The Painter Read online

  Was this how it had been for Lady Juliana Dulnain? Betrothed to the earl, but then falling in love with her architect… and she had chosen love over her position in society. Could Felicia do that? If the earl spoke words of love to her and begged her, would she become his mistress? Would that be enough for her? In all truth, she could not say. All she knew was that she must leave Hawkewood Hall as soon as she could, for her own peace of mind. Once away from Lord Finlassan, she could recover her equanimity.

  ~~~~~

  MAY

  Juliana and Margarita now had a very densely-packed rota of lessons. A steady succession of tutors arrived each day in gigs and dog-carts and, in one case, an extremely stylish curricle, whisking the girls away to dance or play or conjugate irregular verbs, as required. Juliana thrived under such a regime, but her sister blossomed only with a pencil or paintbrush in her hand, or on the now much-curtailed walks around the garden. Even these walks were less interesting to her than at Itchen, for the Hawkewood gardens were cosseted and pampered and trimmed to the point that not a single stray leaf or flower petal disturbed the purity of the velvety lawns and smooth flowerbeds. The shrubs were shaped to perfect balls or tapered towers, and the flowers grew in regimented squares like a chess board. There was little there of the wildness that fired Margarita’s artistic imagination.

  With so little call for her services as governess, Felicia began to fear that her new freedom would give her too much opportunity to brood about a certain lord with vivid blue eyes. She seldom saw him, but one day he burst into the schoolroom.

  “Hmpf. There you are,” he said, glowering at Felicia, as if she had been hiding from him. “I have been thinking about Juliana’s paintings, and how they might be got here. Is there anyone you would trust to pack them up and arrange for transportation?”

  “There is a frame maker in Southampton who is accustomed to packing and moving valuable art. You wish everything to be brought here? Then perhaps Mr Pierce, Mr Kearney’s attorney, would make the arrangements. He has the care of the paintings now. Shall I give you his direction so that you may write to him?”

  He hesitated. “Such letters are tedious to write.”

  “Then may I compose the letter for you?” she said, trying not to laugh at his discomfiture. “You need only sign it.”

  “Hmpf. That might be acceptable.”

  It took her no more than half an hour to compose the letter, and three days to find the earl in a suitable frame of mind to sign it. He was either in his studio and not to be disturbed, Bagnall informed her, or he was sleeping and not to be disturbed, or he had gone out for a walk and could not be found at all. But one evening Bagnall fetched her from the schoolroom, where she was taking supper with the children.

  The earl was in his own quarters, eating his dinner from a tray, a book propped open in front of him. In a corner, Matthews, his valet, waited silently.

  “Bagnall tells me I must sign this wretched letter of yours, Miss Oakes,” he said with a rueful smile.

  “It is your letter, my lord.”

  “Very well. Matthews, bring the writing box over here and fix me a pen.”

  It took some minutes for the pen to be made to his satisfaction, but then the letter was signed with a flourish, sanded and handed back to her.

  “Are you not going to read it?”

  “I trust you, Miss Oakes. Now go away, all of you. I want some peace and quiet.”

  “It needs to be sealed,” Felicia said, without moving.

  “Good Lord, girl, you can seal it yourself, surely? Use a wafer or some such.”

  “It is an official letter conducting business in your name, my lord. It needs to be sealed with your own seal.”

  “The devil it does! I have no idea where my seal is. In the library, I daresay.” With a melodramatic sigh, he rose from the table. “I can see there is to be no peace at all until this is done. Come, then, Miss Oakes. To the library!”

  It took the four of them, Felicia, the earl, Bagnall and Matthews, the best part of an hour to rifle through every drawer and cupboard in the room, before Bagnall uttered a triumphant cry. Then there was sealing wax to be found and melted, but at last it was done. The earl scrawled ‘Finlassan’ and his address across the back, sanded it and handed her the letter.

  “It says who it is from inside,” she said. “Do you need to write your name on the outside as well? I have never done so.”

  His eyes registered something that could only be amusement, although he did not smile. “I have franked it, Miss Oakes. A letter franked by a peer or a Member of Parliament is conveyed free of charge.”

  “Oh. Thank you, my lord.” Her eyes strayed to the box of letters in the middle of the room, so full now that a few missives had spilt over the edge onto the mosaic floor.

  “Your gaze reproaches me, Miss Oakes,” he said, but there was amusement in his voice. “I choose neither to read nor to write letters, and Uncle Giles is too busy with his own affairs to attend to mine, seemingly.”

  “Should you like me to look through them?” she said. “I could at least sort them into categories for Mr Warborough to examine. I daresay many of them are invitations to card parties last December or some such, and may safely be burned.”

  “It is an onerous task to inflict on one who already has many other duties.”

  “Now that your wards have so many other teachers, my days are long. It would please me to remove that eyesore from this room.”

  He gazed around, as if seeing the room for the first time. “You are quite right. It is an affront to the symmetry of the room. Bagnall, have the box removed to… let me see, is the billiard table still covered over?”

  “It is, my lord.”

  “Very well, take it to the billiard room. You will have plenty of space there, Miss Oakes.”

  Such interactions with the earl were survivable, she found, so long as he did not smile at her. She could cope admirably with his curtness, but his smile would be devastating.

  Meanwhile, Lady Drusilla had devised a scheme which also absorbed some of Felicia’s spare hours. Her ladyship had decided, in her brook-no-argument way, that the girls needed to be taught the care of an animal. Since the head groom at Hawkewood resolutely refused to allow them into the stables, she bestowed upon them a puppy from a recent litter at the rectory. The creature was at least trained to behave itself indoors, but it needed prodigious amounts of exercise each day, and as the girls’ hours were filled, it fell to Felicia’s lot to walk the pup each morning and afternoon.

  “His name is Hercules,” Lady Drusilla told them.

  “Hercules?” Felicia said, eyebrows lifting. “That is not a very dog-like name.”

  “But it is the one he answers to,” she said.

  There was one advantage to walking with a bundle of boundless energy, which was that she explored corners of the park not previously seen. Beyond the formal gardens and lawns and well-regulated shrubberies, she found interesting expanses of tussocky moorland, outcrops of rock, meandering natural streams and pools, and several acres of woodland. These were still peppered with neat paths and convenient seats, but felt somehow less regimented. It was pleasant to unleash the dog and allow him to race about as he wished, while Felicia followed sedately on the path.

  One day Hercules ran on ahead, tongue lolling and ears flapping, and then, perhaps detecting an intriguing scent, shot off at an angle from the path into dense woodland.

  “Hercules! Come back!” Felicia called futilely, for despite Lady Drusilla’s assertion, the pup never responded to his name.

  He disappeared, only a loud rustling in the undergrowth suggesting his route. With a sigh, Felicia plunged after him, glad that she was not wearing one of her stylish new gowns, as she picked her way through brambles and skirted a boggy patch. She soon came upon a narrow path, perhaps a deer track, and a flash of Hercules’ rump in the distance told her that he had turned onto it. She followed, catching glimpses of her quarry far ahead, and hearing his excited yaps oc
casionally.

  After some time, the trees opened out and there ahead of her was a high wall, built of the natural stone of the area, all shapes and sizes piled expertly together to make a boundary. Beyond the wall were more trees, and one of them had fallen directly onto the wall, causing it to collapse at that point. Hercules was sniffing enthusiastically around the heap of stones.

  “Hercules, come here now, boy,” Felicia said, producing the leather leash. “Time to return to the house.”

  The dog turned mournful eyes on her, tail wagging. Then, with one great leap, he was atop the pile of stones and over into the trees beyond, vanishing from sight.

  “Oh, Hercules, you fiend!” Felicia muttered.

  But there was no help for it. Holding up her skirts in one hand, she clambered gingerly onto the hill of stones, up and over, and into the mysterious grounds beyond.

  6: Shotterbourne

  Felicia had no trouble following Hercules, for he crashed about in the trees like a herd of swine. The same deer track reappeared on this side of the wall, so she kept to its easier passage until, quite abruptly, the trees ended and she emerged into the open.

  She knew at once where she was, for the rank, waist-high grass and wildly overgrown shrubs dotted here and there told her that it must be Shotterbourne, the adjoining estate, and home to the reclusive Marquess of Arnwell. The deer track led on up a rise, and Hercules’ eagerly waving tail led the way. She followed, and since the dog darted here and there as interesting odours attracted him, she made as good progress as he did.

  Cresting the rise, the land opened out and there below her was the house, or rather, mansion. It was larger even than Hawkewood Hall, a block of golden stone with neatly pointed roofs and a pillared entrance — a portico, she now knew — with four matching wings, one at each corner. It had an austere beauty, the embodiment of perfect symmetry, except for one thing — one of the wings was a burnt-out shell, only four blackened walls remaining. The village women had mentioned a fire which had claimed the marquess’s entire family, and seeing the devastation it had wrought, she could well believe it. If they had all been in that one wing, perhaps fast asleep in their beds, when the fire had taken hold… She shivered. Even their great wealth and noble rank had not saved them. Everyone was equally vulnerable to disaster — fire or accident or illness, or the sinking of the ship which had taken Mr Kearney’s life. So much tragedy. For the marquess, it seemed there was no comfort left in the world, but for Juliana and Margarita perhaps there was the chance of a better life under Lord Finlassan’s patronage than in Southampton.

  Hercules was out of sight, but she heard him barking not far ahead. He rarely barked except at other humans or when chasing the stable cats, and she hurried on in case he was getting into mischief. Around some high bushes was a pillared marble pavilion adorned with statuary, and for an instant she was confused, mistaking it for the temple on the hill at Hawkewood. But then she saw her error, for although this one was similar, it was smaller and rather more elegant, with the same simplicity that characterised the house below.

  She could not see Hercules, but as she drew near enough to see inside the pavilion, she realised he was inside, sitting wagging his tail furiously at the feet of an elderly man who was stroking him.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” she said rushing up. “He ran away from me, but if I might fasten a leash around his neck, I will take him away and disturb your solitude no longer.”

  “That would be a pity,” he said. “He is a friendly fellow, and I have not seen a dog since my last pointer died. Will you not sit with me awhile, since he seems to enjoy my company as much as I enjoy his?”

  “You are very kind to say so,” she said. She had no hesitation in sitting down beside him on the cushioned marble bench, for he seemed not at all grand or hostile. His clothes were of good quality, although sadly out of date, but unlike so many men of his age he wore no wig, for he had a full head of white hair. She gazed out with interest from the pavilion, which had been sited to give a fine prospect over the house and what might once have been pleasure grounds, but were now as wild and weed-infested as the rest of the estate.

  “What is his name?” the man said, rubbing the dog’s ears so that he closed his eyes in bliss.

  “Hercules.”

  He laughed, and it was pleasant amidst so much decay to hear merriment. “A strange name for a dog!”

  “So I thought, too! But all the rectory dogs have such names — Vulcan and Apollo and Flora and Neptune.”

  “Do they, now. How curious. Roman gods.”

  “Are they? I did not know. Forgive me, sir, but I am not sure to whom I am speaking.”

  With a smile, he said, “Who do you think I am?”

  She thought, if she were applying the rules of common sense, that he might well be the marquess himself, but the village women had said he had gone mad with grief, and this man seemed perfectly sane to Felicia. Besides, he was not at all high in the instep, and it would be embarrassing to call him ‘my lord’ and then discover he was merely a very grand butler or steward. But her sense of mischief bubbled up in response to such an inviting question.

  “Why, I do believe you are an Italian count, driven from your home by the machinations of your jealous younger brother. Here in the heart of Derbyshire you may hide incognito until the time is right for you to return to your native land to claim your rightful heritage.”

  He laughed out loud, and said, “Very well, then. Let me be il Conte di Niente. And how, pray, am I to claim my heritage?”

  “You will challenge him to a duel, naturally, and because he is cowardly he will run away rather than face you.”

  “No,” he said thoughtfully. “I will force him to face me and then I will kill him, in vengeance for all that he has taken from me.”

  There was something intense in his tone and she knew not how to answer him. But almost at once he went on in a lighter manner, “But what of you? You are more than a walker of dogs, I think. Do you have a secret identity, too?”

  “Of course! I am… a princess, the secret heir to the throne of… oh, a small principality in Europe, which I am not at liberty to disclose to you…”

  “Aha! You are the Prinzessin von Nichts.”

  “I am! Whatever that means. And my country has been at war with its wicked neighbours, who wish to annex it and take control of our great wealth, and so I have been sent away to safety in England, where I masquerade as a humble governess.”

  “Until you can be married to a great lord who will bring his army to crush your enemies in revenge for all your suffering,” he said, with satisfaction.

  “Vengeance again?” she said hesitantly, wondering if perhaps he was indeed mad.

  “‘Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, Blood and revenge are hammering in my head’,” he said, his voice resonating in a way that sent shivers down her spine. “Shakespeare covers all eventualities, and I am patient.” Then, with a sigh, he added, “But I daresay if one achieves it in the end, it is less sweet than imagination makes it.”

  He fell into silence, and Felicia could find no words to lighten the darkness that lay in the air between them. What could anyone say to a man who talked so calmly of waiting to claim his revenge? She no longer doubted that he was the marquess, and in a man who had lost his entire family to fire, perhaps such thoughts were understandable. Not excusable, for whatever evils had been inflicted on him, no man should take it upon himself to mete out punishment purely for revenge. Even so, she could acknowledge the grief that prompted them, and appreciate to some degree why he no longer cared about his estate. That was a kind of madness, certainly.

  Such a horror, to be swept up in a tragedy of that magnitude. What must it be like to have your family around you, and then to lose them all at once? But she had never had a family of her own, nor lived with one, and her imagination could not encompass it. A father and mother and their children, grumbling sometimes, squabbling occasionally, but loving and being loved in return
— what must that be like? She had known only Miss Armiger’s sternness, and the kindly but distant care of the Miss Latimers. Since then, she had been a paid employee, observing the families, living amongst them but as an outsider. Families were a mystery to her.

  But when the dog whined, she was brought back from her musings. “I must get back,” she said, in alarm. “I shall be missed.” Quickly she tied the leash around Hercules’ neck.

  She rose, and the man rose too, bowing to her with the greatest civility. It was only then, when she faced him directly, that she saw the other side of his face and the terrible destruction there. Nor was it just his face, for his arm on that side hung limply, the hand closely covered by a glove.

  “Oh, whatever happened to you?” she cried out before she could stop herself.

  “I was burned in a fire,” he said, his tone bleak.

  “The fire that killed your family,” she said, and he nodded.

  “They tell me I was the fortunate one — I survived.” He could not hide the bitterness in his voice. “But let me tell you, there is nothing of good fortune in my life, not any longer.”

  Felicia’s heart was wrung by the pain in his face. “But there could be,” she said quietly. “Even if you have no family left to you, you might still be of value to society — to your tenants and neighbours, and to your country. You have a seat in the House of Lords, after all, and could do some good in the world.”

  “Ah, you have some romantic notion of nobility, I dare say.”

  “No, only of the resilience of the human spirit. You are not the first man to be plunged into tragedy, my lord, nor will you be the last. I have no family, either, but I do not allow that to drag me down into misery. There is so much of good in the world, of happiness and joyfulness, of friendship and good company… and of beauty! You have all of this…” She waved a hand over the wildness of the gardens and the house, still majestic despite the ruination of one wing. “…and it could be made wondrous again. The house could be made good, and the gardens restored to order, and would you not feel better if it were so?”