AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The expressions of two people who yearned for each other, but had no place in each other’s world.
With one unsteady finger, Leo traced the line of the mermaid’s back. “What the devil is she trying to say?” he muttered.
Hadrian jerked his chin. “There’s a note stuck to the back of the frame.”
But Juno did not write notes. The piece of card turned out to be an invitation to the Prescotts’ ball that night. What an odd thing for her to give him. What averyodd place for her to stick an invitation.
So, if Juno was trying to tell him something…
Leo carefully examined the place where the invitation was stuck. Frames were so big these days, something to do with the new composite material, she had once explained. It wouldn’t be difficult to hide a cache of secret documents in them. Some frames were so big it wouldn’t be difficult to hide a family of four. Leo fiddled about until— There! He found the seam. And then the mechanism.
And then the frame split open like a very large book.
Hidden within was a portfolio made of tooled leather, the very same one Leo had given to Juno to hide her secret drawings.
He tumbled back onto the floor to open it.
The first page showed a drawing of himself, sprawled out naked on a bed, covered by nothing but the corner of a bedsheet, strategically placed.
Well. He looked very peaceful, though he was not at his most, ah, impressive while asleep. Another showed him standing with his naked back to a rumpled bed, his face in profile.
At a groan of “Oh, my eyes,” Leo looked up to see Hadrian turning away, scrubbing a hand over his face.
He yanked out all the pages and spread them over the rug. His gaze bounced from one to the next. Every single page held a drawing of him. He could see himself growing younger under her hand, as he moved through the pages, back through more than ten years, back to the very first drawing of him as a naive boy, completed when she was sixteen.
None of them offered any more information than a date and her name. Except one, in her careless handwriting:If I cannot have Leo, I shall have no one.
She had never forgotten him. He had remained with her all these years.
He looked at the invitation again. Nothing on this Earth would induce him to set foot in Prescott’s house.
Nothing except a request from Juno.
Leo packed up the drawings, hid them once more in the painting, and sent word to his valet that tonight he would attend a ball.
CHAPTER28
Leo was surprised by the squeeze at the Prescott house, and especially by the presence of fellow aristocrats and their families among the guests.
Then he saw that everyone was flapping a page, on which were printed names that such high-ranking guests might deem almost as important as their own: Rubens, Titian, Turner. In less than a day, the “Prescott Art Ball” had become the talk of the town, and no self-respecting member of society could bear to miss such an event. Everyone was an art connoisseur tonight, even those who could not tell a Caravaggio from a cartoon.
The announcement of Leo’s name met with the familiar two-step: a collective hush, then a collective murmur. He ignored Prescott, who returned the favor, and gave Mrs. Prescott a cool nod.
“Congratulations on your ball, Mrs. Prescott,” he said.
“Thank you, Your Grace, and if I might—”
“It takes a very special sort of person to triumph from another’s troubles.”
Her color heightened and she started to splutter a response, but Leo turned away to move through the crowd. The orchestra was playing: A country dance was about to get underway. Some couples headed for the floor; other guests continued to examine paintings, each other, or him.
He ignored them all, seeking only Juno, not seeing her. Why had she sent him here? What was she playing at?
* * *
Oh,what did she think she was playing at? Juno tried not to fidget in her lavish ballgown, as she climbed down from her uncle’s carriage outside the Prescott house.
She was playing at being a duchess, she reminded herself sternly, so she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and followed her aunt and uncle and cousins through the doors with a most regal air. Were those speculative looks directed at her? Was she the subject of those murmurs? Or was she extremely conceited to imagine anyone here cared tuppence about her?
