Author Description

Creating love from darkness is the greatest art...Living a bohemian lifestyle in Paris is wonderful for Teddy Dandridge, but disastrous for his finances. His unconventional artistic creations find few buyers. After a year of failure, he returns to England to fulfill a portrait commission for a wealthy family, but he finds a different, source of inspiration secreted away in their sprawling house. Isolated and rejected by his family, Phineas Abernathy haunts the west wing like a ghost. A physical deformity has locked him away from society for all his life. Filling his days with reading and drawing, he dreams of a life that seems unachievable...until irreverent, opinionated Teddy explodes into his quiet world.Intrigued by the kind and creative man beneath the ungainly exterior, Teddy gives Phin nightly drawing lessons. A private friendship is born as the men share life stories, future hopes and a growing attraction. Phin agrees to pose for a portrait in which Teddy tries to illustrate the depth and beauty he sees in him. He also guides the eager virgin in the ways of love between men.When persecutors from Phin's past arrive at the house, the slights and hurts he has suffered his entire life boil over. He must at last be brave enough to emerge from his cocoon and venture into an often cruel and judgmental world. And Teddy must risk Society's censure to embrace his protégé's love.