A Portrait of Love (The Academy of Love #3) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,133
bickering good-naturedly with both girls, making them laugh and protest his outrageous behavior, teasing them as relentlessly as he’d likely done when he’d been their age. She could envision him doing the same with their own children in the years to come.
Honey’s heart swelled as she watched the three of them, and it struck her that they were the boisterous, loving family she had always yearned for and was, in her own way, beginning to assemble around herself.
As she watched them together, she suddenly knew what her first painting would be when she went back to work. She would paint her family—not just the three people before her, but the rest of her new family, too: the dowager, the duke, and even her aloof sister-in-law, who perhaps she might one day know better.
Yes, she would paint a family portrait—the first one that she would paint that included herself.
Honey smiled at the image already forming in her mind’s eye; she would need a large canvas for such a portrait of love.
THANKS SO MUCH FOR READING!
I hope you enjoyed Honoria and Simon’s story.
THE ACADEMY OF LOVE is a 7-book series. In this book you briefly meet some of the other teachers from the Stefani Academy for Young Ladies: Frederika, Lady Sedgewick—or Freddie, as she is better known, Miles Ingram, and Serena Lombard.
Serena’s book, A FIGURE OF LOVE, is already available and takes place at roughly the same time as this book.
Book 4 in the series is THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE, which features Annis Redmond, the languages teacher.
Book 5, DANCING WITH LOVE, features Miles Ingram, the newly anointed Earl of Avingdon.
Book 6, A STORY OF LOVE, features Lorelei Fontenot, the classics teacher.
Book 7, not only features Freddie, but you’ll also get to see Wyndham Fairchild, the Duke of Plimpton again ….
If you liked my story and would like to read more, please leave me a review on your website of choice. Drop me a line at [email protected] if you would like to see a specific character get their story. Or tell me the sort of story that YOU’D like to read. I am always open to good ideas!
Please read on for a peek at THE FOOTMAN, Book 1 in THE MASQUERADERS series, a Regency Romance trilogy about heroes and heroines who are not always what they appear …
Chapter One
London
1802
Iain Vale was examining a marble statue of some poor armless bloke when the door beside it flew open and a whirlwind in skirts burst into the hall.
“I will not!” the whirlwind yelled before slamming the door, spinning around, and careening into Iain. “Ooof.” She bounced off him and stumbled backward, catching her foot in the hem of her dress in the process.
Iain sprang forward, reached out one long arm, and caught her slim waist, halting her fall. He looked down at his armful of warm female and found surprised gray eyes glaring back at him. Her mouth, which had been open in shock, snapped shut. Iain hastily righted his bundle and took a step back.
“Who the devil are you?” the girl demanded, brushing at her dress as though his gloved hands might have soiled it.
“I’m the new footman, Miss.”
The gray eyes turned steely. “Are you stupid?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m not a Miss. I am Lady Elinor, your employer’s daughter.”
Iain’s face heated under her contemptuous eyes. He’d been spoken down to many times, but never quite so . . . effectively.
“You are welcome, Lady Elinor.”
“What?” she demanded. “What did you say?” Her eyes were so wide they looked to be in danger of popping out of their sockets.
“I said, ‘you are welcome, my lady.’”
She planted her fists on her slim hips. “I’m welcome for what?”
“For saving you from a very nasty fall,” he retorted, unable to keep his tongue behind his teeth even though he was breaking every rule in the footman’s handbook. If such a thing existed.
The unladylike noise that slipped from her mouth told Iain she was thinking the same thing. “You are an intolerably insolent boy. Not to mention the most ignorant footman I’ve ever known.”
Iain couldn’t argue with her on that second point.
“Besides,” she added, looking him up and down, “I wouldn’t have needed your clumsy rescuing if you’d not been listening at keyholes.”
Listening at keyholes? Why the obnoxious little—
Iain had just opened his mouth to say something foolish and most likely job-ending when the door Lady Elinor had exited so violently opened and Lady Yarmouth stood on the threshold. Her gray eyes, much like her daughter’s,