‘I am used to having people speak of me,’ she said. ‘They must speak of someone, so why not me? I have laughed the loudest. Life is a grand jest.’
Then she reached up, pushing an escaped curl towards her bun but feeling the wisp spring back into place.
‘Perhaps.’ He stepped forward and with his left hand captured the curl. His fingers brushed her skin as he slipped the errant lock behind her ear. ‘But, Lady Riverton, there is more to you than words in a scandal sheet.’
She put her hand on his sleeve. ‘You don’t understand the vipers of the world. They wish to bite, not cuddle. I cannot turn them into lambs.’
‘No …’
His voice quietened, but it didn’t lose the rumble, the masculine richness that pulled her like a vine twining towards the sun.
‘I can help you, though. We can create a new world around you. One in which you glitter as you should. This blunder tonight could be fortunate. It can be the moment you begin painting the world around you in the colours you wish.’
‘You are daft. No one has a brush that can do as you suggest.’
‘What is the harm in trying?’
Hand me a romance novel with a tortured hero, brooding in his mansion, rescued from his solitude by the love of a beautiful woman, and I’m hooked. But I wanted to add a different perspective to the old tale of a beauty and her brutish hero. I thought of a heroine wanting to hide in her art studio, and a hero hoping to rescue her from her scandals.
After viewing James Gillray’s caricatures, and some of the less acceptable drawings his contemporaries created, I realised that an unfavourable portrait circulating in the early 1800s in London might have been similar in consequence for the subject as having a picture posted on the internet would be today. The term ‘scandal sheet’ is relatively modern, but I wanted to use it as a vehicle to illustrate the concept of news travelling fast.
With that in mind, Beatrice and Andrew’s story began—and I embraced writing it. I hope the characters curl into your heart as they did mine.
The Notorious Countess
Liz Tyner
LIZ TYNER lives with her husband on an Oklahoma acreage she imagines is similar to the ones in the children’s book Where the Wild Things Are. Her lifestyle is a blend of old and new, and is sometimes comparable to the way people lived long ago. Liz is a member of various writing groups and has been writing since childhood. For more about her visit liztyner.com.
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