Portrait of a Forbidden Love--A Sexy Regency Romance Read online

  ‘The Academy?’ She sat up, her mind too alert now for drowsy after-play.

  ‘Why do you think they’ve not responded to my editorial? They’re waiting to see if you’re going to make a fuss or if you will happily accept the limitations of your gender and remain a compliant associate. They won’t start the war, Artemisia. They’re happy to have your talent under the aegis. They have nothing to gain by fighting you. But right now, you’re not fighting. You’re making it easy on them. They’re hoping you are done, that you have accepted your place.’

  She reached for her shift and popped her head through as if to underscore her words. ‘The honeymoon’s over, isn’t it? We can’t just dance the night away and pretend all will work itself out.’

  ‘No.’ Darius sat up, too, and reached for a shirt, his voice quiet. ‘I have a lease available on a nice property on the Strand just around the corner from Somerset House. It would serve as an excellent venue for an exhibition. We can run the show the month of May and open it three days before the Academy’s spring show, make ourselves the first show of the Season.’ He paused, his eyes hot on her as he let her digest the idea. While she’d been burying her head in the sand, ignoring next steps, he’d been busy. ‘Shall I sign the lease, Artemisia?’

  There would be no denying or misconstruing their attentions. The Academy would not overlook this slap in the face. ‘Who would sponsor the show?’ Artemisia ventured.

  ‘The Duke of Boscastle. I’ve already contacted him. He is willing to lend his name.’ Darius fastened his cuffs. Putting on his armour, she thought. Each piece of clothing arming him to face society.

  ‘The Academy may exile you, Darius, if they know you’re behind this.’ They would see his signature on the lease and they would know he’d orchestrated the show no matter who the sponsor was.

  ‘They may. You are not the only one taking risks.’ He rose and came to help her with her laces. ‘Nor should you be. Why should I ask you to risk everything and not risk anything myself? That seems unfair.’ And fairness mattered to Darius very much. Fairness was a type of responsibility to him, she was coming to realise.

  She was silent, pondering her options as his fingers left her, her laces tied. She did not want him ruined for her and over something that might not bear fruit. ‘I think you risk too much. You have little to gain and much to lose while I have little to lose and much to gain,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Losing recognition as an associate is no small thing. You risk plenty.’ Darius smiled softly. ‘But neither is doing nothing. If you don’t do this, Artemisia, you will have to settle for the crumbs off their table.’ There would be no forward momentum. Ever. She would be taken with limited seriousness by some, perhaps with even less by others. She shuddered at the thought. She’d worked too hard to be considered a hobbyist, a dauber, someone who’d achieved the status of associate simply as a courtesy to her father. She was starting to better understand her father’s refusal to argue for her. She needed to stand on her own feet, on her own merits. He’d given her the power and the permission to break free on her own. But she had to do the actual breaking. No one else could do it for her. This would be the ultimate test of her independence, her own self-sufficiency. It both frightened and thrilled her.

  She held his gaze and whet her lips, making the decision. ‘Sign the lease, Darius.’ There was just enough time to put a show together. Four weeks if they planned to open at the end of April, a week before the Academy show. She ran the timeline in her mind: barely enough time to advertise, to get the pictures hung, a caterer arranged, to send out invitations, to arrange reviews and their publication.

  A smile wreathed Darius’s face and he swept her into a celebratory hug. ‘Good girl. I am proud of you. We will make this a show the London Season will remember.’

  He kissed her hard on the mouth and she let herself forget for one more day that, even if they succeeded, it didn’t change the other reality—that nothing, not even taking on the Academy, launching herself as a valid, independent artist, could change them. At the end of this, she would still be an artist’s daughter and he would still be an earl’s son. There would be no place for them together in society. She would still have to give him up. Or content herself to a life as his mistress, a life of restrictions not much different than a life of bowing to the Academy’s limitations. It didn’t seem fair.

  * * *

  The Academy didn’t play fair. Darius thwacked the rolled-up newspaper against his leg in frustration, the noise a little too loud in the late-afternoon silence of White’s. The few men in attendance looked up from their seats and went back to their reading. After reading the society column in not one, but three newspapers, it was no wonder his father had wanted to meet for drinks and to discuss certain developments. The Academy had taken their distemper beyond the parameters of the art and made it personal.

  They’d also not been as neutral or as accepting as Darius had thought. True, they’d been waiting for Artemisia to show her beautiful flaming colours. If she hadn’t, they might have left their evidence unreported, their case unmade. But Artemisia had not gone silently, and the Academy had been ready. Sources now ‘noticed’ the trend that had been established over the past several weeks that Lord St Helier had bestowed considerable attentions on Miss Artemisia Stansfield in a manner that was of a questionable nature. Their aspersions that she ought to know better damaged her reputation, insinuating that she was using her ‘charms’ to reach above her station. Those aspersions left him in a difficult position; either he was naively flaunting her or he was deliberately parading his lover in front of society, a lover who was not worthy of his attentions publicly.

  ‘Darius, how are you?’ His father approached the nook he occupied.

  Darius rose and shook hands. His father looked well except for dark circles beneath his eyes. ‘A new coat, I see,’ Darius commented as they sat. ‘You’re keeping your tailor busy.’

  They ordered drinks and made small talk about the new bill his father was sponsoring in Parliament about the repatriation of artefacts from foreign countries, his mother’s latest charity ventures, the newest acquisitions to the Bourne collection. The drinks arrived and, once assured of no further interruptions, his father got straight to the point.

  ‘It seems you are making some artistic acquisitions of your own these days, Darius. I read your editorial in the paper a few weeks back. I had drinks with Boscastle the other day after Parliament. He’s excited about the exhibition. Your efforts are very bold, though, especially when they are accompanied by a rather personal interest. It’s clear your efforts on Miss Stansfield’s behalf are not entirely from an artistic perspective.’ His father’s greying brows furrowed. ‘Is she your mistress? Is that why you’re doing this?’

  ‘No, she is not my mistress. I know better than to flaunt a mistress in society’s face or to abuse my status and reputation in order to foist her talents upon the art world. Such assertions malign both her and me,’ Darius said in low, firm tones. He was a grown man. His father usually did not interfere in his life or question his choices. It was somewhat embarrassing to have those choices called into question now.

  His father took a swallow of brandy and gave them each a moment to compose themselves. ‘It’s just that your mother had such hopes for this Season. It’s time to start looking to your nursery and your mother feels this year’s crop of debutantes is spectacular. We wouldn’t want you to miss out because of a misunderstanding. I am concerned that the gossips, fuelled by those in the Academy looking for some revenge, will put an indecent twist on your winter in Seasalter,’ his father ventured. ‘If the gossips learned of it, they would turn it into something sordid. No one would actually believe you spent six weeks there gathering information for your report, not when it involves a woman like that.’

  Darius bristled. ‘A woman like what? Do you know Artemisia Stansfield?’

  ‘I know women like her. All men do,
’ his father said severely. ‘She’s a veritable siren. She’s not only lovely, but she’s confident and intelligent and she does not need to keep her chastity, so she employs herself to the greatest extent possible. She’s able to give men a fantasy they cannot get with a debutante. It’s intoxicating and you wouldn’t be the first man to be caught up in such a spell.’

  ‘You do her a disservice,’ Darius growled. ‘I mean to marry her.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  His father did not react immediately. He took a slow drink and appeared to give the pronouncement some thought before he met Darius’s gaze with a flinty stare. ‘You most certainly do not want to marry her. You only think you do.’ His father was quick to dismiss the idea. Old ghosts began to rise. This had happened before when he’d wanted to tour Europe, to paint.

  ‘If you and Mother met her, you would think differently. She comports herself well. She understands society.’ Artemisia had navigated balls with ease and élan, unflustered by titles. Her father’s status meant she was no country bumpkin come to town. She knew how to go about.

  ‘Your mother? Meet her? She should not even be in the room with a woman like Artemisia Stansfield.’ The Earl of Bourne nearly choked on his drink, a rare lapse in his father’s usually impeccable decorum. ‘Miss Stansfield is not what the earldom needs and she is not what you’ve been raised to seek out in a wife.’ He leaned forward and dropped his voice. ‘Let me remind you of what you’ve conveniently forgotten. She is an artist’s daughter. She has no lineage, no bloodline, no pedigree, no land, no fortune. She has only a father who has acquired some small amount of fame and a title. Start thinking with your brain, Darius.’ His father sat back. ‘This surprises me. You’ve always done what is right.’ He had, much to his regret.

  ‘You mean required. They are not necessarily the same thing.’

  ‘They are for earls,’ his father was quick to correct.

  He’d given up his paints to please his father. He’d been a boy then, impressionable. He was a man now and he’d be damned if he gave up the woman he loved because someone else told him to. There it was—loved. He loved Artemisia Stansfield. He would move society’s mountains for her, including his own father’s resistance. ‘I’ve already asked her,’ Darius offered boldly.

  His father arched another brow. ‘Have you? What did she say?’

  ‘She said no.’ But he would ask her again when she saw the possibilities, not the fantasies, when the success of the show was behind them, when he’d proven himself to her.

  ‘Good girl. At least one of you has their head on straight.’

  Darius fixed his father with a hard stare. ‘Father, I love her.’ He tried the declaration out. It felt good, just as it had felt good to have made a decision to confront the Academy.

  ‘Fine. You can love her all you want. I have nothing against that. Just don’t marry her. Men like you and I, we don’t marry for love. We marry for the earldom. Honestly, Darius, I thought by now you knew that.’

  ‘But you and Mother...’ Darius said.

  ‘Your mother and I knew our duty. And so do you. I have every faith in you, Darius.’ His father smiled reassuringly, a glimmer of kindness in his eyes that Darius thought misplaced.

  ‘You are asking me to give up the woman I love.’ Just as his father had asked him to give up the thing he loved most when he was sixteen, the thing that drove his passion.

  His father gave a small, sad smile. ‘Do you think you are the only man to do so? This is what men of responsibility do. It is how we keep our power. This is why we don’t mingle with women outside our sphere, so that we are not tempted by the impossible.’ The last was meant as a subtle scold, but Darius did not miss the shadow in his father’s dark eyes. What mystery lurked there?

  ‘I am not asking anything of you that I have not done myself. I promise you, in time, all will come out right. Your mother will help you find a worthy bride this Season. Your wife will run your house, bear your children, your heirs, and you will come to care for her. Treat her with respect and she will treat you with respect and all else will follow. Marriage is one of many arrangements you will make in your life. To consider it to be any more than that leads us down the road of unnecessary disappointment.’

  Darius stared at his father, his personal understanding of the small world of his family shattering and reforming with alacrity. He understood all this in theory, of course. Any man inheriting a title did. He’d just never applied those theories to his parents, or to himself. Until now, there’d been no need to. Realisations rocketed through his mind. His parents had not been a love match. His father had loved another. He would never admit as much. His father was too much a man of honour to suggest his wife was not the sole object of his esteem. That honour, that sense of responsibility to the house of Bourne, had suggested the right course of action was to set aside his personal preferences. Despite whatever pain it had caused him, he was asking his son to do the same.

  ‘I appreciate your insight,’ Darius said sincerely. He disagreed with it and found it uncomfortable, but he would not treat his father’s pain with callous disregard nor his wisdom. It did, however, make the situation more difficult. He admired his father—even at nearly thirty-five his father’s approval was important to him. His father had been the stick by which he’d measured himself, a man of no vices, a man who saw to the welfare of his family and his people. And yet, wasn’t being a slave to tradition a type of vice? When did tradition demand too much of a man?

  He would not give up Artemisia. It would be like ripping out his soul a second time, and it would be worse. He did not think he could patch it over this time. With her, he’d got a piece of himself back and more. She’d opened up the world to him. Through her, he’d started to see the world differently. He’d broken out of his unwitting blindness. His world would never be the same. He didn’t want it to be. He didn’t want to go back. The war he waged against the Academy had come home.

  * * *

  The problem with wars was that they escalated. Artemisia leaned back against the squabs as her carriage made slow progress towards the showroom on the Strand. She closed her eyes, trying to ignore the headlines from the latest gossip column, but the words danced even behind her eyelids.

  Timeline of a scandal

  This article had dared to outline, based on the speculation of second-hand sources, what had transpired between her and Darius in Seasalter, painting a lurid picture of a lusty affair in which she’d successfully seduced him.

  Darius wouldn’t like it. He would not like that she’d been defamed. He would not like that his strength of character had been maligned, portraying him as an innocent victim—as if a man his age could be an ‘innocent’ and maintain any amount of credibility.

  It was not the first account. Ever since the early advertisements regarding her exhibition had come out the war against her had escalated. In the evenings she and Darius would dance, and in the morning the papers would lash out.

  Artist stealing a march on Season’s debutantes!

  Earl’s heir flaunts mistress!

  Never any names, of course, that’s what kept it from being libel, but anyone in town could guess who the articles referred to. She and Darius had become a ‘point of interest’ in lieu of any other gossip as the population in town grew daily in anticipation of the Season.

  What had once been a private professional skirmish between her and the Academy had become public. It spilled over, involving others. People were choosing sides. She saw it at the early balls. The traditional conservatives followed the Academy and the old guard. The more liberal crowd, headed by the show’s sponsor, the Duke of Boscastle and his ally in all things, the Duke of Newlyn, supported Darius and, by extension, her. Last night, she’d received her first outright snub. A woman had actually excused herself from the ball, citing Artemisia’s attendance as the specific reason she was leaving early.

 
Darius had responded by whisking her out to the dance floor for an unprecedented second dance, a waltz in which he’d held her scandalously close. She’d thought at the time there was something more at work in his decision last night than the woman’s slight, but there had been no opportunity to discuss it. Time together was precious little these days as they prepared for the show.

  The carriage pulled up to the kerb and Artemisia got out, hiding the newspaper beneath the seat. Out of sight, out of mind. She’d promised to meet Darius this afternoon and work on hanging pictures. With the show just a week away, there was much to do. She was grateful for the busyness. The show was a welcome distraction from the scandal. The exhibition was her reminder that, while the Academy and society were choosing to make this scandal about more than her art, her art was the reason for all the preparation, all the effort and all the sacrifice, although she doubted anyone newly come to town even realised it. That was how thorough the gossip column campaign had been in moving everything away from Darius’s articulate editorial about her overlooked candidacy to an attack on her morals.

  Darius met her at the door with a kiss on the cheek. ‘Another bad column?’ he guessed.

  ‘How did you know?’ So much for hiding it. It might be under the seat of the carriage, but it was apparently written all over her face.

  ‘Your jaw is tight and you’ve got sparks in your eyes.’ Darius laughed it off. ‘I’ve seen you angry before, remember. All you’re missing is a bucket of cold water.’ He helped her out of her outerwear. ‘Was it awful?’

  ‘This person has written a timeline of what they presume was our pre-existing affair in Seasalter.’ She untied her bonnet. ‘The bothersome piece is that it’s not necessarily a lie. The report is somewhat accurate.’