She laughed, thinking back on the twisted path they’d taken to get them to where they were today. Their two halves had made a perfect whole after all. “Well then, the duke is a very fortunate man.”
“Oh yes,” he agreed, lowering his lips to hers for another kiss. “He’s a very fortunate man indeed.”
Epilogue
London, five months later
“Turn a bit to your left, darling.”
Tia sighed and did as Heath asked, shifting so that more light fell across her face from the morning room window. She had agreed to sit for another portrait, but she hadn’t taken into account just how uncomfortable sitting still would be now that her stomach had grown quite round and the babe was intent upon wielding his feet and elbows upon her so unmercifully.
“How is this?” she asked.
“Perfect.” He glanced up at her, the look of concentration on his face that she’d come to know well in the last few months. “You needn’t looked so aggrieved. I only need you to sit for a few moments more.”
“I’m sure I don’t look aggrieved,” she felt compelled to argue, even though she was reasonably certain she did.
“And I’m equally sure you do.” He raised a brow at her before turning his attention back to his canvas.
The reception to his paintings at the Grosvenor Gallery had been exceedingly positive. More of his work was in demand, and Heath had been steadily painting ever since the winter.
She sighed again. “I know you said you wished to represent a maternal goddess in nature for this picture, but I daresay I resemble a cow far more than a goddess.”
She was very conscious of her burgeoning shape. Soon, she would no longer be able to conceal her condition in the clever drapery of her custom gowns. Heath couldn’t seem to keep his hands from her growing belly. He was constantly caressing her there, telling her how beautiful she was. And if his lovemaking was any indication, he was telling her the truth. She supposed that love, at least, was blind.
“Nonsense,” he said. “You’re the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen.”
“And you’re possessed of the smoothest tongue I’ve ever heard,” she returned archly.
“You seemed to enjoy it last night,” he reminded her, making her flush as she recalled precisely what his tongue had been doing to her the previous evening.
“Naughty man,” she scolded without heat. In truth, she found his frank, sensual nature incredibly attractive. She always would.
Their days since her return from Harrington House had been nothing short of wonderful. Time had only brought them closer, their passion burning hotter than ever. And with each moment that passed, she swore that her love for him grew.
A knock at the door interrupted the comfortable silence that had descended between them. Looking askance at her, Heath called for the butler to enter.
“Lady Helen Harrington has arrived, Your Graces,” the august man announced.
Tia brightened at the prospect of an unexpected visit from her sister. “Do send her in, please.”
But the moment her sister crossed the threshold, Tia knew from Helen’s troubled expression that this wasn’t an ordinary social call. Oh dear.
“Lady Helen,” Heath greeted her cheerfully, not having been blessed with the same sense of sisterly discernment. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“I’m sorry to intrude,” Helen murmured, hesitating a few feet away, wringing her hands. “It is merely that I haven’t anywhere else to go.”
Tia rose from the settee, and not without a bit of effort on her part. These days, it seemed that every part of her body ached. She went to her sister, putting a soothing arm around her shoulders. “Come and sit, dearest. What do you mean when you say you haven’t anywhere else to go?”
Helen allowed herself to be led to the settee. She’d barely seated herself before she burst into tears. “Oh Tia, I’ve done something horrid.”
It occurred to Tia that the scene before her was the exact opposite of the one that had played out at Harrington House. Then, it had been Tia in need of reassurance and Helen the one with the ready handkerchief. With a dawning sense of dread, she realized that the tables had seemingly turned.
She handed Tia a handkerchief. “What is it, sister? What can be so bad?”
“I’m with child,” she revealed on a shuddering wail.
Good heavens. Helen, her spinster sister, was having a babe. Out of wedlock. She patted her sister’s shoulder, shocked. “Who is the father, dearest?”
“Don’t ask me. Please.” Helen’s eyes pleaded with her. “I’ve come to you because I need help finding a cottage somewhere far away. Somewhere I can go so that no one will know.”
Tia met her husband’s gaze, an unspoken understanding passing between them. Thank you, she mouthed to him. I love you. He nodded, mouthing the same words back to her. Thank heavens she had a sympathetic husband. Helen would need them both in the months ahead.
“Of course we shall help you, Helen,” she promised her sister. “We shall help you in every way we can.”
Helen’s only response was more miserable weeping. Heath was at their side then, a protective presence. He wrapped them both in a warm embrace, pressing a kiss to the top of Tia’s head.
“You needn’t worry, Helen,” he said. “Tia and I are here for you.”
Tia gripped her husband’s hand, feeling more grateful than ever for the day she’d sprained her ankle in the maze at Penworth and he’d come to her rescue. Sometimes, love was simply meant to be.
Read on for an excerpt from Book Four, Sweet Scandal!
Sweet Scandal
Heart’s Temptation Book 4
By
Scarlett Scott
Not the average lady
Lady Helen Harrington is a spinster by choice. She hasn’t any desire to entangle herself in romantic nonsense. Instead, she prefers to spend her time championing the causes nearest to her heart through writing articles for the London Beacon. When a ruthless American tycoon suddenly buys the struggling paper with plans to turn it into a business journal, Lady Helen isn’t about to stand idly by or put down her pen. Even if the ruthless tycoon in question happens to be the most maddeningly handsome man she’s ever met in her life.
Not the average man
Levi Storm built his empire the hard way, spending years working his way out of the slums where he grew up. He won’t allow a spoiled aristocrat like Lady Helen to interfere with his plans to further his brand with the newspaper he’s just acquired. It doesn’t matter how lovely she is or how persuasive her arguments or how perfectly she fits in his arms.
One sweet scandal
When scandal looms and Helen discovers a shocking secret about Levi, she does what she must to protect herself. But Levi isn’t the sort of man who admits defeat, and he’s not ready to give up on the plucky Lady Helen, especially when he discovers that she has secrets of her own…
Part One
Chapter One
London 1883
Just as she had done each month she was in town for the last three years, Lady Helen Harrington stepped into the offices of the London Beacon. But on this day, something was frightfully out of the ordinary. She clutched her latest article to her silk pelisse as though it were a shield.
The Beacon had never been a bustling hub of activity. Indeed, as a journal concerned with egalitarian matters rather than societal gossip or daily news fodder, it had suffered from both lack of staff and funds. Often, the only soul in the office was the owner and editor, Mr. Bothwell.
And yet, somehow before her swarmed a veritable hive of activity. Men were everywhere. Wooden crates and plaster dust and papers littered the quarters. There was banging and clanging and shouting and strangely, the entire building itself seemed to be buzzing.
No one appeared to notice her as she stood in the entryway, gawking at the commotion. A man bearing tools almost crashed into her in his eagerness to reach his destination. She sidestepped him and managed to run smack into a
hard wall of chest instead.
Her papers and her reticule went flying and she nearly fell to the floor with the impact of the collision. Large hands caught her around the waist, pulling her far too close to an equally large, solidly muscled male form.
“Oh dear,” she muttered, hastily stifling any quickening of her pulse that was inspired by the rather indelicate position.
“Steady,” the man commanded in a distinctly American accent. One word and he’d given himself away.
She looked up into his impossibly blue gaze and her pulse exerted a will of its own, kicking back into a gallop. Good heavens, he was beautiful. There was no other way to describe him. His wavy, dark hair was swept back from his forehead, perhaps a bit too long for fashion, his lips molded with enough perfection that even she, dedicated spinster, was not unaffected. The finely trimmed beard covering his strong jaw made him appear intensely masculine in the very best way possible. If ever Helen had laid eyes upon a man who could shake her unwavering resolution to never again be wooed or misled by a man, surely it was he.
“I trust you aren’t injured?” he asked, his words managing to pierce the London-like fog that had taken up residence in her brain. Oh yes indeed, very American, that accent. There were certainly enough of them traveling in her circles these days. But not this man. She would not have forgotten him.
“Madam?” he pressed when she failed to respond.
“No,” she hurried to reply lest he realize the cause for her lack of alacrity. Goodness, she gawped at him as though she’d never before seen a handsome man. Or a man at all.
“Excellent.” He released her and bent to retrieve her fallen papers and purse before handing them back to her. “Please see yourself out.”
The tone of his voice was not one of concern but rather one of irritation. Had the man no manners? He was dismissing her, and with such insolence?
“Who are you, sir?” she demanded, unnerved by his rudeness and determined to get to the bottom of the tumult before her. “What is going on here?”
He raised an imperious brow at her. “May I ask who you are, madam?”
She blinked, finding his arrogance and audacity most vexing. “Who I am?”
“That is indeed the question I just posed.” His expression remained an icy mask.
He wasn’t about to budge. Very well. She too could be persistent. “Where is Mr. Bothwell?” she asked instead of answering him.
He waved a dismissive hand as though to suggest that Mr. Bothwell’s mere mentioning was as bothersome to him as a fly. “Bothwell is gone. Off happily counting his pounds somewhere, I’d suspect.” His gaze flicked over her person, boldly taking stock of her in a way that had her cheeks heating. “What business have you with him?”
“Business?” She frowned then.
Ladies of her station did not have business. No, indeed. The articles she wrote for the Beacon had initially earned her a bit of pin money, but as time had worn on and the Beacon’s pockets were increasingly to let, she had merely volunteered her services instead. After all, it had been the platform she relished and not any meager funds once associated with it. The opportunity to give voice to the causes that were important to her was of the greatest significance. Through it, she and her fellow reformers had already done a great deal of good by raising funds and awareness both.
His sensual mouth compressed into a firm line. “Are you dimwitted, madam?”
The question took her aback. Of all the insolence she’d encountered in her life, the man before her surely took the proverbial cake. “How dare you?”
“Hang it, I haven’t time to squabble with a woman who keeps repeating every word I say.” He all but growled before hailing one of the men engaged in the industry of hauling away some battered old furniture. “You there, please see that this lovely, confused lady is taken to her personal conveyance at once.”
And then without preamble, without even so much as another glance in her direction, he turned his back on her.
She had been dismissed.
Helen stared at his infuriating back, noting despite herself just how broad and well-muscled it appeared to be. Precisely who did he think he was? Did he not know she was a lady? That she was the daughter of an earl? That she ought to be at least treated with a modicum of respect if not gallantry?
Oh no he didn’t.
She sidestepped the poor fellow assigned with the task of escorting her to her carriage and hurried after the source of her discourteous dismissal. “Sir, I must insist on an answer. What in heaven’s name is going on here?”
He spun about on his heel, surprise evident in every line of his visage. Perhaps he had expected her to meekly do his bidding. If so, he was bound to be sorely disappointed. “Madam, kindly leave my building as you’ve been instructed. I have a great deal more important things to do than answer your hen-witted questions.”
His building? His arrogance knew no bounds. And now he called her hen-witted? Surely the man must be daft. Either that or he was utterly mad, for there was no other explanation for such an appalling lack of couth. “This building belongs to the London Beacon,” she pointed out. “I write a monthly column for the Beacon, and I won’t be going anywhere until I can speak with Mr. Bothwell directly.”
“Damn it all,” he muttered, startling her by taking her elbow in a firm grasp and propelling her toward Mr. Bothwell’s office. “Come with me.”
He said the last as though he gave her an option. He hadn’t. The man all but dragged her across the floor and into the room that had once housed Mr. Bothwell’s sturdy old desk and a bookcase laden with fine literature. He slammed the door behind them, and she should have flinched or objected to the impropriety but she was too engaged in taking in her surroundings to notice.
Mr. Bothwell’s office had changed. In place of his desk was a brand new and fine mahogany desk with intricate carving and an inlaid mother of pearl monogram bearing an ‘S.’ The carpet was lush beneath her feet and the gaslight had been replaced by gleaming electric globes. A fresh coat of paint had been applied, and it all looked very costly and very unlike any expense that could be afforded by the haphazard Mr. Bothwell.
Understanding dawned upon her at last. The forbidding man before her and his insufferable demeanor had so flummoxed her that she hadn’t listened carefully enough to what he’d said. “Do you mean to say that Mr. Bothwell has sold the paper?”
The old rotter hadn’t said a word to her when she’d last seen him. He had simply accepted her article and said he would see her in a month’s time. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary. Mr. Bothwell’s fingertips had retained their typical ink stains, his thinning shock of white hair mussed as always. He hadn’t suggested at all that anything was amiss.
“That is precisely what I mean to say.” He towered over her, so near she could detect the faint, masculine scent of his soap. “I own this building and the London Beacon both. Mr. Bothwell won’t be returning, and your services will no longer be required.”
Dismay rattled through her. “But I have an understanding with Mr. Bothwell. I’ve been writing a monthly for two years now.” The Beacon had been the only publication where she’d managed to publish her views. Bothwell espoused reform, and he’d been willing to give her free reign in venting her sometimes de trop and sometimes shocking notions. Indeed, the Beacon had always been a paragon of reform, at least until the interloper before her had greased the old man’s palms. She very much feared she couldn’t find another paper that would dare to publish her work, and she had yet so much to say and do. Why, she had only just begun.
He remained impervious to her pleas. “Whatever understanding you had with the former editor and owner is no concern of mine.”
Well. It would seem that he was equal parts good-looking and callous. He appeared quite inflexible. But she too was made of stern stuff. One had to be when one possessed three minx sisters and three unruly brothers. “You needn’t be so dismissive, sir. I’ve put a great deal of research into this art
icle, and it’s about—”
“I don’t care,” he interrupted. “I don’t care if it’s about butterflies or your grandmother’s shoes. It won’t be published by my paper, and nor will anything else you write. As I said, your services will no longer be required.”
The blighter. Butterflies and an old woman’s shoes indeed. As though she would have nothing of greater import, no topic weightier than fripperies and nonsense, to offer the reading public. Now her temper was rather beginning to get the best of her. “Sir, your manners are deplorable.”
He flashed her a grin that wasn’t polite or kind but somehow still had an effect on her. Dash it all, the man had dimples. Dimples, of all the preposterous things! As though he needed anything else to enhance his looks.
“Madam, if I had ever concerned myself with manners, I wouldn’t have a cent to my name. As edifying as I find this discussion, I truly do have more significant matters requiring my attention. Would you care for me to have you escorted to the door or would you prefer to be thrown over my shoulder like a haversack and carted to the door?”
“Are you threatening my person, sir?” Surely he wouldn’t dare.
He closed the distance between them, setting his hands upon her waist. Apparently he was and he would. “You have until the count of three, madam. One. Two.”
She placed her hands over his, trying in vain to tug free of his grasp. It was a mistake. Even through her gloves, the contact felt somehow oddly, delightfully intimate. She gazed up into those ethereal blue eyes and realized he’d stopped counting. Her corset had grown unaccountably tight and an unsettling sensation had taken up residence deep within her. None of it made a whit of sense since each time the man opened his mouth, the sentences he uttered were even more rude than the last. He was troublesome. Arrogant. Irritating.
Heart’s Temptation Books 1–3 Page 77