Page 21 of The Earl’s Forbidden Temptation

Mama and I are wonderfully situated in Camden Place, and I think you will be at ease knowing how greatly her spirits have been restored. The melancholy that held her for so long is at last loosening its grip. She laughed outright when we drove to Clifton, and you would have smiled to hear it. Our days fall into a most agreeable pattern. Each morning, we go to the Pump Room, where Mama takes a glass of the waters with proper fortitude while I listen to the musicians and observe the company. Afterward, we promenade along the Gravel Walk or in Sydney Gardens, which are now verdant and softened by the advancing season. We have tea at a circulating library in Milsom Street, where I have secured a new novel and Mama a volume of sermons that she pretends to read and does not. There are concerts twice weekly at the Upper Rooms, and a card assembly besides. Mama has even spoken of attending the next ball there and insists I shall go with her, though I am not yet formally out. She says one evening of country dances, cotillions, and a little harmless admiration can do no harm under her eye. If you could see her at the pianoforte in the evenings, you would be astonished. She plays again, softly at first, and then with more confidence, and last night she consented to a duet with me. We drove out to Lansdown for the air, and another day to Prior Park to admire the view. There is talk of a public breakfast in the gardens next week, and of illuminations after dusk if the weather holds. I own I have tasted a Bath bun and a Sally Lunn and declare both quite sinful.

We miss you and wish you were enjoying Bath with us. Mama says she will not return to London but go straight into Berkshire at the end of the season, and I am to keep her company. She begs you to join us there when your business allows. Write soon and tell us you are well and not working yourself into a headache over estates and committees.

Your affectionate sister,

Caroline

Sebastian folded his sister’s letter along its neat crease and slid it back into the drawer where her letters had begun to collect like pressed flowers. The familiar ache in his chest eased. This was the third letter Caroline had sent since she and their mother traveled to Bath. His sister’s hand had grown lighter, and the worry once evident in her turns of phrase no longer shadowed the page.

His mother had not touched the pianoforte in more than five years. Since her husband’s death, every small joy had seemed to drain away. Sebastian smiled, imagining his mother playing again. He could almost hear the tentative chords giving way to something nearer to her old confidence. In the coming weeks, he would visit them in Bath for a few days. If his mother would not return to London for the remainder of the season, so much the better. It spared her the risk of encountering what must never be put before her.

Sebastian rose and crossed to the window of his study. The garden below wore the fresh polish of last night’s rain. Gravel walks curled between borders of lavender and rosemary; a pair of gardeners moved with quiet purpose along the yew, shears flashing, green clippings scattered like confetti at their feet. Beyond the wall, wheels rattled, then faded. London breathed on, indifferent.

He set a hand against the sash and let the cold seep into his palm. The image came without invitation: the youngest girl’s small face tipped upward, her eyes the precise dark blue he saw in the mirror each morning and wide with fright and doubt. The youngest had looked at him as if judgment might fall from his mouth and make a ruin of her world in an instant. That look twisted something tight and unfamiliar under his ribs.

Sebastian had told himself there was no profit in examining their lives. Another household had known his father’s ease and laughter. He had presumed they received what he and Caroline had not, and that should have hardened him against them. Yet simple truths undermined easy conclusions. Those girls stood on the wrong side of the parish register and would never be accepted by the circles where he moved with unthinking ease. They had not asked to be marked by the circumstances of their birth. A walk in Hyde Park for these girls had become a council of war. They had weighed the mere propriety of a walk in the park, knowing how the world named them as bastards and secrets to be kept, and how unforgiving it was to those it deemed did not belong. He had seen hunger in their faces as phaetons and barouches rolled past and well-born girls rode by, neat as pictures, riding side-saddle.

Sebastian had then looked at Miss Whitley, and when their gazes collided, she steeled herself for the cut direct. The flicker of shame and doubt in those amber-brown eyes made him halt and speak. She thanked him, and the gratitude there was unfeigned. He could not fathom a life in which a simple outing required a plan for enduring contempt. Was it so deeply fixed in them that, even among strangers, they expected to be judged for a birth not of their own choosing?

We are not dirty secrets meant to be hidden away.

Sarah had straightened as if the words had set a brace across her narrow shoulders. Sebastian returned to the desk, but the correspondence waiting there did not hold him. Ledgers from Derbyshire, a draft from a committee chair for Monday’s debate on canal tariffs, a copy of the minutes from the Lords on the Corn Laws, all of it necessary work. He sat and took up the steward’s report, then set it down again.

Sebastian raked a hand through his hair. “Why the devil should their unhappiness trouble me so?”

He had thought at first to be ruthless. He had very nearly been so. It would have been simple to lodge them in a house for a week and then send them beyond the reach of his concern. The cleanest solution was often the coldest.

A knock broke through the quiet. His butler entered, presented two letters upon a tray, and bowed himself out. Sebastian glanced at the seals. One bore the mark of his man of affairs, Mr. Williams. He tore that one open first.

Your Lordship,

Mr. Peabody has abandoned both his chambers and his residence. Discreet inquiries reveal that he closed his practice and departed for the Continent last night. It is further reported that he abandoned his wife and three children and departed in the company of an actress from Drury Lane.

Your faithful servant,

Williams.

“That damn wretch,” Sebastian murmured, voice low and lethal. The man’s flight was as good as a confession. Some provision must have existed, and Peabody had either diverted it or concealed its loss. The crooked blackguard had never imagined Sebastian would one day demand an accounting. He would uncover every provision his father had left them, restore every farthing they were owed, and then set them safely upon their own path. That, at least, he was willing to do. His jaw flexed as he forced a steady exhale and reached for the second letter. The seal belonged to Madam Rebecca. He broke it and quickly scanned the contents.

Raine,

I have invited Red to Aphrodite this evening to begin her first commissioned piece. Lord Dunmore has agreed to pose with Lady Lavinia, his current flame of the month. He is preening already, convinced he will be immortalized as Adonis. I trust Red’s steadiness far more than I trust Dunmore’s manners. The man is a libertine in every sense, and Red’s lush figure will test his restraint, while his arrogance will persuade him that she could not possibly be immune to his charms. I promised Red safety while she worked. She seemed comfortable with you by the end of her assessment, and I hope you will accompany her as her protector while she paints him.

Rebecca.

Sebastian reread that last line, something taut and electric coiling inside him. The raw hunger he had felt for the woman behind the mask reawakened with such force that he had to brace one hand upon the desk.

Bloody hell.

These last few days, he had done his damnedest to banish the woman known only as Red from his thoughts. He had told himself that the novelty of the situation and the absurdity of being painted while sprawled with his cock throbbing in his hand explained his attraction to her quick wit and lush figure. He had assured himself he would forget both the woman and the encounter by morning.

He had been wrong.

Sebastian’s mind offered up the memory with obscene clarity: the lush curve of her mouth visible beneath the mask, the faint catch of her breath when she first saw him bared, the tremor she fought so fiercely to hide. She had painted him with such reverent intensity that he had felt flayed open, seen in a way no lover had ever managed.

Her steady, capable, elegant hands had moved with devotion over the canvas while he gripped his aching cock with the hunger of a starved man.

The memory made a muscle jump in his throat. Far worse was the way she had invaded his sleep. Twice now he had dreamed of her, the mask discarded, her features always just beyond clear sight, the dark red hair unbound and spilling down her back as she sank to her knees before him. The dreams were so vivid that he woke hard and hungry, cursing himself.