Her hand shook as she pulled the sheet from the fourth painting and looked into the smiling hyacinth-blue eyes of Simon Fairchild, now the Marquess of Saybrook.
As it always did, the portrait froze her breath in her lungs. Honoria had painted many portraits in the past thirteen years but in none of the others had she captured the pure light and human essence of one of her subjects as she had in this one.
Her technique was far superior now to what it had been over a decade ago, but she’d never painted anything better. The laughter in his eyes was so vivid she could hear its echo.
Honey shook her head and dropped the cover back over the image that had haunted her far too often over the years. He wasn’t the only man she’d been fond of, of course, but no other man had inspired such depth of feeling in her heart.
She knew he’d gone to war because she’d read his name in the paper—when he’d returned. But what had happened to the young woman—Bella—and his plans of a life in the country?
Honoria locked the door on that question and dozens of others. She went to the small mirror beside the door and inspected her uninspiring reflection. Her heavy hair had come loose from its severe moorings and long tendrils wafted around her narrow face like a dun-colored gloriole.
To be honest, her narrow and freckled face with its pale gray eyes were significantly more appealing with disheveled locks as a frame, but it did not suit a woman of her age and position, so she did her best to tidy the loose strands without actually unpinning and re-braiding it all. The result was good enough for an afternoon tea with her housemates, who were spinsters like Honoria.
A diminutive garden packed with blooms separated her painting studio from the small house where she’d spent her entire life. After her father died she’d chosen to set up her painting studio in the carriage house, rather than his studio. It was foolish, but she’d left the studio untouched, not a shrine to him, but a place so full of his essence that she could not bear the thought of dismantling it.
As Honoria traversed the narrow walk that led to the back door of the house she noticed that Freddie’s peonies—the size of cabbages—had bloomed and died. It would be another summer of her life, her twenty-eighth summer.
That notion was vaguely depressing but she was in no mood to ask herself why that was, not today.
Freddie—Lady Winifred Sedgwick—glanced up from the small writing desk in the corner when Honoria entered the parlor.
“Serena will be here in a moment. She has become embroiled in a battle of wills.”
“Ah, a skirmish between Mamie and Una?”
“Who else.” It was not a question. Their cook and housekeeper were both the best of friends and the worst of enemies, depending on the day.
Honey dropped into her favorite seat, a battered green leather wingchair that had been her father’s favorite. She swore she could still smell the unmistakable combination of turpentine and bay rum she associated with him even though he had been gone six years. He’d died not long after her twenty-first birthday, passing away in his sleep—a quiet death utterly unlike his passionate, flamboyant life.
The door to the parlor swung open and Honoria’s mouth curved into a genuine smile. “Hello, Oliver. Have you escaped your lessons?”
Serena’s ten year-old son dropped a creditable bow. “Mama said that I might come down for tea.”
“And Mamie’s biscuits?” she teased. He smiled and came to sit beside her. Honoria ruffled his messy brown curls. “What have you been working on? I haven’t heard any explosions lately.”
“Mama said no more experiments with the electricity maker.” He sounded rather mournful about that.
“How do you manage to entertain yourself in the face of such deprivation?”
“She gave me an automata.” His grin was blinding.
“Ah. And have you taken it apart yet?”
He gave her a look that told her what he thought of such a foolish question.
Freddie came to join them after depositing a small pile of correspondence on the salver by the door. “He is making his own automata, aren’t you, Oliver?”
“Oui, Tante.”
Oliver called them all “aunt” and spoke a fluent mix of French and English that was beyond charming.
The door opened and his mother, accompanied by Una with the tea tray, entered.
“Thank you, Una,” Honey said to the tiny housekeeper.
Her dour servant just grunted and bustled from the room, no doubt headed back to the kitchen and a resumption of hostilities.
Beside her, Oliver’s stomach grumbled and Honey gave him a look of mock, open-mouthed shock.
He flushed. “J'ai faim.”
“English today, Oliver,” Serena reminded her son. “I wish Miles were here,” she said to Honoria. “But he won’t be back from the country for at least another week.”
Miles Ingram was a friend of theirs who’d been the dancing master at the Stefani Academy for Young Ladies, where they’d all taught before the school closed last year. There’d been seven teachers and they’d grown as close as siblings over the years they worked together. And now they were scattered to the four winds: Portia gone to teach music in the wilds of Cornwall; Annis living with her Grandmother in the tiny town of Cocklesham; and Lorelei with her brother and his family at a vicarage. Only Honoria, Serena, Freddie, and Miles remained in London.
Freddie busied herself with distributing tea, small sandwiches, and biscuits.
“Well?” Serena demanded. “Will you put us out of our misery, Honey?”
“Perhaps she would like to wait until we’ve finished eating?” Freddie murmured.
“Oh, bother waiting,” Serena said.
Honey laughed at her friend’s impatience. “Very well, I shall read it to you.” She opened the one page letter and read it out loud:
“Miss Keyes,
I am writing you at the recommendation of Viscount Heath, whose wife’s portrait you painted this spring. I have seen the painting and found your rendering of the viscountess to be accurate without any evidence of flattery or over-indulgence.”
Honey couldn’t help chuckling at that. “Perhaps I should print that on my calling card—Accurate portraitist not given to flattery or over-indulgence?”
“Keep reading, my dear,” Serena urged.
“I would like to engage you to paint Her Grace and my daughter, who is sixteen and—”
Serena clapped her hands and bounced up and down on the settee, jostling Freddie beside her. “Oh, Honey, that is marvelous!”
“Does he mention his terms?” Freddie asked, ever the practical one.
“He asks that I respond with my terms and the earliest date I will be available.” She placed the letter in Serena’s outstretched hand.
“When will you go?” Serena demanded, looking up from the letter, which she was cradling as if it were spun glass.
“Goodness, I’ve only just learned of it. I’ve not even decided if—”
“Pfffft! Don’t be coy. You know you will do it. How could you not? A duchess and her daughter. His Grace is quite well off, isn’t he?”
Honey’s friends did not know of her girlhood infatuation with the duke’s younger brother. Why should they? Who told their friends such embarrassing things? She shuddered at the thought of disgorging such a pitiful confession.
“Honey?”
Serena and Freddie were watching her with expectant expressions.
A slight knock on the door made her jump.
It was Madame, Oliver’s nurse/governess.
Serena smiled at her son. “You may take some of Mamie’s biscuits up to the schoolroom.”
Oliver—who’d been behaving with remarkable composure for a little boy in the middle of a tedious adult conversation— rose from the sofa with alacrity, dropping a gentlemanly bow before following the French woman from the room.
Honoria waited until the door closed before clearing her throat an
d asked Freddie the dreaded question. “What do you know of the Duke of Plimpton and his current household?” Winifred Sedgewick made her living as a matchmaker, even though she despised the term, and there was very little about society she did not know
“I know His Grace has been married for almost twenty years and that his wife was Devonshire’s youngest. She is delicate and cannot have more children. I believe the daughter is their only surviving child.”
So, the duchess had never had any more children.
“The duke’s younger brother, Marquess of Saybrook, is his heir presumptive,” Freddie continued, unaware of the chaos the name caused in Honoria’s breast.
“Ah, yes,” Serena said in between bites of biscuit. “He was at Waterloo.” She paused and frowned. “Was there not something odd about his return?”
“Yes,” Freddie said, “he was not found until after three days on the battlefield. I have not seen his name this past Season, so I daresay he is still mending.”
Honoria knew all of this, of course. She’d followed the story of his return like a woman obsessed. She took a sip of tea and saw her hand was white from squeezing the cup’s handle.
“I cannot imagine what he must have endured,” Freddie said, shaking her head.
“Do you think he lives with his brother?” Honey forced the words through numb lips.
“That I do not know. Why do you ask? Oh,” Freddy’s eyes widened slightly. “I recall, now. You know him—the Marquess of Saybrook—don’t you, Honey?”
“Her father painted his portrait,” Serena supplied before Honoria could answer.
Freddie was the most perceptive person Honey had ever met. Luckily, she was also the most private and always kept well away from probing into other people’s lives.
Serena did not. “What was he like?” she demanded, dipping a biscuit into her tea and then popping the soggy mess into her mouth, licking her fingers.
Honey bit back a smile at her friend’s free and easy ways. She could hardly imagine the scandal the voluptuous Frenchwoman must have cause during her brief sojourn among the ton.
“It’s been a long time since I last saw him, Serena.” Thirteen years, one month, one week, and three days. Not that she was counting.
Serena gave one of her very French shrugs. “You must remember something about him?”
Honey sighed—why bother lying? “He was the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen.”
Serena’s biscuit froze an inch from her open mouth.
Freddie looked down at her folded hands.
“Surely he is not more handsome than Miles?” Serena demanded.
Honey’s face heated.
The Frenchwoman chuckled. “Ah, that must be a rare sight to see.”
Honey turned away from her knowing look and fussed with the handle of her teacup.
“I believe he stayed with his brother when he first returned,” Freddy said, mercifully changing the subject. “But he does have an estate of his own.”
“Yes, Everley.” Honoria’s voice was barely a whisper. She set down her cup and saucer with steady hands and then looked at her friends. Freddie’s beautiful, inscrutable face remained expressionless but Serena met her gaze with a bold, challenging stare.
“Well?” The irrepressible Frenchwoman broke the uncomfortable silence, her brown eyes sparkling. “When will you leave?”
Chapter Three
Simon was flying.
Or the very next thing to flying.
The sorrel stallion with its flaxen mane and tail was not only beautiful, he was also as enamored of speed as his master. Bacchus was his name but Simon would have done better to name him Mercury he was so fleet.
When they approached the end of the path that opened onto the long and somewhat hilly drive leading down to Whitcomb Simon gave the horse his head. Bacchus knew the road well and his powerful muscles exploded. The wind was so fierce Simon swore he could hear it whistling past the scarred remnants of his deaf ear.
His muscles bunched and stretched like that of his mount, the damaged skin of his face, throat, and torso burning. The pain was almost cathartic and it reminded him he was alive, something he needed to tell himself at least a dozen times a day.
“I’m alive,” he whispered.
The wind ripped away his words but they pounded through his mind and body. He was alive.
Thundering hooves and blurring trees cocooned him. Alive.
He crested the ridge—and almost collided with a post chaise that was ambling down the center of the road.
“Holy hell!” His voice was so loud it caused the big stallion between his thighs to startle.
Life shrank to a fraction of a second as he shifted his seat and tightened his thighs, sending Bacchus charging toward the slight gap to the right of the carriage.
He was vaguely aware of the postilion using his entire body to wrench the chaise and four to the left. The carriage skittered sideways and the wheels rolled into the soft, damp soil beside the drive.
Simon thundered past without slowing, his heart pounding louder than the wind. He laughed, the sound mad to his own ears.
He was alive.
***
Honey looked out the window just in time to catch a glimpse of the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. And then the chaise lurched to the side, throwing her, her book, and her cloak to the floor.
Luckily the cloak went before she did and softened her fall so she was more startled than hurt when she landed on her knees. She held onto the seat as the carriage bounced over rough ground, waiting until the vehicle began to slow before pushing herself up until she could grasp the leather strap beside the door.
Her heart pounded like a drum in her ears, and not just because of the scare.
He was here. She closed her eyes and relived the lighting-fast image of a Norse god on a magnificent mount. The image—no matter how fleeting—had shown him to be just as beautiful as before.
Simon was here.
The chaise shuddered to a halt and shook her out of her stunned reverie. So he was here? What difference did that make? She’d known it might be the case. She’d prepared herself for seeing him again. Or at least she’d thought she had.
Honey grimaced at her pitiful dithering and released the strap, collapsing back against the squabs as the chaise shifted on its springs.
The door opened and the burly groom appeared in the opening. “You alright, Miss?” His homely face was creased with concern.
“Just a little shaken up. What happened?”
His expression shifted from concern to disgust. “Naught but a lunatic, riding hell-bent for leather. Beggin’ your pardon, Miss.” He pushed back his hat and scratched his head. “He came out of nowhere and went past in a blur—riding the damned finest piece of horseflesh I’ve ever seen,” he said with grudging admiration, and then grimaced, “Beggin’ your pardon, Miss.”
Honey wanted to roll her eyes; men and their horses. “Are we close to Whitcomb House?”
“Aye, naught but ten minutes away.”
She smoothed her navy blue traveling dress over her lap with shaking hands. Good God. She would see him again.
“Alright then?” the groom asked.
She mustered a smile and nodded. “Yes—yes of course. I am fine and ready to resume the journey.”
He closed the door and within moments they were rolling.
She stared out the window and tried to sooth her jangled nerves, but the beautiful profile and flash of golden hair was stuck in her mind’s eye—a problem with artists. She would have known that classical profile—distinct enough to grace a coin—anywhere. Hatless with buckskin breeches, black clawhammer, and tall leather boots completed the brief picture. He’d looked vital, not damaged at all. He looked like a Corinthian—or at least that is what she imaged they looked like, those men who relished their own physicality: bruising riders, crack marksmen, determined pugilists, and other such overtly-masculine foolis
hness.
Her stomach quivered at the image her mind would not relinquish. How could she endure the proximity of such a beautiful, vital, distracting man. It was simply too—
She shook herself, her anxiety all of a sudden annoying rather than crippling: she was eight-and-twenty, not fifteen! So what if he was here? She wasn’t painting him, she was painting the duke’s wife and child. She was here to work, to build her reputation as a portraitist and a commission for a duke was a powerful thing—could be a powerful thing—if she concentrated and did her best.
You are a woman grown—no longer a tall, skinny, gangly fifteen year-old, the logical, soothing voice in her head reminded her.
Honoria snorted at the thought. No, she was now a tall, skinny, gangly twenty-eight year-old. Good Lord! Hadn’t she learned anything in thirteen years?
The racing of her heart told her she’d not learned much—at least not when it came to Simon Fairchild. She took control of her thoughts and bent them to her will, crushing the hopes, dreams, fears, and yearnings of her younger, infatuated self into a small, harmless cube and then placing it into a the prison in her mind with all the other dangerous thoughts, and then locking the door .
The chaise crested the ridge and Honey gasped. “Oh my goodness.” Her eyes darted wildly as she tried to take it all in. Massive oaks flanked both sides of the drive at regular intervals, allowing glimpses of rolling parkland beyond. This was no house, not even a mansion—it seemed to stretch for miles and resembled a mediaeval township, but with different architecture. The drive led to a massive gatehouse that must have been part of the original edifice, its lines soaring and imposing.
Honoria had heard Whitcomb compared in size and character to Knole House and now understood why it was considered a national treasure. Her fingers itched to sketch it and she knew she would need to come back to this vantage point and indulge her artistic curiosity sooner rather than later.
The sun was already low in the sky when the carriage rolled onto the cobble drive that curved in front of the massive entrance. A woman in black, accompanied by two liveried footmen, waited at the foot of the shallow stone steps that led to arched doors at least fifteen feet at their peak, the heavy, weathered wood bound with intricate iron strapping. Over the entrance the dragon and greyhound of Henry VIII supported the Royal Arms of England.
A Figure of Love Page 33