Page 2 of A Figure of Love

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 ancient 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.