Chapter Four
As she’d planned with Mrs. Grant, Serena was driven the short distance into Blackhaven in the carriage the following day, accompanied by Miss Grey and Alice, who needed a new bonnet.
In the end, she’d said nothing to the rest of the household about the strange barrels, although she did tell Paton she’d glimpsed strangers in the grounds and that he should personally make sure the house was secure at night. She wasn’t sure he took her terribly seriously, she didn’t know what else she could do at this point. She comforted herself with the fact that no one else had been threatened. Her own experience would never have happened if she hadn’t pursued the villain.
So, she let her mind dwell on more frivolous matters, like the Assembly ball, and the possibility of seeing, even encountering, the artist in town. She wished she knew his name. At least, since this was her first visit to Blackhaven since the spring, she had an excuse for gazing out of the window at everything and everyone and darting about the carriage for better views. But she didn’t catch so much as a glimpse of his distinctive figure in the high street. He was probably in hiding from the bailiff.
The carriage dropped her at the vicarage and waited until she was admitted. She waved at Alice and Miss Grey and entered the domain of the lady once known as Wicked Kate.
In fact, Kate herself came bustling out of the kitchen at once and took her up to the bedchamber that would be hers for the night and duly admired the gold embroidered white ballgown she would wear for the evening.
“Let’s have tea,” Kate suggested, “and then we’ll go and beard Tristram in the church. His christenings should be over by then.”
“The house looks so different,” Serena blurted. “So much brighter and yet more…comfortable.”
“I like to think I have made it my own.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Kate why she had made such a peculiar and unfashionable marriage, but fortunately she managed to bite her tongue. And when they duly walked along the path to the church and met Mr. Grant, her question was answered.
He wasn’t just the most handsome vicar she’d ever met, but would stand out as a handsome and distinguished man in any company. His manners were easy and friendly as he greeted her, not remotely obsequious or superior, and his few words exchanged with Kate were humorous. And Kate adored him. Not that she fawned upon him, but it stood out clearly in her eyes when she looked at him.
Serena was stunned.
Of course, she had encountered people content in their marriages before. Her sister Frances for one, and Gillie Muir for another. But they had both made advantageous, even brilliant matches. By the world’s standards, Kate Crowmore’s second marriage was beneath her. It served no duty to her family, brought her no wealth or position. And yet, she was happy.
It was a great deal of food for thought for Serena, who had gone so blithely into an engagement to the worthy man her family had approved over all her other suitors.
Emerging from the church, leaving Mr. Grant to go about his good works, the two ladies took a walk about the town until they came, inevitably, to the art gallery, where one could buy paintings of very mixed quality.
“Shall we go in?” Serena suggested. “I’m sure Gillie wrote to me that the paintings are much improved.”
“I would say so,” Kate agreed, pushing open the door. Inside, she was almost immediately besieged by two ladies quite unknown to Serena, who was thus deprived of her opportunity to ask the questions that might lead to the identity of her own artist. She couldn’t even tell which paintings in the gallery might be his since she didn’t know his name, and had never seen his style.
He might, she reminded herself as she examined each picture in turn, be a terrible painter. It might explain why he had so little money that the bailiffs were after him. Some of the paintings were certainly terrible. Kate, who was an accomplished water colorist, was much better than some of the artists who exhibited here. Serena turned impulsively to tell her so, since she sensed a presence beside her, only she found herself gazing at a gentleman instead.
Her breath caught, because just for a moment, she thought it was her artist. But this man was slightly shorter and better dressed, and when he glanced down from his scrutiny of a landscape, she saw that in fact he was nothing like him. His lips were too thin, his eyes too flat, although a gleam of admiration did begin to sparkle as he bowed politely.
“Excuse me,” she murmured, stepping around him.
In the end, it proved rather difficult to see all the pictures for both she and Kate both encountered old acquaintances who distracted them, and by the time they emerged from the gallery, Serena was no wiser about her artist. The only thing she knew for certain was that he hadn’t been there when she had.
Their next call was to the smart new French modiste, Madame Monique. Kate wished to have a fitting for a new morning gown she was having made. While Kate and Madame vanished into the back of the shop, Serena admired the beautiful gauze muslins and silks and the fine gowns already made up and on display. It was a dangerous place to stay very long when one didn’t wish to annoy one’s parent by spending excessive amounts of money on gowns.
Which I’ll never wear here in any case, she told herself. Certainly not while I’m confined to barracks. I already have a trunk full of gowns I shan’t wear for the foreseeable future.
Eventually, she called out to Kate that she was going to the hat shop to see if Alice was still there, and dragged herself away from Madame Monique’s creations. Not that the hat shop didn’t provide temptations of its own, but at least if Alice was there, she could concentrate on her and make sure she bought nothing unbecoming.
From habit, she glanced in the coffee house window as she passed—and her heart gave a sudden dive. For there was her artist at a table with several other men who formed a comfortable, laughing group. Slouching back against the wall, he had one leg resting on a spare chair from the next table. He looked a perfect picture of idle decadence. And Serena had never seen anyone so carelessly yet so utterly attractive.
Before she could drag her gaze free, he glanced round and saw her. The smile just dying on his sensual lips, he held her gaze for an instant. She managed to nod before hastening across the street to the hat shop. Ridiculously, her heart hammered.
There was no sign of Alice or Miss Grey in the shop. Nor were there any other customers, but Mrs. Drake, the proprietor, was as delighted to see her as ever.
“I have only just had the pleasure of serving dear Lady Alice,” she gushed. “Who chose exactly the right bonnet! I have to say I itched to find something for that nice Miss Grey, but I suppose she will not have the money or the time for such frivolities. Now, Lady Serena, are you looking for something in particular or would just like to look around for inspiration?”
A favorite game of Serena and Frances’s had been to give each other characters, and then find hats to suit them. Mrs. Drake had indulged them, and it seemed she remembered, for she was quite happy to collect a fine selection of hats and leave them with Serena behind the screen, where her most favored customers could try her wares before the glass in greater privacy.
From the back of the shop, a baby cried.
“My granddaughter,” Mrs. Drake said proudly. “I’m looking after her today while Harriet is in Carlisle. “You will forgive me if I…”
“Of course,” Serena said, “providing you let me see her before I go! I shall be quite happy for now.”
Removing her bonnet, Serena laid it on the chair and commenced randomly trying on hats—wide brimmed bonnets, frivolous little chip hats with gorgeous plumes, and mysteriously veiled confections with ornamental flowers.
In the back, the baby quieted for a few moments then set up a renewed bellowing. When the shop door opened and closed, Serena, tying a bonnet’s silk ribbons under her chin, doubted Mrs. Drake heard it. At least her soothing voice did begin to comfort the crying child, reducing her to an occasional hiccup. If Serena hadn’t known it would shock everyone, she would have offered to sit with the baby while Mrs. Drake served her new customer. Serena liked babies and was looking forward to being an aunt when Frances gave birth to her first child next month.
The footsteps in the shop paused. And abruptly, the artist’s face appeared behind Serena’s in the glass. Gasping, she tugged the bonnet ribbons tight in surprise and swung round to face him.
“What in the world are you doing in a ladies’ hat shop?” she demanded.
His eyebrows rose. “Looking for you. I saw you from the coffee house and by the time I came out to speak to you, you’d vanished in here.”
Clearly, he saw nothing odd or wrong in this. He truly was a free spirit, simply following his impulses. She should probably have been wary of the chaos he surely brought in his wake, but in fact, she found it curiously exciting.
“You’ve escaped,” he remarked.
She frowned, trying to think for both of them while she plucked nervously at the ribbons. “I have. And you need to, before Mrs. Drake gets back. She doesn’t like men in her shop, even husbands or fathers.”
Ignoring that, he took a step nearer.
She warded him off with one hand. “Seriously, sir, we cannot talk here…”
“Where, then? You’ve knotted the ribbon. Let me.”
To her astonishment, he raised both hands under her chin and began working on the knot. Her face and neck flamed under the light touch of his warm fingers. Although his attention was all given to his self-appointed task, and the brushing of his fingers against her skin was purely incidental, this did nothing to soothe her. No man had ever touched her so intimately before. She could smell the coffee on his breath, grew fascinated with the texture of his lips, which had already kissed hers. She felt oddly breathless and trembly. Most worrying of all, she had the insane urge to kiss him again.
In agitation, she caught at his wrist. “Stop, you mustn’t…!”
“It’s done.” He let the ribbons fall through his fingers. “It doesn’t suit you anyhow. Try this one.”
He picked up a jaunty little red chip hat with two beautiful feathers, one curling down the side. Before she could snatch it from him, he placed it on her head and smiled into her eyes. Ignoring the tumbling sensation in her stomach, she scowled and pointed toward the door.
He threw up his hands in surrender and, still grinning, sauntered off. Serena wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or relieved.
What just happened? She gazed at herself in the glass, somewhat numbly and began to smile.
He was right. The little red hat did suit her best.
Hastily, she snatched it off and crammed her own back on her head.
*
It had been a long time since Serena attended the local Assembly Room ball, and despite the far more glittering affairs she’d known in London, she looked forward to it with eagerness. Perhaps the fact that she was going against her mother and brother’s stated wishes had something to do with her sense of excitement. Or the fact that she went chaperoned by someone as young, beautiful, and fashionable as Mrs. Grant. But mostly, although she knew it was unlikely in the extreme, she hoped her artist would be there.
Although he spoke like a gentleman and was clearly well-educated, he hardly looked as if he moved in polite society. And his bailiff troubles did not suggest a man who could afford a subscription to the ball—or even a single voucher. Still, as she entered with the Grants, she couldn’t help looking around for his tall, dark figure. However, all the gentlemen she could see wore smart black coats and satin knee-breeches or well-fitting pantaloons. And they all had short, fashionable haircuts, not untidy mops. Clearly, this was not an event for a poor artist.
Still, the brief encounter in the hat shop, which can’t have taken as much as a minute, had both shaken and further intrigued her. She would have liked to dance with him, flirt with him, in the safety of a chaperoned ball.
Besides, she couldn’t help being curious as to what he’d wished to speak to her about. He must have discovered something about the smugglers.
But wishing for him would not bring him, and so, refusing to let his absence spoil her evening, she sat with the Grants and was delighted to renew her acquaintance with her old friend Catherine Winslow.
“I am finally to go to London for a season next year,” Catherine confided. “Which frightens me half to death. I’m sure you’ll be my only friend!”
“Actually, I doubt I’ll be there,” Serena said ruefully. “You must know I’m in disgrace since my engagement was broken.”
“But you will make another match in no time,” Catherine assured her. “You are so beautiful and lively.”
“Lively is the problem,” Serena explained. “One should be fashionably languid. As to another match, I’m not sure I want one. Which is probably fortunate since I am assured a broken engagement is disastrous in the marriage mart. No, we must make Gillie go to London for the season to keep you company, but you mustn’t worry—I know you will ‘take’!”
“It would be good,” Catherine said, lowering her voice further, “but I’m hoping it won’t matter too much. Don’t say a word to anyone, but I have met a man who admires me.”
Serena blinked at such modesty. “Cathy, lots of men admire you!”
“No, they don’t. They’re just used to me. The Comte is different.”
“The Comte?” Serena pounced. “Tell me more.”
“He is the Comte de Valère,” Catherine said, blushing. “An émigré nobleman from France. I met him here at the Assembly ball earlier this month, and he danced with me twice. He has called on us three times since then, and taken me driving.”
“Has he indeed? What is he like?”
“Oh, you shall see for yourself.” Catherine gave a quick, excited smile. “He is coming tonight! I am promised to him for the waltz.”
“I look forward to meeting him.”
Serena stood up for the first dance of the evening with Mr. Grant, who proved to be an entertaining companion, and by the time they returned to Kate, she was surrounded by young men eager to be introduced to Serena for a dance, or to renew old acquaintance with her.
It was all very flattering for a girl who’d been told she was as good as ruined. But she remembered Kate’s advice. “Never behave as though you have done anything wrong. Be seen, dance, laugh, have fun, but never beyond the line of what is pleasing, for there will be gossips here desperate to pass on any tiny transgression to their friends in London.”
“I don’t think I care if they do,” Serena had observed.
“Your mother will care,” Kate had warned. “And so will you, eventually. For your own sake, be a model of maidenly behavior. Until this nonsense blows over at least.”
Serena could not easily discount Kate’s advice, for the vicar’s wife had had to deal with scandal of her own. Besides, she began to appreciate that Kate never actually judged her or anyone else. There was unexpected kindness in her.
For that reason, she decided to sit out the waltz, which was still considered to be fast in many circles. Instead, she took a stroll around the ballroom with her partner, Gillie’s brother Bernard, catching up with his life and with news of his stepmother and tiny new brother. Apparently, he was as good as engaged to a Miss Smallwood, about whose beauty he waxed so lyrical that Serena’s attention began to wander. To her indignation, she saw that Catherine sat still beside her mother, her head drooping in a disconsolate manner. The wretched émigré, clearly, had not turned up to claim his dance. Misleading someone as good natured and modest as Catherine—someone, moreover, so lacking in self-confidence—was unforgivably mean. He’d better have a very good excuse, she thought furiously, or I shall give him the cut direct.
She moved her gaze toward the nearby ballroom door, searching for Catherine’s paragon among the new arrivals. And there, straight in front of her, stood the artist she so foolishly thought of as hers.
Gone was the long overcoat and the satchel, and he may have dragged a comb through his hair, but beside the other gentlemen with him, his plain black coat and breeches still looked unmistakably threadbare.
However, those around him didn’t appear to notice. They were laughing at something he said, and he, smiling, bowed over the hand of a beautiful woman Serena did not know. Jealousy twisted through her, shocking her. Then he strolled away, just in time to seize a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. Raising the glass to drink, he looked about him. Serena was trying to drag her fascinated gaze free, when it finally clashed with his.
His eyebrows shot up. The glass lowered again, a smile blazing across his face as he walked directly toward her.
Serena, suddenly breathless with excitement, turned hastily back to Bernard, who, apparently catching sight of the artist, actually swerved toward him.
“Do you know him?” Serena demanded.
“Of course I do,” Bernard replied. “Everyone does.”
By this time, the artist was upon them, bowing with surprising grace. “Muir,” he said, while offering his hand to Serena. She took it, since it would have been rude not to. “I’ve come to steal away your partner, who is far too beautiful not to be dancing.”
“Lady Serena don’t care to waltz,” Bernard said indignantly, as though his honor had been impugned. “Wait for the next dance.”
“Actually, my card is full,” Serena declared, since they seemed to imagine they could decide such matters without her.
“You see?” the artist exclaimed. “Take pity on me, old chap. Half a dance is better than none.”
Bernard threw up his hands. “Lady Serena must decide that one.”
“Come,” the artist said. Somehow, he still retained her gloved hand. His fingers were warm, insistent through the fine silk. “What harm could half a waltz do you? Everyone will know you do it from mere pity.”
“I have no reason to pity you,” she scoffed, and yet somehow, she was walking with him toward the dance floor.
“But you have, far more than you know. So tell me,” he added before she could ask for clarification, “since we didn’t have time in the milliner’s. How did you escape your confinement?”
His arm encircled her waist, whirling her into the dance with rather more enthusiasm than was strictly proper.
“Mrs. Grant,” she managed, “who is an old friend of my family’s, offered to chaperone me.”
“I’m very glad she did, for I missed you.”
She lifted one eyebrow.
“I went to the orchard this morning and you weren’t there.”
“Should I have been?” she asked carelessly.
“Well, I hoped you would be. I wanted to tell you, a cargo was landed at Braithwaite Cove, one the usual gentlemen were not aware of, and one that certainly hasn’t been distributed locally.”
“It’s in our cellar,” Serena told him. “Jem and I found four barrels and some smaller casks that shouldn’t have been there.”
“Who is Jem?”
“One of our gardeners. I’ve known him forever and we can trust him implicitly. On the other hand…” She trailed off, frowning.
His thumb stroked her hand, presumably to draw her back to the conversation, although in fact, it distracted her further.
“On the other hand, what?” he prompted.
She drew in a breath, as if that could make her think again. “Paton, our butler, has lost his key to the cellar. I think someone must have stolen it and given it to the smugglers, which is not comfortable.”
“No,” he agreed, frowning. “No, it isn’t, at all. Perhaps you could stay longer with the Grants?”
“And leave everyone else? No, I have to find out who’s doing this, and make them take the barrels away. Or better still, we should remove the barrels from the castle, and then report them to the excisemen.”
“The castle is a safe store for them,” the artist mused, “because no one around here, including you, is prepared to land the earl in trouble by revealing the barrels’ existence. They must be planning to take them somewhere else, further inland, probably.”
“Then why not just take them right away?” Serena argued. “Why leave them here at all, if they should be elsewhere?”
“Because the time isn’t right? Because they’re waiting for someone or something, some signal that it’s safe, perhaps.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed. He turned her a little too fast, reminding her just how close to him she stood. She was only too aware of the movement of his warm, lean body, of his strong arm at her back. She could smell him, sandalwood and something fresher and more elusive that she associated with the orchard, with woodland.
“Why are you here?” she blurted.
“You mean at the ball when I have no money? I sold a painting last month and bought a subscription.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to paint Lady Arabella Niven and thought I’d find her here.”
“Did you?”
“Find her or paint her?”
“Either!”
“Both,” he said tranquilly. “In fact, if Alban would only pay me for the latter, I could get the bailiff off my back for a month or two.”
“I expect Lady Arabella was one of the women you wanted to kiss as well as paint.”
Instead of denying it, he appeared, infuriatingly, to consider it. “I wouldn’t have minded, but by the time I met her, she only ever looked at Alban. It’s not much fun kissing someone who’s thinking of another man.”
Serena regarded him with disfavor. “I think, sir, that you are an incorrigible flirt.”
“Not really. I just like faces and I speak the truth. But I like flirting with you.”
“You are not flirting with me,” she said firmly, as though speaking the words made them true. “How do you manage to move in such elevated circles?”
“I often ask myself the same question. Bare-faced effrontery, I suppose. How else would I get to dance with you?”
“Why on earth do you want to dance with me?” she demanded, unwarily.
“Because I’ve wanted to hold you in my arms again ever since I kissed you.”
Embarrassment flamed through her. At least, she thought it was embarrassment. To hide it, she glared at him. “Will you stop that?” If she hadn’t been dancing, she’d have stamped her foot.
“Why?” he asked, depriving her of breath all over again.
“Oh, you’re impossible. I’d storm off, if only it wouldn’t cause even more talk!”
“Can’t we just enjoy the waltz?”
In truth, it would have far too easy to relax into the dance, into his arms, surrounded only by music, as if there was no one else in the room.
“I don’t even know your name,” she said in frustration.
“I was hoping you didn’t.”
She blinked. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I want you to like me as I am, without all the baggage that comes with names and worldly identities.”
“Aha,” she said wryly. “You are a royal prince travelling incognito.”
“Would it help?” he asked.
“No,” she said crossly.
“Then I’m not. I’m just what you think me, an artist without two pennies to rub together, who wants very badly to kiss you and paint you, and for once I don’t know which I want more.”
She tilted her chin. “Did you say that to Lady Arabella, too?”
As soon as the words were out, she regretted them. She had only meant to show him that she didn’t take him seriously. Instead, she sounded appallingly jealous.
His gaze held hers when she tried to free it. “No.” Again, his thumb moved in an apparently absent caress. “I wish we had longer. I wish things were different.”
A frown twitched at her brow. Possibly for the first time in their odd acquaintance, she sensed he was serious. “What do you mean?”
His lips twisted. “I mean, I wish I were different,” he said ruefully.
“I don’t,” she blurted.
She was too used to speaking her mind. And it was too difficult to keep pretending she didn’t like his odd, intriguing company, just to salve her pride.
An arrested expression filled his eyes, swiftly followed by a look so warm it seemed to scorch her. A smile tugged at his lips. “Truly? I shall remember that when I see you from afar.”
“Afar? You think I shall ignore you when I know your name? Stop being mysterious and tell me who you are.”
But it was too late. The dance had ended, his arm slipped from her suddenly cold body, and etiquette demanded she curtsey to his bow.
“Come, I’ll take you back to Kate,” he said, offering his arm.
Mechanically, she laid her fingertips upon it. “So, you are upon first name terms with Kate,” she noted. “She does not ignore you. And she is the vicar’s wife!”
“Exactly.”
“You are infuriating,” she informed him as they arrived at Kate’s chair.
“Thank you.”
She didn’t know if his gratitude was for the dance or the insult, for he merely bowed over her hand, cast a quick rueful smile at Kate and walked away.
“I see you’ve met Tamar,” Kate said wryly.
Serena laughed. “Tamar,” she crowed, loud enough for him to hear. He half-turned, casting a quick smile over his shoulder, but he didn’t stop. “Tamar,” she repeated with a quick frown. “Is he a famous painter?” she asked Kate, sitting next to her. “Is that where I’ve heard the name?”
“He’s getting that way, in Blackhaven at least. Gillie might have mentioned him to you. But you’re more likely to have heard of him as the impoverished marquis.”
“Lord Tamar,” she said blankly. “I thought he didn’t exist. I thought the whole family vanished when the old marquis died in massive debt.”
“Only into obscurity. Tamar came here because it was quieter than London or Brighton or Bath, but contained enough wealthy people to buy his paintings. He doesn’t speak of his siblings, but I’m fairly sure he sends them most of what he earns.”
“No wonder the bailiffs are after him.”
Kate cast her a confused look. “Bailiffs can’t touch him. As a peer, he can’t be arrested for debt.”
Serena frowned. “He said there was one haunting his doorstep.”
“I expect it was a figure of speech. For broke.”
Deliberately, Serena smoothed out her frown. “I expect it was. Someone owes him money.”
“Perhaps it’s time we bought a few paintings,” Kate said neutrally.
“Perhaps it is… Where did he live before, then?”
“In the ruins of Tamar Abbey, according to Daxton. They all grew up there, he and his siblings, running wild, without any adult older than the new marquis who couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old when he inherited.”
“Why would he—” Why would he think I’d hate him once I knew who he was? Fortunately, she broke off before she asked the whole question aloud. It would have given away a greater friendship with him than she wanted Kate to be aware of.
Besides, she could probably answer it for herself. A low-born artist was beneath her. A marquis, however poor, was perfectly eligible by birth. Marrying a very wealthy heiress was his only hope of recovering his family’s fortunes.
Serena was a wealthy heiress.
Fortune hunter… Lord Tamar was a fortune hunter. No wonder he flirted with her.