Page 3 of A Figure of Love

“His Grace does not blame you for leaving, Jessup,” she said.

Well, that was a bit of a fib. Her in-laws had been devastated by their family retainer’s desertion. But Mr. Lockheart—a man reputed to be among the ten richest in Britain—had offered a wage too high for Robert Jessup to resist.

Jessup’s lips flexed in what passed for a smile. “You are very kind, madam.”

“So, how do you find it here?” Serena glanced around the cavernous room, which evoked a seraglio with its bold fuchsia, gold, and green color scheme, opulent silk and velvet window coverings, and Egyptian-style furniture.

“I find my position suits me admirably, Mrs. Lombard.”

Again she heard the hesitation before her name. She knew that Jessup, like her dead husband’s family, were unhappy that she refused to use her honorific. Serena allowed them all to believe her resistance to aristocratic titles was because of her French Republican upbringing, rather than the truth; a truth they could never know.

She realized the butler was waiting for her answer. “I’m pleased to hear you are happy here, Jessup.” And she was. It was too bad he’d needed to leave his home of many years, but—as she knew all too well—everyone deserved a chance at a better life.

Serena returned her cup and saucer to the massive tea tray. “Mr. Beech has asked me to work with him on the new gardens for Rushton Park.” Jessup knew what Serena did for a living. He’d worked for the Lombard family when she had first arrived in England almost ten years ago. He’d been there when Serena—after living her first year under the care of the duke and duchess, who were very kind to their youngest son’s foreign widow—had scandalized her new relations by moving to London to take up a position teaching art and sculpture at a girls’ school.

Once again, her husband’s family blamed her mad French blood—but, thankfully, hadn’t tried to stop her—for taking her infant son from the comfort of Keeting Hall and moving them both to a town house with two other women teachers. It had been a difficult decision, but she did not regret it.

“If you will permit me to say so, madam, I have seen your work, and it is quite lovely.”

The Jessup of old would never have offered an unsolicited opinion. Perhaps working in a Whig household had given him a more egalitarian outlook.

“Thank you, Jessup.” She stood and smoothed down the skirt of her dark green traveling costume. “I’m refreshed and eager to see Rushton Park. Would it be possible to take a stroll around the grounds?”

“Of course, madam.”

Serena opened the flap of the large leather satchel she was rarely without and took out her sketchpad.

She smiled up at him. “I’m ready.”

As he moved to open the door for her, Serena studied his familiar narrow form and black-clad shoulders and decided she was more pleased than she would have expected to find an old family ally and retainer. Of course she’d known Jessup worked for the reclusive Gareth Lockheart, but the man kept houses in London, Edinburgh, and Bristol. If she’d given the matter more than a passing thought, she would have assumed Lockheart kept the unparalleled butler in his London house, where it was rumored he spent most of his time.

Jessup escorted her down a staircase wide enough to accommodate seven soldiers marching abreast and paused on the ground floor.

“Shall I take you out through the orangery, madam?”

“Yes, please. I didn’t see it from the drive, but I’ve seen it on Beech’s drawings.”

The house resembled an Elizabethan “E” but with many modifications—some rather. . . unconventional.

“How long have you been here, Jessup?”

“I came down with Mr. Lockheart two days ago, madam. I have been at his London house but accompanied him here to see to some unfinished household matters.”

Serena had never seen a house quite like it. It was a corps de logis, comprised of a central block with two wings that were three stories and curved to form a three-sided courtyard—or cour d'honneur—on each side of the central block.

Either Lockheart or Beech must have been very fond ofonion domes, as there were no fewer than five of them. The blinding white façade was festooned with multitudinous cusped arches, minaret-shaped finials, and vacant plinths waiting for statuary. The mishmash of Orientalism and Indo-Saracenic styles was so like the Royal Pavilion that she kept thinking she must have taken a wrong turn and ended up in Brighton.

The interior lacked the chinoiserie so far as she had seen. Indeed, the décor was far less definite than the exterior and felt like the rather halfhearted result of a committee.

The hall flooded with light and ahead was a wall of leaded glass.

“My, how lovely,” Serena said as Jessup opened one of the massive double doors to the empty conservatory, which was without even a stick, plant, leaf, or crumb of dirt. “When was this finished?” She turned in a circle, gazing overhead at the spectacular glass walls and canopy.

“Last spring, ma’am.”

Serena couldn’t help thinking of the orangery at Keeting Hall, which was perhaps a quarter of this size and so choked with plants it had felt like a jungle. It might be old and crowded, its glass hazed and cracked, but it was alive. Which was more than she could say for this empty glass box. Beech had not mentioned the orangery, but Serena couldn’t help feeling a frisson of excitement as she imagined filling such a beautiful space with living things.

Jessup opened one of the French doors and they stepped out into the cool spring sunshine. She turned to him. “I will walk the immediate area until Mr. Beech arrives.”