Read Online How To Rescue A Rake (Book Club Belles Society 3) by Jayne Fresina - Free Book Online Page A

when she seemed extremely agitated. She was staring away from the artist. Diana was not the vain sort and must have hated sitting for a portrait. No doubt she did so just to please Sarah, for she always complied with the wishes of her friends. She did not include him in that group, of course, despite his efforts.
    Nate remembered walking across the meadow with Diana in one of their stolen moments alone together. He had chased after her, tumbling over a stile to tell the ingrate that she was beautiful.
    He’d never seen her blush before then. “Don’t be silly,” she’d said, looking flustered and covering her cheeks with her hands. “For goodness’ sake.”
    But she must have known how she looked. She surely had a mirror to see for herself and could have heard compliments aplenty whenever there was a dance to attend. Her beauty, however, was of a different variety than the usual rosy-cheeked, buxom country girl. Perhaps that was why she failed to recognize its full worth. He saw that possibility now, although at the time he’d been nonplussed by her lack of confidence. Three years of absence from a situation could cause a man to look at it from another angle. Through new eyes.
    Nathaniel studied the portrait as long as he dared, sneakily following the charcoal lines and curves with a sideways glance, the direction of his gaze hidden by lowered eyelids.
    Until her likeness was covered by another sketch and then another, for Sarah Wainwright was a prolific artist.
    There were sketches of plow horses, dogs, and that very large pig called Sir Mortimer Grubbins. Soon, as the pile mounted, there was nothing of Diana left visible.
    “Should I call you Captain or Uncle Sherringham? Or Uncle Nathaniel?” Sarah asked suddenly, her eyes very wide and earnest, as if this was a most pressing matter.
    “Hmmm.” He pretended to consider her question with equal solemnity. “Uncle Sherringham sounds awfully old and dry. Indeed, I do not like the Uncle much at all. It brings to mind a stodgy old man with rancid breath and bulging waistcoat buttons. Would a simple Sherry be appropriate, do you suppose? It is what all my friends call me. Those that are still speaking to me, that is,” he added with an arch grin.
    She nodded. “Very well, I shall call you Sherry.”
    “Perhaps you can sketch my brother,” said Rebecca, “if he will sit still long enough while he is here.”
    Nathaniel replied teasingly that he thought the real thing much more endearing, unless, of course, his future bride might want to keep his image in charcoal for the times when they were not together. “I would not want her to go into a decline if she does not have my handsome face before her every day.”
    “Are you going to marry that lady you were with at the assembly dance?” asked Sarah, sounding slightly scandalized by the idea. “The one with all the rouge?”
    “Good Lord, no.” She’d almost taken his breath away with that question. “Mrs. Sayles is just an acquaintance.”
    A strange look passed between his sister and her stepdaughter.
    “An acquaintance ,” he repeated. “A traveling companion. I am charged with delivering her to relatives in Bath.”
    “Well, I must say that’s a relief,” Rebecca muttered.
    While Sarah took her drawings back to her room, Nathaniel whispered, “I told you, sister dearest, my bride must be between fifteen and twenty-five, sweet-natured and adoring, full of maidenly innocence. That hardly describes Mrs. Sayles, I fear.”
    “Maidenly innocence?” his sister scoffed as she fought to regain one of her bronze locks from her son’s tightly determined fist. “How typical that you would expect virtue and considerable naiveté from your bride, while you, for years, have been free to gain experience of that nature wherever and whenever you desire it.”
    With an amiable shrug, he replied, “A man should always seek knowledge and gain a familiarity with certain practices in order to guide his new bride.”