The Truth About Love (44 page)

The furniture was lovely—wooden, none of it spindly, yet equally none of it overly ornate. Much of it was rosewood, and glowed with a luster that screamed of care. It took an instant for her eyes to travel to the long chaise further down the room, set at an angle to the hearth. A smaller chaise and three armchairs completed the grouping. Two older ladies sat on the larger chaise, avidly watching them. Another lady, younger and beautifully gowned, sat in one armchair; a gentleman, handsome and severely elegant, uncrossed his long legs and rose from its mate.

Even as, a polite smile on her lips, she went forward with Millicent to meet Gerrard’s family, something—some observation—nagged at Jacqueline’s mind. Just before she reached those waiting, it came clear; there was a clock on the mantelpiece and two statues made into lamps flanking the terrace windows, but beyond that, other than an ancient tatting bag resting beside the feet of one of the older ladies, there were no ornaments, and no signs of habitation—no journal or playbill lying on a table, no softening touches. The room seemed strangely sterile.

Gerrard didn’t live there, so it lacked any evidence of him. Despite its elegance, the lovely furniture and the attractive paper, curtains and upholstery, the room felt rather cold, not neglected physically but lacking a certain energy. Lacking life.

Reaching the long chaise, Gerrard introduced Millicent, then Jacqueline, to his aunt, Lady Bellamy.

“Good afternoon, my dear—I’m so very glad to meet you.” Lady Bellamy, with curly, white hair, many chins and bright if faded blue eyes, reached for Jacqueline’s hand, clasping it between hers. “I hope you and your aunt will excuse me if I don’t rise—my old bones aren’t what they were.”

Her smile growing warmer, Jacqueline bobbed a curtsy. “I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, ma’am.”

Lady Bellamy beamed, but wagged a pudgy, beringed finger. “Everyone calls me Minnie, my dear, and I hope you and Millicent will do the same. No need to stand on ceremony.”

Jacqueline smiled her acquiescence; Gerrard had told her about his aunt. She was of an age where guessing her years was impossible; she was over sixty, but how far over was anyone’s guess.

“And,” Minnie said, patting her hand before releasing it, “this is Timms. No one calls her anything else, either.”

“Indeed.” Her gray hair pulled back from her plain-featured face, Timms took Jacqueline’s hand in a surprisingly strong grip. Her gaze was warm, friendly and disconcertingly direct. “Very glad you needed to come to town, else no doubt we’d have developed a reason for jauntering down to Cornwall. Not that I have anything against Cornwall in summer, but such a journey at our age…well, better not.”

Jacqueline felt her smile deepen, felt all reserve slide from her. “Indeed, it’s a very long way. I’m glad we needed to visit.”

Timms grinned and released her. Taking her arm, Gerrard steered her to the other lady, who had risen and was speaking with Millicent.

Millicent glanced around as they neared, smiled and stepped back, allowing Gerrard to introduce her.

“Miss Jacqueline Tregonning—my sister, Patience Cynster, and her husband, Vane.”

Jacqueline went to curtsy, but Patience caught both her hands.

“No, no—as Minnie declared, we need no ceremony.” Patience’s hazel eyes met Jacqueline’s gaze with greater warmth than she’d expected; when, after an instant studying her, Patience again spoke, there was no doubt of the sincerity behind her words. “I’m so very pleased to meet you, my dear.”

Echoing the sentiment, frankly amazed at how truly welcome she did indeed feel, Jacqueline turned to the gentleman, who, lips curving, smoothly lifted her hand from his wife’s grasp and elegantly bowed over it.

“Vane Cynster, my dear.” His voice was deep, sonorous. “I trust the journey down wasn’t overly fatiguing?”

The question encouraged an answer; in less than a minute, Jacqueline found herself seated on the end of the smaller chaise, engaged in a surprisingly easy exchange with Patience and Vane. Gerrard hovered beside her. Millicent, next to her, was chatting animatedly with Minnie.

Jacqueline had never felt so unreservedly welcomed, so warmly accepted; reassured, she relaxed.

Gerrard watched her, pleased to see that her inner reserve hadn’t materialized, not at all. As far as she knew, none of his family were aware of the circumstances of her mother’s death; she clearly found no difficulty in engaging openly with them.

That was something of a relief; the same would no doubt hold true when she met the rest of the clan, and the members of wider society who, once it became known she was here, staying in his house under Minnie’s aegis, would make it their business to meet her.

Which meant he could relax, and concentrate on painting. She would take his London acquaintance by storm; he was looking forward to observing the action from a safe, if watchful, distance.

The tea trolley arrived. Patience did the honors. Barnaby and Gerrard ferried the cups, then Barnaby joined Millicent, Minnie and Timms in discussing which of London’s many sights were most impressive and thus not to be missed.

Gerrard drew up a chair beside Vane. While Patience talked with Jacqueline, comparing country life in Cornwall and Derbyshire, where his and Patience’s childhood home lay, he picked Vane’s brains over what had occurred in their mutual business circles over the weeks he’d been away.

Sipping his tea, he made a firm if silent vow not to, under any circumstances, divulge the name of the modiste to whom he intended to take Jacqueline the next morning.

H
e tried, but failed. At eleven the next morning, Millicent, Patience, Minnie and Timms accompanied him and Jacqueline to Helen Purfett’s salon.

The salon was in unfashionable Paddington, in a narrow house on a street leading north from the park. Minnie, Timms and Patience exchanged glances as Patience’s carriage rocked to a halt on the cobblestones outside. Gerrard had led the way, driving his curricle and grays, Jacqueline on the seat beside him, transparently excited, her eyes enormous as she glanced about.

Her reaction soothed his already abraded temper. He reined it in as he handed Patience and the three older ladies to the pavement. He wasn’t surprised when, after looking about her, Minnie asked, “Are you sure this dressmaker is suitable, dear?”

“Helen isn’t a modiste in the sense of making ball gowns. She specializes in making gowns for artist’s models.”

Four pairs of lips formed an “Oh.”

With a wave, he herded them all up the steps to the door. Helen would be expecting him and Jacqueline; he hoped she’d cope with the unexpected crowd.

He’d painted all night in his studio in the attic; only when it was too late—the small hours of the morning—and he realized Jacqueline hadn’t arrived, did he recall he’d forgotten to tell her how to access the attics from the lower part of the house. The conversion had made the attics into separate quarters, reached by stairs from the alley alongside. There was a connecting door and stairs from the house proper, but they were concealed.

He sincerely hoped she hadn’t gone wandering about in the night, trying to find her way up. Minnie was a frighteningly light sleeper.

There was nothing to be done but paint on; he hadn’t thought to ask which room she’d been given. So he’d returned to laying the last layer of detail into the creepers and vines about the entrance to the Garden of Night.

Due to the appointment with Helen, he hadn’t been able to sleep for long this morning. Consequently, he was in no good mood to deal gently with the sort of feminine helpfulness with which he coped when necessary, but more normally avoided like a pinching boot.

He loved Patience, Minnie and Timms, but he didn’t need their “help” in this instance.

Helen blinked when they all trooped into her salon upstairs, but she recovered well. After he’d introduced her, she showed the four observers to a long sofa before the front windows, ordered tea and scones for them, then, with a smile, excused herself, Gerrard and Jacqueline, and whisked them into a smaller, more cluttered workroom.

“Better?” She raised a questioning brow at Gerrard.

He sighed, and nodded. “Yes, thank you. Are these the satins?” He picked up a stack of fabric swatches.

Jacqueline, Helen and he stood at her worktable; Helen and he discussed lines and made sketches while Jacqueline quietly listened, but when, design and drape agreed, they turned to choosing the fabric, she joined in with decided views of her own.

Her eye for color was as good as his, and she had a sound appreciation of what suited her. They all quickly agreed that a certain brassy bronze shot-silk shantung was perfect.

“See—with the drape, it’ll catch the light differently, so you’ll get all the curves highlighted, especially in lamplight.” Helen draped a long swatch of the material over Jacqueline’s shoulder, angling over her breasts to her waist, then stood behind her and pulled the material tight. “There.” Reaching forward, Helen adjusted the silk. “What do you think?”

Gerrard looked; his lips slowly curved. “Perfect.”

They made arrangements for fittings over the next four days, then Gerrard led Jacqueline out to join their now thoroughly bored supporters. In a much better mood than when they’d arrived, he ushered them out to the carriages.

He drove Jacqueline back to Brook Street, only to find an unmarked black town carriage waiting outside his house, with a too familiar groom in attendance.

“Her Grace?” he resignedly asked Matthews, one of Devil Cynster’s grooms.

Matthews grinned sympathetically. “The Dowager and Lady Horatia, sir.”

Heaven help him. He loved them all,
but
…

Beneath all else, he was just a tad worried that Jacqueline would find his female connections, especially
en masse,
too overpowering, and take flight. Yet as he squired her inside and into the drawing room, he reminded himself that this—her introduction to his extensive family circle before he asked her to marry him—was only fair. If she accepted him, she’d be accepting them, too.

He’d debated mentioning marriage before they’d left Cornwall, but he’d only just started his campaign to illustrate the benefits of matrimony sufficiently for the idea to occur to her before he broached it; he was perfectly sure she’d yet to start thinking along his required lines. The visit to the capital would provide both settings and circumstances to extend his campaign beyond the sensual—he intended her to see and appreciate what life as his wife would be like—but he hadn’t until now considered how she, used to being very much alone, would react to a family framework in which ladies were never alone, but part of a large familial group whose members frequently visited, openly shared experiences and were perennially interested.

In everything.

Evidence of that last gleamed in two pairs of aging but still handsome eyes as he guided Jacqueline to the chaise on which the Dowager Duchess of St. Ives and Lady Horatia Cynster sat, waiting to greet them.

“I am enchanted, my dear, to meet with you.” Helena’s eyes danced as, releasing Jacqueline’s hand, she raised her pale eyes to his face. “Gerrard—such a happy circumstance that Lord Tregonning chose you to paint this so important portrait,
n’est-ce pas
?”

He returned a noncommittal murmur; it was never wise to give the Dowager more information than strictly necessary. That was the rule the family’s males had learned to live by; unfortunately, there was very little the Dowager’s pale green eyes missed—and even less that her exceedingly sharp mind failed to correctly interpret.

Lady Horatia Cynster, Vane’s mother, the Dowager’s sister-in-law and most frequent companion, was less overtly intimidating, but almost equally dangerous. “I remember meeting your mother, my dear, many years ago at a ball. She was exceedingly beautiful—there’s much I can see in you that I remember in her.”

“Really?” Eyes lighting, Jacqueline sat in the armchair before the chaise. “Other than from Lady Fritham, our neighbor who was Mama’s childhood friend, I’ve never heard much of Mama before she married Papa.”

“Ah, I remember.” The Dowager nodded. “It caused quite a stir, that marriage—that she, such a diamond, chose to leave the ton so completely and retire to Cornwall. Horatia, do you recall…”

Between them, Helena and Horatia recalled a number of stories of Jacqueline’s mother during the short time she’d graced the capital’s ballrooms. Leaning forward, asking questions, Jacqueline eagerly absorbed all they said.

Gerrard found himself redundant. Found himself swallowing a certain surprise at how easily Jacqueline had found her feet with such ladies.

He wasn’t, of course, at all surprised by their eager embracing of her.

From the moment Barnaby had suggested visiting London, he’d known he’d have no chance of disguising his interest in Jacqueline as purely professional. Within the family, it wasn’t even worthwhile making the attempt; they’d see right through him, and laugh and pat his cheek—and tease him even more unmercifully.

It was bad enough when Horatia turned from the conversation to smile up at him, and say, “Dear boy, such excitement! The whole tale is so romantic. Of course, none of us will breathe a word, not until the deed is done and all settled, but you’ve certainly enlivened what was shaping up to be a deathly dull summer.”