Free When the Duchess Said Yes by Isabella Bradford

empty room, not bothering to have them hung for what he expected would be a short stay in London. A ballroom was meant to be lit by candlelight and filled with music and laughter, but he liked it best this way, comfortably silent except for the birdsongs from the garden outside the tall windows and filled with the even, gentle sunlight from the north that was most perfect for viewing pictures.
    He set the single chair (for he hadn’t seen the reason to have any more in the room) before one of the largest paintings, a landscape of the Bay of Naples at sunset that he’d commissioned from a local painter. It was not so much a great painting as an exact one: the view was precisely the same as the one from Hawke’s villa, and with a contented sigh and his cup of coffee in his hands, he prepared to lose himself in the scene’s beauty.
    But this morning he couldn’t. Instead of the peaceful reverie he craved, he looked at the painting and thought only of how Lady Elizabeth compared to the women he’d left behind in Naples. With a frown, he pulled his chair to the next picture, an amusing vignette featuring a traveling theater company rehearsing their next play beside a stream.
    Yet all he could think of now was how his own well-ordered life seemed to have deteriorated into a farcical scene from a bad comedy, just like the one shown in thepainting. If he’d been a character in such a play, then he would have been delighted to discover that the girl he’d been pursuing was the same lady he was betrothed to, and everyone would have lived happily ever after. But he wasn’t in a play, and he didn’t trust coincidence like that. It didn’t make sense in real life, especially in his real life. Having Lady Elizabeth equally unhappy and full of suspicion didn’t help matters, either, nor did he enjoy bearing the blame for her distress—blame that March, Brecon, and Charlotte, too, were determined to heap upon him.
    No, no, this wasn’t right. Grumbling to himself, he moved to the one picture that was sure to make him smile: a nearly life-sized portrait of a reclining Venus, shamelessly nude except for her jewels. The Venus was a masterpiece, painted by Titian, a true master. It had been one of the first paintings he’d bought, and usually the goddess’s bounteous attributes could make him forget anything.
    But this morning when he looked at her, his thoughts raced back to Lady Elizabeth: astonishingly beautiful, amusing, clever, and, when she was in a good humor, graceful and charming beyond measure. An earl’s daughter or not, she had also revealed herself to be a termagant of the first order, with a fiery temper to match.
    Of course she wanted nothing to do with him.
    And equally of course, he had never been more insanely attracted to a woman in his life.
    Almost desperately Hawke tried to focus on the painted Venus, her creamy flesh, her seductive smile. He’d wager fifty guineas that Lady Elizabeth’s breasts were every bit that fine, round, and tempting. It was difficult to gauge with modern women, who barricaded their charms so tightly behind whalebone stays and hoops, but he’d bet Lady Elizabeth was—
    “Good day, Hawkesworth,” his mother said briskly,entering unannounced, the plumes on her oversized hat all a-flutter. “I told the footman not to bother calling my name. This was my house long enough that I should know my own way to my own son, even if he insists on sitting alone in his undress in the ballroom. Is this another of the Italian customs you have acquired?”
    He rose and bowed, taking care to keep his banyan closed. “If you insist on appearing without warning, Mother, then you will find what you find.”
    “Indeed,” she said, coming around the easel to claim his chair. She stopped abruptly before the painted Venus, wrinkling her face with distaste. “I suppose that is Italian as well?”
    “It is,” he said evenly. Unable to resist, he added, “She’s beautiful, isn’t