, the long-suffering Lady R. is petitioning Parliament to divorce her husband on the grounds of his cruelty, adultery and rife drunkenness! This comes hot on the heels of Lord R.’s hasty resignation from his government position in Whitehall, after rumours of his alleged affair with the French spy Madame d’Pellitier surfaced.
A source close to the government refused to speculate on whether or not Lord R. was under suspicion of passing state secrets to Madame d’Pellitier across the pillow before she fled back to France, but did confirm that he believed the philandering Lord had indeed returned to his estate in early April, after complications arising from the broken nose he sustained while inebriated at the Covent Garden theatre made it impossible for him to carry out his duties.
In more pleasant news, alongside the much-anticipated unveiling of their spectacular new masterpiece at their Annual May Ball which received much critical acclaim, the Earl and Countess of Writtle also confirmed society’s worst-kept secret last night by announcing the engagement of their son.
Lord Eastwood and the artist of the aforementioned lauded masterpiece, Miss Faith Brookes, will tie the knot this very weekend! She is to be walked down the aisle by her father, the famous portraitist Mr Augustus Brookes, to an aria from Così fan Tutte sung by her mother, Mrs Roberta Brookes, the famous soprano. Her two sisters will be bridesmaids and the groom’s niece, Miss Isobel Filbert will be her chief bridesmaid.
Another work of the soon-to-be Viscountess Eastwood, entitled Sunrise over London, will also be exhibited at the Royal Academy this summer to much fanfare after it left the judges overawed by its magnificence. However, do not wait until then to commission her for your own masterpiece, as I am reliably informed there is already a huge waiting list for the unconventional Miss Brookes’s exquisite paintings.
And while I am on the subject of the unconventional Brookes family of Bloomsbury, dear reader, another delicious rumour also found its way to my ears this morning. Only this one involves the middle daughter, Miss H., who was apparently involved in an altercation in the Writtles’ garden during the exact same ball!
Although what the fiery redhead was doing alone, in the dark, in the small hours of her sister’s engagement ball, with the dissolute new Marquess of Thundersley is anyone’s guess…
Whispers from Behind the Fan
May 1814
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781488071690
The Viscount’s Unconventional Lady
Copyright © 2021 by Susan Merritt
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Suddenly, strong arms pulled her back, slamming her against a rock-hard chest.
Rhys held her against him, his arms encircling her, as the carriage thundered past, making the ground tremble beneath the horse’s powerful hooves.
Helene’s senses seemed to come alive at the moment. The fright at almost being run down. The glory of being held by him. “Rhys,” she whispered.
He abruptly released her. “Take more care, Helene,” he said gruffly.
He blamed her? She had not seen the carriage coming. No one could have.
He seized her arm and led her across the street, letting go of her the minute they were on the pavement again. What? Did he think she could not safely cross a street now?
Madame Desmet was several pac
es ahead of them. Helene glanced at Rhys, whose expression seemed to have soured.
Had touching her been that abhorrent to him? Even to save her life? Helene felt tears of anger sting her eyes. She blinked them away, determined not to allow his animosity to affect her. She had come to terms with what she had done in not marrying him. Why couldn’t he?
Author Note
One of the joys of writing historical romance is fitting in the real history of the time period. In this book I’ve tried very hard to be accurate in my historical details, particularly concerning the Duchess of Richmond’s ball and the Battle of Waterloo. The Battle of Waterloo continues to captivate me and I never tire of setting books in and around the battle. Perhaps it is because I am the daughter of an army colonel (US Army, that is) that most of my heroes are army men who value duty, honor and country.
To those readers who love this pivotal episode in history, look for those real historical details and forgive me if I’ve gotten anything wrong. I’ve tried hard not to. To others, I hope Rhys and Helene’s story sparks an interest in the battle and the people and events around it—the real heroes and heroines.
Her Gallant Captain at Waterloo
Diane Gaston
Diane Gaston’s dream job was always to write romance novels. One day she dared to pursue that dream and has never looked back. Her books have won romance’s highest honors: the RITA® Award, the National Readers’ Choice Award, the HOLT Medallion, the Golden Quill and the Golden Heart® Award. She lives in Virginia with her husband and three very ordinary house cats. Diane loves to hear from readers and friends. Visit her website at dianegaston.com.
Books by Diane Gaston
Harlequin Historical
The Lord’s Highland Temptation
Her Gallant Captain at Waterloo
Harlequin Historical February 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 Page 24