Artful Deceptions

Patricia Rice

Description

Eldest daughter of an eccentric art collector, Arianne Richards has become the caretaker of the family's empty coffers and her irrepressible siblings. Discovering a hidden painting, she is determined to sell it to obtain the funds to send her ill mother into the country. But why does her aristocratic cousin's suitor, the handsome and wealthy Lord Galen Locke, show so much interest in her humble person? And why does he so badly want the mysterious painting?One question teased Arianne's mind. The other troubled her heart. And both offered answers as startling as ghost from the past and the secrets of love.

Sujets

• Historical romance
• Historical fiction
• Romance

Informations

• Publié par: Book View Cafe
• Date de parution: 19 septembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781611386998
• Langue: English

Extrait

Artful Deceptions
Regency Love and Laughter Series, Book 3


Patricia Rice
Artful Deceptions
P atricia Rice

Copyright © 1992, 2012 Patricia Rice
First Publication: 1992
Book View Cafe, 2016
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form .
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental .
Published by Rice Enterprises, Dana Point, CA, an affiliate of Book View Café Publishing Cooperative
Cover design by Killion Group
Book View Café Publishing Cooperative
P.O. Box 1624, Cedar Crest, NM 87008- 1624
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ISBN 978-1-61138-699-8 ebook
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior permission of the copyright owner .
Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated .
Thank You .
Contents




Author’s Note

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue

EXCERPT - All a Woman Wants

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About the Author

Also by Patricia Rice

About Book View Cafe
Author’s Note

I n the 1980s and early 1990s, Signet Regency produced some of the most popular category Regency romances on the market. These were 60-75,000 words sweet romances set in Regency England and written by the likes of Joan Wolf, Mary Jo Putney, Catherine Coulter, and the late, great Edith Layton. At the time, I was a historical romance author, but my editor also edited the category line. When she had several openings in her schedule, she asked if I could fill one. I was honored and thrilled to be in such company .
I only wrote three: Mad Maria’s Daughter , Artful Deceptions , and The Genuine Article . I never considered them to be a series, although they shared many of the same characters. In fact, I went on to write a historical romance series, The Regency Nobles, using some of the secondary characters from The Genuine Article .
I have trimmed convoluted sentences from the original, attempted to straighten out some of the more frustrating points of view, but the books were written in a different time and place. I hope my craft has improved over the decades, but the stories are still fun and timeless, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I have going back over them after all these years .
Chapter 1

H olding her breath and biting her lip, Arianne Richards pried off the oddly situated backing from which a piece of canvas protruded. Many old paintings had unusual frames and odd bits of paper and board tacked to the reverse, but this particular painting was neither very old nor very valuable .
Actually, she considered the insipid portrait one of the artist’s poorest works. Her mother could not possibly have looked that vain even twenty years ago, and she certainly had never been the frail and porcelain beauty the artist had thought to make of her. Perhaps that kind of beauty had been as fashionable then as it was now, but Arianne knew that her mother was as tall as she, and had always enjoyed robust good health .
Until these last few years. Frowning, Arianne opened up the backing. If she listened, she could hear her mother’s cough in the rooms above, but here in the workroom she tried to shut out this reminder. Her father had brought in no new commissions lately. There was nothing to be done in the studio, but Arianne had used the excuse of cleaning one of their own portraits to escape for a while into this solitude .
Not that she minded tending to her younger brothers and sister, or even cared that the major part of the housework fell on her shoulders now that her mother’s coughing spells had become more frequent. Her family had been all her life for twenty-one years. But the constant worry of the hacking cough gnawed at Arianne’s fears .
She could remember a time when she had run through the wild grasses of Somerset, free and laughing as only a child could. She had been too young to remember the death of her first baby sister, but she could remember the time after the fever, when her new baby brother had been carried off on angel’s wings, as her mother had explained it. It had been then that the laughing summer days had dwindled to a permanent winter .
Her mother had been a long time recovering from the fever. Her father’s genial absentmindedness had become more distracted. Bits and pieces of their heavy old carved furniture had begun to disappear: the lovely chair with the faded tapestry of lions and Romans, the massive walnut sideboard with so many intricate carvings that Arianne used it as a hiding place for her smallest treasures, even the golden candlesticks with the dragon heads that breathed fire when the candle was lit. Along with these fantasies of the past disappeared Arianne’s childhood .
They had removed to London by the time Lucinda was born. Even as a six-year-old Arianne had taken the responsibility of looking after the infant, rocking her cradle when she cried, keeping her amused when she was awake so her mother could rest and get strong again. It seemed a natural progression of things that her mother’s “best little helper” should be the one to watch the toddler when she began to walk, to set the table and clear the dishes on the maid’s night off, to stir the custard when the kitchen was a flurry of activity .
The backing finally came loose from the frame. She knew no one minded when she came down here to escape for a little while. Her father had encouraged her habit of watching him work as he cleared centuries of dirt and grime from the rare and valuable oils brought to him from the collections of the wealthy. He had even allowed her to help him on less valuable pieces, until she knew the best chemicals to use for which oils and could work without his guidance while he sought more business .
It was because his own collection was so extensive that Ross Richards was consulted by royalty and aristocracy seeking to keep their family treasures or newly acquired ones in good repair. Arianne wrinkled her nose in frustration as she thought of the fortune in paintings adorning the walls of their humble abode. The paintings were almost all they had left when they had moved to the city, and her father refused to part with even the least of them, even if it meant not taking a much-needed trip to Bath or Brighton to improve her mother’s ailing health .
It was the one subject on which she and her father were at odds, and it wouldn’t do to dwell on it now. Her father’s passion for art supported them, while her parents’ aristocratic relations gave them the connections to the world necessary to provide that support. They seemed content with that, and Arianne knew it wasn’t her place to interfere .
But as the backing slipped away to reveal a palette of colors that shouldn’t be there, Arianne gasped and felt a flutter of hope, hope hinged on keeping this discovery a secret from her beloved father .

A rianne didn’t look in the mirror as she tied the ribbons of her eminently practical buckram-stiffened bonnet over her heavy chestnut hair. She had no lady’s maid to cut, comb, tease, and curl the thick lengths into a fashionable coiffure, and she had no patience for it herself. By pinning her tresses into a heavy chignon, she managed to keep them in control enough to fit a bonnet over them .
Arianne had been watching for her cousin’s carriage and had hurried to make ready as soon as it had turned down the narrow street. It would be completely indecorous to run out before Melanie’s footman had even knocked at the door, but she heard the rap now. Thinking of Melanie, she sighed. Melanie had the pouty bowed lips of fashion instead of Arianne’s wide, generous mouth. Why couldn’t she at least resemble her fashionable cousin in this one small respect ?
Pulling on her gloves, she hastened toward the hall stairs, but she had no chance of escaping without notice. Fifteen-year-old Lucinda bounded out of the upstairs parlor, and from the sound of running footsteps, she would be followed closely by their brothers .
“Rainy, Melanie is here! Could I go too? Please, Rainy? Just this once? I’ve never ridden in a carriage through the park before. Please, Rainy ?”
Arianne didn’t hesitate, though her heart tugged at her sister’s plea. Were it not for their cousins, she would never have seen the fashionable world from an elegant carriage either, but this ride had more importance than a happy outing .
Smiling up the stairs at her sister, Arianne called, “Another time, Lucy, I promise,” before hurrying through the door held by Melanie’s footman .
Her cousin practically bounced with eagerness as Arianne sat beside her on the velvet squabs. Melanie had lost both her parents, leaving her in the somewhat whimsical care of her twin brothers, Gordon and Evan, but aside from that one unhappy circumstance, Melanie Griffin had everything that Arianne had not .
The Griffins were wealthy and moved in the fashionable circles of their grandfather, the Earl of Shelce. At eighteen Melanie had been presented to court under the auspices of her brother Evan’s new wife, and she was now enjoying the Season she had been denied after her fat