Temptation and the Artist, page 1
Temptation and the Artist
Gentlemen of Pleasure, Book 2
Mary Lancaster
© Copyright 2022 by Mary Lancaster
Text by Mary Lancaster
Cover by Dar Albert
Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.
P.O. Box 23
Moreno Valley, CA 92556
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Produced in the United States of America
First Edition May 2022
Kindle Edition
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All Rights Reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Additional Dragonblade books by Author Mary Lancaster
Gentlemen of Pleasure
The Devil and the Viscount (Book 1)
Temptation and the Artist (Book 2)
Sin and the Soldier (Book 3)
Debauchery and the Earl (Book 4)
Pleasure Garden Series
Unmasking the Hero (Book 1)
Unmasking Deception (Book 2)
Unmasking Sin (Book 3)
Unmasking the Duke (Book 4)
Unmasking the Thief (Book 5)
Crime & Passion Series
Mysterious Lover
Letters to a Lover
Dangerous Lover
The Husband Dilemma Series
How to Fool a Duke
Season of Scandal Series
Pursued by the Rake
Abandoned to the Prodigal
Married to the Rogue
Unmasked by her Lover
Imperial Season Series
Vienna Waltz
Vienna Woods
Vienna Dawn
Blackhaven Brides Series
The Wicked Baron
The Wicked Lady
The Wicked Rebel
The Wicked Husband
The Wicked Marquis
The Wicked Governess
The Wicked Spy
The Wicked Gypsy
The Wicked Wife
Wicked Christmas (A Novella)
The Wicked Waif
The Wicked Heir
The Wicked Captain
The Wicked Sister
Unmarriageable Series
The Deserted Heart
The Sinister Heart
The Vulgar Heart
The Broken Heart
The Weary Heart
The Secret Heart
Christmas Heart
The Lyon’s Den Connected World
Fed to the Lyon
De Wolfe Pack: The Series
The Wicked Wolfe
Vienna Wolfe
Also from Mary Lancaster
Madeleine
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Publisher’s Note
Additional Dragonblade books by Author Mary Lancaster
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
About Mary Lancaster
Chapter One
He sat in the rose garden, surrounded by beautiful women. And he took her breath away.
Aline always found her reaction to Stephen Dornan inexplicable. Of course, he was handsome, in a dark yet subtle and refined sort of way. But Aline tended to favor fair men with larger-than-life characters. Mr. Dornan was quiet, almost diffident, and generally too distracted to make conversation, let alone flirt. And yet each time she saw him, her heart skipped a beat, and the air left her lungs.
He had a rare smile like sunshine, which was evident now as one of the women spoke to him. He gazed directly into her face, and Aline knew an unusual twinge of jealousy. Only once had she been aware of him looking at her with such concentration—at Dearham Abbey. She had thought he was sketching her at the time, though there had been no portrait of her among those he had displayed at the Abbey that Christmas.
Forcing herself to walk on after her involuntary pause, Aline surveyed his companions, all bright colors and beauty, like so many butterflies. She would have thought them courtesans, except Mr. Dornan was surely too pure to associate with such. No, these women were artists’ models—at least to him.
As she drew closer, she saw that he was indeed sketching. The pencil, like an extension of his long, clever fingers, flew across the book, which he had propped against his knee, deft and sure. The pencil paused, then, with a paper knife he took from his pocket, he cut the page from the book and laid it on the table in front of the girl he had smiled at. While she gazed at it in some awe, he turned to the girl nearest him, asking her something. While she chattered, he watched her, and Aline watched him.
Until—perhaps she blocked some light or shadow from where he needed it to fall—he glanced up and saw her. He looked gratifyingly startled and sprang to his feet.
“Mr. Dornan among the roses,” she drawled. “I wish my own talent was up to painting such a scene.” She stretched out one languid hand as he moved toward her.
“Princess,” he murmured, taking her gloved fingers and bowing over them. When he released her, there were grey-black fingerprints on her gloves. He frowned. “Sorry.”
“You are clearly busy, so don’t let me disturb you.”
“I’m looking for models for a series of paintings,” he said. “Some of which will have the background of the pleasure gardens.”
Aline’s raised her brows. “Paintings of all of these ladies?”
“Oh. No. The sketches were a lure to get them here so that I could choose.”
Her lips twitched, and his gaze dropped to them. Her stomach fluttered. “Very astute,” she managed.
His gaze returned to her eyes. “I thought so. At the time. What brings you here?”
“A card party last evening, believe it or not. But Renwick’s Hotel is so comfortable, I have decided to stay a few days.”
“Mama!” came her son’s happy voice, and she turned to see him rushing toward her, a large tutor striding along beside him. “There are huge men, tall as giants!”
“Really? That I must see.” She swung back to Mr. Dornan and found him watching her intently.
“This is your son?” he said.
For a moment, she hesitated, but Basil had already called her mama, and Dornan, was, after all, a friend of Johnny’s. “Yes, this is Basil, and his tutor, Mr. Flowers. Basil, make your bow to Mr. Dornan.”
Basil, growing into a long-legged eight years old, bowed correctly. “How do you do, sir?”
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” Dornan replied and exchanged nods with Mr. Flowers. “You are enjoying the pleasure gardens?”
“Oh, yes, it was a great idea of Mama’s to come here.”
“I beg you won’t tell anyone,” Aline said lightly. “I can’t have polite society thinking I embrace such unfashionable pleasures. We’ll leave you to your sketches, Mr. Dornan. Good morning.”
*
Stephen Dornan sat down and tried to recall which girl he had been sketching. The last one, thank God. It was an effort to concentrate when his mind was full of another face, another idea that was carrying him away with the kind of eagerness that seemed to surge up from his belly. Only his best ideas affected him thus, though there were no guarantees he could execute this one. Or that she would agree.
She. Aline. Princess Hagerin. Twice widowed that he knew of and once the lover of his friend Johnny Winter. At Dearham Abbey, he had ached to paint her. And more. He had dared only a sketch, which had done her such poor justice that he had never shown it. As for the more… She was well above
Handing out the last sketch, he said politely, “Thank you, ladies. I will be in touch when I see my way clear. I appreciate your company.” Rising, he bowed and strode off in the direction he had last seen Aline. He was vaguely aware of the rise of confused conversation behind him but kept moving until he found the men on stilts and jugglers who were entertaining people up and down one of the main paths.
However, he could see no sign of Aline or the boy or even his extremely large tutor. They must have moved on to other delights, like the castle or the waterfall or a large plate of ices. Maida Pleasure Gardens, in daytime, was an innocent, if slightly faded, joy for children. And adults, if looked upon correctly.
He could trail around the garden looking for them. But she had said they were staying at Renwick’s, the new hotel built on the edge of the grounds. So, he made his way directly there instead, asked the doorman if Princess Hagerin had returned, and, discovering she had not, deposited himself in the nearest sofa to wait. Crossing one ankle over the other knee, he got out his pencil and sketchbook and began sketching from memory, trying to capture the expressions that turned prettiness into beauty and fired his artistic imagination.
He separated her features, showing only her eyes and brows when she was being provocative—“Mr. Dornan among the roses,” indeed!—and when she was genuinely amused, and then when she looked at her son. Beneath all the beguiling, long-lashed, almond-shaped eyes, which weren’t quite right although they were close, he drew a series of lips as part of the same expression. Her lips obsessed him, their full yet delicate shape and the way the corners quirked very slightly upward. Her mouth could often be serious while her eyes laughed. And he had seen her smile while her eyes turned bleak.
She was the most fascinating woman he had ever encountered, and if she allowed him the right to try to capture that on canvas…
It was her scent that roused him, as he had known it would. A hint of lime and hyacinth and some elusive spice—sophisticated, provocative, and lovely, like the lady herself. She entered the foyer, smiling at her son’s chatter, the tutor trailing behind. Since her golden blonde head was turned in his direction, it was inevitable that she saw him.
Her smile froze for the tiniest instant. Probably, she did not care to be pursued by him, or by anyone when her son was with her.
He rose and bowed. “Princess. Could you spare me a moment of your time?”
There was a pause, and his heart sank. She was going to deny him and his all-consuming idea would be strangled at birth. It would not work with another woman.
“Fortunately, I can, since it is lesson time once more. Cake for tea, Basil, if Mr. Flowers is pleased with you.”
Basil opened his mouth to protest, then appeared to think better of it and smiled instead, offering Stephen a wave as he trotted away beside the tutor.
The princess sat at the end of the sofa and gestured with one hand to invite Stephen to the other. He sat, turning to face her, holding the hastily closed sketchbook on his lap.
“Madame la princesse,” he began, since this was how he always thought of her. “I have a proposition to lay before you.”
“Why, Mr. Dornan, I am surprised at you,” she drawled.
“No, you are not, and you know perfectly well I would never presume.”
“On the contrary, sir, I know you so little I have no idea what you might presume.”
“Nothing improper,” he assured her before honesty compelled him to admit, “Nothing very improper.”
“Be still, my beating heart,” she murmured.
Stephen knew when he was being teased, even subtly. There would be time, later, if she agreed, for him to give as good as he got, but for now, he needed her simply to agree. “I mentioned to you the series of paintings on which I need to embark. It is for a new competition to be held in Paris later this year, a judgment of skill to be made via a series of paintings—no fewer than three, no more than six—that must somehow be linked or related to each other.
“My original idea—because I love the changing light, the color, and the atmospheres of Maida—was to paint a series of women in the rose garden at various times of the day, all behaving differently to display a whole spectrum of…womanhood. At work, nurturing, laughing, flirting.”
“Hence the harem in the rose garden,” she murmured. “Why women?”
“A good question. There is a cynical aspect. For me—and for the men who will judge the paintings, for the most part – they will be pleasanter to look at. And on a deeper level, women fascinate me. Men are vaunted as the stronger sex, but most of us lack the inner strength of most women, who need, often to survive, to be all things to all people. I wanted to show that strength, that drudgery and hardship and laughing good spirits among the beauty of the rose garden. Which itself is subject to the changes of the seasons.”
Curiosity entered her brilliant eyes. “That is surprisingly…profound.”
“I thought so. And with some of the women…you saw, I think, I could have made it work quite well. And then I saw you.”
Was that alarm behind her suddenly veiled eyes? Suspicion?
“What would I be?” she mused, her voice light, and yet he suspected her mood was anything but. “Not the coquette, for I am beyond such immaturity. The fallen woman, perhaps? The siren?”
“You misunderstand me. I do not judge you, and if I did, it would hardly be in such terms. I see beauty, character, a woman who has created and endured much in her life, a mother, a lady full of life and laughter and sadness.” He paused as her eyes narrowed.
“Do you?” she said after a moment.
“For a beginning. When we met in the garden, I suddenly saw in you everything I had been looking for, and another idea took hold of me. To paint the same woman in all her many roles.”
Her eyes widened. For a moment, she said nothing, then, “Would that not be a bit dull? Just portrait after portrait of me in the rose garden?”
“To make that work, I would have to abandon subtlety, so, no. I would like to paint you in the rose garden in the morning, and perhaps in the moonlight. But also, indoors. With your son, if you will allow it. I can’t tell until I begin.” He drew a deep breath. “Will you agree to sit for me?”
Her gaze dropped from his to her hands, looking perhaps at the fingerprints he had marked on her gloves. She glanced back up, searching his face, her expression carefully veiled. A pulse throbbed subtly at the base of her throat. He had no idea what that meant, although he knew a powerful urge to feel the vibration against his fingertips, his lips.
“I cannot sit all day, every day,” she said. “I would go mad and so would Basil.”
“I would not ask that of you.”
A smile flickered across her lips. It did touch her eyes, too, though its meaning was well concealed. She personified the mystery of womanhood, and that excited him on every level from the purely intellectual to the artistic to the basely physical. As for his imagination…
“Then I agree. When do we begin?”
“Now, if you wish.”
She blinked, and he gave her a rueful smile.
“Which is where the slight impropriety sneaks in,” he admitted. “I could begin my sketches here or in the gardens, but I think we would both be distracted by the curious. And if our conversation is easily overheard, I will never get to know you.”
“You want to get to know me?” She sounded startled.
“I need to. If I am to see you as you are.”
“Are all artists so thorough?” she asked at last.
He shrugged. “A fleeting expression can be enough. It depends on the project. For mine…the paintings will be a study rather than the capture of a moment. Is that a problem?”
“I don’t know.”
“I will not ask impertinent questions or pry. It is you I wish to know, not what you have done.”
“Are the two not connected?”
“Perhaps. But whatever you tell me is obviously up to you.”
“It is what you see without my telling you that worries me.”
“I never realized you were afraid.” The words were out as he thought them, and he could not take them back.
Her eyes flashed. Her chin lifted. But she said only, “Everyone is afraid. Of something. Aren’t you, Mr. Dornan?” She stood, obliging him to rise with her.
