The Loving Seasons

by Laura Matthews

  Anxiety gripped her and she strode over to nervously twitch back the sheet and hold the canvas out at arm’s length. Was there anything in it that disclosed her emotions? Mr. Rogers had seemed somehow to guess the state of her mind, hadn’t he? Or had he? Was it only her imagination? Perhaps his comments on background were specifically directed to this one portrait. Torn as to where to locate him, Emma had shown just the hint of a landscape with the richly orange and purple shades of a sunset. Oh, Lord, it was wretchedly romantic, wasn’t it? She should paint it out and have him in a study, with dusty books on shelves at his back. Startled to hear the door open, she nearly fainted to find her aunt entering the room with Dunn.

  “Oh, dear,” Amelia murmured, stricken, “I felt sure you would have gone to change by now, Emma. And I so wanted to show Dunn the portrait you’re painting of me. I know you don’t think it’s far enough along to show people, but … Where did that come from?” she asked, staring at the canvas Emma could find no way to hide.

  “Well, I… That is, I wanted to speak about it with Lord Dunn. You see, I…” Emma had avoided his eyes until this point but forced herself to glance at him. He was regarding her, and the painting, incredulously. She licked her lips and tried to set the portrait on an easel so that it would not be evident that her hands were shaking. Why in heaven’s name hadn’t she asked Anne to do this for her? she wondered desperately. If she had only had a chance to explain before having him see it.

  “I…I spent a great deal of time when I was out of town learning portrait painting, after a fashion. I did one of Maggie, and one of Sir Nicholas, and Mr. Hill and Mr. Bampton. And I’m working on one of Lord Greenwood, and of course Aunt Amelia. But… but there was a time, just after we left Bath, when I couldn’t seem to capture Maggie quite right, and I didn’t yet know Mr. Hill or Mr. Bampton, when I…I thought I might just do one of Lord Dunn. You see,” she explained to her aunt, breathlessly, “I made a sketch of Sir Nicholas one day before I left, and then Lord Dunn called and… Well, I made one of him, too.”

  There was merely a grunt from Dunn.

  “I didn’t think it would do any harm,” she protested, stiffening. "And Mr. Rogers, who is rather an art connoisseur, says that they are good enough to exhibit, and he is associated with a small gallery in Bond Street. Of course, I never meant to show this one until I spoke with Lord Dunn and…and that’s why I asked him to call!”

  “Well, dear,” Amelia said, advancing slowly toward the painting, “I can see that it’s very good, but I really think you should have asked Dunn’s permission. It must be rather a shock for him to come upon it this way.”

  “He wasn’t meant to come upon it this way,” Emma retorted with some asperity. “I had intended to explain the whole situation to him before I brought him here to see it. In fact, if he seemed not to like the idea at all, I had intended just to pack it away without bothering him.”

  Dunn had come to stand beside Amelia in front of the painting. It was impossible, Emma decided, to discover what he was thinking from his expression; he had none. In moving farther away from them she happened to recall how she was dressed and glanced down at the sprigged muslin with a kind of horror. Thrusting the stray locks of hair back into the knot, she murmured, “If you will excuse me, I’ll just go and change.”

  “One moment, Miss Berryman,” Dunn commanded. With a pleasant smile he addressed Lady Bradwell, saying, “Perhaps I should have a word alone with your niece, ma’am, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Amelia looked questioningly at Emma. After all, the two of them had not gotten along at all well last spring, and it would be rather hard of her to leave Emma to have a peal rung over her head alone. Emma gave a helpless gesture with her hands but told her aunt that might be for the best. With several backward glances, Amelia made her exit.

  The sun chose that moment to break from the clouds and send playful beams into the studio, highlighting the painting with a warm glow. Dunn stood with his hands loosely clasped behind his back, a puzzled frown now on his face. “I don’t understand how you have managed to accomplish so much in less than a year, Miss Berryman.”

  “I’ve worked very hard, Lord Dunn. Contrary to popular opinion, even two women together cannot find something to talk of all the time. Maggie encouraged me to paint as much as I wanted. She even had a studio set up for me at Combe Lodge. I spent large portions of each day at work there. And she sat for me a lot. I had to start over twice before I felt I had gotten her right.”

  “And me? Did you ‘do’ me more than once?”

  “No.” Emma refused to meet the grave gray eyes. “I had only a sketch of you, if you will remember. Without you sitting for me, there wasn’t the complication of comparing my work with the original, so to speak.”

  "I see. You’ve made me a little forbidding, don’t you think?”

  “You are a little forbidding, Lord Dunn.”

  “Am I?” He raised a quizzing dark brow. “Surely not to you, Miss Berryman.”

  “Alas, even to me,” she sighed, attempting to match his light tone. “I’ve been all aquake about asking your permission to show the portrait. Anne assured me that I had only to ask and you would agree.”

  “Did she? Such faith in my good nature.”

  Emma, who had been avoiding his eyes, met them now and asked, “Will you let me show it?”

  A moment passed when he did not speak but held her gaze with a curiously penetrating one of his own. “Yes, if you wish. I shall look forward to seeing the others. Why don’t you go and change while I have a look at this one of Lady Bradwell you’re working on? I thought we might go for a drive, if you’ve a mind. You could have your first lesson.”

  She smiled faintly. “Thank you! I won’t be a moment.”

  His lordship’s curricle was elegantly black with red trim and wheels, and a tiger was walking the matched grays when they came out of the house. Before handing her up, Dunn carefully explained the draft gear—center pole, swingletree, traces, neck collar steel bars, and rein loops—so that she would understand wherein lay the control of the pair. The hood was up and Emma settled herself carefully so as not to disturb the wide-brimmed primrose bonnet she wore.

  Sitting in a carriage with a gentleman had always seemed even more intimate to Emma than waltzing with him. In a curricle especially it was impossible not to be touching, to be aware of the strength in his gloved hands and the proximity of his closely clad legs and top-booted feet. Though Dunn spoke with her as he wended his way through the crowded London streets, she was less aware of his voice than of the tightening of his thighs and arms when he exerted pressure on the reins to draw in the spirited grays. His concentration on his driving kept his whole body alert despite the ostensibly relaxed posture. When a sporting vehicle guided by a brilliantly outfitted young buck made an erratic turn into his path, he averted an accident with calm skill, never breaking the flow of his discourse.

  “Driving is harder than it looks, isn’t it?” Emma asked, slightly unnerved.

  He turned his head to smile at her. “Yes. And it requires strength as well as skill. You won’t have any trouble with the grays because they were well trained, but you should not assume that every pair is as easily handled. Fortunately we have an hour before the park becomes crowded,” he observed as he drove past the gates at Hyde Park Corner. “You will need to give your whole attention to the horses and not to some acquaintance who may be passing by.”

  Emma took this stricture in good part, especially when he added, “Remember I’m putting my life in your hands!” Whereupon he proceeded to give over the reins, making sure that she held them properly and got a feel for their purpose before removing his own guiding hands.

  “If you intend to take driving seriously,” he cautioned, sitting slightly back, “you will need to get yourself a pair of gauntlets. Your gloves aren’t going to protect you from the leather digging into you when you have to take control physically.”

  Determined to prove to him her seriousness, Em
ma did precisely what he told her. The grays responded immediately to any movement of her hands on the reins and kept up a pace so brisk that it rather alarmed her. They seemed to be flying past the trees and bushes and were quickly bearing down on a solitary carriage when Dunn said, “Rein in slowly.”

  His instruction would have given her plenty of time to do so, had not the other carriage stopped abruptly. Realizing there was no time to halt her own horses, she made them swing out to the right where there was barely enough space to pass. From the corner of her eye she saw Dunn start to reach for the reins and then drop his hands to his knees, murmuring, “A little harder on the right, Miss Berryman.” They whizzed past with barely an inch to spare.

  Once clear, Emma drew in the pair with shaking hands. “I’m sorry. I hadn’t time to stop them.”

  “You managed extraordinarily well, Miss Berryman. One thing a driver continually has to bear in mind is that every other driver on the road, or even a pedestrian, might at any time do something foolish. Driving would be a great deal simpler if there were no obstructions, but that’s not a condition one finds in the ordinary course of a day’s drive.”

  He called for his tiger to stand at the horses’ heads and took Emma’s hands in his. “Don’t let the experience unnerve you. Your instincts were perfect. Usually a beginner has a tendency to overcompensate in an emergency, but you didn’t.”

  Since he made no mention of the fact that he held her trembling hands, Emma attempted to ignore the contact, but found it difficult. It was a gesture of reassurance, of comfort, she knew. There was no undue pressure, no sophisticated gleam in his eyes, just firmness and understanding.

  “I suppose,” she suggested, gazing out over the Serpentine, “that it’s like taking a spill from a horse. I must do it again before I lose my confidence.”

  “Yes.” He motioned the tiger back on his perch. “And the sooner the better. In a few minutes there will be any number of carriages to contend with. Are you all right now?” When she nodded, he released her hands and smiled. “I knew you would be.”

  The rest of the lesson consisted of his teaching her to turn the carriage in a rather tight place. Before they had progressed halfway to the gate, the crush of carriages and equestrians had begun in earnest and Emma willingly allowed him to resume the driving. Dunn assumed he was giving Emma a chance to greet her friends and acquaintances in their smart carriages with bewigged coachmen and powdered footmen; Emma assumed he had not enough faith in her skill to trust her in the mob, an opinion with which she agreed wholeheartedly. Her attention, however, stayed with the driving, watching how he maneuvered through the press of vehicles and horses, to the point where she almost failed to acknowledge Sir Nicholas on a stunning young bay she had not previously seen. Dunn drew in the grays.

  “Miss Berryman, Dunn. Servant. What do you think of Watchman?” Sir Nicholas asked, indicating the bay. “I’ve just had him sent up from the country. A little nervous in town as yet, but adapting well.”

  “He’s splendid,” Emma said, her eyes running over the horse’s points. “Was he sired by Lightning?”

  Sir Nicholas smiled appreciatively. “You’re becoming quite an expert on horses, my dear. He was indeed. I have a filly by Lightning and a different dam, Hazzard, which might interest you as a hack. She’s a sweet goer if ever I saw one, but not quite up to my weight. If you’re interested I’ll have her brought up for your inspection.”

  “Let me think on it,” Emma returned. “I already have Enigma, and I can’t really use two horses in town.”

  “Certainly.” He turned to Dunn. “Rumor has it that Miss Berryman has immortalized you, too, in oils. Has she caught that patrician brow and those steely eyes?”

  If he was hoping for a rise from the viscount, he was not disappointed. “I would say she’s accomplished a fair likeness. I shall look forward to seeing her portrait of you. Her eye for breeding, as you say, is excellent, and I don’t doubt she is as competent to discern the lack of it.” His eyes twinkled in the late-afternoon sun.

  “Really, gentlemen,” Emma scolded, “I see no need to trade insults. And I do not understand how you could have heard of Lord Dunn’s portrait, Sir Nicholas. Very few people know of it.”

  “I stopped at your aunt’s on my way to the park, thinking you might enjoy a ride.” His skeptical glance ran over the grays and the curricle. “I was informed that Dunn had taken you out for a driving lesson, but I see he lost his nerve. There’s no apparent damage to his vehicle.”

  Emma was indignant. “It is no such thing, Sir Nicholas! I drove the curricle for a good half hour, did I not, my lord? And though there was nearly an accident, I assure you I did not so much as graze the other carriage. Why, at least Lord Dunn is willing to take a chance on my driving. I remember distinctly that you once told me you had not and never would allow a woman to handle the ribbons of your shabbiest dog cart!”

  “How ungallant of you,” murmured Dunn, his shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.

  Ignoring him, Sir Nicholas leaned toward Emma with his devilish grin. “That is because I recognize a woman’s limitations, Miss Berryman. Even you, whom I know to be quite . . . enthusiastic in your pleasures—that is, your interests—I would not trust to have control over your emotions. And believe me, Miss Berryman, though there are places where I find it perfectly acceptable for a woman to abandon herself, driving is not one of them!” Satisfied with her disconcerted expression, Sir Nicholas tipped his hat, winked, and spurred his horse down the path leading away from them.

  Emma watched him disappear in aggrieved silence, unable even to glance at Dunn. No one else she knew had the ability to discompose her so thoroughly as Sir Nicholas, except the man at her side. And why Sir Nicholas should choose to do so continually in Dunn’s presence she could not begin to fathom. His teasing always had a kernel of truth to it, which made it all the more difficult to shrug off. Emma clutched her hands tightly in her lap as Dunn directed the grays through the park gates and out into the London streets beyond.

  “I’ve known Nick for years,” Dunn remarked conversationally. “Ever since I first came to town with my father at eighteen. He hasn’t changed much in the twelve years, but I’ve never seen him on terms of such easy camaraderie as he is with you.”

  “I presume you mean he’s too familiar with me.”

  “No, Miss Berryman, that is not what I am suggesting at all. Despite his penchant for baiting you in my presence, he seems to have a real regard for you. I’m sure he wouldn’t take the trouble with someone else, but he can’t resist putting the cat amongst the pigeons from time to time. You may be sure be noticed from the start that we were at loggerheads, and he continues to do everything in his power to keep us that way. I wonder why?”

  His glance at her served only to make her grip her hands more tightly. When she said nothing, he mused, “I would consider it only sport with him, except that I’ve not noticed him do it with any other man. Does he?”

  “No.”

  "I thought not. Well, perhaps it is merely an unconscious antagonism he feels toward me, though I cannot account for it. We’ve always been on the best of terms: no gambling losses to one another, no rankling dispute over other people, no envy or malice apparent. Why, we dined just the other evening in Waverton Street quite amicably. But the moment he sees you with me..."

  “Please, Lord Dunn." Emma swallowed with difficulty. "I know you are only joking but I'm afraid I cannot enter into the spirit. Perhaps my nerves are still a little overwrought from the near accident.”

  His expression, a compound of surprise, uncertainty, and possibly even a slight hurt, was quickly corrected to one of the utmost pleasantness. “Of course. I had already forgotten. I trust you won’t dwell on that, Miss Berryman, and that it has not given you a dislike of driving. My hope was to take you out again on Thursday.”

  Emma could not understand why she was having such a difficult time being as light and casual with Dunn as she was with any other gentleman
with whom she might chance to drive out. His implications of Sir Nicholas’s interest, even perhaps of his own interest in her, left her feeling tense and awkward. Ridiculous, yes, but she did not seem to be able to control the conflicting emotions that raced through her, making her feel first hot and then cold, tingly and then shaken. Forcing a smile to her lips, she murmured, “Thank you. I’d like that, Lord Dunn.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The months they had spent together in Bath and at the Greenwood estate had drawn Maggie and Emma even closer together than they had been at school. Despite the disparity in their personalities and situations, they had come to a deeper understanding of one another, and when Emma called on her friend the next morning it was to unburden herself of some of the confusion she had suffered the previous afternoon. She could not as easily confide in Anne these days, not only because of Anne’s reluctance to do likewise, which she could appreciate, but because Anne’s friendship with Miss Rogers seemed to have withdrawn her slightly from the charmed schoolgirl trio the three of them had originally made—Emma, Maggie, and Anne.

  It had been only a year since they had left Windrush House, but none of them bore much resemblance to the innocents they had been. Emma suffered a great deal of emotional discomfort when she remembered how she had thought herself so worldly, so knowledgeable, compared to her friends. How little any of them had known of the world that lay outside their school, and she least of all, for all her superficial sophistication imbibed at her aunt’s dimpled elbow.

  Maggie’s health, which was of concern to all of them, seemed only to improve with the advancing of her second pregnancy. Her coloring was good and she was laughingly proud of the increase in her bust, which showed to advantage in the simple peach-colored cottage dress she wore. "I’ve just come in from a drive,” she told Emma. “Fortunately, the doctor insists on my taking the air each morning and afternoon, so Greenwood drives me in the park—in a most stately fashion. You would think I was made of fine porcelain. I assure you it is not his standard driving method.”