Free The Art of Love by Lilac Lacey

threatening to escape her would simply appear as a smile of welcome on her lips. Lady Susannah was perfectly pretty, but Rodney was standing just a few feet away. She knew Freddie’s extravagant praise was for his benefit and she had to admire Freddie’s cunning, there was nothing like the regard of another man to make a woman appear more desirable.
    ‘It’s very nice to meet you, Lady Tara,’ Susannah said meekly and Tara thought how much better a quiet and biddable wife would suit Rodney than she would herself. ‘This is my brother Earnest and my aunt Claire.’
    The gentleman at her side gave Tara a quick bow and out of the corner of her eye she saw Rodney suddenly turn towards the little party with a smile on his face.
    ‘Lady Susannah, how delightful to see you again, and your brother of course. I don’t believe we were properly introduced the other day. I am Sir Rodney Hulme. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’ So she had been right. Tara suppressed the little grin she felt trying to steal its way onto her face. Rodney had met Susannah in Bond Street accompanied by her brother and had assumed the worst. She caught Freddie’s eye.
    ‘Is everyone here?’ she asked. ‘Is it time to move through to the dining room?’
    ‘Not quite,’ Freddie said enigmatically. ‘I am expecting one more guest.’
    ‘Is it the lady for Philippe? Oh, no, that must be her, the pretty girl with the golden hair.’
    ‘Certainly not,’ said Freddie reprovingly. ‘That is my cousin Antonia. She can do far better than a penniless frog.’
    ‘Then who do you have in mind?’ Tara asked, deciding to ignore the insult to Philippe, after all it was a fairly accurate description. But secretly she thought Philippe and Antonia Palmer might do quite well together. 'Is it your mystery guest?’
    Freddie shook his head and moved closer to her, lowering his voice. ‘No, no, no. I invited Lady Susannah’s aunt, Claire, for La Monte. As a member of the Maxwell family she is worth a considerable sum per annum, but as you can see for yourself she is on the plain side. She has done too many London seasons without making a match and she is on the verge of being dubbed a spinster by the ton . La Monte can be sure his offer will not be refused.’
    ‘You can’t possibly think to match Philippe with her!’ Tara exclaimed.
    ‘Shush, shush, not so loud,’ Freddie said.
    ‘She is far too dull and unexciting. Philippe would never be happy with a woman like that.’
    ‘Then you will have to take him up yourself.’ Tara was about to make a sharp retort when she saw the look in Freddie’s eye and realized he was teasing her.
    ‘Oh, you are quite incorrigible!’ she exclaimed.
    ‘Lavishing such compliments will get you into trouble one of these days,’ a heart-warmingly familiar voice said in her ear. Tara spun to face Leo. Perhaps because she had not even imagined he would be invited, she had not looked up when the last guest was shown into the room and she found herself completely taken by surprise.
    ‘Glad you could make it, Fosse,’ Freddie said, shaking his hand while Tara stood by, momentarily at a loss for words. Of course she had seen Leo dressed up before, at Lord Carlshot’s ball only last week, only there she had somehow assumed he was making connections and looking for business. But here he was in a private drawing room, where he could be doing no such thing, looking completely at home, every inch a gentleman, and he took her breath away. ‘Have you met Lady Tara?’ Freddie went on.
    Leo looked at her from head to toe and Tara felt a wave of heat run through her. ‘I am painting her at the moment,’ he said, making it sound the most intimate thing in the world. Perhaps, Tara wondered wildly, it was, Leo had certainly looked at her for longer and more lingeringly than any other man and he knew every inch of her form, albeit most of it clothed, but she had a sudden conviction that he could paint a devastatingly accurate picture