Taking the opportunity to speak to her afforded by a waltz, Jeremy tells Yvette of her brother’s request and then asks if she would consider sitting for his other project in secret. Jeremy is reluctant, but when Blakeborough continues to insist, he realises that he might, with Lady Yvette’s co-operation, be able to turn the situation to his advantage. After all, a portrait showing Yvette to her best advantage painted by a famous artist can’t help but improve her prospects. Jeremy privately thinks the men of the ton must be a bunch of blind idiots not to appreciate her, and is commiserating with her brother when the earl suggests that he commission Jeremy to paint her portrait. She’s also tall, red-haired and built along athletic lines, which doesn’t at all fit with the current vogue for petite blondes.

She is twenty-three, has a mind of her own and isn’t afraid of using it, and wouldn’t make the demure, biddable wife most men of the ton seem to want. In conversation with Blakeborough, Jeremy discovers that the earl is rather worried about his sister’s marriage prospects. He thinks she would make the perfect model for his next project, although when he discovers that she is Lady Yvette Barlow, sister to the Earl of Blakeborough, he realises his chances of using her as a model for his next work – an allegory depicting everyday struggles and violence – are nil. But despite repeated pleas from his mother and sister to return home to help them manage it, Jeremy has no intention of doing so, and actually wants to sign over his half of the business to his sister.Īt the ball to celebrate the marriage of Dominck Manton, Viscount Rathmoor and Jane Vernon ( When the Viscount Falls), Jeremy catches sight of a Junoesque beauty and is immediately seized with the desire to paint her. Even though he turned his back on an earldom, he is nonetheless a wealthy man, his family having made a large fortune in the textile manufacturing business. Jeremy is a successful artist, having gained a name for himself with his grand depictions of historical and mythological paintings, but who has since eschewed that kind of art in favour of what he describes as the “raw drama of real life”. That doesn’t mean it’s uninteresting, just that it’s lower key and allows the romance more space to develop as a result. Like the books in the previous series, this one has a strong mystery element running through it, but it is less prominent than before. In How the Scoundrel Seduces, we met Jeremy Keane, an American artist and businessman who, even though he was the rightful heir to an earldom, wanted nothing to do with the title and was happy to relinquish those rights to his cousin, Lady Zoe. The Art of Sinning is the first book in a new series from Ms Jeffries, and is related to her previous The Duke’s Men books.

The art of sinning by sabrina jeffries