She gave a tired chuckle and looked from their daughter, to their son, and then at him, her dark eyes glowing with love. “They are perfect, Stacy.”
Stacy looked at the woman who’d brought so much light and joy into his colorless life and nodded.
“Yes, my dear, they are perfect. And they will grow up together and know the love of their parents, family, and each other.”
Thanks so much for reading THE MUSIC OF LOVE!
If you enjoyed reading about Stacy and Portia’s world you can meet more of their friends in THE ACADEMY OF LOVE series, which features seven out-of-work Regency schoolteachers who are about to get some serious lessons in love!
Here’s an exclusive excerpt from
A FIGURE OF LOVE
BOOK 2 in
THE ACADEMY OF LOVE SERIES….
Chapter One
Kent
1817
Gareth Lockheart looked down at the snuffling brown and white balls of fur in some perplexity. “Do I really need so many?” he asked the Honorable Sandford Featherstone.
The puppies stirred and whimpered at the sound of his voice and the mother dog—or bitch, Gareth supposed she was called—gave him a look of reproach for waking her sleeping brood. Or flock. Or whatever one called a herd of puppies; puppies with a finer pedigree than Gareth Lockheart could claim.
Featherstone’s head bobbed up and down with an enthusiasm Gareth found exhausting. “Oh yes, this many and more if you are to hunt.”
Ah, hunting. He’d forgotten all about the supposed need for hunting. Gareth frowned at the prospect but didn’t bother arguing with the fussy, fine-boned aristocrat. After all, this was exactly the type of information he was paying Featherstone for: how to behave like a nob; how to build and furnish a house that looked as if toffs had been living in it for centuries.
Gareth had to pause for a moment in order to remind himself why he was doing this.
Ah yes, he recalled now: He was enduring all this upheaval and irritating discussion and excessive expenditure because his business partner—Declan McElroy—claimed they needed to present a civilized front if they were ever to gain credibility with the aristocracy and Gareth was more likely to be successful in such a venture. Gareth supposed the man had a point, although why he should trust Declan’s judgement on anything English was beyond him. After all, Declan despised the English and took great joy in acting more Irish than Irish, even though he’d never stepped foot on the Emerald Isle.
“And about those hunters, Mr. Lockheart.”
Gareth looked up from the sleeping puppies at the sound of Featherstone’s voice; a grating voice with its clipped consonants and condescending cadence. The smaller man was watching him closely; his expression one of concern mingled with . . . something.
While Gareth might not be good at reading people he knew what aristocrats saw when they looked at him: an upstart cit with more money and influence than such a mongrel deserved. He found such an attitude neither offensive nor amusing; just irrelevant.
The truth was that the thick walls of the aristocracy had been breached by wealthy merchant princes like Gareth; the power of the peerage was leaking through that breach like water draining from a ship’s scuppers.
But the change was happening slowly and England’s ancient, landed families still wielded influence in government that was disproportionate to their numbers or wealth.
The resulting equation was simple: aristocrats needed men like Gareth as much as he needed them.
Featherstone shifted from foot to foot under Gareth’s silent regard. “My cousin has a very well-respected stud farm in Yorkshire and—” words poured out of his mouth and filled the close air of the stables like a cloud of gnats. Words, words, and more words.
Gareth began to get the flying-apart feeling that invaded him whenever he was too long in Featherstone’s company—or in the company of anyone who wasted his time with trivial matters that had already been discussed.
Controlling the unpleasant sensation required mental gymnastics and a great deal of effort on his part.
First, Gareth directed his attention away from his current situation. Next, he focused on the Goldbach Conjecture, an open mathematical problem dating from 1742, as yet unsolved. Pondering such a conundrum never failed to calm him.
Every even integer greater than two is the sum of two primes—
“Mr. Lockheart?”
Gareth forced his eyes to refocus on Featherstone’s narrow, anxious face and recall what he’d been babbling about. Horses. He’d been talking about horses.
Gareth frowned. “I’ve already told you to purchase whatever stock you think fitting, Featherstone. I have entrusted you with such decisions so that I will not be taxed by them.” And yet you are taxing me with them, he wanted to add, but didn’t.
Instead, he pivoted on the heel of his boot and strode toward the exit. He’d hoped the other man might stay behind, but he could hear his footsteps struggling to keep up.
“But Mr. Lockheart, you don’t even want to talk about your own hunters—”
“No.” The sound of their footfalls echoed through the vast and, as yet, unoccupied stables like the sharp reports of a pistol. Gareth deliberately changed the subject. “When does Hiram Beech arrive?”
“Mr. Beech will be here late in the afternoon.”
Gareth bit back the irritation he felt whenever he thought of Beech. He’d wanted Amon Henry Wilds to design Rushton Park but the famous architect refused to take a commission so far from his beloved Brighton. Gareth had not been able to lure him away even by offering triple his usual fee. A man without a price was singular in Gareth’s experience and he discovered he did not like it.
Instead of Wilds he’d chosen Beech, who was highly recommended as an architect known to favor the Indo-Saracenic style; a style which Gareth had been told was all the rage. He could not care less what style the country house was built in—he only wanted it to be built by the best. Otherwise, what was the point of all this?
To be honest, Garth had lost interest in the sprawling pile of bricks after the construction phase ended. He had no aptitude for design, décor, or furnishings and had only enjoyed the engineering aspects of the project.
Oh, he was pleased enough with the house, he supposed. Not that he spent much time in it. He’d hoped all the fuss and mess would be over last spring, when the structure had been completed. But now he’d been told he needed some sort of pleasure garden or ancient ruin or other such nonsense. It seemed Beech was the man to arrange the design and building of such things as he already knew the property, and to Gareth, employing him sounded like the least painful and time-consuming option.
They reached the steps to the front entrance—twenty of them, made of the finest breccia marble quarried and transported from the Continent, now that the War was over—and Gareth stopped and turned to Featherstone, eager to be shed of him.
“I have a great deal of work to do and will be in the library, I trust you will handle whatever arrangements need to be made for Beech.” Even to Gareth’s untutored ears his words sounded abrupt and uncivil. “I will leave you to your business,” he added to soften the rude directive.
Featherstone nodded, his hands moving in the compulsive washing gesture Gareth found distasteful and annoying. The man was an unpleasant combination of condescending and unctuous, but Beech had recommended him. “Mr. Beech will be bringing—”
Gareth held up a hand. “Yes, you’ve already said. He will be bringing a stone-worker or sculptor or gardener or what-have-you. I will speak with both or all of them before we dine this evening.” Gareth tossed the words over his shoulder, impatient to get back to work.
He strode through the great hall and then turned right to pass through the portrait-less portrait gallery on his way to the residential wing of the house. He spent most of his time at Rushton Park in the library, which was composed of three massive rooms linked together. The size seemed excessive to Gareth but the design apparently aped an an
cient library from some place Gareth had never heard of. All he’d requested of Beech was that it be well-lighted and commodious enough to contain a desk, his journal collection, and a comfortable chair. And all Gareth had required of Featherstone when the man began stuffing the house with furniture and other frippery was that the library remain free of distracting clutter.
Two footmen stood at attention outside the double doors, waiting for nothing other than his arrival. Gareth ignored the unease he felt at such excess; after all, this was what he’d wanted, a country home that was as gratuitously sized and overstaffed as one of the royal dukes’ residences. Actually, Gareth had more servants and a larger house.
Since coming down from London two days ago he’d had his correspondence delivered twice daily by couriers. The pile of letters was easily three inches tall. There would be reports from all his businesses, but most of the stack would be about the new pottery he was building in London, his most ambitious project thus far.
Gareth was only half-way through the pile when the sound of somebody clearing their throat made him look up. His butler, Jessup, stood in the doorway.
“I asked not to be disturbed.”
The towering, bone-thin man gave a slight nod, but his expression remained as fixed as a totemic carving. He was, Gareth knew, utterly unflappable. Gareth had poached him from the Duke of Remington’s household, where Jessup’s family had been employed as butlers for two hundred years. Remington could not compete with the pay Gareth offered.
“You have a visitor, Mr. Lockheart, Mrs. Serena Lombard.”
Gareth shook his head. “I am not acquainted with, nor am I expecting any such person.”
“She is here at the behest of Mr. Beech, sir, about the gardens.”
“Ah, I see.” Although he did not. He cleared his throat. “You say Beech has engaged a woman gardener?”
“Yes, sir. Mrs. Lombard is a woman. And a gardener,” Jessup agreed.
Sometimes—just occasionally—Gareth wondered if his butler made mock of him. He shrugged the thought away. What did he know of gardeners? For all he knew, they might all be females. Well, whoever she was and whatever she did, Gareth would find out at the appropriate time. He cut Jessup an impatient look. “Have Featherstone see to her, Jessup.”
“Mr. Featherstone has gone to the village, sir.”
Gareth stared at the man.
Jessup nodded, just as if he’d spoken. “I shall put her in the sitting room and offer her tea.”
“Yes, very good. Put her in a room with tea.” Lord knew there were enough rooms in the house—seventy-three—certainly one of them would be appropriate for accommodating unexpected female visitors.
Gareth’s eyes and attention drifted back to the neat column of figures in front of him.
“Very good, sir.”
He barely heard the butler, his mind already back on his numbers, the woman forgotten.
Serena eyed the generously loaded tea tray with approval and helped herself to three different types of biscuits and the loveliest fairy cake she’d ever seen. Such delicacies were rare these days. Even when she paid a visit to the home of her dead husband’s parents, the Duke and Duchess of Remington, the offerings were rather thin; the powerful duke had suffered since the War ended, forced to retrench at his six houses.
Serena examined the huge sitting room—the gaudiest specimen she’d ever sat in—and enjoyed her delicacies. The butler returned after she’d been alone for about a quarter of an hour.
“Do you have everything you need, Mrs. Lombard?” The hesitation before her name was almost imperceptible, but she noticed it all the same.
Serena cocked her head and smiled up at him. “What? Are we no longer friends, Jessup? How are you? I have not been to Keeting yet this year, but I was there at Christmas. His Grace speaks fondly of you, you know.” Keeting Hall was the country seat of the Duke of Remington.
The slightest dusting of color appeared on the butler’s high, sharp cheekbones. “And I often think of His and Her Graces as well as the rest of the family.” He looked as if he wished to say something else, but hesitated.
“His Grace does not blame you for leaving, Jessup,” she said.
Well, that was a bit of a fib. Her in-laws had been devastated by their family retainer’s desertion. But Mr. Lockheart—a man reputed to be among the ten richest in Britain—had offered a wage too high for Robert Jessup to resist.
Jessup’s lips flexed in what passed for a smile. “You are very kind, madam.”
“So, how do you find it here?” Serena glanced around the cavernous room, which evoked a seraglio with its bold fuchsia, gold, and green color scheme, opulent silk and velvet window coverings, and Egyptian-style furniture.
“I find my position suits me admirably, Mrs. Lombard.”
Again she heard the hesitation before her name. She knew that Jessup, like her dead husband’s family, were unhappy that she refused to use her honorific. Serena allowed them all to believe her resistance to aristocratic titles was because of her French Republican upbringing, rather than the truth; a truth they could never know.
She realized the butler was waiting for her answer. “I’m pleased to hear you are happy here, Jessup.” And she was. It was too bad he’d needed to leave his home of many years, but—as she knew all too well—everyone deserved a chance at a better life.
Serena returned her cup and saucer to the massive tea tray. “Mr. Beech has asked me to work with him on the new gardens for Rushton Park.” Jessup knew what Serena did for a living. He’d worked for the Lombard family when she had first arrived in England almost ten years ago. He’d been there when Serena—after living her first year under the care of the duke and duchess, who were very kind to their youngest son’s foreign widow—had scandalized her new relations by moving to London to take up a position teaching art and sculpture at a girls’ school.
Once again, her husband’s family blamed her mad French blood—but, thankfully, hadn’t tried to stop her—for taking her infant son from the comfort of Keeting Hall and moving them both to a town house with two other women teachers. It had been a difficult decision, but she did not regret it.
“If you will permit me to say so, madam, I have seen your work, and it is quite lovely.”
The Jessup of old would never have offered an unsolicited opinion. Perhaps working in a Whig household had given him a more egalitarian outlook.
“Thank you, Jessup.” She stood and smoothed down the skirt of her dark green traveling costume. “I’m refreshed and eager to see Rushton Park. Would it be possible to take a stroll around the grounds?”
“Of course, madam.”
Serena opened the flap of the large leather satchel she was rarely without and took out her sketchpad.
She smiled up at him. “I’m ready.”
As he moved to open the door for her, Serena studied his familiar narrow form and black-clad shoulders and decided she was more pleased than she would have expected to find an old family ally and retainer. Of course she’d known Jessup worked for the reclusive Gareth Lockheart, but the man kept houses in London, Edinburgh, and Bristol. If she’d given the matter more than a passing thought, she would have assumed Lockheart kept the unparalleled butler in his London house, where it was rumored he spent most of his time.
Jessup escorted her down a staircase wide enough to accommodate seven soldiers marching abreast and paused on the ground floor.
“Shall I take you out through the orangery, madam?”
“Yes, please. I didn’t see it from the drive, but I’ve seen it on Beech’s drawings.”
The house resembled an Elizabethan “E” but with many modifications—some rather. . . unconventional.
“How long have you been here, Jessup?”
“I came down with Mr. Lockheart two days ago, madam. I have been at his London house but accompanied him here to see to some unfinished household matters.”
Serena had never seen a house quite like it. It was a corps de logis, compr
ised of a central block with two wings that were three stories and curved to form a three-sided courtyard—or cour d’honneur—on each side of the central block.
Either Lockheart or Beech must have been very fond of onion domes, as there were no fewer than five of them. The blinding white façade was festooned with multitudinous cusped arches, minaret-shaped finials, and vacant plinths waiting for statuary. The mishmash of Orientalism and Indo-Saracenic styles was so like the Royal Pavilion that she kept thinking she must have taken a wrong turn and ended up in Brighton.
The interior lacked the chinoiserie so far as she had seen. Indeed, the décor was far less definite than the exterior and felt like the rather halfhearted result of a committee.
The hall flooded with light and ahead was a wall of leaded glass.
“My, how lovely,” Serena said as Jessup opened one of the massive double doors to the empty conservatory, which was without even a stick, plant, leaf, or crumb of dirt. “When was this finished?” She turned in a circle, gazing overhead at the spectacular glass walls and canopy.
“Last spring, ma’am.”
Serena couldn’t help thinking of the orangery at Keeting Hall, which was perhaps a quarter of this size and so choked with plants it had felt like a jungle. It might be old and crowded, its glass hazed and cracked, but it was alive. Which was more than she could say for this empty glass box. Beech had not mentioned the orangery, but Serena couldn’t help feeling a frisson of excitement as she imagined filling such a beautiful space with living things.
Jessup opened one of the French doors and they stepped out into the cool spring sunshine. She turned to him. “I will walk the immediate area until Mr. Beech arrives.”
The butler’s eyebrows arched.
“What is it, Jessup?”
“Mr. Beech is not expected until late afternoon, ma’am.”
Serena frowned. “He told me it was to be a midday meeting. I have engaged the post chaise to return for me at four.”
The Music of Love Page 33
