Clandestine Passion (The Lovelocks of London Book 2)

A week later, Catherine had a caller. Her butler Chelsom was well accustomed to telling all who came to the door that Mrs. Lovelock was not at home to anyone. And certainly, always not at home to James Cavendish, the new Duke of Middlewich.

Today, however, Chelsom came to Catherine in the morning room where she was writing a letter to the man now in charge of the Lovelock Bank. She needed an expeditious transfer of some monies abroad.

“Ah, madam?”

“Yes, Chelsom?”

“A Mr. Roger Siddons is most insistent that he see you.”

Catherine considered.

“Show him into the large drawing room, Chelsom, the one nearest the front door. And keep the doors open and stay in the front hall.”

“Yes, Mrs. Lovelock.”

Catherine took a minute to gather herself, as she might have years ago while offstage, in the wings. Breathe. Stand up straight. Speak clearly. Remember what you are doing.

Siddons was looking out the front window at the street when Catherine came into the drawing room.

He turned. “Not afraid to have me up front where anyone might pass by and see I was here?”

Backlit by the window, he might still be the twenty-nine-year-old painter she had desired when she was nineteen. But now she hated him and she hated herself, standing in the room with him, remembering what had passed between them. How he had mangled something that might have been good in her and made it malignant.

And then she thought of how she could so easily close the doors and go to him once again and submit. To him. To her lust demon.

How terrible she was. It was long past time for her to stop thinking in terms of a demon. There was only her. And she was despicable.

She took a deep breath.

“People know I have a past with you, Mr. Siddons. There is no need to conceal it. And the drawing room doors will stay open. There will be nothing improper. My butler is just there in the hall.”

“I think you would probably prefer if the doors were closed, Cath.”

“The doors will stay open.”

“Fine.” Siddons sauntered around the room and looked at the Sir Joshua Reynolds portrait of Edward that had a place of pride on the back wall.

“Sir Sloshua always had a way with bankers, I’ll give him that. You can practically see the gold oozing out your dead husband’s pores.”

Catherine waited.

“My hand is fine, by the way.” He wiggled his fingers at her. “Thank you for inquiring.”

“I had assumed I would have received a solicitor’s letter or a doctor’s bill if that had not been the case.”

“Well, actually, Cath.” Siddons grinned. “The bill is coming due now.”

Foreboding filled her body. “In what sense, Roger?”

“You know that picture of you that I still own? That half-naked portrait of you as a boy that you hate so much? The Cesario-cum-Viola picture?”

Catherine clenched her fists. “That is a lewd and evil painting and you should burn it.”

“I should,” Siddons said in a light tone and shrugged. “Or I should display it in the Exhibition of the Royal Academy.”

Catherine gasped despite herself and sat down. Hard. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would. And I am. They are already printing the catalog. Portrait of Mrs. Edward Lovelock. I think it will be the talk of the ton.”

“How much do you want for the painting?”

“Oh, no. No, no, no, no. You may be able to buy your way out of a lot of things, but not this. I’m not selling you the painting.”

“You must have a price.”

“I do. The price is your complete and utter humiliation. And I understand you have a seventeen-year-old daughter who looks a great deal like you. I wonder if she looks like you in the picture? After all, you were only two years older than she is now when I painted it. I wonder what all the fine young men who are her suitors might think about their future wife’s assets being on display in the Exhibition?”

“They would never hang that picture at the Exhibition.”

“You forget that your breasts do not really show. Most people who look at it think it is a boy, after all. They’ll hang the picture. I think tickets will be in high demand.” Siddons went to the door to leave. “And you know how they hang the pictures in the Great Room all the way up to the ceiling so that you can barely see the pictures at the very top? Well, you’re being hung down at eye level.”

Siddons went out into the hall, and Catherine could hear Chelsom opening the door to show him out and saying, “Good afternoon, sir.”

“Chelsom,” she called.

He came into the drawing room.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I need a message sent to Lord Daventry, I mean, the Duke of Middlewich, as soon as possible, and when he comes here in answer to it, I will see him immediately. I will go to the morning room now and write the letter.”

She stood and as she did so, she staggered a bit and Chelsom took one step forward as if to support her.

“I’m fine,” she said.

But she wasn’t.

Half an hour later, the footman who had quickly walked to James’ rooms near the newly opened Burlington Arcade and then to the family town house on Grosvenor Square returned. His Grace, the new Duke of Middlewich, was still in Middlewich. There was no telling when he would return to London.