Elizabeth Rolls – A Scandalous Liaison (страница 1)

Six years ago, the rakish Viscount St. Austell betrayed his best friend and his own sense of honor by seducing Lionel’s sister, Loveday Trehearne. Now St. Austell has hired Lionel as an artist and is reunited with Loveday once again. Though she is as beautiful as ever, Loveday lives in poverty…and a different sort of mystery seems to be haunting the Trehearnes, too. The scandalous viscount is determined to help Loveday despite her resistance—but his toughest challenge will be fighting the passion that still burns between them…

This story is for Anne who answered so many questions about painting murals, and for Tony – whose long-standing friendship is unshakeable, even to the extent of answering my very nosy questions about dreams.

And it’s for Smokey, who snoozed by my desk for so many years and stories.

I miss you, old friend.

A Scandalous Liaison

Elizabeth Rolls

www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author

Award-winning author ELIZABETH ROLLS lives in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia in an old stone farmhouse surrounded by apple, pear and cherry orchards, with her husband, two soccer- mad sons, two dogs and a cat. She also has four alpacas and two incredibly fat sheep, all gainfully employed as environmentally sustainable lawnmowers. The kids are convinced that writing is a perfectly normal profession, and she’s working on her husband. Elizabeth has what most people would consider far too many books, and her tea and coffee habit is legendary. She enjoys reading, walking, cooking, and her husband’s gardening. Elizabeth loves to hear from readers, and invites you to contact her via e-mail at books@elizabethrolls.com and visit her web site at http://www.elizabethrolls.com.

Other Books By

If you liked this story, look for these other titles by Elizabeth Rolls, on sale now wherever ebooks are sold!

The Dutiful Rake

The Unexpected Bride

The Unruly Chaperon

The Chivalrous Rake

A Compromised Lady

Lord Braybrook’s Penniless Bride

and

“The Prodigal Bride” in A Regency Invitation “A Soldier’s Tale” in Mistletoe Kisses

Enjoy more passion through the ages with the sensual Mills & Boon Historical UNDONE titles on sale now:

Pleasured by the Viking by Michelle Willingham

Arabian Nights with a Rake by Bronwyn Scott

Bitten by Desire by Marguerite Kaye

The Virgin’s Pursuit by Joanne Rock

Innocent in the Harem by Michelle Willingham

Taming Her Gypsy Lover by Christine Merrill

The Laird and the Wanton Widow by Ann Lethbridge

The Highlander and the Sea Siren by Marguerite Kaye

Convenient Wife, Pleasured Lady by Carole Mortimer

Craving something a little longer? Find more historical romantic adventure from Mills & Boon Historical at www.millsandboon.co.uk or your local bookstore.

Interested in writing for Mills & Boon Historical UNDONE? Send your submission to undone@harlequin.ca.

A Scandalous Liaison

She glanced back over her shoulder, smiling, face half hidden by the hood of her cloak. No words, just the beckoning smile, part innocence, all invitation. His breath came in hard and fast as he reached for her, touched the billowing cloak…His fingers passed through it like smoke, and with a soundless sigh the cloak dissolved, taking with it the fading vision as he lunged forward. He tried to cry out but could not. And there was nothing except loss and yearning…

He awoke into darkness with a jolt, his breath shuddering as he sat bolt upright. He’d had a hell of a dream; at least he thought he must have. Sweat cooled on his body and his heart hammered. Yes. Something about a cloak. Only…he couldn’t remember. Just that he had dreamed…that he had wanted something and it had been taken from him. The cloak had taken it…or had he lost it? He lay down again and closed his eyes. As he drifted back toward sleep the thought flickered…something? Or someone?

Evelyn Fitzhugh, Viscount St. Austell, stared mutely at the murals adorning the bedchamber walls of his Grosvenor Square mansion. A line from Lionel Trehearne’s letter asking for the commission sprang to his mind: You may find, my lord, that the style of these pictures differs somewhat from your expectations.

He’d been so shamed by that cold “my lord” that he’d scarce noted the content. My lord…from Lionel of all men. And the letter signed with a cool Trehearne. He deserved it, though, for what he’d done, so Evelyn had swallowed it with as good a grace as might be, and gone ahead with the commission. Despite the gulf of class between them, son and heir of a viscount and son of a schoolmaster, Lionel had been like an elder brother to him once, and Evelyn had repaid that with a betrayal of trust so base that even now he burned with shame to think of it. Youth might explain folly; it did not excuse a failure of honor.

Now, faced with the murals he had commissioned, he recalled the content of that letter; Lionel’s style had changed. Fundamentally. Oh, the technique was recognisably his, the same economy of line that suggested shape and bulk with a few simple strokes of charcoal. But six years ago Lionel’s work, while brilliant, had not left Evelyn this short of breath. Yes, it had been erotic, but this—this aching sensuality—was new. He swallowed, looking again at the slender nymph gracing his bedchamber walls. Who was she? Only blocked and roughly sketched in charcoal as yet, even complete her identity would remain a mystery. In each of the five pictures her face was hidden, shadowed by a cloak in one as she looked back over her shoulder…in farewell? Her back was turned in the next as she melted into her lover’s embrace and he bent to take her mouth. A veiling of soft tresses hid her face in the third painting—how, with only a few strokes, had Lionel conveyed the silken glory of her hair…? Evelyn swallowed. Lionel had entitled that one The Nymph, Worshipping at the Feet of the God, Administers the Kiss of Venus to Apollo. The cascade of curls might hide the actual moment, but the naked god’s head flung back in imminent ecstasy, the taut corded muscles and the hand sliding through the tumbled locks to stroke the nymph’s throat, a gesture at once possessive and tender…there was no doubt as to what she was doing. Evelyn’s mouth dried and his heart hammered a slow, heavy rhythm. He hardly dared look at the next picture—the nymph surrendered in passion to her immortal lover.

In the final picture she lay sleeping and sated in her lover’s arms, her face shielded by his tender, caressing hand…Evelyn shut his eyes and felt the cool fire of her tresses slipping through his fingers, the softness of her cheek against his shoulder, her quiet breathing a caress. He wouldn’t lose her again. He couldn’t…

A rumble of carriage wheels down in the street jerked him out of the daydream to gaze again at the reality of what he had commissioned.

Who was she?

Dammit! Lionel was the last man alive he would have chosen for this commission! Six years ago Evelyn had accepted Lionel’s ultimatum that he was to remain out of their lives. He’d done so. Only by chance had he heard through a mutual friend that Lionel had gone to Italy. He could only suppose that his friend had doubted his promise to keep away. After that Lionel had dropped out of sight, communicating with no one. Evelyn wouldn’t even have known the man was back if he hadn’t received the letter asking for the commission and submitting a series of pen and pencil sketches. He had no idea how Lionel had heard about it, although he supposed it was common knowledge that rakish Viscount St. Austell had asked for a set of murals to adorn his bedchamber walls in his Grosvenor Square mansion to celebrate taking possession after the exit of his last remaining paternal great-aunt to a cousin’s country home.

He could, of course, have lived here even with Great-aunt Millicent in residence. However, the thought of being subjected to a catechism every time he failed to come home, or did anything even remotely scandalous, had been enough to keep him in lodgings since he had inherited his father’s title four years earlier.

To make matters worse, Millicent had roundly condemned his interest in art. At least, not his interest precisely, but certainly his taste. That was one thing, but when she had taken it upon herself to slap a coat of scarlet paint across one of his favorite nudes, which he’d hung in a little-used guest chamber, it was the outside of enough.

This, then, was his revenge. Great-aunt Millicent, fond of extolling the virtues of her saintly father, the fourth viscount, was likely to have apoplexy when she heard what was now adorning the deceased saint’s bedchamber walls.

Half a dozen painters had submitted sketches for Evelyn’s inspection; he’d rejected them all. Very well, he’d asked for explicit, but none of them had looked anything but tawdry and lewd. His main aim might be to annoy Great-aunt Millicent, but that didn’t mean he wanted to live with boring paintings. Except for Lionel’s entry none had so much as caused his pulse to flicker. He might still have rejected it; even six years on, salt rubbed into a still-raw wound could sting. But the address given, a shop down by Westminster Bridge, suggested that Lionel was struggling. This was the only way Evelyn could help him and perhaps make amends for the carelessness that had broken their friendship.