"Sea View?" she repeated, for the name was new to her. "I had believed I was to go to East Hampton."
"And so you shall, Miss Glenn. East Hampton is a town."
"And Sea View?" she asked, finding herself fascinated by this young American man.
He threw his head back and his perfectly trimmed dark blonde moustache twitched with his laughter. "You have much to learn, Miss Glenn. Sea View is—how shall I put it? Sea View is an entity unto itself."
"I'm afraid you have lost me, sir," she said, as he hoisted her trunk and placed it in the back section of the trap, "for I do not know enough about Long Island to savor the joke."
"An innocent abroad?" He tossed her two valises atop the trunk, completely filling the passenger section. "How refreshing. Let me put your mind to rest, Miss Glenn: Sea View is your new home."
"Sea View," she said quietly, feeling foolish for not knowing something as basic as the name of the house where she'd be living. Did Marisa truly care so little about her that she'd neglect to mention such rudimentary information?
Alexandra had no chance to pursue that line of thought for, taking her arm, Stephen assisted her up into the driver's seat then climbed in next to her. She knew from the appreciative gleam in his eyes that he found her appealing but his touch was neither lingering nor overly-familiar and she found herself relaxing for the first time since she'd arrived in America.
"Such wonderful innocence," he said with a chuckle. "You realize, of course, that this means I must tell you of all the local scandals, Miss Glenn, so that by this time tomorrow you will be unable to walk down Main Street without bumping into a matron whose skeletons don't rattle loudly enough for you to hear."
He cracked his whip and the chestnuts leaped to powerful life.
"I can but pray the skeletons in my closet rattle more softly, Mr. Lowell."
Again that amused chuckle. "I cannot believe a young lady sheltered in the French countryside could have a single skeleton to rattle," he said as the trap jostled pleasantly down the sandy lane. "You must tell me of some of these dreadful incidents to persuade me you do indeed have skeletons after all."
A flock of geese took to the sky in noisy flight and Alexandra turned to watch them, grateful for the momentary diversion. She had been well-trained in classical languages but not in the language of flirtatious conversation. Anything she could come up with would surely sound forced or foolish. There was the time she wandered into the woods and came upon the baker's wife and the blacksmith's apprentice in a feverish embrace or the time she'd tumbled into the pond on her way to Sunday mass, only to horrify Father Claude when she dripped her way into the rear pew.
Her schoolgirl escapades were certain to have this elegant American man with his fashionable side-parted hair and glittering stick-pin yawning in moments.
"I'd much rather hear about the local scandals," she said at last, still watching the geese. "I'm certain they're more interesting than my provincial remembrances."
"Why is it I have the feeling your remembrances are anything but provincial?" he asked as they bounced over a deep rut in the road. "But, no matter. We have six miles ahead of us and I can think of no better way to spend the time than to acquaint you with East Hampton."
She turned away from the geese flying overhead and met his eyes. The look he gave her was sharp and vaguely unsettling but she kept a pleasant smile on her face. "I am lucky to learn from a native."
He feigned dismay. "How much you have to learn, Miss Glenn. You'll soon find that the East Hampton natives are a sorely unfashionable lot—not a box coat or a fore-and-aft among them." He flashed her a quite remarkable smile. "I, of course, sport both."
He went on to explain the difference between the year round resident and the resident who appeared on the scene in May with a score of trunks, three maids and an insatiable appetite for barbecues and balls only to depart in September, sunburnt and tired and eager to return to New York City.
"Since it is but the fifteenth of April, am I to assume you are of the former variety?" Alexandra asked.
"A logical assumption," he replied, easing the trap across a narrow bridge that spanned a pond, "but inaccurate in this case. I am an art dealer both here and in Europe. Of course, at present my uncle Andrew is my prime concern. I came to visit him during Christmas and when his condition worsened I deemed it my responsibility to stay on and see he gets the proper care."
It took only a second for his words to sink in. "Then I shall be working for you?" she ventured, finding it difficult to believe that her new employer would meet her at the station—and be so charming and personable, in the bargain.
"Would that it were so. I'm afraid you'll be working for my uncle Andrew."
She tried to hide her disappointment. "But you said he is infirm."
"More often than not that is so," Stephen said, pulling back on the reins as the chestnut strained to gallop on the flat stretch of road, "but he still has the desire to work."
"What am I to do?" she persisted. "What are my duties to be?"
Stephen yanked back the reins abruptly and stopped the trap. "They should be obvious, Miss Glenn."
Her chin lifted as a frisson of apprehension shivered up her spine. "They're not, Mr. Lowell."
His light blue eyes widened in comprehension. "You are truly ignorant as to the identity of your new employer?"
She nodded. "Embarrassingly so, I'm afraid."
"My dear Miss Glenn, you are now the property of Andrew Lowell." She was silent and he reached down and patted her hand in a gesture both comforting and mildly annoying. "Come now, dear girl, don't tell me you don't recognize my uncle's illustrious name. That's not the proper way to begin a new position."
Alexandra's chin tilted a fraction higher. "Neither Andrew nor Lowell is an uncommon name," she pointed out. "There's even a quite famous artist whose work—" She stopped, dumbstruck, as comprehension dawned. "Surely you do not mean—"
The look on Stephen Lowell's face told her all.
"My father's brother," he said after a moment.
She slumped back in her seat filled with a strange mixture of apprehension and elation. Andrew Lowell was a legend among the artists she'd modeled for in Provence, one of the first to break free of old traditions, old restrictions, and explore the boundaries set only by nature's beauty and man's imagination.
And of course, there were the stories. Her cheeks reddened just at the thought of some of the tales she'd heard the younger artists tell about the master when they thought her out of ear-shot.
By reputation Andrew Lowell had bedded half the continent in his day, a bee flitting from flower to flower but never staying long enough to run out of nectar.
A lesser man with such a reputation would have been shunned by clever young women and their willing mothers but not Andrew Lowell. The fierce blaze of his talent melted normal motherly concerns and left two generations of women vulnerable to his charms.
Andrew Lowell had long since passed from genius into legend and his abrupt disappearance from the art world ten years ago had engendered much gossip.
He'd joined Gauguin in Tahiti, they whispered.
He'd gone mad like Vincent or blind like Monet.
He'd met his Maker at the hands of a cuckolded husband.
The possibilities were both fascinating and terrible to consider. To think he'd been living and working in a sleepy Long Island town all this time! Why, she could learn more about art by simply preparing the great man's pallette than she could ever learn under the tutelage of the finest teacher the Lycee had to offer.
So you do not hate me after all, Mamma, Alexandra thought as Stephen cracked the whip and the horse sprang to life once again. Although Marisa had found it necessary to place an ocean between them, miraculously her mother had seen to it that she would find a wonderful compensation awaiting her. The dark cloud of apprehension that had hovered over her since her mother had told her she was to leave France finally began to lift.
For the rest o
f the journey Stephen Lowell proved to be wonderful company. Somehow he seemed to understand her preoccupation and took on the burden of conversation, allowed her time to compose herself before reaching Sea View.
While managing the reins with assurance, he amused her with a running commentary on the sights and sounds of eastern Long Island. The town of East Hampton was picturesque with its towering elm trees and graceful willows and the crystalline ponds running parallel to Main Street. Stephen pointed out clapboard houses once owned by whaling merchants and huge white-washed Colonials that pre-dated the Revolutionary War. Every house, no matter its vintage, boasted a well-tended garden where azaleas blazed in crimson glory and lilacs trembled on the brink of full perfume.
He pointed out the Mulford House with its gambrel roof, the broad veranda of old lady Eldredge's home and the way the Chinese red front door on the Moran cottage tilted crazily to the left. Alexandra's mind tumbled with stories of Clinton Academy and Rowdy Hall and Pudding Hill which got its odd name from British soldiers who, during the War for Independence, found a bag of steaming Indian pudding and rolled it down the hill with a stick. Mansard roofs and bell-topped towers and piazzas worthy of a villa in Rome all vied for her attention until she thought her head would split with the effort of trying to take it all in.
A few yards past the dry goods store, Stephen tugged at the reins and the chestnut veered right onto a narrow road lined by tapering poplars and towering oaks. How magnificent they would be in full leaf, spreading shade across the sleepy village on a hot summer day. The sound of the ocean could be heard over the calls of birds she couldn't identify and she imagined the sea lapping at the backyards of the houses at the end of the road.
On Egypt Lane he slowed down in front of an unprepossessing two story building. The shingles were weatherbeaten and the windows lopsided yet it boasted meticulously painted shutters of snowy white and Federal blue.
"That's Rowdy Hall. It's quiet now, but wait until the season arrives." He pointed toward a pair of scruffily dressed men toting a wooden box and an easel. "This is an artist's colony," he said, explaining away the exquisitely wrought shutters. "They work all day then head for the Clinton Academy to have old man Stimson criticize their work."
"Stimson? Why not Andrew Lowell?" There was genuine surprise in her voice. Why would a young artist fortunate enough to breathe the same air as Andrew Lowell seek another mentor?
Stephen jingled the reins and the chestnut eased into a trot. "Uncle Andrew sees few visitors," he said, his voice surprisingly tight. "It is better if he is disturbed as little as possible."
Andrew Lowell must be an invalid, she thought. Perhaps the formless gossip making the rounds through the art communities of Europe been more accurate than anyone suspected. How tragic for a man so blessed to be reduced to a life of infirmity.
How lucky he was to have a nephew like Stephen.
"Are we nearly at Sea View?" she asked as Stephen guided the horses into a left turn.
"Do I detect a woman having second thoughts?" he teased gently.
"Not at all," she said, surprised that he had been perceptive enough to notice her momentary hesitation. "You detect a woman anxious to begin her duties."
"Just a moment longer," he said, with a sidelong glance at her. "We follow the drive around this bend and..."
Whether Stephen stopped talking or her mind had ceased comprehending, she did not know, for his words faded the moment Sea View appeared before them. Long ago she'd seen Andrew Lowell's paintings at the Louvre and she had never forgotten the raw power contained within his brushstrokes.
Such was his house.
She should have known nothing about Andrew Lowell would be commonplace. How had she imagined even for a moment that his genius could be confined by picket fences or hidden behind lace curtains. How could anyone believe that anything less than magnificence could contain an artist of his caliber.
Set atop a gentle rise, Sea View soared with grace and power born of destiny. The first of the three stories was brick and shingles laid in curving patterns that emphasized the symmetrical towers on either side of the broad front veranda. The second story was shingled in a subtle diamond pattern that drew the eye cunningly upward to the third floor where dormered windows and no fewer than five chimney stacks broke the sharp line of the roof. The house extended on either side into east and west wings of equal dimension. Neatly clipped hedges stopped just shy of the first floor windowsills.
"A simple summer cottage," Stephen said, a note of wry amusement in his voice. "Uncle Andrew was never one for understatement."
"It's overwhelming!" Alexandra breathed, hands clasped to her bosom. "In all my life I have never seen a structure so... so..." For the first time in recent memory, English failed her.
"Ostentatious?"
She shook her head so enthusiastically her round toque flew off. "So wonderful! It's everything it should be."
Stephen chuckled as he guided the trap up the curved drive of crushed shell then reined the chestnut to a stop near the front door. He leaped down from the conveyance and hurried around to the other side.
"Why don't you step inside the foyer where it's comfortable," he said, putting his elegant hands at her waist and lifting her down. "I'll bring the trap around back and join you there momentarily."
"My valises," she said as he deposited her on the driveway. "My trunk. We should—"
"Darling girl, you are a prodigious worrier. The servants will fetch your things to your room."
An immense wave of nervousness crashed in on Alexandra with the force of the ocean she heard slapping the shore beyond the house but she did her best to hide it.
"As you wish," she said, inclining her head in acquiescence as she turned and headed up the walk. Her heart thundered so wildly inside her chest that she could hear the violent pulsing of the blood in her ears, feel it throbbing against the base of her throat, hammering against her temples.
Climbing the stairs to the veranda, she hesitated a moment, staring at the brass lion's head door knocker that snarled back at her as if daring her to enter. Casting a glance over her shoulder she saw that Stephen and the trap had already disappeared around the side of the house.
Quickly blessing herself as the French nuns had taught her a lifetime ago, she opened the door and stepped inside to face her future.
Fire's Lady
An American Historical Romance
by
Barbara Bretton
~
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Fire's Lady
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Barbara Bretton is the USA Today bestselling, award-winning author of more than 40 books. She currently has over ten million copies in print around the world. Her novels have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist and have been translated into twelve languages in over twenty countries. She lives with her husband in central New Jersey.
For all things Barbara Bretton, visit her website at www.barbarabretton.com.
Table of Contents
Cover
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Excerpt from FIRE'S LADY by Barbara Bretton
Meet Barbara Bretton
T
able of Contents
Cover
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Excerpt from FIRE'S LADY by Barbara Bretton
Meet Barbara Bretton
Midnight Lover Page 31