‘Whether you accept it or not you are a woman, not a man, and I wish to paint you as one. Something else you are hiding under those terrible dresses you favour,’ he said, tracing the line of her throat with his fingers, brushing lightly over her breasts.
She caught her breath as he touched her. Without being conscious of it she stepped towards him, wanting his hand to cup her, yearning in the purest, most thoughtless of ways for him to satisfy the craving she had been feeling for days. It was nothing to do with aesthetics. She knew that. It was elemental—purely carnal.
‘You have the most delightful curves. Did you know that this is what your English painter Hogarth called “the line of beauty”?’ His fingers slid down, brushing the underside of her breast, to the indent of her waist and round, to rest on the curve of her bottom and pull her suddenly hard up against him. ‘You, Cressie, have the most beautiful line.’
His eyes were dark. She was trembling and in absolutely no doubt that this time he would kiss her. Nor in any doubt at all about what she wanted.
About the Author
Born and educated in Scotland, MARGUERITE KAYE originally qualified as a lawyer but chose not to practise. Instead, she carved out a career in IT and studied history part-time, gaining a first-class honours and a master’s degree. A few decades after winning a children’s national poetry competition she decided to pursue her lifelong ambition to write, and submitted her first historical romance to Mills & Boon®. They accepted it, and she’s been writing ever since.
You can contact Marguerite through her website at: www.margueritekaye.com
Previous novels by the same author:
THE WICKED LORD RASENBY
THE RAKE AND THE HEIRESS INNOCENT IN THE SHEIKH’S HAREM† (part of Summer Sheikhs anthology) THE GOVERNESS AND THE SHEIKH† THE HIGHLANDER’S REDEMPTION* THE HIGHLANDER’S RETURN* RAKE WITH A FROZEN HEART OUTRAGEOUS CONFESSIONS OF LADY DEBORAH DUCHESS BY CHRISTMAS (part of Gift-Wrapped Governesses anthology) *Highland Brides
and in Mills & Boon® Historical Undone! eBooks:
THE CAPTAIN’S WICKED WAGER
THE HIGHLANDER AND THE SEA SIREN BITTEN BY DESIRE TEMPTATION IS THE NIGHT CLAIMED BY THE WOLF PRINCE** BOUND TO THE WOLF PRINCE** THE HIGHLANDER AND THE WOLF PRINCESS** THE SHEIKH’S IMPETUOUS LOVE-SLAVE† SPELLBOUND & SEDUCED BEHIND THE COURTESAN’S MASK FLIRTING WITH RUIN AN INVITATION TO PLEASURE
**Legend of the Faol †linked by character
and in M&B Castonbury Park Regency mini-series THE LADY WHO BROKE THE RULES
and in M&B eBooks: TITANIC: A DATE WITH DESTINY
Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
AUTHOR NOTE
When I wrote my Princes of the Desert historical mini-series a couple of years ago, it was published with the strapline ‘Where English Roses meet Desert Sheikhs.’ The English Roses referred to were sisters, Lady Celia and Lady Cassandra, the eldest daughters of Lord Armstrong, a distinguished British diplomat. There were five Armstrong sisters in all, and it was always my intention to tell each of their stories eventually.
I had always envisaged Cressie as the bookish, intense sister (being the eldest of four sisters myself, I know how readily labels such as this are applied!). In an age where such bluestocking traits were not only discouraged but frowned upon, especially in young women of marriageable age, Cressie is an intellectual with a serious hang-up about her looks. Giovanni is a brooding and fatally attractive Italian artist, touched by genius, with a sordid and shameful past. Hardly the most obvious of matches, but definitely one which will generate a lot of sparks.
Cressie and Giovanni’s story touches on a number of seemingly conflicting concepts—truth versus beauty, science versus art, logic versus instinct, duty versus freedom—but it’s not about any of that. It’s about two people from different worlds who have an irresistible connection and who, in attempting to find themselves, find each other. What could be more romantic than that?
I fully intend to complete the Armstrong sisters cycle by writing Caro and Cordelia’s stories some time in the near future. But for the time being I hope you enjoy Cressie’s tale.
The Beauty Within
Marguerite Kaye
For Arianna,
who helped me enormously with all things Italian, though any mistakes are all mine. Grazie mille!
Prologue
‘Absolutely marvellous. A triumph.’ Sir Romney Kirn rubbed his meaty hands together enthusiastically, his fingers like plump sausages, as he gazed at the canvas which had just been unveiled to him. ‘Quite, quite splendid. I’d say he’s done me justice, would not you, my love?’
‘Indeed, my dear,’ his good lady agreed. ‘One would even go so far as to say he has made you more handsome and distinguished than you are in the flesh, if that were possible.’
Sir Romney Kirn was not a man short of flesh, nor much given to modesty. The glow which suffused his already ruddy and bloated face was therefore most likely attributable to a surfeit of port the previous evening. Lady Kirn turned, her corsets creaking disconcertingly, towards the artist responsible for her husband’s portrait. ‘Your reputation as a genius is well deserved, signor,’ she said with a simpering little laugh, her eyelashes fluttering alarmingly.
She was clearly smitten, and in front of her husband to boot. Had she no shame? Giovanni di Matteo sighed. Why did women of a certain age insist on flirting with him? In fact, why did women of all ages feel it necessary to throw themselves at him? He gave the merest hint of a bow, anxious to be gone. ‘I am only as good as my subject, my lady.’
It worried him that the lies flowed with such practised ease. The baronet, a bluff man whose interests began and ended with hop farming had, over the course of several sittings, imparted his encyclopaedic knowledge of the crop while he posed, a copy of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations in his hands—a volume which he admitted bluffly had not previously been opened, let alone read. The library which formed the backdrop to the portrait had been purchased as a job lot and had, Giovanni would have been willing to wager, remained entirely unvisited since its installation in the stately home—also recently acquired, following