Secrets and Sensibilities: A Regency Romance Mystery (The Lady Emily Capers Book 1) Read online

  “I’m sure we’ll all learn something,” she replied to Priscilla, hoping her slight frown would reinforce her meaning that Priscilla had things to learn as well, such as manners. As usual, the subtle look was lost on the girl.

  “I don’t see how,” Ariadne muttered. “Priscilla’s already admitted that there won’t be any young men.”

  Hannah shook her head at their obsession. “Come now, Ariadne. There is more to life than flirtations.”

  At that, they all protested at once, forcing her to hold up her hands in mock surrender.

  “But Miss Alexander, how are we to practice for the Season?” Ariadne cried. “We have only a few weeks left before we are presented, and Miss Martingale has yet to allow us a single male on whom to practice our wiles.”

  “And I’m sick of playing the boy every time we practice waltzing,” Daphne put in.

  “And I of playing the boy while everyone tries their insipid conversations,” Lady Emily grumbled.

  Priscilla made a face, somehow managing to look charming at the same time. “There you go complaining again. Isn’t a week in the country better than staying alone at school?”

  “Easy for you to say,” Lady Emily muttered. “You have a beau waiting for you at Brentfield.”

  Ariadne clapped her hands over her mouth as if she’d been the one to spill the secret.

  “You weren’t supposed to tell!” Daphne scolded.

  Hannah glanced around at the three worried faces and Priscilla, who preened once again. She had a sudden vision of a strapping farmer’s son riding up on a stallion and sweeping the fair Priscilla off to Gretna Green the moment the coach stopped at Brentfield: Hades Carrying Off Persephone. The elopement would surely be followed by the outraged Lady Brentfield demanding Hannah’s resignation. Worse, her reputation would be ruined--she might never get another commission.

  “Beau?” she ventured, almost afraid to hear the answer.

  Priscilla’s eyes glowed. “My aunt the countess is arranging for me to marry the new earl.”

  Hannah gaped. “But he’s your cousin, and he must be years older than you are.”

  “He isn’t my cousin,” Priscilla maintained. “He is a distant cousin of the previous earl, who was my aunt’s second husband. My father is related to her first husband. And he isn’t so terribly old. He’s younger than Mother.”

  Hannah opened her mouth to comment, then thought better of it. She could not imagine why a man would want to marry a near-child he hadn’t even met. It was certainly natural, she supposed, that he felt some duty toward the widowed Lady Brentfield, but he hardly had to marry her niece.

  The description of the chaperone Lady Brentfield had requested suddenly struck Hannah anew. Her ladyship had wanted someone quiet, unassuming, dutiful. Priscilla’s confession proved what Lady Brentfield was seeking: someone who would keep the other girls occupied and provide no competition to the beauteous Priscilla, either in looks or in trying to ingratiate herself with the new earl. Hannah, more interested in her art than Society, was a perfect choice. She wondered whether Miss Martingale had known, or whether Hannah had truly been the only teacher available.

  “You see, Miss Alexander,” Ariadne grumbled. “It’s just as I said. She’ll spend all her time billing and cooing, and the rest of us will be bored to flinders.”

  “Lady Brentfield is far too good a hostess, I’m sure, to invite you to no good purpose,” Hannah replied, hoping she was right. “She must have all sorts of diversions planned for your visit.”

  Lady Emily looked unconvinced, but Ariadne and Daphne brightened. As graceful as a bird, Priscilla waved a languid hand at the passing scenery.

  “You will find out soon enough,” she told them. “We are about to enter the estate.”

  Daphne and Ariadne scrambled over Lady Emily for a view out the carriage window. Only Priscilla sat back in her seat, arms crossed under her breasts. Hannah, however, could not resist a look out her own side of the carriage.

  Since leaving the school shortly after Palm Sunday services, they had circled the west end of the Mendip Hills, passing by the village of Wenwood and running over the River Wen. Shortly thereafter, they had passed through vineyards, vines greening with spring. Now a two-story stone gatehouse hove into view. The carriage slowed. An elderly man clambered out of the house and set about opening huge wrought-iron gates topped by balls of gold. As the gates swung open against stone columns, the horses sprang though. The man offered the girls a deep bow.

  Hannah knew she should sit back in her seat and not gawk like her charges, but she had never seen such grandeur. Majestic oaks crowded on their left, and an emerald meadow dotted with jonquils swept away on the right. The meadow led up to the placid waters of a reflecting pond, which mirrored the front of a rose brick great house. The drive led up over a white stone bridge arching the stream that fed the pond and onto a circular patch of white gravel encircled by a shorter wrought-iron fence with gold balls on each post. A gate from the drive opened to a garden-edged path that led up to the porticoed porch of Brentfield.

  Hannah stared. The wings of the house led off in each direction, three floors full of huge, multipaned windows edged in white. Liveried footman as smartly dressed as the house strode out to assist the girls in alighting. Grooms sprang forward to hold the horses. The girls crowded past her, giggling and chattering. Hannah was so mesmerized that she didn’t even realize they had all left until a footman peered into the coach and started at the sight of her.

  “Can I help you down, miss?” he asked. Hannah blinked, then offered him her hand. Her half boots crunched against the snow-white gravel. She gazed upward, holding her straw bonnet to her head with one gloved hand, staring at the three golden urns that topped the pedimented porch.

  “They tell me,” said a warm male voice, “that the house was designed to mimic Kensington Palace.”

  “I was thinking of Olympus, actually,” Hannah replied. She glanced at what she had thought was another footman and froze. Standing beside her was a gentleman who took her breath away. A Modern David in the Field, her artist’s mind supplied, noting the tweed trousers and jacket. She wondered whether she’d brought enough brown with her to capture the warmth of his thick, straight hair. She’d need red for highlights too, or perhaps gold. No, she’d paint his eyes first, a deep, soft blue that would change, she would wager, with what he wore. And she would have to find a way to immortalize that welcoming smile, tilting more at one corner as if her wide-eyed stare amused him.

  And she was staring, she realized, although she couldn’t seem to help herself. She wanted to commit every detail to memory, as she did before painting a subject. She wanted to remember that his lower lip was more full than his upper lip, and both were a seashell pink. There were a dozen other things she needed to catch if she was to capture the man on canvas.

  “Are you all right?” he asked when she remained silent in study.

  He spoke with an accent, a twang that softened his speech. She had heard French, German, and Gaelic at the school, but she did not think this accent was a result of their influence.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” she managed. She glanced about and found that the footmen were tossing down the luggage from the top of the carriage and the boot. The man beside her appeared invisible to the servants, who bustled past with loaded arms. He was equally invisible to the groomsmen who held the horses. None of them met his gaze as he glanced about. She wondered suddenly whether her bemused brain had conjured him, like a fairy from a mushroom circle, to grant her wish to paint. But no fairy she had ever read about dressed like a shepherd.

  “You’re the chaperone from the Barnsley School?” he asked politely.

  He was making conversation, and she was gawking again. She forced a smile. “Yes. I’m the school’s art teacher.”

  A light sprang to his eyes, making her catch her breath anew. “You’re an artist? What medium?”

  “Oil painting,” she replied a little surprised at his interest. “Altho
ugh I like charcoal as well. There is a way of shadowing that gives the subject depth.” Realizing she sounded as if she were lecturing, she blushed.

  “Do you prefer landscapes, objects, or people?” he prompted eagerly.

  “People,” she answered.

  “Classical or portrait?” he quizzed.

  She was beginning to feel like the student for once. “Classical,” she responded before she could think better of it. Then, knowing how scandalous that confession was, she quickly corrected herself. “That is, I hope to one day paint portraits.”

  “Have you studied, then?” he asked. “Would you know a classical piece if you saw one?”

  Was this some kind of interview? She seemed to remember being asked such questions when she had arrived at the Barnsley School.

  “I am self-taught,” she told him proudly. “My family did not have the funds to send me to school. But I can assure you I know the Masters.”

  He grinned. “Then maybe I could show you a few of the Brentfield pieces.”

  She looked him askance, still trying to determine why he was so interested. She had met few who were interested in her painting, even among those she painted. “Are you an artist, too?”

  His smile deepened. “I’ve been called that a few times. But I work in leather, not paper or canvas.” He held out his hands, which she saw were stained brown. His smile faded. “Although my badge of honor looks like it’s wearing off. The mark of a gentleman, I guess.”

  Even with his gentle voice and accent, he made it sound as if being marked as a gentleman was a shameful thing. He shook himself and offered her a smile that was a pale copy of his original. “I’d love to see your work. And I do have a project that I’d like your help on. You’ll be staying until Easter, I hope?”

  “As long as the girls need me,” Hannah replied. Belatedly, she glanced up the drive after her charges. Not a single girl was in sight. She rolled her eyes at her own ineptitude. Her first assignment as a chaperone, and she hadn’t even escorted them into the house!

  A tall, elderly dark-skinned gentleman in tan knee breeches, navy coat, and the undisguisable air of command, was making his way toward them. Othello Coming to His People, her bemused brain suggested.

  “I’m in trouble now,” her companion murmured. “Derelict in duty once again.” He heaved a sigh, but the twinkle in his eye told her he was hardly sorry.

  “You’re needed inside,” the older man intoned with a nod. Hannah wondered why the Tenants would have use for their own in-house leather craftsman, but she felt a shiver of pleasure that she would be able to see him again during her visit. Perhaps she might find a moment to help him with his work here.

  The older man turned to her with a bow. “You’d be the Miss Alexander for whom the young ladies are searching?”

  “She’s still beside the carriage, so they can’t be searching very hard,” her David quipped. “Now, don’t glare, Asheram. You wouldn’t want to reduce me to a quivering pulp in front of Miss Alexander, would you?”

  “Perish the thought,” the man replied.

  “Good. Earn your keep and introduce me the way you tell me these Brits insist on.”

  The older gentleman rolled his wide-set eyes. “If you would be so kind as to tell me your first name, Miss Alexander?”

  Her David leaned forward as eagerly as when he had asked about her painting and set her blushing again. “Hannah,” she murmured.

  “Miss Hannah Alexander,” the man said solemnly. “May I present David Tenant, Earl of Brentfield?”

  Chapter Two

  David watched as the adorable little woman gasped and blanched. His grin faded as he thought for a moment she might actually faint. He caught her arm as she swayed, but she snatched it back, staring at him as fixedly as she had when he had first encountered her on returning from his walk. Then he had found it flattering. Now he felt downright alarmed.

  “Miss Alexander, welcome to Brentfield,” he tried, bowing lower than was probably socially acceptable. “Shoulders for a peer,” Asheram had explained during one of their many tutorial sessions on the boat over, “chest for a better, and waist for royalty.” Well, Miss Alexander was a princess in his book. And she was by far the most interesting person he had met since arriving in Brentfield. With any luck, she would be able to help him confirm his suspicions about the missing art treasures.

  His gallantry only served to make Asheram narrow his dark eyes and the lady tremble. She dropped a curtsey deeper than his bow, and he wondered if that made him the Archbishop of Canterbury. “My lord, you are too kind. Please forgive my impertinence. I didn’t know who you were. I promise not to be so encroaching in the future.”

  David sighed. All he needed was another doting follower. Of course, it couldn’t be any worse to the way the dowager Lady Brentfield was treating him.

  It took a great deal to anger him. Those who had known him during his youth and apprenticeship in Boston would have called him even-tempered, jovial, every man’s friend. Those who had in turn been apprenticed to his leather shop had been known to term him generous, broad-minded, and fair. The fine ladies of Boston praised his carved and colored works of fine leather, and smiled and dimpled at his rakish compliments, telling their friends what a charming and handsome fellow David Tenant was. One month in the company of Sylvia Tenant, the widow of the former Earl of Brentfield, and he found himself wondering whether he was capable of murder.

  It wasn’t that he misunderstood her. From the moment he had arrived at Brentfield to claim his inheritance a month ago, she had been working in the most obvious ways to ensnare him. She had started by following him about with the simplistic adoration she seemed to think men found pleasing, introducing him to the aged estate and telling him how much he was needed to return it to its former glory. He could see that the place did indeed need work. Some of the plaster in the little-used rooms was peeling, and he was afraid the dampness that was the apparent cause had resulted in structural damages as well. There were any of a dozen things he needed to do to determine the core of the problem and fix upon a solution, but he found it impossible to move with the lovely widow hanging on his arm. In an effort to keep her occupied, he had commented that she needed a purpose and set her to work inventorying linens. Only later did Asheram, his steward and friend, inform him that one did not set countesses to such a task.

  However, her ladyship was not to be deterred. She had then tried flirting outrageously with him, to the point where he was embarrassed to be in the same room with her. Hoping to kindly refuse her, he had lightheartedly asked whether she might be catching the croup, as her voice was decidedly husky and she seemed to have something in her eyes by the way she kept perpetually batting them. When she had stomped from the room in a fit of pique, he had begged Asheram to find them a suitable chaperone. He was beginning to realize that if he spent too many nights alone in this house with the woman, someone might suggest that he marry her. But the elderly female relative to whom Asheram had written never arrived. David had been forced to move his things to the more dilapidated east wing, putting over a city block between them.

  Still, she had refused to give up. Playing the widow grieving over the deaths of her late husband the previous earl and his only son from an earlier marriage had given her several opportunities to sob on his shoulders and press her head against his chest. She had sighed long and bitterly over the fate of widows who were inadvertently left out of their husbands’ wills. He had patted her on the back, set her on her feet, and assured her she would be well taken care of. Unfortunately, she did not seem to believe him.

  He supposed the woman was attractive in her own way. Beneath the powder, rouge, and kohl, she did seem to possess some natural beauty. She was perhaps five to seven years older than he was, yet her golden blonde hair was thick and wavy, her eyes a startling blue. She was forced to wear the black for her late husband, but the dark silk gowns were designed with tucks, ribbons, and laces, all calculated to bring attention to her considerable
curves. He did his best to give those curves as little attention as possible.

  But the lady before him was another matter, a petite package designed to call to him. He tried to tease her out of this sudden fear.

  “If by not encroaching you mean you’ll treat me with the same stuffiness everyone else does, I’ll cheerfully put you back on that coach and send you home.”

  “My lord!” she cried.

  Asheram cleared his throat, and David returned his glare with a wink.

  “His lordship is inordinately fond of joking, Miss Alexander,” his friend explained in his calm, deep voice. “I’m sure you’ll give the young ladies good service while you’re here. If there’s anything I can do to make your stay easier or more enjoyable, you have only to ask. Now, I must insist you join us in the rotunda. Lady Brentfield is expecting us.”

  David could have cared less what her ladyship expected, but Miss Alexander was biting her lip and looking even more worried. He offered her his arm and was relieved when she accepted it. She had long-fingered hands, artist’s hands, he thought, and her touch on his sleeve was light but firm, for all she looked like she wanted to tremble. He felt oddly chivalrous as they followed Asheram to the front door.

  He sincerely hoped she wouldn’t retreat into formalities as she had implied. Funny, but Boston society was often cited as the most formal in America. He’d worked for the wealthy, who for all their delight in his work would refuse to acknowledge him outside his shop, let alone invite him to dinner. In his own circle of merchants and artisans, things had been less codified. A man was judged on his intelligence, his character, and his skills. David had never been found wanting in any area. Yet here, just because of a thin and distant bloodline, he was expected to behave as if he had been elevated to the status of demigod. It was downright blasphemous, and he refused to do it.

  Still, he found himself wanting a chance to get to know the woman who walked beside him. From the moment she’d looked up at him, those eyes had caught his attention. Wide-spaced in her pale oval face, they were almond shaped and a deep warm brown finer than any coffee brought from Jamaica. Inside the bonnet she wore, her hair appeared to be darker as her eyes. She had a pert nose and a generous mouth. Kissable, his assistant in Boston would have called it. The stiff black traveling dress failed to hide her womanly curves. And best of all, like him, she knew what it meant to use her art to earn her keep.