The Seduction of Lady Charity: The Baxendale Sisters Book Four Read Online Free Page B

is a rake exactly?” Mercy asked.
    “I shall explain later,” Mama said in a brisk tone. “Suffice to say Gunn’s is one portrait Charity will not paint.”
    “But, Mama, I can’t refuse to see him. Father already made me turn down the invitation from James Lonsdale to become his pupil.” Her eyes watered again at the recollection. “Lonsdale painted the Queen Consort as well as other important personages. Should I ever be fortunate enough to be invited to exhibit at the Royal Academy, I don’t expect Father would approve of that either.”
    “I wouldn’t wish Lonsdale to paint me,” her mother said. “That painting of Caroline of Brunswick made her look like she’d been without sleep for months. Well, she wasn’t a beauty, God rest her soul.”
    “I can see I’ll gain a reputation for being disobliging,” Charity said miserably. “My work will suffer.”
    “Your life will suffer if that man gets you alone,” Mama said, removing a slice of cold beef from the platter.
    “But I need never be alone with him. Not if you accompany me. Please, it means a great deal to me.”
    Her mother sighed. “Oh, very well. But I don’t intend to leave your father for long, not when he’s unwell.”
    “Gunn expects me on the tenth.” She searched her mother’s face hopefully. “That’s next Monday.”
    “Why does he remain in London? The city is insufferable in high summer! And we have only a skeleton staff in the Mayfair house.”
    “We only need stay in London a day or two.”
    “Shall I come?” Mercy asked.
    “You would be bored, Mercy,” Mama said.
    “I suppose. And I don’t really like leaving Wolf.” Mercy’s long fair hair swung down as she bent to offer a piece of beef to Wolf, who had crept into the room with an air of expectation. “I was told he missed me dreadfully when we went to visit Hope.” Mercy’s shoulders gave a small, almost indecipherable shrug. She’d always been happy to remain at home. But now that she approached her seventeenth birthday, surely it wouldn’t be long before she wished to spread her wings. It made Charity want to fight for Mercy as well as herself, to become an example for her to follow.
    “Instruct a footman to remove the dog, Graves,” Mama said to the butler, who was hovering with the wine decanter.
    During the trip to London, her mother again expressed her concern for her father’s health. Charity winced, suffering a degree of guilt. The doctor had assured Mama that Father’s health was improving, and his breathing was better when he’d appeared at breakfast that morning. She only needed to remain long enough to gain a sense of her subject and discover what Gunn expected.
    London sweltered with humidity under louring clouds. A rumble of thunder in the distance heralded an approaching storm as they reached Lord Gunn’s home on the north side of Grosvenor Square. Individually designed with towering columns decorating its façade, the building faced a more unified group of houses across the garden square.
    A stiffly formal butler in dark clothes admitted them to the unoccupied drawing room, where a long bank of windows, festooned with brocade fringed with gold, overlooked the flowers in the square.
    While waiting for the baron, they sat on a gold satin sofa in the Egyptian style the king was known to favor. Moments later, when he strode in, he seemed to fill the room. With her artist’s eyes, Charity took in his shock of untamed red hair and long face enlivened by bright blue eyes. She had already discovered he was thirty years old and unmarried when she looked him up in her father’s book, The New Peerage . Broad-shouldered and rather overpowering, he would make a splendid subject.
    After the usual greetings, he studied her and raised his auburn eyebrows. “So, you’re the remarkable young artist whose work is taking the ton by storm.”
    Surprised, she blushed. Was she ready for such a task? This newfound fame was unnerving. Her old drawing teacher