A Portrait of Love (The Academy of Love #3) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,19

the duke spoke.

“That is an excellent idea, Simon. Why didn’t I think of it myself? A wedding gift.” His tone was benign but a taunt lurked beneath it.

Simon was getting married?

The thought was like a kick to the chest. Fortunately the moment was too fraught with tension for her to sink into despair. No, she could do that, later.

Honey wasn’t the only one who thought the duke’s words were mocking. The marquess’ mouth screwed into an ugly scowl and his fine nostrils flared, like a warhorse scenting battle and blood.

“I daresay Miss Keyes has a full schedule,” the dowager interjected before her grown sons could commence fisticuffs at the dinner table. The older woman gave Honoria a beseeching look.

Honey wanted to remind the surly, sarcastic, hateful man that she had painted a portrait of him already—not that he’d ever seen it—but she was still stung, humiliated, and reeling that he’d not remembered her.

She was having a difficult time getting her mind around that—in addition to the news of his impending marriage.

All those hours they’d spent together had meant nothing to him. She was a fool of mythic proportions; all these years she had carried a torch for this—this drunken, oafish, savage.

Ugh. It was too humiliating to be borne.

Honey banished her rage—for now—turning her attention to the duchess, who looked more than a little miserable. What must it be like to watch her two grown sons rip up at one another like ill-behaved children?

Honey took the pity she felt for the dowager and forged it into cold disdain before turning to the man beside her with a smile of insincere regret. “I appreciate your gracious offer, Lord Saybrook—I daresay you’d make a fascinating subject—but I have a busy calendar.”

Rather than be insulted, he gave an abrupt bark of laughter. “Oh? And just what is so important that you can’t push it off?”

Honoria actually had no other commissions, but she was hardly willing to tell him that. She grabbed the first name she could think of. “I’m engaged to paint a portrait of Lord Alvanley’s favorite spaniel.”

All eating ceased and the room was as silent as a tomb.

And then the marquess threw his head back and roared.

“Well,” he said once he’d stopped laughing. “I guess you’ve put me in my place, haven’t you?” And then he turned his attention to his plate, as if finished with both her and polite discourse.

“How did you decide to become a painter, Miss Keyes.” Lady Rebecca’s voice was soft and tentative, her eyes flickering to her father as she spoke, as if looking for approval. The duke’s eyes softened and Honey was stunned by the flash of love she saw on his face. He was not an emotionless aristocrat after all—he loved something, someone, a great deal. Did he love the girl’s mother as much?

She dismissed the thought as none of her concern and smiled at Lady Rebecca. “When I was a little girl my father would give me paints to keep me busy while he worked. After a few years he noticed I not only had an aptitude, but an interest in painting, so he began to train me in earnest.”

Simon’s head swiveled around and he fixed her with his burning gaze. “How lucky for you that he cared what interested you, Miss Keyes.”

Honey blinked at the barely leashed rage beneath his words. She looked at the duke; he was watching his brother with a stillness that reminded her of a predator stalking its prey. Just what was going on between these two men?

Again, the dowager came to the rescue. “Your grandfather was Baron Yancey, was he not?”

It took no small amount of effort to pull her gaze from Simon, who was still staring at her.

“Yes,” Honey said. “My mother was the baron’s youngest daughter. I’m afraid he died before I was born, so I never met him.”

“Your grandfather was a close acquaintance of my late husband.”

“Now there’s an endorsement,” the marquess muttered, but so low Honey thought she was the only one who heard it.

The duchess waved away her almost untouched plate and a footman took it. “Lord Yancy’s family was quite a large one, if I recall correctly.”

“There were ten children, ma’am.”

“Ah, I did not know it had been quite that large.”

“It would have been even larger but seven did not survive.” Honoria had never met her grandmother but could only imagine the woman must have been worn out by so much pain—both the physical strain of childbirth and the emotional pain of