One of the footmen came forward to offer his assistance as Honey descended from the carriage, her body sore and aching from the last eleven hours.
“Welcome to Whitcomb House, Miss Keyes. I am Mrs. Constable.” The older woman gave her a perfunctory, but not unfriendly smile as she dropped a slight curtsy. “I daresay you would like nothing more than a cup of hot tea and an hour to rest?” She gestured toward the house, not waiting for an answer. “His Grace will see you in the library before dinner. But come, I will show you to your rooms.”
Honoria followed the shorter, bustling woman into a hall that was straight out of a Shakespearean play. Her jaw sagged as she tilted back her head and gazed up at the four-centered-arch ceiling.
“This is the Great Hall and was built in the 1490s,” Mrs. Constable said, not slowing. “The older parts of the house are not used as much as the South Wing, which was added in the 1740s and affords far more convenience and comfort. The family dines in the smaller dining room when not entertaining. His Grace has requested that you dine with the family.” Her tone said the request was not really a request.
They ascended ancient flagstone steps that turned twice at ninety degree angles and opened onto yet another long hall, this one heading back in the direction they just came.
“This may seem a rather odd way of reaching the South Wing,” the housekeeper said, as if reading her thoughts, “But it will make more sense shortly.”
They passed through a lengthy wood-paneled hall, the dark wood floor covered with an ancient carpet runner that muffled their steps. Heavy iron sconces lighted their way at intervals and a massive rose window at the far end added an almost religious air. The housekeeper turned down a hallway on the right before they came to the spectacular window, leading them down an almost identical corridor.
“Is it only the duke and duchess and their daughter who live here?” Honey asked as they ascended what felt like a half story, entering a much wider and airier hall that was illuminated by cathedral windows with intricate tracery.
“His Grace’s mother, the Dowager Duchess of Plimpton and his brother, Marquess of Saybrook, also live at Whitcomb.” The housekeeper took yet another right, this hallway narrow and windowless.
Lord, she was so lost she could wander for weeks.
“The only one of the family to keep chambers in the East Wing is his lordship.”
Honey blinked at the disapproval she heard in the woman’s voice. So, the marquess was . . . difficult? Or was this merely the opinion of a servant who did not appreciate the extra work that must be entailed with serving two wide-spread wings of the house when one would have been more convenient.
They turned yet another corner but this time she staggered to a halt.
“Goodness,” she murmured, vaguely realizing the woman she was following had not stopped walking.
“This is the older of the two portrait galleries,” Mrs. Constable said, her increasingly distant voice causing Honey to resume walking, her head swiveling wildly to take in the almost suffocating number of portraits that covered the high, paneled walls, jammed together so tightly that some frames touched others.
Good God—she recognized the unmistakable style of Holbein. Holbein! She made an undignified squeaking sound. Her portrait would hang in a collection which counted one by Hans Holbein?
“Miss Keyes?”
Pulling her eyes away from the portrait—the subject a middle-aged man with no great physical beauty, but with a countenance so. . . knowing that Honey felt as if he were looking at her—was like pulling a heavy wagon from deep, sucking mud.
“Yes?” she said dazedly, turning her head and blinking, as if she’d just been blinded by a lighthouse lantern.
“It is just a little further, Miss.” The woman’s tone said she was a busy woman with no time to spare for goggling at fripperies like pictures.
Honey hurried after her, pointedly keeping her eyes from the flow of portraits that assaulted her peripheral vision. Later, she would come back later. This gallery would be reason enough to learn the layout of the maze-like house.
Something the housekeeper said dug through to the surface of her mind like a mole.
“Did you say this was the old gallery?”
“Yes, the new gallery is on the first floor. That is where the newer portraits hang.”
Like her father’s portrait of Simon Fairchild.
Honey’s heart beat like a young girl’s facing her first assembly: Simon and more paintings.
They ascended yet one more set of stairs, these wooden and carpeted with a rich maroon and gold pattern that seemed to levitate above the floor. Honey felt almost guilty stepping on such lovely, intricate work. She had never seen its like.
“And here we are,” Mrs. Constable said, flinging open the first door on the right.
Honey gaped. She was vaguely aware that she was spending far too much time with her mouth hanging open and shut it.
The sitting room was a cream and lemon yellow shade that felt crisp and cool. Delicate, spindle-legged chairs and a low-slung settee were arranged in front of a massive fireplace with a cream marble mantle and surround.
“Through this door,” the housekeeper opened a door to the right, “Is your dressing room.” The room was monstrous and Honey’s paltry collection of dresses would scarcely fill a corner of one of the huge armoires. A washstand, dressing table, clothing chest, several chairs and damask covered chaise longue, and large bathing tub near a fireplace weren’t enough to make the room feel crowded.
“And here is your bed chamber.” This last door opened to the most opulent room of the three. A monstrous four-poster bed held pride of place, curtained and canopied in the same lemon yellow and cream, but with hints of gold in the floor coverings and rich velvet drapes that covered the floor to ceiling windows that made up part of one wall.
Honey saw that Mrs. Constable was waiting for some reaction. “These rooms are lovely and quite . . . spacious.”
“This is the family’s section of the house. This room used to belong to His Grace’s grandmother.”
“Why, how kind of the duke to treat me with such generosity and condescension.”
She made a sniffing sound that led Honey to think she agreed heartily with this assessment. The door opened and a footman entered with her portmanteau. “Ah, there is your baggage. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering a light tea and I will send up a maid to assist you.”
“You’re most kind,” Honey murmured.
“The duke’s study is at the other end of the Old Gallery. Ring the bell and a servant will escort you. His Grace will expect you at seven.”
“Thank you.” Honey didn’t bother telling the other woman that she’d be able to find her way back to those portraits asleep and in the dark.
***
Honey was ready a full fifteen minutes before her meeting. Rather than sit in her room staring out at the view—admittedly quite a remarkable one that provided a sweeping panorama of the topiary and past that, the deer park—she made her way to the old gallery.
The wide, black and white tiled corridor was partly illuminated with windows set high above, perhaps thirty feet. The angle of the light such that it would never touch directly on a painting.
She noticed she was actually walking on tip-toes as she made her way down the length of the hall, as if approaching a holy relic. Well, for her this was the equivalent of a holy relic.
Her gaze flickered greedily across the collected booty of centuries. She dazedly registered styles, names, heroes: a Van Dyke, a Devit, a Seymore—complete with trusty steed, a Dance-Holland, a—she gasped and lurched toward a portrait slightly smaller than those beside it—a Hogarth! The subject, a beautiful woman whose eyes and expression invited the viewer into her boudoir, indeed, who promised and enticed—
A door down the hall swung open so hard it crashed against the wall hard enough that she could feel the vibration in her feet.
�
��You can go sod yourself, Wyndham!” The roar filled the hallway, although its owner was still inside the room.
Honey had never heard the voice pulse with so much rage when she’d known him, but she recognized it all the same.
Instead of simply scurrying away—as she should have done—she stood motionless, her eyes riveted on the gaping doorway. A soft murmur broke the silence—the person who was currently being yelled at, she supposed.
“Ha!” The word dripped with loathing and fury. “I don’t bloody care, haven’t you been listening? The whole place can go to the devil and you along with it. I’m telling you for the last time, Wyndham—do not meddle in my affairs ever again or I swear that you shall live to regret it.” The enraged speaker catapulted out of the open doorway.
Even though Honey was frozen he must have noticed something out of the corner of his eye because he stopped and whirled around to face her.
She gave a small, nearly inaudible, gasp of surprise. Good Lord! What had happened to him?
He surged toward her with an odd, lurching gait that drove her back a step, raw rage rolling from him like waves of heat. “Who the devil are you? And what are you doing lurking about and listening at keyholes?” He kept walking, driving her back and back, until she hit the wall and felt something sharp jab her in the hip. The thought that she might have damaged a priceless painting was even more horrifying than the furious man stalking her. She turned to look over her shoulder and nearly fainted with relief when she saw it was only the corner of a plinth bearing a marble bust.
A hand grabbed her arm ungently and swung her around. The face that looked down on her was not far different from the beautiful portrait she had painted all those years ago—on the right side. But the left side had been vandalized with angry red scars—slashes and gashes and pits that bore the slick sheen of recently healed wounds— that had destroyed the smooth, high-boned beauty of one half of his face. His magnificent golden-blond hair had been cropped brutally close, doing nothing to hide what remained of left his ear or the deep horizontal groves that began at his jaw and deeply scored his cheek. He glared down at her with the same beautiful blue eyes, but the left eyelid was pulled down at the outside corner, the stretched skin giving the eye a perpetually sinister cast. He’d been tall and lithe when she’d known him but now his broad shoulders were powerful and substantial rather than graceful.
It was Simon, but it was not Simon.
***
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MELISSA AND THE VICAR,
my super spicy historical romance series
THE SEDUCERS.
Chapter One
New Bickford, England
Melissa Griffin stared into red eyes that burned with malevolence.
Her breath froze in her chest but her heart made up for her lungs’ mutiny by thundering in her ears. She took a minute step back, but her tormentor strode inexorably closer. She shuffled to the side, but he followed her sideways, too.
“What do you want from me?” She forced the words through gritted teeth.
The foul, evil beast said nothing, stalking ever closer.
There were only two choices: she could run or she could fight—and there was no chance she would vanquish such an implacable foe.
Mel silently counted to three, grabbed two fistfuls of her skirts, and broke into a run while screaming, “Heeeeelp!”
She flew past a tiny daub and wattle cottage that looked like it should have housed angels instead of this nasty brute. Something struck the back of one leg and Mel risked a glimpse at her pursuer: he was right behind her, dogged and menacing and—
“Ooof!” Melissa slammed into a wall that was hard and warm and . . . human.
The human wall grunted. “Here, then, don’t be afraid,” a deep voice soothed.
Mel was blind to everything except the red eyes and razor-sharp claws behind her and plowed through the thicket of limbs, climbing the stranger’s body as if he were a tree.
Strong arms slid around her, lifted her, and spun her around before depositing her on the ground, his body a shield—a substantial one, at that—between Melissa and that fiend.
“Hector!” Her protector’s deep voice was overlaid with a tone of command that demanded to be obeyed.
When only silence met his order, Mel stood on her toes and peeked over broad, black-clad shoulders, pale blond hair tickling her nose.
Her jaw dropped at what she saw: the demon had screeched to a halt and was ambling away in the opposite direction, behaving as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, er, beak.
“Why that—that—”
“Rooster?” the same deep voice said, this time laced with amusement rather than command.
Mel realized she’d pasted the front of her body to the back of his and took a hasty step back. He turned and she blinked; it might have been the conceit of a city dweller, but she’d not expected to see a man as lovely as her savior in the middle of a country lane. In fact, Melissa could not recall seeing a man as beautiful—yes, beautiful—as this one ever. And he was wearing a clerical collar.
“I’ve been rescued from that—that hellion by a vicar?”
Rather than be insulted by her disbelieving tone he smiled, a warm, charming, gorgeous smile that should not have belonged to a man of the cloth. Not that she knew anything whatsoever about vicars and what type of smiles they should or did have. Men of the cloth tended to be thin on the ground in her line of business. For all she knew, all clergymen were this attractive. Perhaps it was a prerequisite of the job? Was that how they filled their pews on Sunday?
“I’m afraid I don’t have the honor of being a vicar—yet. So things are even worse, you see: you’ve actually been rescued by a mere curate.” He executed a graceful bow. “Mister Stanwyck at your service, Miss. . .”
Melissa pulled her gaze away from his mouth, which definitely was wasted on a vicar, and said, “Er, Griffin.”
“A pleasure, Miss Griffin.”
His eyes were the clear, guileless blue of the sky and they met her own rather than roaming her body. Mel’s inner critic—as vociferous and relentless as a Greek choir—pointed out that not every man in Great Britain wished to lay themselves out at her feet. Even if it had seemed that way since she’d been fourteen.
“I know everyone in New Bickford so you must be a visitor, Miss Griffin.”
“Yes. I—I’ve come to the country to convalesce.”
His brow furrowed and his expression shifted to one of genuine sympathy. “I am sorry to hear you’ve been ill.” He wasn’t just mouthing a platitude; he actually sounded sorry.
“I am on the mend now, just—”
“Mister Stanwyck! Yoohoo!” The voice floated toward them from the direction of the quaint little cottage which the vile Hector apparently called home. Right now said villain was placidly scratching among his hen harem, pausing a moment here and there to execute what must have been some type of hen-attracting side-step shuffle, his chest puffed out.
Melissa glared at him; how dare he look so harmless?
The curate greeted the approaching woman. “Hello, Miss Philpot. And how are you this afternoon?”
The woman in question was a tall, gangly female easily twice the curate’s age who was sporting a coquettish smile and the eyelash batting airs of a schoolroom miss.
“Oh, Mr. Stanwyck, Gloria will be so relieved you are here.” Her bulbous green orbs swiveled toward Melissa and her steel gray eyebrows dropped like twin guillotines. “And you’ve brought. . .your sister?” The last word was spoken in such a hopeful tone that Melissa had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
The curate pressed his too-beautiful lips together in a mild smile that was belied by the twinkle in his eyes. “I’m afraid my parents did not see fit to bless me with any sisters, ma’am, only brothers.
”
Miss Philpot was nothing if not adaptable. She turned from Mel, her expression softening as she gazed at the curate. “Well that is certainly the lord’s work if they are all as handsome and sweet-natured as you, Mr. Stanwyck.”
The curate accepted the compliment with a smile and gestured to Melissa. “This is Miss Griffin. I’m afraid she just had a—well, I don’t suppose you would call it a run-in so much as a run-away, with Hector.”
Mel narrowed her eyes at his witticism and was rewarded by one of his stunning smiles.
Miss Philpot wagged an admonishing finger at the vicious animal. “Oh, Hector! Have you been over-vigilant?” She spoke in a tolerant, cooing tone that sent Hector into another of his sideways step-slides. Miss Philpot tittered appreciatively at the maneuver. It seemed the bird’s debatable charms worked on more than just his hens; maybe Hector was smarter than he looked.
Miss Philpot turned to Mel. “I do apologize for Hector’s enthusiasm, Miss, er, Griffin.” The affection in her eyes—a residual product of Hector’s charm—slid away to reveal a zealous gleam that would have done a Spanish Inquisitor proud. “Are you just visiting our village on your way to . . . somewhere else?”
Miss Philpot wasn’t the only one waiting for her response with interest. The cerulean blue eyes of the curate were also turned her way.
Something about his clear gaze made Mel shy and fidgety, a feeling she’d not had since selling oranges on street corners when she was a girl. She brushed off the skirt of her walking costume, as though Hector might have been pelting her with rotted fruits and vegetables rather than just his—she paused to eye the rooster, and was forced to admit, very scrawny—body.
“I am staying in a house down the way.” She gestured with the hand that wasn’t clutching her reticule and then realized she’d motioned in the direction of the ocean. Both members of her small audience wore slight frowns of confusion. Melissa bestowed her most winning smile on Miss Philpot, curious to see if it had any effect on the woman. It did not.
A Figure of Love Page 34