Page 89 of A Scandalous Kind of Duke

“You cannot speak to the father of your children, but you expect me to impose upon a duke of the realm and a lady to whom I have never been introduced? I shall not, Beatrice. No.”

“If you want me as your patroness, you will do this.”

“Then the cost of your patronage is too high.”

A harsh silence tumbled around them, broken only by Beatrice’s shuddering breaths.

“You ungrateful wretch!” she hissed. “You are just another artist in London, Juno Bell. But I can elevate you. You know I can. I can make you into something more.”

“You cannot make me into anything.” Juno jumped to her feet so violently the tea things rattled. “I make myself.”

“You need me.”

“I need no one.” Suddenly it was important for everyone to know that. “You can go, everyone can go, but I have myself and my art and I need nothing else.”

“That is it? You refuse to help me and you refuse my patronage?”

“I don’t need you,” she repeated shakily.

“So be it then.”

Without another word, Beatrice gathered her skirts and her dignity and swept out.

Groaning, Juno lay back on the settee, staring unseeingly at her paintings on the wall. She tried to rouse some anger or concern, but everything felt flat. All she could see was Leo the night before. All she could hear were his drunken words. Saying he regretted— What did he regret? He had not been clear. But he thought their tryst a mistake: He had been clear about that.

And something about the mermaid drawing.

Suddenly alert, she dashed into her studio and dug the drawing out of the armoire. It was as good as she remembered, from the passions of the figures to the turmoil of the storm.

Excitement surged through her, and she leaped into action like an opera dancer at her cue. She set a blank canvas on an easel, opened her box of paints, ran her fingers over the bladders of hues, closed her eyes, and imagined the scene in full color.

And then she was back in that bed with Leo, reliving those moments when he had opened himself to her, when they created a storm together, when that fierce, possessive hunger claimed them both. She had possessed him. Only for a few minutes perhaps, but in those minutes, he had belonged completely and utterly to her.

“Mrs. Kegworth!” she called, hearing the housekeeper in the parlor. “Bar the doors. I will receive no guests. I am going to paint.”

Paint she did. Over the next few days, that painting came to life, while Mrs. Kegworth steadfastly kept friends and visitors away.

Until her aunt Hester appeared in the studio door, twitchy and distressed, a twisted newspaper in her hands.

“Oh, Juno, my dear,” Hester said sadly. “What have you done?”

CHAPTER23

The cut-glass goblet was exquisite. It was gently curved and beautifully weighted right down its teardrop stem. Sunlight caught in its diamond-shaped cuts and danced over the green velvet on which it was displayed.

Leo found it hard to care.It’s just a glass, he thought.Just a stupid bloody glass.

But a hushed silence awaited his verdict. His visit to this small glassworks in Kent was of great consequence to its owners, who were desperate for a grant: He could change their lives with a stroke of his pen. And it was of consequence to Susannah, who had brought the glassmakers to his attention. She sought to impress him, he thought.

And he was impressed. It wasn’t the glass’s fault he didn’t care, or the glassmakers’ fault, or Susannah’s.

It was nobody’s fault but his own. He was the one who had approached Juno at that exhibition. He was the one who drank too much for the first time in years. He was the one who wound up on her street to make a fool of himself and say he knew not what.

But that temporary insanity had passed along with the hangover, which itself was just departing when they arrived at Susannah’s aunt’s house in Kent for a week-long stay. Susannah and her aunt had a range of activities planned: walks, boating, carriage rides. It sounded blissfully dull, and it removed him from London, and anywhere that was not London was an excellent place to be.

So Leo feigned interest, toured the workshop, asked simple questions to put them at their ease. Then he accepted their gift of a set of goblets and left with his smiling betrothed.

It was a fine day. When Leo suggested they leave the carriage and walk the few miles back to her aunt’s house, Susannah agreed.

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