The portraits were intended to be hung in their country homes, but those of the ton who saw the portraits while they’d still been in London had set up such a clamor the custodians of the Royal Academy had begged, literally begged him to allow the works to be shown in the annual portrait exhibition. The attention had been sweet; he’d allowed himself to be persuaded.
And had lived to regret it.
Vane regarded him with amused affection. “So hard to be such a success.”
Gerrard snorted. “I should appoint you my agent and let you deal with the horde of matrons, each of them ineradicably convinced that their daughter is the perfect subject for my next great portrait.”
Patience jigged Martin on her knee. “It is just one portrait.”
Gerrard shook his head. “That’s not how it works. It’s one of those great risks—choosing a subject. At present, my reputation is solid and intact. One truly ghastly portrait could incalculably damage it. Regardless, I refuse to pander to the expectations of my subjects, or their parents. I paint what I see, which means Lord Tregonning and his darling daughter are very likely to be disappointed.”
The children were growing restless. Patience rose as their nurse looked in; she beckoned to the matronly woman and glanced at the children. “It’s time for your tea. Bread pudding tonight, don’t forget.”
Gerrard hid a wry smile as the allure of bread pudding trumped the attraction of remaining with him. Both boys slid to the ground, reciting polite farewells. Therese, helped up out of her father’s lap, blew him a kiss, then ran to beat her brothers out of the door.
Patience handed the baby over, then shut the door on her departing brood and returned to her chair. “So why are you so agonized? Simply decline his lordship’s invitation.”
“That’s just it.” Gerrard raked his fingers through his hair. “If I decline, I not only lose all chance of painting the famous Garden of Night myself, but ensure that the only painter who’ll get the chance in the next fifty years will be some portrait dabbler who probably won’t even recognize what he’s looking at.”
“Which will be what?” Vane rose, stretched, then moved to another chair. “What is it about these gardens that makes them so special?”
“The gardens of Hellebore Hall in Cornwall were originally designed in 1710.” Gerrard had searched out the details after Cunningham had first called on him. “The area’s unique—a narrow protected valley angled southwest that captures the weather in such a way that the most fantastic plants and trees that grow nowhere else in England thrive there.
“The house is situated at the head of the valley which runs all the way to the sea. The proposed designs were seen by many, and generated much excitement at the time. Subsequently, the gardens were created over some thirty-odd years, but the family turned reclusive. Very few people have seen the gardens complete.” He glanced at Patience. “The few who did were enraptured.
“Landscape artists have been itching to paint the gardens of Hellebore Hall for decades. None have succeeded in gaining permission.” His lips quirked. He glanced at Vane. “The valley and its gardens lie within a large private estate, and the cove is rocky and dangerous, so slipping in and sketching on the sly has never been a viable option.”
“So every landscape painter in England—”
“And the Continent and even the Americas.”
“—would jump at the opportunity to paint these gardens.” Vane cocked his head. “Are you sure you want to pass up the chance?”
Gerrard let out an explosive breath. “No. That’s my problem. Especially given the Garden of Night.”
“Which is?” Patience asked.
“The gardens comprise multiple areas, each named for an ancient god or mythical being. There’s a Garden of Hercules, which stands along one ridge and has lots of big, tall trees, and a Garden of Artemis, with topiary animals, and so on.
“One of the areas is the Garden of Venus. It contains a large number of aphrodisiacs and heavily perfumed species, many of which are night-blooming, and incorporates a grotto and a pool fed by the stream that runs through the valley. It’s located at the valley’s head, just below the house. Due to some quirk of nature, that particular area grew rampant. One lucky soul who saw it only a decade or so after planting described it as a gothic heaven—a dark landscape to eclipse all others. It became known as the Garden of Night.”
He paused, then added, “In landscape artist’s terms, painting the Garden of Night is akin to attaining the Holy Grail. It’s there, but has for generations remained out of reach.”
Vane grimaced. “Difficult choice.”
Gerrard nodded. “Very much a ‘damned if I do, and damned if I don’t’ decision.”
Patience looked from one to the other. “Actually, the decision’s quite simple.” She caught Gerrard’s eye. “All you have to decide is whether you’re willing to risk that your talent is up to the task of painting a reasonable portrait of this young lady, against the certainty of being able to paint your Holy Grail.”
She tilted her head. “Put it another way—how much do you want to paint the Garden of Night? Enough to challenge yourself to creating a decent portrait of one young lady?”
Gerrard met her gray eyes, held her direct gaze. After a moment, he glanced at Vane. “Sisters.”
Vane laughed.
Even after Patience’s succinct reduction of the decision facing him, he might have refused, if it hadn’t been for the dream. He spent the evening with Patience and Vane, idly chatting about other things; when he parted from Patience in the hall, she kissed his cheek and whispered, “You know what you want to do, so do it. Take the risk.”
He’d smiled, patted her shoulder, then ambled home, wondering, examining the possibilities, but increasingly along the lines of how he might pull off a portrait of a vain flibbertigibbet without being overtly insulting.
Reaching his rooms in Duke Street, he climbed the stairs to his bedchamber. Compton, his gentleman’s gentleman, came hurrying up to divest him of his coat and bear it away to be brushed and accorded all proper respect. Gerrard grinned, undressed and fell into bed.
And dreamed of the Garden of Night.
He’d never seen it, yet it appeared so vivid, so enticing, so mesmerizingly dark. So full of that dramatic energy that as a painter he was most attuned to. There was danger and excitement, a hint of menace, and something even more profound, more elementally sinister lurking in its shadows.
It called to him. Whispered seductively.
He woke in the morning with the summons still fresh in his mind.
He didn’t believe in portents.
Rising, donning a velvet robe over trousers and shirt, he went downstairs. Making major decisions on an empty stomach was never wise.
He’d barely made a start on ham and eggs when a rat-a-tat-tat knock fell on the front door. Recognizing the signal, he reached for the coffeepot and filled his cup—before the Honorable Barnaby Adair could drain the pot dry.
The parlor door flew open. “My heavens!” Barnaby, a tall, elegant, golden-haired figure sporting a dramatically hunted look, swept in. “May the saints preserve me from all doting mamas!” His gaze fell on the coffeepot. “Any left?”
Smiling, Gerrard waved at both pot and platters as Compton hurried in with an additional place setting. “Help yourself.”
“Thank you—you’re a savior.” Barnaby sank into the chair beside Gerrard.
Gerrard eyed him with affectionate amusement. “And good morning to you. What’s put you out? Did Lady Harrington’s ball prove too exercising?”
“Not Harrington.” Barnaby closed his eyes, savoring the coffee. “She’s a decent enough sort.” Opening his eyes, he considered the platters. “It was Lady Oglethorpe and her daughter Melissa.”
“Ah!” Gerrard recalled the connection. “The old friend of your dear mama’s who was hoping you’d oblige and escort her darling about town?”
“The same.” Barnaby took a bite of toast. “You rememb
er the story of the ugly duckling? Well, Melissa is that in reverse.”
Gerrard laughed.
Barnaby and he were much of an age, of similar temperament and background, had similar likes and dislikes, and both favored an eccentric pastime. He couldn’t remember how they’d first come to knock around town together, but over the last five years, they’d seen each other through various adventures, growing ever more comfortable in each other’s company, and now unhesitatingly called on the other for any and all support.
“Nothing for it,” Barnaby declared. “I shall have to flee the capital.”
Gerrard grinned. “It can’t be that bad.”
“Yes it can. I tell you, Lady Oglethorpe isn’t looking to me just for escort duties. She has a gleam in her eye I mistrust, and if that wasn’t bad enough, the dreadful Melissa clasped her hands to her bosom—not a bad bosom, but the rest is hopeless—and fervently stated that yours truly was her ideal, and that no gentleman in the ton could hold a candle to my magnificence.” Barnaby grimaced horrendously. “Coming it a great deal too strong, as the pater would say—made me feel quite ill. And it’s June—don’t they know the hunting season’s over?”
Gerrard regarded his friend thoughtfully. Barnaby was the third son of an earl, and had inherited a substantial estate from a maternal aunt; like Gerrard, he was a prime target for matrons with daughters to establish. While Gerrard could and did use his painting as an excuse to avoid the worst of the invitations, Barnaby’s hobby of studying crime was a far less acceptable diversion.
“I suppose,” Barnaby mused, “I could go to m’sister’s, but I’m no longer sure she’s not dangerous, too.” His eyes narrowed. “If she invited the Oglethorpes to visit over summer…” He shuddered.
Gerrard leaned back and reached for his coffee cup. “If you’re set on escaping the dreadful Melissa, you could come with me to Cornwall.”
“Cornwall?” Barnaby blinked his blue eyes wide. “What’s in Cornwall?”
Gerrard told him.
Barnaby perked up.
“Mind you,” Gerrard warned, “there’ll be at least one unmarried young lady present, and where there’s one—”
“There’s usually a pack.” Barnaby nodded. “Nevertheless, I’ve handled all comers to now—it’s just Melissa, her mother, and the family connection that have so demoralized me.”
Said demoralization had clearly been transient; Barnaby fell to demolishing the last sausage, then he looked at Gerrard. “So, when do we leave?”
Gerrard met his eyes. Patience had been right, not that he’d ever tell her. “I’ll write to Tregonning’s agent today. I’ll need to get in extra supplies, and make sure all else is in order here…shall we say the end of next week?”
“Excellent!” Barnaby raised his cup in a toast, drained it, then reached for the coffeepot. “I’m sure I can lie low until then.”
Twelve days later, Gerrard tooled his curricle between a pair of worn stone gateposts bearing plaques proclaiming them the entrance to Hellebore Hall.
“It’s certainly a long way from London.” Relaxed on the seat beside him, Barnaby looked around, curious and mildly intrigued.
They’d set out from the capital four mornings before, and spelled Gerrard’s matched grays over the distance, stopping at inns that caught their fancy each lunchtime and each evening.
The driveway, a continuation of the lane they’d taken off the road to St. Just and St. Mawes, was lined with old, large-boled, thickly canopied trees. The fields on either side were screened by dense hedgerows. A sense of being enclosed in a living corridor, a shifting collage of browns and greens, was pervasive. Between the tops of the hedges and the overhanging branches, they caught tantalizing glimpses of the sea, sparkling silver under a cerulean sky. Ahead and to the right, the strip of sea was bounded by distant headlands, a medley of olive, purple and smoky gray in the early afternoon light.
Gerrard squinted against the glare. “By my reckoning, that stretch of water must be Carrick Roads. Falmouth ought to lie directly ahead.”
Barnaby looked. “It’s too far to make out the town, but there are certainly plenty of sails out there.”
The land dipped; the lane followed, curving slowly south and west. They lost sight of Carrick Roads as the spur leading to St. Mawes intervened on their right, then the tree sentinels that had lined the lane abruptly ended. The curricle rattled on, into the sunshine.
They both caught their breath.
Before them lay one of the irregular inlets where an ancient valley had been drowned by the sea. To their right lay the St. Mawes arm of the Roseland peninsula, solid protection from any cold north wind; to their left, the rougher heathland of the southern arm rose, cutting off any buffets from the south. The horses trotted on and the view shifted, a new vista opening as they descended yet further.
The lane led them down through sloping fields, then steeply pitched and gabled roofs appeared ahead, between them and the blue-green waters of the inlet. Swinging in a wide, descending arc, the lane went past the house that majestically rose into view, then curved back to end in a wide sweep of gravel before the front door.
Rounding the final curve, Gerrard slowed his horses; neither he nor Barnaby uttered a word as they descended the last stretch. The house was…eccentric, fabulous—wonderful. There were turrets too numerous to count, multiple balconies laced with wrought iron, odd-shaped buttresses aplenty, windows of all descriptions, and segments of rooms forming fanciful angles in the gray stone walls.
“You didn’t say anything about the house,” Barnaby said as the horses neared the forecourt and they were forced to stop staring.
“I didn’t know about the house,” Gerrard replied. “I’d only heard about the gardens.”
Arms of those gardens, the famous gardens of Hellebore Hall, reached out of the valley above which the house sat and embraced the fantastical creation, but the major part of the gardens lay hidden behind. Poised sentrylike at the upper end of the valley that ran down to the inlet’s rocky shore, the house blocked all view of the valley itself and the gardens it contained.
Gerrard let out the breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. “No wonder no one ever succeeded in slipping in to paint undetected.”
Barnaby shot him an amused look, straightening as Gerrard tightened the reins, and they entered the shaded forecourt of Hellebore Hall.
Seated in the drawing room of Hellebore Hall, Jacqueline Tregonning caught the sound she’d been waiting for—the clop of hooves, the soft scrunch of gravel under a carriage’s wheels.
None of the others scattered about the large room heard; they were too busy speculating on aspects of the nature of the visitors who’d just arrived.
Jacqueline preferred not to speculate, not when she could view with her own eyes, and make up her own mind.
Smoothly, quietly, she rose from the armchair beside the chaise on which sat her closest friend, Eleanor Fritham, and Eleanor’s mother, Lady Fritham of neighboring Tresdale Manor. Both were engaged in a spirited discussion with Mrs. Elcott, the vicar’s wife, over the descriptions of the two gentlemen shortly expected that Mrs. Elcott’s and Lady Fritham’s correspondents in the capital had provided.
“Bound to be arrogant, the pair of them, my cousin said.” Mrs. Elcott grimaced disparagingly. “I daresay they’ll think themselves a cut above us.”
“I don’t see why they should,” Eleanor returned. “Lady Humphries wrote that while both were from excellent families, very much the haut ton, they were perfectly personable and amenable to being entertained.” Eleanor appealed to her mother. “Why would they turn their noses up at us? Aside from all else, we’re all the society there is around here—they’ll lead very quiet lives if they cut us.”
“True,” Lady Fritham agreed. “But if they’re half as well bred as her ladyship makes out, they won’t be high in the instep. Mark my words”—Lady Fritham nodded portentously, setting her multiple chins and the ribbons in her cap bobbing—“the mark
of a true gentleman shows in the ease with which he comports himself in any company.”
Unobtrusively slipping away, gliding silently up the long room to the window that gave the best view of the front portico, Jacqueline cynically noted the others present; aside from her father’s sister, Millicent, who after her mother’s death had come to live with them, none had any real reason to be there.
Not unless one deemed rampant curiosity sufficient reason.
Jordan Fritham, Eleanor’s brother, stood chatting with Mrs. Myles and her daughters, Clara and Rosa, both as yet unwed. Millicent stood with them, Mitchel Cunningham by her side. The group was engrossed in discussing portraiture, and the singular success of Mitchel and her father in persuading society’s foremost artistic lion to grace Hellebore Hall and favor her with his talents.
Calmly, Jacqueline approached the window. Regardless of her father’s, Mitchel’s, or the artistic lion’s belief, she would be the one bestowing the favor. She hadn’t yet decided whether she would sit for him, and wouldn’t, not until she’d evaluated the man, his talents, and, most importantly, his integrity.
She knew why her father had been so insistent this man, and only he, could paint the portrait her father required. Millicent had been nothing short of brilliant in planting the right seeds in her father’s mind, and nurturing them to fruition. As the one most intimately involved on all counts, Jacqueline was aware that the man himself would be pivotal; without him, his talents, and his vaunted integrity regarding his work, their plans would come to naught.