Vixen In Velvet. Loretta Chase

      

       She straightened and came around to face him, making a pretty flurry of white muslin and lace.

      She was a dressmaker, he told himself. She knew how to wield clothes as a weapon. And it worked all too well, like a club to the head.

      She gave him the enigmatic smile, so like the one Botticelli’s Venus wore. ‘A wager,’ she said.

      ‘Everybody else is doing it,’ he said. ‘Why shouldn’t we?’

      “Because you’ll lose?” she said.

      ‘Oh, but I’m sure you’ll lose,’ he said. ‘And my mind is wandering over an interesting range of forfeits.’

      ‘Mine, too,’ she said. ‘Money means nothing to you, so I must use my powers of imagination.’

      ‘I had higher stakes in mind,’ he said. ‘Nothing so ordinary as money. Something significant.’

      She set her hands on the edge of the desk and leaned back.

      He couldn’t exactly see her calculating. She was too good at not showing what she was about. Yet he knew she was weighing and measuring, and so he calculated, too.

      He sensed the moment when she’d worked out her answer. Yet she waited one moment. Another.

      Playing with him, the vixen.

      THE DRESSMAKERS SERIES

      Silk is for Seduction

      Scandal Wears Satin

      Vixen in Velvet

      LORETTA CHASE has worked in academe, retail and the visual arts, as well as on the streets—as a meter maid (aka traffic warden)—and in video, as a scriptwriter. She might have developed an excitingly chequered career had her spouse not nagged her into writing fiction. Her bestselling historical romances, set in the Regency and Romantic eras of the early nineteenth century, have won a number of awards, including the Romance Writers of America’s RITA^®.

      Website: www.LorettaChase.com.

       Vixen in Velvet

       Loretta Chase

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MILLS & BOON

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      In memory of my mother

       Acknowledgements

      Thanks to:

      May Chen: funny, wise and understanding editor, whose patience surpasseth all understanding;

      Nancy Yost: brilliant, hard-working, witty and inspiring agent;

      Isabella Bradford: kindred spirit and nerdy history co-enabler;

      Paul and Carol: providers of the perfect writer’s refuge on Cape Cod;

      Valerie Kerxhalli: advisor in French Colonial matters;

      Williamsburg milliners, mantua makers and tailors: experts in historic dress, who continue to unlock the mysteries of clothing from the past;

      Cynthia, Vivian and Kathy: sisters, cheerleaders, confidantes, friends;

      Walter: spouse, producer, cinematographer and knight in shining armour,

       Table of Contents

       Cover

       Excerpt

       About the Author

       Title Page

       Dedication

      Acknowledgements

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Chapter Seventeen

       Chapter Eighteen

       Epilogue

       Author’s Note

       Copyright

       Chapter One

      BRITISH INSTITUTION.—ANCIENT MASTERS. This annual Exhibition is the best set-off to the illiberality with which our grand signors shut up their pictures from the public—making, in fact, close boroughs of their collections.

      —The Athenaeum, 30 May 1835

       British Institution, Pall Mall, London

       Wednesday 8 July

      He lay naked but for a cloth draped over his manly parts. Head fallen back, eyes closed, mouth partly open, he slept too deeply to notice the imps playing with his armor and weapons, or the one blowing through a shell into his ear. The woman reclined nearby, her elbow resting on a red cushion. Unlike him, she was fully dressed, in gold-trimmed linen, and fully awake. She watched him with an unreadable expression. Did her lips hint at a smile or a frown, or was her mind elsewhere entirely?