Epilogue
Calliope looked at the most irritating marquess she had ever met…and laughed.
‘What?’ her husband said defensively, dabbing a little more cerulean blue onto his palette. ‘Why are you laughing?’
‘You honestly think you’re going to hog that paint from me?’ Leaning over, Calliope grabbed the paint tube and wrenched it out of her husband’s grip. ‘Give it here!’
‘Not on your life,’ Montague said darkly, grinning as he tried to grip onto the coveted colour. ‘Calliope, let go—’
She should have expected it. In all the time she had known Montague Donovan, Marquess of Laidley, he had never been one to give up. That was one of the many reasons why she loved him.
The paint spurted out into the air, catching in the wind and somehow miraculously avoiding both her gown and apron, and Montague’s shirt and waistcoat.
It did not, however, miss the small boy who had his easel placed between theirs.
‘John!’
‘I’m all right,’ said the child, gazing down at his blue splattered artist’s tunic with owlish curiosity. ‘Now I’m all blue.’
Calliope could not help but giggle as she watched her husband apologise, kneel in the luscious green grass, and try to wipe the paint off the child and onto his palette.
‘Careful now,’ Montague was saying, trying to make sure John didn’t get any of the paint on his skin. ‘You remember how hard Mrs Draveham had to scrub to get that green off you last week.’
‘She thought the red was blood, it looked like blood, but it wasn’t,’ John said happily. He looked up at Calliope, his smile broad. ‘And now I’m blue!’
‘You are indeed,’ Calliope said warmly, ruffling his hair as he allowed his uncle—his new adoptive father—to de-paint him. ‘You are indeed.’
It had not really been much of a decision.
It had felt natural, John’s presence in their lives.
A brief conversation had been had with Lady Kilkerney, Montague’s sister, about her taking in the child now she was herself expecting a baby—but the moment she had made the suggestion, Calliope had felt sick to her stomach.
The very idea of John leaving them, of going to live with others… No, it was not to be borne.
She had looked up, that rainy afternoon, and seen the horror she had felt mirrored in Montague’s expression. She’d known in that instant John was theirs and no one else’s.
The paperwork had been swift. Montague had sat down with herself and John to ask him very seriously whether he would like to be adopted by them.
‘A child deserves the choice,’ he had said fiercely, his grip perhaps too tight around her hand as he spoke. ‘Every child should feel a little in control of their own life.’
John had burst into tears and Montague’s face had fallen—at least, until the little boy had managed to get his words out and share his relief he was going to have a family.
Calliope had cried that afternoon. Not ‘a family again’. Just ‘a family’. That poor child’s life had not been what it ought, but now it would. Now it most certainly would.
It had been John’s idea to go on a painting holiday.
‘I want to paint mountains,’ he had said seriously, one night as Calliope and Montague had kissed him and tucked him in. ‘And lakes. I want to use cerulean blue.’
They had looked at each other and decided in that moment they would indeed go and paint mountains.
Well. Large hills.
‘I am not,’ Calliope had said firmly, ‘going to travel hundreds and hundreds of miles—in a carriage? Can you think of anything worse?’
No, the Lake District had been more than picturesque for them and besides, it was near the Laidley country estate.
Being wealthy was all very well, Calliope had started to learn, but there was no place like home and escaping the crowds of people who were desperate to make your acquaintance or claim a friendship with you that you really did not recall.
She had never been to the Lakes before. She had read about them.
Thalia had gone on and on about how the place was truly the only place to write poetry, which had come as a surprise to Calliope, who had watched her younger sister write poetry pretty much everywhere she had been, regardless of location.
But perhaps Thalia had been onto something, for there was something in the air. A freshness, a newness, that made every vista a pleasure to paint.
The lakes sparkled, the hills soared, the grass was green and the sky, today, was cerulean blue.
‘There,’ Montague said brightly, dropping the wet cloth into the trunk Draveham had carried out for them. ‘All clean.’
Calliope stifled a smile as she looked down. ‘And all blue.’
Try as he might, her husband had not exactly removed all the paint, but instead smeared its remnants across the boy’s tunic.
Montague shrugged as he straightened up. ‘Well, it’s better than before—and there’s even some paint left in the tube. If you would like some.’
Calliope’s mouth fell open. ‘You’re offering it to me?’
‘If you’d only asked, I would have given it to you,’ teased the galling man. ‘It was you who snatched it.’
Their laughter filled the valley upon which they stood and it awoke the snoring figure behind them.
‘Wh-What—what is happening?’ snorted Aunt Louise as she lifted her bonnet from her face, where it had been keeping the sun off her nose. ‘Goodness me, Master John, I hardly saw you there, you’re almost one with the sky!’
John threw himself down next to his favourite aunt and started retelling the tale in all its grandeur, while Calliope dropped her paintbrush in her water jar and leaned her head against Montague’s shoulder.
‘Our little family,’ she said softly.
She felt, rather than saw, him smile but then, she knew he always smiled whenever he looked at John. There was a healing there Calliope did not quite understand, but she saw how necessary it was and did all she could to accommodate it.
‘It sounds to me as though you have had quite an adventure,’ her aunt was saying seriously, brushing a curl from the boy’s eyes. ‘And it sounds to me like it’s time—’
Calliope knew precisely what was going to come next, but still made her hide a smile.
‘Noooo!’
‘—for a nap,’ Aunt Louise said firmly. ‘Come on then—’
‘Aunt Louise, I don’t want to—’
‘And if you’re good, we can feed the fish in the lake afterwards.’
John brightened up. ‘Really?’
‘Really,’ said the older woman with a fond smile. ‘Come on, I imagine Cook might even have a few treats set aside for us.’
‘I like treats!’
‘I know,’ said Calliope’s aunt warmly as the two figures, one tall, one tiny, started walking back to the Lodge they had hired for three weeks. ‘Sometimes I think you would eat nothing but treats if you could…’
Their voices faded as the hungry wind whipped past and Calliope laughed as her hair, loose around her shoulders, was caught by it.
‘Thalia would approve,’ she said ruefully, trying to tame her untidy hair. ‘She is a great believer in breaking Society’s rules.’
‘How is your youngest sister, anyway?’ Montague asked, his gaze still fixed on the small child who was being led away by the hand. ‘I thought in her last letter she said she would come to join us here. The scenery would be perfect for poetry, I would have thought.’
Calliope picked up her brush and dabbed it into the deep rich green paint she had made by mixing two of Mr Haversham’s excellent hues together.
‘She said she would, but you know Thalia. I have never known her to be particularly adept with the calendar. She wrote to wish me a happy birthday last week but it was eight months ago.’
‘Or in four months’ time, I suppose,’ said her husband with a grin. ‘I shall have to start planning now.’
‘Planning?’
‘Oh yes, you don’t suppose I can create a celebration worthy of you without months to prepare, do you?’ Montague’s teasing laughter was only increased by her irritated tap on his arm. ‘And speaking of gifts, that reminds me!’
Calliope dabbed more green paint on her canvas. Yes, there—perhaps a little more to its left. ‘Reminds you?’
Putting his own paintbrush down and overcome by a sudden expression of guilt, Montague pulled a letter out of his breeches’ pocket. ‘Yes, I…well, I had a letter a few days ago that quite took me by surprise and so I haven’t yet shared it with you. But I cannot put it off any longer.’
Now that was sufficiently intriguing to gain her attention. ‘By surprise?’
Calliope put her paintbrush down and gestured to the rug her aunt had so recently vacated. As she spread out her skirts and enjoyed the late autumn sunshine as it poured down on them, Montague joined her—sitting far closer than necessary, a decision that poured heat and need through her very veins.
Honestly, they had made love twice already that morning. Surely he could not wish for it again?
Even if she did.
‘So, tell me the secret,’ Calliope said teasingly. ‘If it is indeed a secret, which I doubt.’
‘In fact, it is the revelation of a great secret,’ Montague said solemnly, tapping her arm with the unfolded letter. ‘The answer to a question that has plagued me for years and now you for months.’
A question which had plagued her? Try as she might, Calliope could not conceive of something that had overtaken her mind to that extent. Nothing, except—
Calliope grasped Montague’s hand. ‘The true identity of Glenarm!’
‘Indeed,’ beamed her husband, glancing down at the letter. ‘It came as a great shock to me, I can tell you.’
‘I should think so! The very idea of someone out there in the world, painting under a secret name, it’s absolutely preposterous,’ Calliope said hotly, the temper she was certain she would one day learn to control entirely taking over. ‘It’s outrageous! It’s the very height of rudeness! It’s—’
‘It’s someone you already know,’ said Montague quietly as he unfolded the letter.
Calliope was so astonished, she could hardly think what to say. ‘Someone…someone I already know?’
Her husband nodded, his smirk growing. ‘Know very well, as it happens.’
And the answer came over her in a flood so strong, Calliope almost fell backwards onto the rug.
No. No, it couldn’t be. Could it?
‘Not…not my mother,’ Calliope breathed.
Montague crowed, ‘Your mother indeed!’
‘No,’ she said aloud blankly. ‘No. My mother is not a secret internationally acclaimed artist.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said her husband with a chuckle, handing her the letter.
Darting her attention down to it, Calliope found it almost impossible to read, though her mind managed to make sense of a few lines.
…should have told her years ago…not taken seriously as a female artist…gave Calliope her love of cerulean blue…thought you should know…
Calliope looked up from the letter, her entire world shaken. It was a good thing she had already been seated.
Her mother…the mysterious artist Glenarm?
‘Well,’ she said in a rush, exhaling heavily and finding to her surprise a strange weight had been lifted from her shoulders. ‘I suppose that would explain why I share so many characteristics with the artist.’
‘She taught you to paint, it was only natural some elements of your styles would be the same,’ Montague said fondly. ‘So I suppose in a way, I was right. You are the artist Glenarm. Or at least, her daughter.’
‘I think I will continue to find my own style,’ Calliope said, a strength in her words she had not expected as a blackbird began to sing overheard. ‘I want to make a life for myself, one of my own choosing. I have wanted to do so ever since I arrived all those months ago in Brighton.’
Her husband snorted. ‘Well, you made a pretty poor start of it. Marrying me, I mean.’
Affection poured through Calliope’s heart. Oh, this man. This intolerable, irritating, charming man.
‘I don’t know. I think I’ve managed to make it work,’ she said lightly, entirely unsurprised when one of Montague’s hands snaked its way around her waist.
‘You are a saint,’ he murmured, lowering his lips to her neck and pressing a sizzling kiss upon her skin.
Calliope tried not to moan, she really did. But what was a woman to do when her husband started to make love to her on a blanket, in a valley owned by the lodge which he had taken for their holiday, with his fingers pressing pleasure upon her and the cerulean sky above?
‘Montague,’ she whispered, lifting her lips for a kiss.
He gazed down at her with a wicked smile. ‘Yes?’
Calliope swallowed, and asked for the type of lovemaking she loved best. ‘Infuriate me.’
Keep reading for an excerpt from RUINED BY THE WRONG EARL by Tina Gabrielle.