Free When the Duchess Said Yes by Isabella Bradford Page B

bought on a trip to Florence. Two lovers in lavish ermine-trimmed clothes from some forgotten royal court sat facing each other beneath an apple tree whose fruit hung like bright red ornaments. Hawke had bought it mainly because he’d liked the two dogs in studded collars that sat beside their owners: a white greyhound beside the woman, and a black one beside the man.
    The longer Hawke looked at the painting, the more he realized he didn’t really wish to part with it, but now he didn’t have a choice. If he didn’t trust Lady Elizabeth about her past, then how was he to trust her with his pictures? But perhaps this was what everyone meant about sacrifices made for love: if he offered a gift as significant as his greyhound painting to Lady Elizabeth,then perhaps she’d begin to find him a bit more agreeable, too.
    His mother, however, understood none of this, any more than she realized the true value of the painting.
    “Very nice,” she said, barely glancing at it. “An untraditional gift, but I suppose Lady Elizabeth must learn of your penchant for buying foreign pictures soon enough. You can give it to her yourself this afternoon at Lady Sanborn’s house.”
    So at last his mother had come to her true reason for calling. “Lady Sanborn, Mother?”
    “Yes, yes, Lady Sanborn,” she said, smoothing her black lace shawl over her shoulders. “Surely you recall her, Hawkesworth. The dowager Countess of Carbery. She has been among my acquaintances forever. More important to you, she is Lady Elizabeth’s great-aunt.”
    Of course she was. When Hawke had first arrived in London, he hadn’t been able to find a soul with personal knowledge of Lady Elizabeth. Now there seemed to be a fresh relative on every tree branch.
    Carefully he set the little painting back on its easel. “Recall, Mother, that I am to marry Lady Elizabeth, not Lady Carbery.”
    “Don’t be impertinent, Hawkesworth,” she said. “You made such a misery of your first meeting that Lady Sanborn and I decided we’d no choice but to involve ourselves. You will begin again, and attend Lady Elizabeth in Lady Carbery’s drawing room this afternoon at four.”
    “A misery,” he repeated, marveling at her choice of the word, and how inadvertently—for so it had to be—that was exactly what his meeting with Lady Elizabeth had become. “What if I have other obligations for this evening?”
    “Then you must make your apologies,” Lady Allredsaid, rising to leave. “Pray do not be late. Lady Elizabeth will not wait forever.”
    He kissed her cheek as she expected, and escorted her to the door. Then he returned to the pictures, especially the one he was giving to Lady Elizabeth. He hoped she appreciated it. He hoped she liked it as much as he did, because, really, he was giving her a small part of himself with this painting. Truly, it was much easier to send flowers to ladies.
    He sighed, running his finger lightly around the gilded frame. It was irrational, yes, but he was almost certain she would like it. Treasure it, even. Why else would it be so easy for him to imagine her eyes wide with pleasure when she saw it, her gasp of delight, and, if he was lucky, the deliciously sweet kiss of thanks she’d impulsively grant?
    It would not be such a trial to be civil to her. In fact, it would be quite the opposite: a pleasure, a delight, a blissful experience. Seducing a wife couldn’t be that different from seducing any other woman, and he’d always enjoyed that. And, as with any other woman, once the delight and the pleasure began to fade, he could turn elsewhere, except that this time he needed to sire a child or two before he left.
    He smiled to himself, thinking again of his soon-to-be wife. His wife . His mother could babble on all she wished about how Lady Elizabeth wouldn’t wait forever. The unholy truth of the matter, though, was that now he was the one who couldn’t wait.

Lizzie had done a great deal of thinking in the day and night since