Beautiful Beast (The Marriage Maker Book 36) by Darling Pearl

Author:Darling, Pearl [Darling, Pearl]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Scarsdale Publishing, Ltd
Published: 2020-05-11T16:00:00+00:00

The dance ended. They both landed lightly on their feet, facing each other, a matching smile on their lips. He could see other men starting to turn their way, angling for a dance. “Will you come with me?” Again, he asked, pleaded almost, something he’d vowed he’d never do. Angry at himself, he took her arm without asking and guided her through the crowd. She didn’t resist as he passed through the hall and out onto a deserted terrace that overlooked a small garden. It wasn’t the kind of space that illicit lovers came to, there being no cover for their gentle amours, but it was empty, and, at last, they were alone.

“I’ve just realized that I know nothing about you,” she said, breaking into his thoughts.

“There’s nothing to tell.” There really wasn’t. An adolescence spent with his mother at the other end of the British Isles, hiding from his father, followed by his painting apprenticeship in Edinburgh, only to return to London upon the death of his father.

“At least tell me about your name. Your parents had marvelous prescience to name you after the painter—”

He released her arm, took her small, smooth hand in his, and lead her to the balustrade that fronted the terraced garden. He turned, hitched himself onto the smooth stone, and with one small movement, pulled her up beside him.

“Oh!” came her breathless, excited exclamation as she leant against him, her warm sides resting in his hands.

For once, his hands didn’t itch to paint, but yearned to run up and down the silk of her body, to pull her close and pull her face toward his. But he resisted. Ophelia played her own game, and he would only win her if he played by at least some of her rules.

“I was named after my father’s dog rather than the famed Italian painter.”

She twisted under his hands as she turned toward him. “Oh Raphael!”

It was the first time he’d heard his name on her lips. He swallowed as his throat dried with desire.

“Surely, your mother must have had some say in your naming?”

“Until I was ten, my mother never had a say in anything. My father regarded her as one of the servants. It was always he and I together.” He and his father going to the races, going to the park, going shooting for the first time, all the time his father railing at the way the world treated him and the Barden family. On his first shoot, his father had casually ripped the heads from the downed birds and daubed Raphael’s face in the blood. The insidious drip, drip, drip of his father’s discontent coated his insides as the blood coated his face. Something had surely stuck, for despite his distance from his father, Raphael had never been content with the world. He knew it in himself.

In the dusky light, he felt rather than saw her hand reach to his face. She traced the angles of his cheekbones with a soft thumb. He had never before had a woman do that.

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