A Lady's Dream Come True

by Grace Burrowes

  “You always have paid closer attention than most.”

  Oak took the opposite wing chair, feeling abruptly travel weary and out of sorts. “I have rearranged my entire life to be in London at long last. I can finally have the company of people who will not think me odd for stopping to stare at the reflection of sunlight on a mud puddle. I need not explain why a sunset is such a challenging subject, and neither must I make excuses for staying up all night to finish a project. I am at last among those of like precious faith, as it were, and now you decamp without a real explanation. If you’re pockets to let, I can cover the rent.”

  Vera had paid him in full and added a generous sum for the landscape of Merlin Hall.

  De Beauharnais parted with one of his rare, startlingly warm smiles. If Oak ever painted de Beauharnais’s portrait, he’d do it to try to capture that smile.

  “One forgets that people like you exist, Dorning. Don’t let the capital wear the decency out of you. As it happens, I am for once well fixed, but I’m frankly disgusted at what I had to paint to earn my latest commission. I made a compromise that I will be ashamed of for the rest of my life. It’s time to go home to the people who know me as plain Andy Hackett and paint some landscapes.”

  “They will be gorgeous landscapes.” De Beauharnais occasionally preferred men as intimate partners, though Oak had also known him to enjoy the company of women. A man’s personal appetites were nobody’s business, but any fellow who indulged an attraction to his own gender took a risk.

  Perhaps those risks explained de Beauharnais’s plans. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  De Beauharnais rose, bent down to hug Oak about the shoulders, and ambled for the door. “Bless you for offering, but no. I’ve made a mistake. I must consider how to atone for the wrong I’ve committed. Do you know if Mrs. Channing intends to bide in Town permanently?”

  The subject was being changed. A friend did not try to unchange it. “She has lodgings here as long as she’s inclined to stay, and the children are with her. They will see the sights, and I hope to spend some time in Mrs. Channing’s company as well.”

  A pained expression crossed de Beauharnais’s features. “She always struck me as a sweet woman.”

  “She is, though she’s nobody’s fool.”

  “Verity Channing was Dirk’s fool. I think he regretted marrying her, but realized that even he could not take a woman to wife, then set her aside simply because she was too good for him. He missed his Anna, he saw an available distraction from his grief, and so he charmed an unsuspecting young woman into a life she never anticipated.”

  Oak rose, uncomfortable to be discussing Vera in her absence. “Perhaps Channing’s great battle scenes were so effective because they reflected his internal reality in addition to the horrors of actual war.”

  “If you insist on being that insightful, Dorning, I truly must seek a ruralizing respite. I never made that connection, and I was a guest under Dirk’s roof twice, for weeks at a time on both occasions. Let’s mount a raid on the larder, shall we?” De Beauharnais threw a companionable arm around Oak’s shoulders. “And tell me of your first commission. We will open a good vintage and celebrate that milestone.”

  This was what Oak had come to London for. The company of his fellows, talk of art, and yet more talk of art.

  “I am to paint the twin daughters of a Mrs. Finchley. She’s some wealthy cit’s wife, and her daughters will make their come outs next year.”

  Because Oak was ambling down the passage side by side with de Beauharnais, he felt rather than saw a change in de Beauharnais’s posture.

  “Mrs. Finchley? The cloth heiress who married some baronet’s eldest?”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “Longacre tried to engage me for that job. Take Tolliver as your assistant, and don’t spend the commission until it’s nestled comfortably in your bank account.”

  “Tolliver chatters.” Tolly was like a sparrow, never still, never silent, and he never seemed to finish his projects. He also had a penchant for patting Oak’s bum that had ceased to be friendly or funny years ago.

  They reached the steps to the kitchen, and de Beauharnais descended first. “Take Tolliver. He’ll guard your interests, and he honestly makes a good assistant.” De Beauharnais stopped in the middle of the kitchen, hands on hips. “I will miss him.”

  “I will miss you,” Oak said, “but you will be back, and then we need not have any more of these gloomy conversations. I see an undefended wheel of cheese in the window box. Where do you suppose Cook has got off to?”

  “Market, by way of the nearest pub, bless her. She and Polly do like their afternoon pints. Bread is in the box, and that ham has a contribution to make to the contentment of English manhood.”

  They were soon seated at the worktable, tankards of summer ale and a platter of sandwiches before them.

  “I am hungry,” Oak said, biting into a sandwich. “I don’t always realize when my belly’s empty, but my disposition sours and my head starts to ache if I go for too long without eating. If you were a small boy, what part of London would you most enjoy seeing?”

  De Beauharnais tucked a table napkin into his collar. “I thought Dirk’s son was still in leading strings.”

  “Alexander is six, and a very serious little fellow. Catherine is fourteen, artistically talented, and as delightfully awkward as a female can be at that age. She is ferociously honest and damnably perceptive. Mrs. Channing is devoted to them both, though with Catherine the situation is a bit delicate.”

  De Beauharnais picked up a sandwich. “You like the children?”

  “Children are easy to like.”

  De Beauharnais frowned at his food. “Mrs. Channing is easy to like, and I never believed the rumors about her.”

  The bite of sandwich Oak had just swallowed got stuck in his throat. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I came upon her once on the maids’ stairs. I was trying to get back to my rooms without anybody noticing my escape. Harry Carlson had Mrs. Channing against the wall on the landing. She struggled against his advances, by no means inviting them, and Carlson has been accounted Byron’s better-looking twin. I believe he not only offended her, he frightened her.”

  Oak tried to wash the ache from his throat with a sip of ale. “Carlson was lurking on the maids’ stairs, and he made advances to another man’s wife?”

  “I sent him packing, gave the lady my handkerchief, and promised her discretion. I mentioned something to Dirk, and he merely laughed, but Carlson departed on urgent business the next day.”

  “Where is Carlson now?”

  De Beauharnais put his sandwich down untasted. “Like that, is it? You’ll call him out and avenge the honor of another man’s widow for a slight from years ago? I thought you more sensible than that, Dorning.”

  Oak thought himself more sensible than that. “Carlson is a hound, but if he implied in any regard that Verity Channing encouraged his advances, then he’s a lying hound who deserves to be held accountable.”

  De Beauharnais untucked the table napkin from his collar, took a sip of ale, and sat back. “Dorning, are you entangled with Mrs. Channing?”

  A gentleman would never intimate that a lady had been free with her favors, and yet, Oak did not want to deny his attraction to Vera. The night before leaving for London, he had beat the stuffing out of Jeremy Forester for mistreating Alexander, though a few of those blows had been for abusing Vera’s trust too. Bracken had seen Forester off the following dawn, and reported that Forester planned to impose on friends in Manchester for the remainder of the summer.

  Administering justice on Vera’s behalf had felt wonderful. Still, Vera would not be best served by gossip, so Forester’s remove to distant parts was a relief.

  And De Beauharnais’s question required an answer.

  “I am not entangled with anybody,” Oak said. “I am here in London to embark upon the next phase of my artistic endeavors. What rumors did you allude to regardin
g Verity Channing?”

  “The usual.” De Beauharnais set aside his ale and folded the table napkin into precise eighths. “That she was another Anna Beaumont, that she was loyal to Dirk but not necessarily faithful, that she had appetites an older husband could not entirely satisfy.”

  The food in Oak’s belly curdled. “Who would say such things?”

  “They weren’t said overtly, Dorning. You know how men talk once the port starts flowing, a quip here, a clumsy jest there. I paid it all little mind.”

  Perhaps at the time, that had been true, but de Beauharnais had lost the demeanor of an old friend happy to share a schoolboy raid on the larder. His gaze had gone bleak, and he wasn’t partaking of the food.

  “What aren’t you telling me, Diamond?”

  “I hate that name.”

  “Andy, I have known you since university, and I consider us friends. What the hell aren’t you saying?”

  De Beauharnais rose. “You are being fanciful, Dorning. Not at all like you. Must be the foul miasmas off the river going to your head.” He strode for the door, attempting an air of casual humor that fell flat.

  “De Beauharnais—Hackett—Verity Channing came to the capital largely because I offered her my escort and encouraged her to make the journey. I have introduced her to my brothers, and I am fond of her children. I consider her a friend. If you do not tell me what the hell has put you in this odd mood, I might have to beat it out of you.”

  The threat was actually a form of flattery. Oak engaged in fisticuffs with only his brothers, whom he loved dearly.

  “I might like that,” de Beauharnais said, pausing at the doorway. “I might enjoy that thrashing very much. All I can tell you, Dorning, is to watch your step with Richard Longacre and take Tolly with you to any commissions Longacre sets up for you. Welcome to London.”

  “So what did you do about the moony-eyed tutor?” Sycamore Dorning asked.

  Vera had sent the children up to their rooms with the maid-of-all-work, a cheerful soul who introduced herself as Sissy Banks. Ash Dorning had made his farewells, claiming a need to stretch his legs after hours in the coach.

  Sycamore was ostensibly showing Vera about the premises, though any fool could see the town house was lovely and commodious.

  “I informed Mr. Forester that I’d decided to take a holiday of indefinite duration and could not in good conscience ask him to wait for our return.” Oak’s plan had worked wonderfully, obviating the need for harsh words and harsher judgments. Vera’s character reference for Jeremy Forester had noted his punctuality and self-confidence, which any mama ought to read as faint praise indeed.

  Miss Diggory’s character had merited slightly warmer words, but only slightly.

  “That sounds like something Oak might have cooked up,” Sycamore said, peering at the spines of bound volumes on the library shelves. “Polite, not quite dishonest, expedient.”

  Vera missed Oak already, which boded ill for her return to Merlin Hall. She wanted to sit down with a strong cup of tea and a few biscuits, put her feet up on a pillow, and stare at nothing for a good twenty minutes. She was back in London, in part because Oak was here, but not entirely.

  “Have you something in particular you wish to say to me, Mr. Dorning?” For he did seem to be lingering beyond the requirements of a polite host.

  “Forthright,” he said, turning his back on the books. “I like that, and I will take the liberty of returning the compliment. My brothers and I were raised in Dorset.”

  Oh no, not this speech, not here, not now. Not ever. “And in Dorset,” Vera said, stalking off across the Axminster carpet, “young men are safe from the wiles of scheming widows. Alas, not so in Hampshire, where an unsuspecting fellow can be set upon by the likes of me, who was so underhanded and devious that I waved actual paintings at your virginal artist brother. Is that what you were about to say?”

  Finely arched brows drew down. “I doubt Oak is a virgin. The quiet ones generally get away with the most mischief, I always say.”

  “I like your brother, Mr. Dorning. I like him, I respect him, and I owe him more than mere wages for the work he did. I don’t know what rumors you’ve heard, but I would never attempt to manipulate or take advantage of—”

  Mr. Dorning was holding up a hand. “This conversation has gone off in quite the wrong direction. It might surprise you to learn that in Dorset, we have our share of merry widows, merry wives, and merry maids. We have merry lads, too, come to that, and probably a few merry sheep, but I digress. My brothers are comely fellows with plenty of charm and good manners. I tell you in all modesty that the Dornings are well liked. We don’t put on airs, and we do look after our tenants and neighbors.”

  Vera crossed her arms. “Do you look after one other?”

  “Ma’am?” Sycamore looked genuinely puzzled.

  “I’m sorry. My memories of London are unhappy, and I underestimated the effect on my mood of coming back here. I am tired and out of sorts.” And I miss Oak. “Please continue.”

  “I am the youngest brother,” Sycamore said, ambling along the bookshelves. “My station in life required that I keep track of my older siblings. They mistakenly referred to that as spying on them, but no matter. I have a forgiving nature; I overlook their error. In the course of my keeping track, I had reason to learn that every one of my older siblings had a sweetheart or two. I have a niece as a result of one of those forays into romance on the part of my oldest brother.”

  “Tabitha,” Vera said. “Oak misses her.”

  Sycamore came to a halt beside a statue of some winged goddess holding a wreath aloft. “He said that to you?”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “Because Oak doesn’t talk about such things. He goes off and sketches dragonflies. He does miniatures of Hawthorne’s children and shows our solemn little Greta how to draw flowers. He doesn’t maunder on about private matters.”

  Since when had missing a loved one become a private matter? “He admitted to missing you, Mr. Dorning, and to being lonely. I don’t think telling you that violates a confidence.”

  Sycamore peered at the head of his mahogany walking stick—a unicorn. “You make my point for me,” he said. “My brothers all had their youthful romances. Some of them had several youthful romances at once, but not Oak. He was in love with his art, with light and water and colors and all manner of whatnot. When Ash took a fancy to the vicar’s daughter, Oak drew him a little sketch of her. When Hawthorne became infatuated with both of the Dunsworth twins at once… I digress yet again. Oak does not become smitten, but he is smitten with you.”

  “That is not my fault.” And I am smitten with him too.

  Sycamore propped his walking stick against his shoulder. “Mrs. Channing, you insist on seeing accusation where I intend only deepest respect. Oak does not fall in love with mere mortal women, and yet, he has fallen for you. He is head over ears for you, ergo, you must be a woman of immense character and heart.”

  Vera sank onto the sofa before the fireplace. “I believe you mean to compliment me, though your flattery doubtless presages a warning.”

  Sycamore took the place beside her without being invited. It was his house and his sofa, true enough, and yet, Vera suspected he was presuming by nature. Perhaps he’d had to be.

  “You wish for me to convey a warning? Very well, for I am nothing if not agreeable in all things and womanhood’s most humble servant. Oak has not been in love before. He will without doubt make a hash of the whole undertaking. He will no more acquit himself sensibly in this regard than I could paint a recognizable portrait of my own foot, though I assure you I am possessed of two handsome feet.”

  Vera began to like Oak’s brother, in the manner one could like an enthusiastic puppy or nosy neighbor. “You are keeping track of something that is none of your business, Mr. Dorning.”

  “Oak would do the same for me, if he ever stopped painting long enough to recall who I am. The point of my overture is to assure you that you have
an ally in me. My resources are substantial, and if you should ever have need of a friend, please consider including me on that honored list.”

  He looked both earnest and embarrassed to make that offer. “You are very like Oak, Mr. Dorning. You don’t strut about declaiming heroic poetry, but you are a good man.”

  “Then you take my point? About Oak having little experience in matters of the heart? He won’t mean to miss the mark, but we all do.”

  “And is your experience so vast in matters of the heart, Mr. Dorning?”

  He rose and tugged the bell-pull. “I’ve learned from my brothers’ examples, and I learn from watching my customers at The Coventry Club. The capacity of the human heart for foolishness is unbounded. You are far from home, and my brothers are all handsome dunderheads. I mitigate damage as best I can.”

  He extended a hand to Vera as she got to her feet. “You are very sweet, Mr. Dorning, but after a spot of sightseeing and maybe some shopping, I will return to Merlin Hall, and Oak will bide here in London. Your fears are for naught, though I appreciate very much your good intentions.”

  He kept hold of her hand. “It’s Oak you should appreciate. He has five other brothers just like me, only worse. Our two sisters are as formidable as the lot of us brothers put together, and we’ve collected a few in-laws to round out our forces. If you are Oak’s friend, then we are at your service, Mrs. Channing.”

  He bowed over her hand, then—the handsome bounder!—kissed her cheek. “Oak can’t take his damned art to bed at night, can’t kiss it good morning, can’t enjoy an ice with it, or canoodle with his art on a rainy morning. I’ve always thought Oak dedicated, I never considered him a fool. You are proof that my faith in him has been justified.”

  He withdrew, swinging his walking stick and whistling.

  The maid appeared with a tea tray as soon as Mr. Dorning had departed. Vera fixed herself a cup, put her feet up on a hassock, and stared off at nothing for a good twenty minutes.

  And all the while, she missed Oak.

  “I might have to revise my assessment of London,” Vera said, leading Oak up the steps of her temporary home. “The children are having a wonderful time.”