Serena realized she was smiling so hard her face hurt. She unclasped her cloak and dropped it to the ground before sitting, and then she took out her sketchpad.
***
Gareth’s jewels had contracted up into his body. The water was beyond cold and he’d been mad to let the boy talk him into it. Even with all their diving and splashing his goose-pimples had goose-pimples. But he had to admit—as they both lay on the grassy bank letting the pale but surprisingly warm sun dry their bodies—that he felt a sense of peace he’d never experienced before.
“Mr. Lockheart?”
He turned his head and shaded his eyes with one hand. “Yes?”
“Did you go away to school when you were a boy?”
Gareth considered his question, and how honest he should be in his answer. A child should not know that a thing like orphanages existed—and certainly not the nightmarish things that often occurred in them—but also, he deserved to know some of the truth.
“You could say I grew up in a school. I lived in an orphanage.”
Oliver turned on his side, his eyes alight with interest—and sympathy. “You mean you do not know who your family is?”
Gareth nodded.
Oliver’s brown wrinkled with concern. “But you had friends there, didn’t you?”
Gareth could see that was important to the boy. “I did. Mr. McElroy was my best friend, and still is.”
Relief rolled off the boy in waves and Gareth marveled at his capacity for empathy.
“I like Mr. McElroy. He showed me how to carve a conker into a dog.”
Gareth looked up at the sky. “Yes, Mr. McElroy is very good with a knife.” An image of Dec’s hands covered in blood flashed through his mind and Gareth closed his eyes.
“All of my cousins have gone away to school. I’m the only one who hasn’t.” He paused and Gareth turned back toward him.
“What school?” Gareth asked, although he could guess.
“Everyone but Julian goes to Eton. He goes to Harrow.”
“Oh, why is that?”
“His mama is the duke’s daughter and she married the Earl of Synott and he went to Harrow.”
As Oliver went on to describe his other cousins Gareth considered the boys august connections. Serena Lombard might work for her living, but she clearly did not have to. Venetia, for all her wisdom, had not assessed the situation correctly, in his opinion. A woman like Mrs. Lombard would never consent to marry an awkward, inarticulate bastard from a London orphanage. And that is what he was, a bastard. At least that’s what Herbert Jensen, the man who’d run the orphanage as well as half a dozen less savory operations, had told him.
“You might have a skill, boy, but you’re still a bastard and don’t you forget it.” How many times had Jensen said that same thing to him? All the way up to the night Dec and Gareth finally told him they would no longer do his bidding—bastards or not.
The sound of a growling stomach pulled him back from the abyss and he turned to find Oliver blushing furiously. “I guess I’m hungry.”
“Me too. Shall we head back?”
“But we haven’t caught any fish.”
“I’m sure Cook will feed us even so.”
They dressed, the sun-warmed clothes feeling good on his cold, clammy skin. Chalmers would no doubt wonder what the hell he’d been up to, he thought, looking down at his mud-caked boots and grass-stained buckskins.
“Do you want to go back a different way? I can show you the old mine.”
“If you wish.” Gareth slung his cravat around his neck but made no effort to tie it.
Oliver led him up the river and away from the proposed lake. Gareth had a general idea of his property boundaries and believed they could continue in this direction for some time before they’d be in danger of trespassing on his nearest neighbor, the squire who’d sold him the acreage.
After about ten minutes they passed through a tight clump of trees and into a clearing.
“See,” Oliver pointed to the rock ridge that was partially hidden by some tree—Gareth had not even the slightest knowledge of botany—to a dark hole. He followed Oliver, his steps heavier the closer they got. It was a small cave-like opening, no more than three and a half feet high and maybe a little wider.
Oliver dropped to his hands and knees and crawled toward it.
“Oliver!” The word was like an explosion in the quiet glade and both he and the boy jumped at the sound.
Oliver swung around, his eyes wide.
“Come away from there,” Gareth ordered, aware he was speaking too sharply, but unable to do otherwise with the boy so close to the pitch-black maw, which seemed to broadcast malevolence.
He was an obedient child and immediately came back. “I wasn’t going to go in, Mr. Lockheart.”
“Good. Such a thing is most likely unstable. I will have it seen to—blocked off. You have not gone in it?”
“No sir, my mother told me never to enter such a place, that it might come down on my head.”
“That is sound advice.” Gareth swallowed back the panic he felt just looking at the black cave, forcing himself to speak more calmly. He was frightening the boy.
“Come, I’m suddenly ferociously hungry.”
Oliver smiled, the tension of the moment before already a thing of the past.
As they walked away from the cave, Gareth couldn’t help feeling something was watching them; something that wasn’t happy to see them leave.
Chapter Thirteen
Gareth determined the ground would be dry enough to move the rock in three days if there wasn’t another torrential downpour. That meant he had only four more days.
They were eating dinner—a part of the day Gareth had come to enjoy, even though he felt guilty for being so pleased that without Dec around he was able to take more part in the conversation. Mrs. Lombard had just asked him about his pulley system and how long it would take him to set up the device.
“I’ll only need a day, and most of that just to move the logs into position.”
“Things have reached a fever pitch in the village. I believe you will have quite a number of spectators.”
He looked up from his soup, his eyebrows arching. “Is that so?”
She laughed. “Surely you’ve heard the talk whenever you are there?”
“I’m afraid I’ve only visited the forge in town.”
“Well, if you’d gone into the King’s Head or Mrs. Cooper’s Emporium, you would know it is the talk of the town.”
Gareth had no idea what that meant. What possible interest could people from town have in the moving of a rock at least three miles away?
Mrs. Lombard opened her mouth and then closed it. And then opened it again.
It was clear she had something to say but didn’t know how to say it; Gareth waited.
“I should not like to overstep,” she said, her cheeks tinting and reminding him very much of her son.
“Mrs. Lombard, if you know something I should hear about, please tell me.”
“I was going to suggest you have a little celebration around the event.”
“A celebration?”
“Just something informal. A way for you to meet your neighbors.”
Gareth doubted it would be politic to tell her he’d gone to a great deal of effort to avoid meeting his neighbors and had actively dodged them when they’d come to call in the early days.
“There is a good deal of curiosity about you, Mr. Lockheart. The squire, who would have provided a social core for the area, is old and fragile and has divested himself of a good deal of his property. I believe you purchased a large section of it?”
“Yes. He has no immediate heir and holds his entire family in great dislike. I believe he is considered something of an eccentric.” It amused him to speak of somebody else being eccentric, for a change. “The squire was eager to sell it all so I bought the entirety of his land, including the house. He resides
there by virtue of a life estate I granted him.”
“You own all the land that surrounds the village?”
“Yes.”
“My goodness. And the squire’s tenants?”
“They are now my tenants.”
A look of understanding bloomed on her face.
He could not resist asking, “What is it?”
“That explains the new roofs, drainage project, and other improvements. The villagers talk of little else—when not discussing the Great Rock Moving. But they believe the squire is responsible, which has confounded them as he has been notoriously clutch-fisted since taking possession of his estates.”
“I’ve kept the transfer from the people who live here. The squire is old; although he is neither a kind nor generous man, I believe it would make his final days unpleasant should it be known he is nothing more than a tenant, himself.” Gareth glanced from Mrs. Lombard to the two footmen standing in front of the sideboard. He stared hard at them, until he was sure he’d communicated his message. He paid his servants twice what any other employer in the area paid; he expected the extra money to purchase their discretion.
The look on Mrs. Lombard’s face made him uncomfortable, so he changed the subject. “Tell me more about this celebration you have in mind.”
***
One of the other aspects of life without Declan was that Gareth no longer had to drink port every evening. He loathed the beverage and had only fiddled with a glass of it to keep his friend company. He’d learned, after attending more than his fair share of business dinners, that men of business did not trust a man who would not drink with them.
But now he could join Mrs. Lombard in the library after dinner, where they’d taken to spending a couple of hours together before she went up to bed. He had no idea whether she’d wandered the halls since that night in the kitchen since he’d kept to his quarters to avoid finding out. Indeed, his nights had assumed a rather tedious pattern after she excused herself. He would do work for another hour and then go to his chambers and expend his pent-up frustration on the unfortunate bags. Already Chalmers had needed to repair the smaller bag when its seam split one night.
And when that didn’t serve to calm him, he’d relieved himself in his fist. Not since he’d been a youth had he abused himself with such frequency. And even that did not serve to send him to sleep some nights. But at least it freed his mind for a few hours to think. He’d begun bringing his work to his chambers and drawing up his plans and recommendations in the early hours of the day.
Declan had been gone a week now and Gareth still had no word from him. He had told himself that he was not allowed to begin fretting about his friend until after the rock moving, which would make Dec’s absence ten days. He would leave here the day after he’d completed the project and go to London first. He knew Declan’s habits almost as well as he knew his own. He would be in London, most likely in a whorehouse. Possibly even at the White House, although he tended toward earthier establishments. Wherever he was, Gareth would find him.
***
It wasn’t until two days before Mr. Lockheart was to leave that Serena realized she was more than just infatuated with him.
As a special treat, Oliver had been allowed to stay up later than usual and join the adults in the dining room for dinner.
It was Gareth who’d asked her, making a special trip out to her workshop to make the request.
Serena had commenced working on the statue the day after Etienne’s visit, and the work was coming along quite nicely. She was looking at the sketches she’d tacked all around her when she heard something behind her. Her heart jumped into her throat and a hundred thoughts raced through her mind in the time it took to turn: was it Etienne? Had he returned like he’d threatened?
But no, it was not.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Lombard.” His light gray eyes studiously avoided the dozens of overlapping, messy drawings covering the walls. “I understand many artists do not like their work viewed before completion?”
Serena smiled. “I am not so high strung, Mr. Lockheart. If I’d had such reservations, I never would have survived in the studio I was trained in, which had three or four apprentice sculptors working at all times.” She paused. “Would you like to see what you have commissioned for the centerpiece of your garden?”
He stepped into the room. “I already know—Judith holding a likeness of Mr. McElroy’s head.”
Serena laughed. “That was bad of me, was it not?”
Rare amusement glinted in his eyes. “I would like to see what you are really sculpting.”
She turned, intensely aware of his body as he came to stand beside her. She pointed to the first of the drawings. “These represent all sides starting from the front. I’ve chosen an unusual classical figure.”
She turned in time to see a tiny, but wry, smile flex his lips. “Ah, for an unusual house and it’s unusual owner.”
“Something like that.” She gestured to the first drawing again. “This is Coeus—have you heard of him?”
“My knowledge of the classics is not strong. A Greek deity, perhaps?”
“Close, he was one of the Titans, and is associated with intellect and inquisitive minds.”
When he didn’t speak, she turned. That’s when she realized he wasn’t looking at the wall at all, but at her sketchbook, which lay open to a nude picture of his body, from the rear. Before she could gather her wits and pounce on the book, he leaned down and turned the page. This picture was of the front, and there was no mistaking who it was.
He continued turning pages, only stopping when he reached a blank one. Thirteen sketches in all; she’d never counted them before.
Serena’s body was hot all over; a mixture of shame, embarrassment, and arousal flooded her anew with each page he turned.
He looked up at her, his gray eyes wintry, like an ice-covered lake. “It seems you have the advantage of me, Mrs. Lombard.”
Serena tried to smile but failed miserably.
“I would say these are from your imagination, but the details,” he shook his head and glanced down, flipping the pages rapidly before looking up again. “Well, this is undoubtedly what I see when I look in the mirror. You are quite a draftsman. When?”
“At the river.”
His eyebrows arched over his frosty eyes. “You were there?”
“I came to see Oliver. But when I arrived, you were both swimming and enjoying yourselves. If I had interrupted you? Well—” she shrugged.
“So instead you spied and sketched me.” It was not a question.
She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lockheart. I never should—”
He raised a hand and she stopped.
“I don’t want your apology, Mrs. Lombard.”
“Oh?” The single syllable was more of a squeak than a word.
“No, I want an opportunity to make my own sketches.”
“What?”
He nodded, his expression as serious and unreadable as ever.
“I—” she cleared her throat and tried again. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”
He glanced out into the small corral area, his pupils narrowing against the sun. It was a warm day, the warmest yet this spring.
“It is a nice warm day for swimming.”
“No,” she said, suddenly seeing what he meant with painful clarity. “Absolutely not.”
“Yes.” He took out his watch and glanced at it. “It is just past eleven. I have a few matters to attend to but should be finished in an hour.” He replaced his watch. “It will be warmer in an hour, as well. Let’s say twelve o’clock, sharp.” He turned and strode from the stall.
Serena stared; he expected her to swim with him? The man must be mad!
***
As it turned out, Mr. Lockheart had no intention of going swimming with her. When Serena arrived at the appointed time it was to find him seated on a blanket under a tree,
with something that resembled a sketchpad beside him.
He turned as she approached, once again taking out his blasted timepiece. “Excellent, you are right on time.”
“I only came to tell you I have no intention of going swimming with you.”
“I have no intention of swimming with you, either.”
Her shoulders sagged and she gave a relieved laugh. “You kept such a straight face I could not tell that you were jesting. I should have guessed.”
“I wasn’t jesting, Mrs. Lombard. I never jest.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It is true. I’m afraid I don’t have the turn of mind required for humor. I only spoke the truth: I have no intention of swimming. I’ve come to sketch.” He gestured to the book, which she saw was a ledger, all he could find on short notice, she supposed.
“I cannot believe you are serious.”
“I’m very serious.”
“This is rather . . . biblical, isn’t it? An eye for an eye, and all that?”
He cocked his head, as if considering the matter. “Yes, I suppose you could call it that.”
She placed a fist on each hip. “What would you call it?”
“Not revenge, certainly. Payment, perhaps.”
“Payment?”
“I understand sculptors employ models, do they not?”
“Well. . . yes, but what does that have to do with this?” She gestured around them.
“You took my likeness but did not pay for it. I should like your likeness as payment.”
“Why don’t I simply pay you the standard hourly rate for models?”
His lips flexed into a slight smile. “Oh no, Mrs. Lombard, that is not the way this works.”
Serena was speechless, a condition she’d rarely experienced. She glared at him, and he stared coolly back.
Her eyes narrowed. “Very well. You want to see me swim? I will swim.” She marched toward the stream, waiting every second for him to call her back. But he didn’t. She stopped at the edge of the water and spun around. “Are you going to force me to do this?”
He gave an exaggerated shrug. “If you wish to wet your clothes rather than remove them, that is your prerogative.”
A Figure of Love Page 16
