Art of Temptation (Regency Chase Family Series, Book 3)

by Royal, Lauren

  In the sense of being free of guile, of course. Of stating something simply and sincerely. She certainly wasn't artless in the literal definition.

  "You shouldn't have enjoyed kissing me," he informed her, "because I'm not John Hamilton."

  "Not that again." Reaching up to the shelf, she shoved his package toward him. "Don't forget your art supplies," she called over her shoulder as she walked away. "You're going to need them the next time you paint."

  He was still standing there when the bell jangled and the door shut behind her.

  THIRTEEN

  CORINNA STOOD before her easel in Berkeley Square the next day, painting.

  Oh, very well, daydreaming.

  Or—since she was determined to stop lying to herself—reliving yesterday's kiss.

  For at least the hundredth time.

  She'd been kissed before, of course, but never like that. She'd never tangled tongues with a man. She could have sworn her legs had turned to water. Not only her lips, but her entire body had seemed to tingle. She was surprised her pounding heart hadn't cracked a rib.

  She couldn't say she hadn't been aware that such kisses were possible—she'd certainly read of them in Minerva Press novels. In fact, standing right there in the bookshop, she'd read in Children of the Abbey where Lord Mortimer had clutched Amanda close and straining her to his beating heart, he imprinted a kiss on her tremulous lips.

  And the sort of kiss she'd shared with Mr. Hamilton was exactly what she had imagined.

  It had seemed an excellent novel, and she'd had every intention of buying it. Until he'd kissed her—until he'd imprinted a kiss on her lips—leaving her head spinning and her mind blanker than a fresh canvas. And she'd forgotten all about buying the book.

  Truthfully, though she relished reading of such kisses, she hadn't expected to experience one until after she married. After all, the most proper ladies considered even a chaste kiss to be scandalous before a man proposed. But she'd never been proper, and she couldn't be sorry she hadn't waited.

  Kissing Mr. Hamilton had been glorious. Magnificent. Awe-inspiring.

  The most memorable, most erotic moment of her entire life.

  And in all the hours since, when she wasn't daydreaming about the kiss, when she wasn't reliving it over and over in all its shocking, knee-weakening glory, she'd been engrossed in trying to figure out if that sort of kiss would have proved so incredible with any man, or only with Mr. Hamilton.

  She suspected only with Mr. Hamilton. And despite what she'd said in the heat of the moment, that wasn't just because he was John Hamilton, either. It was mostly because something about him called to her; something about him just—

  "Lady Corinna." A familiar voice interrupted her musings.

  It sounded weaker and more breathless than she'd like. Lord Lincolnshire wasn't doing well. Her heart sinking, Corinna looked over to see him sitting in his wheelchair outside the fence that enclosed the park.

  Setting her palette down on a bench, she walked over to greet him, feeling a bit better as she got closer. He looked flushed and swollen…but happy. Happier than she'd seen him in ages.

  Mr. Hamilton stood behind him, his hands on the back of the chair drawing her gaze. Only yesterday those hands had held her, had pressed her tight to his hard body. They looked tanned and large and square, appealingly masculine.

  "My nephew is taking me to his studio," Lord Lincolnshire informed her brightly, snapping her attention back to him. "I'm going to see his newest paintings."

  "We really must be on our way," Mr. Hamilton said without meeting Corinna's eyes. "I have much to do today after this."

  Lord Lincolnshire smiled up at her. "Would you like to come along?"

  "No," Mr. Hamilton shot out at the same time Corinna exclaimed, "Oh, yes!"

  "Thank you for the invitation," she added. "I'd be delighted to come along."

  "No," Mr. Hamilton repeated more forcefully, finally looking at her. "My workspace is private. There's a reason I'm known as a recluse."

  "Come now, nephew," Lord Lincolnshire chided. "You're about to be an earl. Your days as a recluse have come to an end."

  "Uncle—"

  "Mr. Hamilton," Corinna interrupted, having never been one to hold her tongue. "Your uncle would like me to accompany you. Will you disappoint such a kindly man?"

  Mr. Hamilton opened his mouth, most likely to argue, but then apparently had second thoughts, because he closed it. Into a very straight line. And he glared at her.

  Obviously, she'd won.

  Remembering that stern mouth imprinting a kiss on her lips, she smiled. "I'll be but a moment. I'll meet you gentlemen at the gate."

  After quickly returning to her easel and instructing the footman to take it home, she removed her apron, smoothed her pink dress, and joined the Hamilton men outside the fence.

  It was a short walk to Piccadilly Street, where the studio was located. Mr. Hamilton remained grim and silent the entire way. Lord Lincolnshire chattered breathlessly. Though Corinna maintained her half of the conversation, her mind was on other things.

  She was impatient to see the studio, to see new Hamilton paintings before anyone else. To see exactly where Mr. Hamilton worked, and what sorts of supplies he used, and maybe, if she was lucky, a canvas or two that wasn't finished yet, so she could study his technique.

  But mostly she was excited that after she'd visited his private space—his secret, reclusive hideaway—he'd no longer be able to keep claiming he wasn't John Hamilton. Because honestly, enough was enough.

  She was growing rather weary of this act of his. It was becoming more than childish. She was going to let him kiss her again—she could hardly wait for him to kiss her again—but she wanted him to own up to the truth first.

  The studio was in a very nice building. Shops filled the ground floor, and the two floors above were divided into large flats. Unfortunately, the studio was in a windowed garret above those, and it was no small feat helping Lord Lincolnshire up the many stairs.

  Even though Mr. Hamilton took most of his uncle's weight, they went very slowly, and Corinna found the man much heavier than she expected. He was also shorter than she'd thought, quite a bit shorter than his nephew. Having known Lord Lincolnshire her entire life, she supposed she still thought of him as tall compared to the child she'd once been, but she wasn't a child anymore.

  Especially after that tongue-tangling, spine-tingling kiss.

  The minute they got inside, Lord Lincolnshire shuffled to a threadbare sofa and plopped down, out of breath. Corinna would have sat, too, but he was sprawled right in its center. And the studio had no other sofa or any chairs.

  In fact, it hadn't much of anything.

  Six pictures rested on the floor, leaning against the bare walls. An easel held one more work of art in progress. Clearly it would be a lovely scene once it was finished, a beautiful meadow bordered by trees more realistic than any others she'd ever seen rendered in paint. Tiny, individual leaves seemed to be rustling in the wind, casting shadows on the grass below. She looked forward to studying it, to figuring out how Mr. Hamilton had managed such incredible detail.

  A small table sat beside it, with a few sketchbooks piled on top. But no pencils.

  Odd, that.

  Mr. Hamilton's supplies were on the table, too. All of them. There was no cupboard, no shelves in the room, no place for anything to be hiding. She walked over to have a look and found a selection of various pigments, a big bottle of linseed oil, a pristine palette, and two—only two!—seemingly brand-new brushes. Neither of them was nearly fine enough to paint the tiny leaves she'd seen on the trees.

  And that was it. There was nothing else. No extra jars to hold leftover mixed paint. No turpentine, no varnish.

  No rags, no blank canvases, no knives.

  No little spots of paint on the wooden floor.

  Since Corinna painted in her family's drawing room, she always spread a large tarpaulin to prevent spotting, but the floor here was bare and
clean. And no folded tarp was in sight.

  "Where do you make your paints?" she asked.

  Mr. Hamilton shifted uneasily. "Right here. Where else?"

  "What do you use, then? What surface do you grind them against?"

  "I make them directly on the palette," he said, slanting a glance to his uncle.

  She frowned. "Isn't that too porous? I've always used glass. And a glass muller."

  "A muller?" Lord Lincolnshire asked.

  "It's sort of like a flat pestle," she explained. "One has to grind the pigment into the oil in order to completely combine them."

  He looked to his nephew. Mr. Hamilton lifted a shoulder. "With enough elbow grease, one has no need of a muller."

  There were, she acknowledged, different methods. "I suppose a palette knife would do if one worked the mediums well," she conceded.

  Lord Lincolnshire nodded approvingly. "He's very talented, you know."

  "Extremely talented," she agreed. But there were no palette knives. And she still wondered how he could grind against a surface as permeable as wood. She wandered to the painting on the easel, admiring its incredibly detailed trees. "Which pigment do you use as the base for your greens?" she asked.

  "The green one."

  "Hmm?" He had no green pigment. She turned and glanced back to the table to verify. Black, white, yellows, blues, reds, and earth tones. Other pigments were available for purchase, of course, but these were the basics, the same ones she used herself. With these colors, one could mix any other color one might want. Greens were created from blues and yellows.

  When she'd asked which pigment was his base, she'd meant which blue. Ultramarine, Prussian, cerulean? "I'm partial to cobalt," she said, "even though it's the most expensive."

  "I can afford it," he said haughtily. "I'm partial to cobalt green, too."

  Cobalt was blue. Transparent, neutral blue. The truest of all the blues, which was why she preferred it.

  She thought a moment. And then she smoothed her pink skirts, moving closer to Mr. Hamilton so Lord Lincolnshire wouldn't overhear. Walking right up to him, she rose to her toes and placed her mouth close by his ear, giving him an eyeful of her scooped neckline.

  "Do you like my new green dress?" she whispered.

  FOURTEEN

  "YOU LOOK grand indeed in that dress," Sean murmured, trying not to ogle the enticing pale mounds peeking from beneath it. He'd noticed Corinna's dresses usually weren't as low-cut as most of those worn by other ladies of her class. Evidently she was too practical to paint while wearing fashionable, tiny-bodiced dresses. But the way she was leaning toward him afforded him a view that made him swallow hard anyway.

  "But do you like the hue?" she asked.

  "Oh, yes. The, um, green color is very flattering."

  "Thank you," she said, and stepped back.

  And, miraculously, she stopped asking questions.

  "May I see your paintings, Sean?" Lincolnshire asked.

  "Of course, Uncle," Sean said, and brought them over, one by one.

  The earl examined each picture minutely, making thoughtful and considered comments. John Hamilton might have argued or agreed, but Sean was only confused. He was an entrepreneur, not an actor. Devising responses proved mentally exhausting. But he was thankful that at least Corinna had ceased making everything more difficult, had stopped asking question after question that he couldn't answer.

  In fact, he suddenly realized while Lincolnshire was rhapsodizing over yet another painting, she wasn't saying anything at all. She was just standing by the table with his supplies, watching him. She seemed dumbstruck.

  And all Sean had done was tell her he liked her dress. Whoever would have guessed a simple compliment could have such an effect? Contrary to the wise old saying, apparently flattery could get a man anywhere. He'd have to remember that going forward.

  After Lincolnshire finished perusing all the pictures, Corinna remained quiet while they assisted him back down the steps, a slow and painful process even with her help. She didn't say much as they wheeled the chair home, and her farewell at Lincolnshire's door was uncharacteristically reserved and polite.

  Mystified by the change in her, Sean saw the poor, exhausted earl upstairs and into bed. With that accomplished, he stepped out into the corridor, closed the door, and slumped against it, shutting his eyes and willing the tension to drain from his body.

  Mother Mary, that had possibly been the longest afternoon of his life.

  This won't interrupt your routine, Hamilton had promised. It shan't affect Delaney and Company at all.

  The rotter had been lying through his teeth.

  Sean was seriously considering ending the whole thing now. Not only because he was constantly neglecting his interests—which was no small consideration—but also because deceiving the kindly old man was adding to his guilt by the moment.

  Well, he was free for the time being, he told himself, opening his eyes and straightening his shoulders. Maybe he could finally attend to some business. He traipsed downstairs, asked a footman to see that his curricle was brought around, and headed out of the house.

  Then stopped dead on the doorstep.

  "You're not Hamilton," Corinna said.

  "Sweet Jesus." Sean blinked. "What are you doing here?"

  "Waiting to talk to you. You're color-blind. Which means you cannot be Hamilton—or any oil painter at all. At least not a good one."

  Once the shock subsided, he cracked a smile. "I take exception to that. I expect I could paint a tolerably good brown scene. Assuming I had an artistic bone in my body, that is." A stableman arrived with his curricle, but he ignored it. "What was the telltale sign, then?"

  "My dress is pink, not green."

  "Ah." It looked pale brown. And so much for flattery getting him everywhere. "After you figured that out, you didn't say anything. What made you keep the truth from Lincolnshire?"

  "Are you jesting? The last thing I'd want to do is disappoint that man. He's wonderful."

  "That he is."

  "And he'd be crushed to learn you're not his nephew." She pursed her lips. Those plump, tempting lips he'd vowed not to kiss again. "Who are you?"

  "Sean Delaney. Hamilton's brother-in-law. I've been telling you that all along."

  "If you're not an artist, what do you do?"

  "I own property. I buy and sell buildings. Among other things." He shifted uneasily. "I'd like to explain. Not about that, but about how I ended up here. Will you walk with me in the square?"

  She seemed to consider that for a moment. "Will you buy me an ice from Gunter's?"

  "You're hungry?"

  "Not particularly. But Gunter's Tea Shop is probably the only establishment in London where a lady can be seen alone with a man without ruining her reputation."

  "Agreed, then," he said when he stopped laughing.

  She was a clever one.

  Leaving the curricle in front of Lincolnshire House, they made their way across the square to Gunter's, where he ordered a lemon ice for himself and a strawberry ice for Corinna. They took them back into the square.

  "This is such a relief," he said as they walked.

  "The other man in the museum was really Hamilton, then. Given how he acted at the time, I'm guessing this was his plan. Why did you go along with it?"

  "I didn't want to—"

  "But you did it anyway."

  "For my sister." Sean sighed. "Hamilton's wife."

  By the time he explained, both their dishes were empty. They sat on a bench beneath a large London plane tree. Corinna slowly licked her spoon.

  It was an amazingly erotic sight.

  "I don't blame you," she declared. "I'd have done the same to save my sister from being unhappy all her days."

  "I feel like a bastard tricking Lincolnshire, though. I'm going to tell him the truth."

  "You cannot!" She turned to him, her lips slick with melted ice. "You'll ruin your sister's chance to get her divorce. And you'll ruin Lord Lincolnshire's f
inal few days. The earl is the most wonderful man in the world, and he's tragically lost everyone he loves, and he's so thrilled to have his nephew in his life. How can you even think of depriving such a generous old man of his last chance at happiness?"

  "It's sorry I am for that. But I cannot continue perpetrating this hoax." Sean thought of telling her what it was costing him personally, but that wasn't really the point. "It isn't right to deceive him—"

  "It's kind, and what's so wrong about that? How is it hurting him? He'd be much more hurt to learn his real nephew is so very selfish, and there'd be nothing he could do about it anyway. The law is the law. John Hamilton is his nearest blood relative, his legal heir. He'll inherit no matter what Lord Lincolnshire would prefer."

  "He'd inherit the title and any entailed property. But Lincolnshire could will everything else to anyone he wanted."

  "Yes, he could, Mr. Delaney. But—"

  "Sean."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "My name is Sean. And I'm thinking we should have leave to call each other by our given names."

  He already called her Corinna in his head. He'd thought of her as Corinna ever since he'd heard her name called out in the British Museum. And not being accustomed to the company of the peerage, he was likely to forget to add the Lady.

  "I don't know," she said slowly. "That seems rather…intimate."

  "You're the only one who knows my secret," he pointed out. "That's a rather intimate thing, don't you think? And we've kissed."

  A dreamy look crossed her face. A look that doubled the speed of his pulse.

  "Not that that's happening again," he quickly added, thinking maybe they'd be better off not using first names after all.

  "All right," she said. "Now where were we…Sean?" She paused, looking dreamy again. "Oh, yes. You'd said that should Lord Lincolnshire learn the truth, he'd be able to will everything but his title to anyone he wanted. But at what cost? He'd be unhappy and disillusioned the rest of his days, and once he's gone, will it really matter whether Mr. Hamilton does or doesn't inherit? Lord Lincolnshire deserves happiness," she concluded with conviction. "That's the deciding factor."