Wide flower borders surrounded the central grass on three sides with a backdrop of taller trees and magnificent shrubs, whilst hidden paths weaved between them and the high perimeter brick wall. The house was Palladian in style, built by the Fourth Earl of Chesterfield some seventy years back. It boasted a sizeable first-floor balcony with grand twin steps leading down to the Gardens and the meanderingTon– including Mrs Tait and her daughter.
Miles inhaled the scent of autumn. “I’m off to see this Prince fellow tomorrow eve. Any advice? I’m sure you’ve attended his hell a time or ten.”
“My advice is don’t go.”
“I need his help to find someone.” As dawn had risen, a grubby lad had found his way to the Stonewold kitchens and delivered a red-scripted message from the Prince. It had said to call upon him at the Pall Mall gaming hell, though without such overuse of words.
“Just don’t sign your soul away by being in his debt.”
“Not keen on him then?”
Dair flung his champagne to the shrubbery, slipped a hand inside his jacket and withdrew the hip flask. “Keep your wits about you, that’s all.” And poured a good measure. “Debt can be the very devil to get out of.”
Miles frowned but his eye was caught by…
Walking from the house and pausing beside a late-flowering aster was Miss Verity Seymour. A surprise as he’d been led to believe by Dair, amongst others, that she did not attend events. But perhaps she was exhibiting one of those feline works of hers.
She wore a deep-yellow summer dress, resembling a buttercup in full, shameless bloom, heavy with nectar, petals enticing him to pluck her.
Miles filled his lungs, the sweet fragrance of a late-bloomingLonicera periclymenumnot aiding his thoughts one bit.
Why did she no longer paint flowers?
Her watercolours were so magical and lifelike, as though you could lift the bloom from the page and smell its scent.
An everlasting flower imprinted upon paper.
She caught his eye, seemed unsurprised to see him here, before she turned to the marquee.
“Dair, we need a plan. Miss Seymour’s here.”
“Is she?” His cousin looked at him askance. “Well, all mine go awry.”
Miles tapped his thigh. “I’ll come up with initial manoeuvres of concealed approach but we should expect to adapt to circumstance once in the field.”
Verity smoothedher skirts and slowed her breath.
The exhibition had been delightful, the Gardens magnificent, the champagne dry and the marquee bathed in light. Many had praised her portrait of Cleopatra and further commissions had been promised.
And not that she’d been hiding from Lord Stonewold in any manner, but the extensive gardens and spacious marquee had provided a most convenient separation.
Until that was, she’d been returning from the ladies’ retiring room and caught sight of him glaring at her from a garden bench. So she’d re-entered the marquee in search of her cousin.
But Sephi was rolling her eyes over the shoulder of some gentleman.
At Verity’s arrival, said gentleman startled, eyes darting like a pesky fly before he slipped off with indecorous haste.
“Who was that?” she asked as a footman approached with a silver salver of champagne-filled glasses – accepted without hesitation.
“Pah.” Sephi waved an arm of Pomona-green silk. “Some artist who wished to paint me.”
“Oh, how wonderf–”
“Nude. And as his mistress. He’d heard the gossip.”
Verity pressed her lips tight. “I’ll eviscerate him with my art scalpel.”
“That’s gracious of you,” said Sephi with a pat on the arm. “But fear not, I was quite eviscerating myself. To some men, we women are merely categories. I am no longer in the potential wife category and so they can think of nothing else that I could be but a mistress.”
