The Truth About Love (6 page)

Much good would it do her. She might be a beauty, yet Gerrard instinctively knew she was unlikely to be of serious interest to either him or Barnaby.

Noting another of Cunningham’s swift glances, Gerrard made a mental note to mention the association to Barnaby, purely in pursuit of a peaceful existence, something Barnaby appreciated as much as he.

The brevity of Cunningham’s glances was almost certainly attributable to the other gentleman in the group, Eleanor’s older brother, Jordan Fritham. A brown-haired, precociously superior gentleman in his mid-twenties, he stood between his sister and the Myles girls. Taking in Jordan’s stance, Gerrard smothered a grin. The sketch that sprang to life in his mind was titled: “Cock of the Local Walk Greatly Displeased by the Appearance of Interlopers on His Patch.”

Barnaby and he were the interlopers, yet as far as Gerrard could tell, it wasn’t his attention to Jacqueline but Eleanor’s to Barnaby that was ruffling Jordan’s feathers. He strove to hide his reaction, but there was a hard glint in his eyes, a twist to his thin lips that screamed his irritation.

“So when Monteith came thundering up in his curricle thinking he’d won”—Barnaby struck a dramatic pose—“there was George Bragg, leaning on his whip, waiting to greet him!”

The Myles sisters gasped; Eleanor Fritham’s eyes glowed with laughter. With an engaging grin, Barnaby concluded his tale of the latest curricle-racing scandal. “Monteith was furious, of course, but there was nothing he could do but put a good face on it and stump up the blunt.”

“Oh, that
must
have hurt.” Eleanor lightly clapped her hands.

“Oh, it did,” Barnaby assured her. “Monteith took off for his Highland eyrie and hasn’t been sighted since.”

Gerrard knew the story; he’d been there. Jordan Fritham made some slighting comment about London horseflesh. Gerrard didn’t catch Barnaby’s reply; Jacqueline had turned to him, considering him. He looked down and met her frankly measuring gaze.

“Are you inclined to such pastimes, Mr. Debbington?”

She’d forgotten he was a man again. He smiled, deliberately charming, and watched her blink. “No,” he murmured. “I have better things—more rewarding things—to do with my time.”

For an instant, she held his gaze, then the bustling rustle of skirts gave her an excuse to glance away.

And breathe in. Deeply. He was acutely aware—to his fingertips aware—of the rise and fall of her breasts.

The interruption was Lady Fritham, come to summon Eleanor and Jordan away. Mrs. Myles somewhat reluctantly followed, gathering her daughters, and the party broke up.

Millicent, Mitchel and Jacqueline went to see the visitors to their carriages. Following some paces behind, Gerrard and Barnaby halted in the front hall.

“An unthreatening bunch, don’t you think?” Barnaby said.

“I’ve been focusing on Jacqueline Tregonning.”

“I noticed.” Barnaby’s eyes danced. “Artist smitten by subject—not an entirely original plot.”

“Not smitten, you idiot, just absorbed. There’s a great deal more to her than meets the eye.”

“You’ll get no argument from me on the latter. As for the former”—Barnaby shot him a sidelong glance he chose to ignore—“we’ll see.”

Mrs. Carpenter entered the hall. She came forward. “Mr. Debbington, Mr. Adair, we have your rooms ready. If you’ll come with me, we can make sure they suit.”

Gerrard smiled. “I’m sure they will.” With a last glance for Jacqueline, standing, waving, on the front porch, he turned and with Barnaby followed Mrs. Carpenter upstairs.

She and her staff had been as efficient as Lord Tregonning had intimated; the room to which she led Gerrard was just along the first-floor corridor from the stairs that led up to the old nursery.

“Treadle’s had the footmen up there moving the heavy pieces. I’ll have the maids go up first thing tomorrow, sir. Perhaps if you’ll look in after breakfast and let us know how you’d like things set up?”

“My thanks, Mrs. Carpenter, and to Treadle, too. I’ll consult with you after breakfast.”

Mrs. Carpenter bobbed a curtsy and left. Gerrard turned and surveyed the room. It was large, with a sitting area before a wide fireplace and a huge tester bed set on a dais at the opposite end. A door to one side of the fireplace led to a dressing room from which Compton had looked out, nodded on seeing him, then retreated to finish unpacking his things.

They’d left Barnaby in a similar room, in the same wing but closer to the main stairs. Gerrard ambled to the open dressing room door and looked in. “Everything to our liking?”

“Indeed, sir.” Compton had been with him for eight years; a veteran of the Peninsula campaigns, he was now approaching middle age. “A very well-run enterprise, and a pleasant household with it.” Compton shot Gerrard a sidelong glance. “Belowstairs, at least.”

“As to abovestairs,” Gerrard said, answering the unvoiced question, “all seems comfortable enough, but we’re still at first glance. Where does Cunningham fit in, do you know?”

“Eats with the family, he does.” After a moment, Compton asked, “Want me to ask about?”

“Not about him, but report anything you hear about the younger Miss Tregonning—I need to get to know her better, and quickly.”

“Will do. Now, will the brown Bath superfine do for tonight, or do you want to go with the black?”

Gerrard considered. “The black.” Leaving Compton to fig out his evening clothes, he turned back into the bedroom and headed for the glass-paned doors that opened onto the balcony.

The private semicircular balcony ran half the length of the room. Because of the odd shape of the house and the angle of the room next door, no other room was visible, and vice versa; both balcony and room were essentially private, and offered a unique and stunning view over the gardens.

Gerrard stepped out, entranced.

Even through the lengthening shadows of approaching dusk, the gardens were magical—fantastical shapes rose out of the twilight, a plethora of fairy-tale landscapes scattered across and down the valley, each opening out from the last, then merging into the next.

On the horizon, the sea shimmered gold in the last light of the dying sun, then melted through shades of gilt and silver laid over blue to become the iridescent surf breaking on the rocks clogging the inlet’s narrow beach. He let his gaze slowly travel nearer, noting how the gardens became progressively more structured the closer they got to the house. In the ring of areas adjoining the house, he glimpsed a garden of round boulders on one ridge, a formal Italianate garden nearer at hand, statuary in another section and a towering pinetum on the other ridge.

He could hear the tinkling music of water running over rock. Looking down toward the sound, he saw a terrace below the balcony. The terrace skirted the house on the valley side, giving views and also access to the gardens; he could just make out steps leading down in several places. Toward the middle of the house, a denser, darker patch of thick vegetation ran right up to the terrace, perhaps even extending beneath it.

That, Gerrard guessed, on a mild surge of satisfaction, had to be the famous Garden of Night.

Tomorrow, he’d explore. He tried to focus on the prospect, only to find his mind drifting, insistently, back to Jacqueline Tregonning.

How was he going to gain her trust, gain her confidence enough to learn all he wanted to know?

Considering the best way to approach a young lady he now knew wasn’t as conventional as he’d blithely assumed, he wandered back into the room, absentmindedly shutting the door on the darkening gardens.

D
inner was a curious experience. The food was excellent, the conversation beyond subdued. The hour passed in oddly peaceful quiet, with long stretches of silence, yet strangely without any sense of repression. They spoke as necessary, but there was no compulsion to fill the gaps.

Gerrard was fascinated. Both he and Barnaby had been watchful, quick to match their hosts’ behavior. Both found the family intriguing, Barnaby because, as a student of crime, he found the vagaries of human nature absorbing, while for Gerrard, Jacqueline’s interaction with her family would inevitably form the cornerstone of his mental picture of her, the basis of the understanding he ultimately brought to her portrait.

Regardless of the relative silence, the established procedures were followed; when the covers were drawn, the ladies rose and left the gentlemen to pass the port. Mitchel asked Barnaby about the curricle-racing scandal. Lord Tregonning grasped the moment to inquire whether the room he’d been given met with Gerrard’s approval. On being assured it did, his lordship nodded and lapsed once more into comfortable silence.

Gerrard sat back, comfortable, too, and considered his best way forward with Jacqueline. At the end of a restful twenty minutes, they all rose and quit the dining room. Lord Tregonning left them in the hall, heading for his study. Together with Mitchel and Barnaby, Gerrard strolled back to the drawing room.

They crossed the threshold to the gentle strains of a sonata. Gerrard looked at the pianoforte set in one corner, but it was Millicent at the keys. Jacqueline was seated at one end of the central chaise, a lamp on the table beside her, the soft light sheening on her tumbling curls as, head bent, she plied her needle over a piece of embroidery.

He headed her way, eager to learn of her interests, her pastimes—of her.

She looked up, smiled politely, then made to gather up the embroidery; a basket sat by her feet.

“No—I’d like to look.” He smiled when, surprised, she blinked up at him. He summoned his charm. “If I may?”

She stared at him for a moment, then made a small gesture. “If you wish.” Her tone stated she didn’t understand why he would.

Sitting beside her, he cast an inevitably critical eye over the fine linen she spread on her lap so he could see. His gaze raced over it, then slowed. It was his turn to blink. He leaned closer, looked harder.

He’d expected the usual embroidery ladies wasted their time with, some conventional scene done in conventional style. That wasn’t what she was creating.

And creating it was.

His painter’s eyes drank in the lines, the balance of shapes and colors, the use of varying textures to give the illusion of depth. “This isn’t from a pattern.”

No question. After a moment, she said, “I make it up as I do it. I have a picture in my head.”

He was barely conscious of nodding; he hadn’t expected her to have any artistic streak, but this…He pointed to a patch above the center. “You’ll need a visually strong element there—it’s the focal point.”

The look she cast him was faintly irritated. “I know.” She gathered the linen, tucking the strands of silk she was working with into the folds. “There’s a sundial there.”

He could see it; that would work. He glanced at her as she bent to tuck the embroidery into the basket. “Do you paint or draw?”

She hesitated, then answered, “I draw a little, but mostly in preparation.” She looked back, met his eyes. “I do watercolors.”

Not perhaps the easiest of confessions to make to the country’s foremost landscape artist; his landscapes were watercolors. “You must show me your works sometime.”

Her eyes, currently more green than gold, snapped. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

“I mean it.” His tone, clipped and definite, faintly impatient, emphasized that fact. “I want to—will need to—see them.”

She held his gaze, faintly puzzled; beyond that, he couldn’t read her thoughts. Then she said, “Speaking of painting, are the amenities provided adequate to your needs? If there’s anything more you require, please ask.”

A clear change of subject, but she’d given him precisely the opening he wanted.

“The amenities are satisfactory, however, there are a number of aspects we need to discuss.” He glanced at the pianoforte; Barnaby was turning music for Millicent and chatting with Mitchel. Before dinner, he’d asked Barnaby to keep Millicent and any others occupied to clear his way with Jacqueline. Barnaby had grinned widely, but wisely made no comment beyond assuring him he’d be delighted to oblige.

He returned his gaze to Jacqueline’s face. “I find music rather distracting. Perhaps we could walk on the terrace, and I’ll explain what will be necessary to create the portrait your father wants.”

She hesitated, her gaze on his face yet not, he would swear, seeing him, then she nodded. “That would be helpful.”

Rising, he offered his hand. Again she hesitated, yet this time he knew why; he was aware of how she steeled herself before placing her fingers in his. He gripped, and felt a surge of purely male satisfaction at the faint tremor he detected before she suppressed it. He drew her up, then released her; suavely waving her to the French doors open to the terrace, he reminded himself it formed no part of his plan to discompose her, much less make her wary of being in his company.

Side by side they strolled out, into the soft night. Onto the terrace he’d seen from his balcony. Below his room, the terrace was relatively narrow; here it spread wide, an area in which guests from the drawing room and the ballroom next door could gather and admire the view.

Tonight the view was shrouded in shadows, the moon a mere sliver shedding just enough light to limn all it touched in silver, transforming the gardens into a fantastical landscape, yet his attention remained on the creation who walked beside him, not on those spread before him.