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

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. “Although 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