Loretta Chase: Vixen In Velvet

She was a dressmaker, he told himself. She knew how to wield clothes as a weapon. And it worked all too well, like a club to the head.

She gave him the enigmatic smile, so like the one Botticelli’s Venus wore. ‘A wager,’ she said.

‘Everybody else is doing it,’ he said. ‘Why shouldn’t we?’

“Because you’ll lose?” she said.

‘Oh, but I’m sure you’ll lose,’ he said. ‘And my mind is wandering over an interesting range of forfeits.’

‘Mine, too,’ she said. ‘Money means nothing to you, so I must use my powers of imagination.’

‘I had higher stakes in mind,’ he said. ‘Nothing so ordinary as money. Something significant.’

She set her hands on the edge of the desk and leaned back.

He couldn’t exactly see her calculating. She was too good at not showing what she was about. Yet he knew she was weighing and measuring, and so he calculated, too.

He sensed the moment when she’d worked out her answer. Yet she waited one moment. Another.

Playing with him, the vixen.

Silk is for Seduction

Scandal Wears Satin

Vixen in Velvet

LORETTA CHASEhas worked in academe, retail and the visual arts, as well as on the streets—as a meter maid (aka traffic warden)—and in video, as a scriptwriter. She might have developed an excitingly chequered career had her spouse not nagged her into writing fiction. Her bestselling historical romances, set in the Regency and Romantic eras of the early nineteenth century, have won a number of awards, including the Romance Writers of America’s RITA ®.

Website: www.LorettaChase.com.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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In memory of my mother

Thanks to:

May Chen: funny, wise and understanding editor, whose patience surpasseth all understanding;

Nancy Yost: brilliant, hard-working, witty and inspiring agent;

Isabella Bradford: kindred spirit and nerdy history co-enabler;

Paul and Carol: providers of the perfect writer’s refuge on Cape Cod;

Valerie Kerxhalli: advisor in French Colonial matters;

Williamsburg milliners, mantua makers and tailors: experts in historic dress, who continue to unlock the mysteries of clothing from the past;

Cynthia, Vivian and Kathy: sisters, cheerleaders, confidantes, friends;

Walter: spouse, producer, cinematographer and knight in shining armour,

Cover

Excerpt She straightened and came around to face him, making a pretty flurry of white muslin and lace. She was a dressmaker, he told himself. She knew how to wield clothes as a weapon. And it worked all too well, like a club to the head. She gave him the enigmatic smile, so like the one Botticelli’s Venus wore. ‘A wager,’ she said. ‘Everybody else is doing it,’ he said. ‘Why shouldn’t we?’ “Because you’ll lose?” she said. ‘Oh, but I’m sure you’ll lose,’ he said. ‘And my mind is wandering over an interesting range of forfeits.’ ‘Mine, too,’ she said. ‘Money means nothing to you, so I must use my powers of imagination.’ ‘I had higher stakes in mind,’ he said. ‘Nothing so ordinary as money. Something significant.’ She set her hands on the edge of the desk and leaned back. He couldn’t exactly see her calculating. She was too good at not showing what she was about. Yet he knew she was weighing and measuring, and so he calculated, too. He sensed the moment when she’d worked out her answer. Yet she waited one moment. Another. Playing with him, the vixen.

About the Author LORETTA CHASE has worked in academe, retail and the visual arts, as well as on the streets—as a meter maid (aka traffic warden)—and in video, as a scriptwriter. She might have developed an excitingly chequered career had her spouse not nagged her into writing fiction. Her bestselling historical romances, set in the Regency and Romantic eras of the early nineteenth century, have won a number of awards, including the Romance Writers of America’s RITA ® . Website: www.LorettaChase.com .

Title Page Vixen in Velvet Loretta Chase www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dedication In memory of my mother

Acknowledgements

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

Epilogue

Author’s Note

Copyright

BRITISH INSTITUTION.—ANCIENT MASTERS. This annual Exhibition is the best set-off to the illiberality with which our grand signors shut up their pictures from the public—making, in fact, close boroughs of their collections.

—The Athenaeum , 30 May 1835

British Institution, Pall Mall, London

Wednesday 8 July

He lay naked but for a cloth draped over his manly parts. Head fallen back, eyes closed, mouth partly open, he slept too deeply to notice the imps playing with his armor and weapons, or the one blowing through a shell into his ear. The woman reclined nearby, her elbow resting on a red cushion. Unlike him, she was fully dressed, in gold-trimmed linen, and fully awake. She watched him with an unreadable expression. Did her lips hint at a smile or a frown, or was her mind elsewhere entirely?

Leonie Noirot’s mind offered sixteen different answers, none satisfactory. What wasn’t in doubt was what this pair had been doing before the male—the Roman god Mars, according to the exhibition catalog—fell asleep.

If anything else was in Leonie’s mind—her reason for coming here this day, for instance, or where “here” was or who she was—it had by now drifted to a distant corner of her skull. Nothing but the painting mattered or even existed.

She stood before the Botticelli work titled Venus and Mars , and might have been standing on another planet or in another time, so completely did it absorb her. She stood and stared, and could have counted every brushstroke, trying to get to the bottom of it. What she couldn’t do was escape it.

If anybody had stood in her way, she might have throttled that person. Oddly enough, nobody did. The British Institution’s Annual Summer Exhibition continued to attract visitors. It drew as well numerous artists, who set up their easels in the galleries, in order to copy the work of old masters. These artists made annoying obstacles of themselves while they desperately exercised what might be their only opportunity to copy works from private collections.