“Say yes,” Worth Kettering suggested, “and we won’t have to involve the gentlemen from Bow Street.”
“Write out an apology to Mrs. Channing,” Oak added, “and then we don’t involve the gentlemen from Bow Street—until your remove to the Continent.”
“I like that better,” Kettering allowed. “Has a bit more menace to it—more justice.”
Ash took a firm hold of Longacre’s arm. “Pen and paper await you on the desk blotter. You’re a creative type, Longacre—or you dreamed of being one. Perhaps your skills are more literary. Beg, grovel, and pray well enough on paper, and nobody will call you out.”
Cam sighed. “Nobody? But I do so enjoy a spot of target practice.”
“As do I,” Oak added. “Start writing, Longacre.”
Longacre jerked his arm free of Ash’s hold. “As if you could manage a pistol, Dorning. You’re barely fit for wielding a paintbrush.”
Oak slipped an arm around Vera’s waist. “Don’t underestimate the peasantry, Longacre. Any younger son raised in the shires will be a dead shot with whatever firearm you care to name. Best start penning your farewell work.”
“Make it good,” Vera said. “Or I will find time in my busy schedule to drop around Bow Street. Mr. Dorning, I hear the quartet tuning up. I believe the dancing will soon begin.”
Oak gestured toward the door. “May I have the honor?”
She kissed him, with a good portion of polite society looking on. “You most assuredly may.”
The morning after the Montclair reception, Vera rose to find not one but eight bouquets of flowers arranged in the foyer of Sycamore’s town house. Jonathan Tresham had sent his regards, as had two earls, a marquess, several anonymous admirers, and a surprisingly tasteful little arrangement of roses from “Your dearest darling Cam.”
“You have conquered London,” Sissy observed, accepting a ninth bouquet from a footman. “Where shall I put this one?”
Vera took the card. Ash Dorning sent felicitations—and congratulations on her excellent pugilism. “In the parlor. The roses and honeysuckle can go in there as well, lest I foster sibling rivalry.”
“Miss Catherine will be impressed,” Sissy observed, collecting a bouquet in each hand.
“Miss Catherine will be impatient to take her sketchbook to Hyde Park. Cook should have some stale bread for Alexander to feed to the waterfowl.”
The children had taken to London with an enthusiasm Vera hadn’t anticipated, and they were soon bustling out the door, both Sissy and a footman with them. The house was quiet in the wake of their departure, and oddly peaceful.
A tap sounded on the door, and Vera opened it herself. “Mr. Dorning, good day.”
Oak stood on the front steps, looking as scrumptious as ever. “Mrs. Channing, greetings. How are you?”
She stepped back. “I am well. You?” She gave herself a moment to simply enjoy the sight of him, though sadness pulled at her. She had earned a few bouquets, but the true conquest of London had been Oak’s. Before they’d left the Montclair reception, half a dozen members of the Academy had found a way to be introduced to Oak, and another half dozen had been angling for the same courtesy.
Oak came into the house and stopped a few paces from the door. “Are the children on the premises?”
Vera closed the door behind him. “They are not. Cook and the housekeeper have gone to market, the footman went with Sissy and the children to the park. The day is so fine, I do not expect them back soon.”
“Then I am not well at all,” Oak said, advancing on her. “I am sorely in need of your intimate company. Now, Vera. Against the wall would suit me fine. On all fours on the parlor rug, across my lap on the sofa. I am dying for want of you.”
So Oak was lusty in victory. She should have anticipated that.
Vera went into his arms. “I miss you too.” They had bid each other a decorous farewell the night before, with Oak bowing over her hand as Cam and Ash had waited in the town coach.
“This isn’t mere missing,” Oak said, wrapping her in a tight embrace. “This is madness.” He commenced kissing her in the foyer. Vera whisked off his hat even as she kissed him back. The passion erupted with the suddenness of a summer storm, and before she’d caught her breath, she was upstairs with Oak, behind the locked bedroom door.
“I can’t go slowly,” Oak said, hopping about as he yanked off his boots. “Not this time, Vera. You were magnificent, and Cam wants the Stoltzfus nudes. Make him pay a fortune for them.” He tossed his boots in the general direction of the bed. “Let me undo your hooks.”
Oak tried to be gentlemanly with her clothing, but Vera felt a slight tearing before a half-dozen hooks had been undone.
“I could take a knife to your corset strings,” Oak said. “Ruck up your skirts and… God, I want you.”
Unbridled desire with Oak Dorning had much—much—to recommend it. The first coupling was exactly like a summer storm, fierce and fast, an inundation of pleasure. The next was more of an autumn rain, slow, thorough, and quiet.
Vera told herself to fret about the children returning, or fret about something, but she simply could not, so completely had Oak exhausted her.
“That will hold me,” he said, gathering Vera against his side, “for at least an hour. I spent a very restless night, Verity Channing, and that is entirely your fault.”
“As did I.” She put his hand over her breast and closed his fingers in a snug grasp. Never would she have been so bold while married, but with Oak, no shyness plagued her. “Did you engage in self-gratification?”
“I tried to, but it wasn’t any good. I wanted you, only you, and all of you. The hands of the clock refused to move. After another two or three bouts in this bed, I intend to take you for an ice at Gunter’s. I want all of London to gawk at us and whisper about what might have happened at the Montclair reception last night.”
“What will London be whispering?”
“That Richard Longacre will be leaving Town under a cloud of scandal, though the details aren’t circulating. That some changes will be made at the Academy, a lot of the old guard retiring from their committees, some new faces taking on the work. De Beauharnais will get the recognition he deserves.” He looked at his cock in consternation. “Good God, you are inspiring me once again, Verity. This has to be some sort of record.”
“You are inspiring me too. Will one of those new faces at the Academy be yours?”
“Crouch up,” Oak said, patting her bum. “I have become insatiable where you’re concerned.”
Vera obliged and was treated to a loving by turns lazy and passionate. Her pleasure crested higher with each joining, which ought not to have been possible. She was half asleep, Oak spooned around and half draped over her, when he spoke again.
“I have realized something.”
“That three times isn’t enough?”
“I will never get enough of you, though I might die a premature and happy death making the attempt. What I realized is that I don’t love London.”
Vera rolled over so she could face Oak, all thoughts of sleep banished. “What does that mean?”
“The London I was besotted with doesn’t exist. It’s a place where artists are respected and well paid, where jealousy never intrudes, and patrons are uniformly supportive. That London admits of no stupid schemes, backstabbing, or petty politics. It’s a pretty picture, but only that.”
Vera cradled his cheek against her palm. “I’m sorry. I know what it feels like when a lovely dream is fractured by a less lovely reality. You and London will come to terms, I’m sure.”
“We have come to terms,” Oak said. “My terms.”
A little sadness reappeared through the glow of thorough and repeated loving. “I’m glad, then. London is your dream come true. You deserve to enjoy it, especially now that you’ve sorted out the Academy’s resident troll.”
“I do not love London,” Oak said, shifting over her. “I came to Town thinking to finally, finally find li
ke-minded company, people passionate about art, people who could appreciate me for my talents. I found evil, grasping, arrogant corruption and others willing to enable it for their own gain.”
“You are disillusioned?” A painful process, for a man who sought always to see the truth.
He planted a slow, thoughtful kiss between her brows. “I am less naïve.”
Vera scooted a little, the better to wrap her legs around his waist. Her desire had been slacked—for now—but her appetite for closeness was not yet sated.
“I like that,” she said. “Less naïve. Dirk married a maid of the shires, but I am no longer she, and I like that too. I have made my peace with London, and I wouldn’t mind visiting again, but will you come home to Merlin Hall with me?”
She had grown bold indeed, to ask him so plainly.
Oak left off nuzzling her temple to regard her solemnly. “I don’t love London, but I do love you. You are my dream come true, Verity Channing. Will you marry a younger son with little means but large ambitions?”
“I have never been anybody’s dream come true,” she said, trying to grasp that he had used the word marry. Not a liaison, not a passing fancy when he was on his way back to Dorset. “Do you know what my dream come true would be?”
“Give me fifteen minutes,” Oak said. “Twenty at the most. The wall beside the vanity looks sturdy enough.”
She smacked his bum. “My dream come true is to waken every morning in your arms.”
“I love this dream,” Oak said. “I love you, did I mention that?”
“Only the once.”
He shifted up, covering her and cradling her face against his shoulder. “I love you like I love sunlight on water and rain clouds and shadows. I love you like I love the feel of a brush in my hand and a clean canvas awaiting my paint. I love you like all the colors God ever created. Please say you’ll marry me.”
The moment became sweet and serious as Vera stroked Oak’s back and savored a dream coming true.
“You will teach Alexander to ride,” she said.
“He’s a natural in the saddle. There won’t be much teaching required.”
“And you will encourage Catherine’s art.”
“Until she’s tired of my critiques.”
She smoothed her hand over his muscular backside. “You will sketch nude drawings of me for our mutual diversion.”
He raised himself up and hitched closer. “Will I, Vera? Nude sketches of you?”
“Maybe a tasteful oil, in time. Let’s start slowly and see if we enjoy it.”
“Yes,” he said, kissing her. “Yes, and yes.”
“You’ll help Catherine decide what to do with the paintings of Anna when the time comes?”
“Of course. And I will paint every hillside and cow byre on Merlin Hall land and do a portrait of the Davies sisters if you like.”
In other words, Oak was willing to rusticate at Merlin Hall, to set aside anything but an amateur’s dabbling for Vera’s sake.
“You will have commissions, Oak. I insist on it. Everybody making a sojourn to the seaside spas will come past our door, and we can certainly offer them hospitality if they hire you for their portraits.”
She felt him catch hold of her suggestion, the same way he noticed echoing patterns in wall paper, clouds, and garden flowers.
“That might work.”
“That will work, and we will return to London in spring so you can complete more commissions during the Season, and I can meet the rest of your family. You had mentioned a niece—Tabitha?—I’m sure she and Catherine would enjoy each other’s company, and I am looking very much forward to—”
Oak seized her in a bear hug. “Yes. Yes to all of it, of course, yes, but you have to marry me, Vera. You must, or I will never paint anything worthwhile again.”
She hugged him back. “I will happily, joyously have you for my husband, Oak, but you will also have your art.”
“I will have family and friends to love, which is how the heart makes its art. That creation is more beautiful than any painting ever commissioned. I know that now.”
“I want Sycamore and Ash to stand up with us.”
“So do I, though Kettering will try to manage the whole ceremony.”
They talked quietly of other particulars—where to hold the ceremony; when and how to tell the children and the rest of the Dorning family, until Oak dozed off in Vera’s arms and she in his. When they woke, Vera declared herself famished for want of a vanilla ice, and Oak, ever her servant, made that dream come true—that dream come true, too—after proving to their mutual satisfaction that the wall beside the vanity was, in fact, sturdy enough to meet all amatory challenges.
To My Dear Readers
To my dear readers,
I did wonder how Oak was going to find his happily ever after between Dorset and London. The quiet ones always bear watching. (Vera says they sometimes bear kissing too). I hope you enjoyed this little tale of true love and determination, because there’s more of that in store for Ash Dorning and Della Haddonfield, our next True Gentlemen protagonists. My Heart’s True Delight comes out September 22, 2020 (September 12, 2020, in the webstore). I expect Sycamore’s story will be published in early 2021, but don’t tell him I said that.
A little excerpt from Ash and Della’s opening pages appears below.
If you haven’t caught the most recent Rogues to Riches title, A Duke by Any Other Name is hot off the presses. Althea Wentworth approaches Nathaniel, Duke of Rothhaven, to put in a good word for her with the rural neighbors. He’s adamantly opposed to embroiling himself in neighborhood politics, but that apparently doesn’t preclude enjoying a few of Althea’s kisses… my, my, my.
In November, Constance Wentworth gets her happily ever after, which also requires the cooperation of a grumbly duke (by the end of the book, he’s not so grumbly). I’ve included an excerpt from The Truth About Dukes below.
I will also be this year busy updating, re-covering, and downpricing the Lonely Lords series, book by book, and republishing duets and trios of delisted novellas. Stephen Wentworth’s story is in the works for next spring (How to Catch a Duke), and I’ve written three Regency mystery stories for a widowed sleuth named Lady Violet. Maybe I should publish those too…?
If you’d like to stay up to date regarding all this activity, I put out a newsletter about once a month. I will never sell, swap, or spam your addie, I promise. Following me on Bookbub means you’ll get the pre-order and on-sale alerts, and notices of any retail discounts. You might also take an occasional peek at my Deals page, where I note all the discounts and sales in my webstore as well as on the major platforms.
Happy reading!
Grace Burrowes
* * *
Read on for an excerpt My Heart’s True Delight!
Excerpt—My Heart’s True Delight
Lady Della Haddonfield has landed in a world of trouble. Ash Dorning doesn’t feel he has the right to ride to the rescue, but neither can he stand idly by while the woman he loves faces scandal…
* * *
“If you are so unforgivably clodpated as to challenge Chastain to a duel,” Ash Dorning said, “I will not only refuse to serve as your second, Tresham, I will shoot you in the arse myself. Lest you forget, I was raised in the country. My aim is faultless.”
“You wouldn’t,” Jonathan Tresham replied. “Della would never forgive you for wounding her devoted brother.”
Ash poured two fingers of brandy from the better stock kept behind the bar in The Coventry Club’s game room. At this mid-morning hour, the cleaning crew had already come through. The space was was tidy and deserted, and a perfect place to talk sense into Tresham.
Or try to. “If you add fuel to the flames of gossip,” Ash said, “by involving Lady Della’s name in a matter of honor, you will be the one she never forgives. As far as polite society is concerned, the Haddonfield menfolk are her brothers. Your involvement in the situation would only cause the wrong kind of speculatio
n.”
Lady Della’s mother and Tresham’s father had had an affair while married to other people. The tall, blond Haddonfields affectionately referred to the petite dark-haired Lady Della as their changeling, but anybody who took a close look at Della and Tresham side by side would begin to speculate.
If they had any sense, they’d speculate silently. Della’s oldest Haddonfield brother, Nicholas, was the Earl of Bellefonte, while Tresham was heir to the Quimbey dukedom. Della was fiercely beloved by all of her siblings, and by any number of in-laws and relatives.
And Della was loved by Ash too, not that his sentiments had any bearing on anything.
“Why did she do it, Dorning?” Tresham took his drink to the roulette table and gave the wheel a spin. “Why run off with Chastain? He’s a bounder and a rake and the worst kind of inept card player.”
Because Ash managed The Coventry Club with his brother Sycamore, he knew exactly what Tresham meant. The more heavily William “Chastity” Chastain lost, the more heavily he drank, and the more heavily he bet.
“To those just down from university,” Ash said, “Chastain offers a certain shallow-minded bonhomie. He’s good-looking. He pays his debts or we’d not let him back in the door.” Though how he paid his debts was something of a mystery.
“His damned father must be cleaning up after him,” Tresham snapped. “Last I heard, Chastain was engaged to some French comte’s daughter, so Papa is doubtless keeping Chastain out of trouble as best he can. I really do want to kill him.”
So do I. “That won’t help. Chastain got no farther with Della than some inn at Alconbury. If he wants to live, or ever sire children, he’ll keep his mouth shut. The whole business will remain a private regret for both parties.”
By daylight, the game room looked a little tired, even boring. The art on the walls depicted good quality classical scenes—scantily clad nymphs, heroic gods, but nothing too risqué and nothing too impressive either. Without the click and tumble of the dice, the chatter of conversation, or the sparkle of the patrons’ jewels by candlelight, the room was simply a collection of tables and chairs on thick carpet between silk-hung walls.
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