Eliza Redgold - Enticing Benedict Cole

It was an amazing time, when passion lurked beneath propriety and secrets and scandals were hidden beneath the surface. This story is inspired by the desperately romantic Pre-Raphaelite artists and models of Victorian England. The beautiful and sensual Pre-Raphaelite paintings are some of the most familiar artworks in the world today. I expect, like me, you have your favourites—do get in touch and let me know! Just like Benedict Cole’s, the art and the love lives of the Pre-Raphaelite painters—a group of brilliant, free-thinking young men—were considered scandalous. Their artistic milieu was in complete contrast with the strict conventions of the Victorian upper classes. Ladies like ‘Cameo’, Lady Catherine Mary St Clair, lived in a controlled, stifling world, and often felt trapped and unhappy. It would have been considered unthinkable for a young aristocratic woman such as Cameo to want to pursue art seriously, and even more unthinkable to be an artist’s model. This story celebrates every woman who ever challenged convention for the sake of art, and for the sake of love. I hope you enjoy it!

Title Page Enticing Benedict Cole Eliza Redgold www.millsandboon.co.uk

Copyright ISBN: 978-1-474-00630-9 ENTICING BENEDICT COLE © 2015 Eliza Redgold Published in Great Britain 2015 by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental. By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher. ® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ®are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries. www.millsandboon.co.uk Version: 2020-08-24

About the Author ELIZA REDGOLD is an author, academic and unashamed romantic. She was born in Scotland, is married to an Englishman, and currently lives in Australia. She loves to share stories with readers! Get in touch with Eliza via Twitter: @ElizaRedgold, on Facebook: facebook.com/ElizaRedgoldAuthor and Pinterest: pinterest.com/elizaredgold . Or visit her at goodreads.com/author/show/7086012.Eliza_Redgold and elizaredgold.com . Enticing Benedict Cole is Eliza Redgold’s magical debut for Mills & Boon Historical Romance!

Dedication For Madeleine, who first listened to the whole story, and for my sister, the original Catherine Mary.

Acknowledgments Many thanks to those who made Cameo’s acquaintance more than once in writing this story. To the Wordwrights critique group, Janet Woods, Deb Bennetto, Karen Saayman and Anne Summers, who read early versions and made such valuable comments, and to Jenny Schwartz, an angel of a critique partner. Thanks to my daughter, Jessica, who played Yann Tiersen’s Rue des Cascades on the piano as theme music while Cameo raced through the streets of London to find Benedict, and to my husband, James, who always makes London magical.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Epilogue

Historical Note

Extract

Prologue

‘Love, A more ideal Artist he than all.’

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

‘The Gardener’s Daughter’ (1842)

‘On that veil’d picture—veil’d, for what it holds

May not be dwelt on by the common day.

This prelude has prepared thee.’

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

‘The Gardener’s Daughter’

London 1852

Cameo pressed the letter to her lips.

Beneath her carefully crafted, polite phrases would he read her hopes and dreams in each line?

Through the open window she stared out past the silhouette of the ash tree into the starry night beyond, as if by will she summoned him to reply. Beyond, by the light of the moon, she made out in front of the house the darkened grassy garden of the square with its plane trees, the high black wrought-iron railings encircling the snowdrops and daffodils. She felt caged in the house, like a bird who longed to be free. She wanted to be out in the world, to be part of it all. To learn. To paint. To live .

With a sigh she closed the velvet curtains and retreated into her bedroom. On her dressing table the candle flickered. The flame leapt high, with its orange, red and yellow tongue, its vivid blue centre. If only she could learn to capture such passionate colours with her paints!

He did.

Benedict Cole.

That was his name. She’d stared at it, scrawled in black paint at the corner of the canvas.

She’d discovered his passion and power when she’d seen his painting at the Royal Academy of Art. It had stopped her in her tracks, her breath shuddering.

The work was marvellous. The subject was simple, a woman holding sheaves of wheat. But the subject of the painting wasn’t what caught her attention. It was the strokes of his brush.

As if his paintbrush stroked her skin.

As if it touched her heart.

There was a secret in that painting, as if it held a message, as if it spoke directly to her. She...recognised it. That was it. Somehow, she understood the soul of the artist who had painted that picture. The effect on her had been extraordinary. She wanted to stand in front of it for hours, soaking in the colours, the textures, his use of light. She returned again and again to view it.

Benedict Cole must teach her. She knew it. She needed to learn everything he knew. Only he could free her hands and the emotions locked inside her. Only he could show her how to put them on paper, on canvas, with charcoal, with paint, until the work came to life.

She must find a way.

Now at last she’d gathered up her courage to write to him.

She yearned to pour out all her hopes and dreams in the letter, her longings and desires. But her phrases remained stilted. Draft after draft, pen staining her fingers, she’d tried to find the right words to ask his consent to give her lessons and that she would pay him handsomely for his time.

And she hoped that he would understand. It meant so much more.

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