Harlequin Historical July 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 Page 8

  ‘Indeed, my lord.’ Papa smiled approvingly. He had always had a healthy disregard for the aristocracy despite their patronage being his bread and butter. ‘I too prefer to judge a man on his merits. Yet another good reason for you to have upped sticks and deserted Mayfair. While there are several decent sorts residing there, like my son-in-law’s splendid family, there are twice as many again who think themselves a notch above everyone else with no substance behind that expectation, my lord.’

  ‘Back home, everyone calls me Luke, so I insist you do the same, sir, seeing as this is my home too now and we are neighbours.’

  ‘Then we insist on the same, Luke, don’t we, Roberta?’

  Exactly as he had promised, his easy, self-effacing charm already had her parents eating out of his hand. Within minutes they all settled into the sort of polite conversation fresh acquaintances engaged in when they were on their best behaviour and keen to make a good impression. However, that only served to make Hope more uncharacteristically nervous than she already was. He clearly had no problem thinking of things to say—neither did the rest of her family—and he was effortlessly friendly and witty. Unfortunately, she seemed to have lost the power of speech and remained largely mute unless included in something specific and even then her usual powers of pithy observation and witty retort appeared to have deserted her. Fifteen minutes in, and Charity had plainly noticed her odd behaviour too and kept slipping her curious side glances which did nothing to alleviate the problem.

  ‘Our eldest, Faith, follows her father.’ Her mother was now waxing lyrical as she gave him a potted history of the family. ‘And is a supremely talented artist in her own right. The picture above the mantel is one of hers, painted when she was just fourteen.’

  Luke stared at the seascape and smiled as he was supposed to. ‘If she was that good at fourteen, I shudder to think how brilliant her work is now.’

  ‘When you have a free afternoon, you must visit the Royal Academy as her magnificent Sunset over London is currently the shining star of their summer exhibition.’ Both her mother and father beamed with pride. ‘Unless you saw her stunning tableau in the Earl and Countess of Writtle’s ballroom of course, as that is a triumph too and Faith’s first official commission.’ Her mother innocently sipped her tea and stared at him over the rim before her innate nosiness got the better of her. ‘You were there weren’t you, Luke? Only I am sure I saw you there...on the terrace...towards the end of the evening.’

  She was so shameless. Hope willed herself invisible while focusing as hard as she could on the liquid in her cup.

  ‘If you are referring to the unfortunate debacle with the fountain, Roberta, and my infamous dip in it, then yes, I was there.’ His unoffended smile was all mischief. ‘Although to be honest with you, after causing such a frightful scene and leaving with my tail dripping between my legs, I have to admit I missed your daughter’s tableau. To be frank, as it was my first venture into high society, I spent most of the evening a little overawed with it all...until all that country mouse awe and wonder combined with the free-flowing champagne got the better of me. Especially after I stupidly mixed it with the fresh air I had wrongly assumed might clear my head.’

  He managed to look both sincere, amused and apologetic at the same time, and so thoroughly and boyishly charming that her mother was instantly smitten by it all. ‘I had never been to an affair quite so grand before and we drink plain old ale instead of heady champagne in Tregally, so perhaps I did not make the best first impression upon society as I could have done. I beg of you not to judge me completely on the back of it.’

  ‘Nerves sometimes get the better of us all, Luke. Every single time I wait in the wings before I step on the stage, they positively swamp me.’

  ‘Me too.’ Charity nodded emphatically because she knew that always made her pretty golden curls bounce in the most becoming way. ‘Although the butterflies swiftly disappear as soon as I start to sing.’

  ‘Charity follows me,’ said her mother in case he missed that pertinent detail, ‘and we have no doubt that one day she too will be a leading lady once she has done her apprenticeship in the chorus. Although she has done such a good job in Così fan Tutte at the Theatre Royal, she has now been made the understudy for the part of Despina.’ A minor role at the very best, thought Hope churlishly while simultaneously wondering why she was suddenly jealous of her sister’s success when she never had been before. Envious, perhaps, that she like Faith shared the same talents as their parents, but not in the competitive sense.

  ‘Though sadly, I have yet to perform her to an audience and time is rapidly running out to do so.’ Her youngest sister’s eyelashes fluttered attractively. ‘So nobody knows I am almost as good a soprano as my mother is.’

  ‘I’ve seen you, dear.’ Their mother beamed across the Persian. ‘And I can confirm that you are better than me. At your age, my voice was nowhere near as powerful and your musicality is second to none. Charity is destined for great things, Luke. Greater than I could ever have dreamed of.’

  ‘And who does Miss Hope follow?’ Bless Luke for trying to include her even though it galled that he felt he had to, but he had inadvertently kicked a hornets’ nest. Or a cuckoo’s nest, as she was very definitely the odd Brookes out.

  ‘Well she could have followed me on to the stage as she has a lovely singing voice, but sadly showed no interest in developing her talent.’ A point of contention her mother had never understood. ‘She dallied with it briefly, and was even taken on as a student of Signor Alessandro Ricci the great protégé of Bernacchi, but stopped her lessons at fifteen. Though lord only knows why. I never have fully got to the bottom of it when she was showing such promise.’

  All eyes suddenly swivelled to her for a better explanation, and for a split second she almost blurted the whole mortifying truth before she stopped herself. ‘There is no mystery, Mama. I just didn’t enjoy it.’ A statement her musical mother always found inconceivable when music was her life. ‘As you are always saying, life is too short to waste your dreams on folly.’ Which was the truth, in a roundabout sort of way.

  Hope had never possessed either the affection or the dedication to music to want to pursue it properly. She had always preferred words over music and plays over operettas. She could sing well enough if she put her mind to it—but nowhere near as well as her brilliant mother and sister. However, the biggest reason why her lessons had come to a shuddering halt was because, at the tender age of fifteen, fate had already cursed her with the body of a woman and the fêted Signor Ricci had been the first of a long and continual line of gentlemen who were mesmerised nonsensical by the sight of her generous bosoms. Especially when they rose, fell and heaved with the exertion singing opera required and it was a constant battle to prevent him from groping them. ‘My artistic talents lie elsewhere.’

  ‘My middle daughter fancies herself an author, Luke.’ Her father said this with the indulgent but ever so slightly dismissive tone both parents used when they mentioned her writing. Neither of them were great readers and did not understand how something as mundane as a book could captivate anyone in the same way as the expressive arts of painting and performing could. They were always supportive of dreams of course—the Brookes family were big on following dreams and fulfilling artistic ambitions—they just thought some dreams were more worthy than others. ‘She is always scribbling away at something, and if she isn’t writing her own books, she has her nose buried in somebody else’s.’

  ‘In my humble opinion, there is nothing better than a good book.’ Luke’s dark eyes locked with hers intently as he smiled, warming her with his approval and his unexpected support. ‘Like your daughter, I enjoy nothing more than putting my feet up and losing myself in a story. I follow my mother in that. She is a great reader and spent hours sharing that passion with me as a child. That love of literature has stayed with me ever since. Our parlour in Cornwall is always scattered with our favou
rite novels. I shall look forward to the day it will be scattered with some of Miss Hope’s too and I can have the bragging rights of knowing a famous author.’ They stared at each other as he smiled, and for a moment as the rest of the room receded, she found herself smiling back.

  ‘And speaking of parlours...’ Her sister suddenly sat forward, blocking him entirely from Hope’s view. Unless she craned around her. Which, of course, she would never do. Not when he apparently had the power to make her forget where she was. ‘You must enlighten us about the hideous puce parlour you inherited next door, my lord.’

  ‘I can assure you, Miss Charity, that that unsettling shade of wallpaper is merely the tip of the iceberg of the tasteless atrocities inflicted on my fine new house by its previous owner. So hideous and offensive, it makes my eyes water.’ Unwittingly, Charity had thrown Luke the perfect bone, and because he needed her father’s help finding suitable tradesmen to fix it quickly, he gratefully caught it, effectively killing all bookish conversation stone dead. Hope tried and failed not to feel disappointed at the abrupt change of subject which rendered her lowly artistic talents inconsequential and forgotten.

  As usual.

  ‘Lord Clacton’s former mistress was a veritable paragon of bad taste, if her dreadful gaudy outfits were any gauge.’ Her mother shuddered theatrically as she pulled a disgusted face. ‘So I dread to think what her decor must look like.’

  ‘It’s appalling.’ The way he said it made appalling sound exciting and not to be missed. ‘If you would be kind enough to point me in the direction of some decent tradesmen to redecorate it, I will happily give you all a guided tour right this minute so you can experience the sheer horror for yourselves. Though I’ll warn you, once it is seen, it cannot be unseen and you’ll likely have nightmares for weeks.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  They almost flattened him in their haste to get to Number Twenty-Two. Like a pair of stampeding elephants, her mother and sister led the charge, leaving Hope and her still limping father trailing in their wake.

  Once inside, Luke gestured to the drawing room and as her family rushed into it, he hung back so he could walk into the room last beside her, only winking at her conspiratorially when nobody else could see. ‘It’s a bit spartan at the moment but I fear that only makes it worse.’

  ‘Good heavens above!’ Her father’s involuntary gasp said it all, as the strange shade of pink flock moiré wallpaper was rather unsettling and the floral filled Grecian urn emblazoned over it in busy stripes did peculiar things to her eyes. Above, the moulded flowers on the coving and cornices had been painted pink to match, with incongruous lime-green leaves surrounding them. Worse, the window dressings matched the offensive puce and lime-green colour scheme and gave the rest of the room a decidedly unpleasant and somewhat sinister hue. And there were tassels and fringes everywhere. Luke’s unguarded description of a tart’s boudoir last night was an apt one, as it certainly had the air of a bawdy house about it. Not that she’d ever been in a bawdy house of course. ‘What a strange shade that is...’ The more she looked at it, the more the odd colour bore a striking resemblance to raw offal. ‘And I see she managed to find a Persian rug to match.’ A vile monstrosity of a carpet if ever there was one.

  ‘It’s a very bold room.’ For once, Charity was trying to be diplomatic. ‘But it certainly doesn’t suit you, my lord.’

  ‘By that she means it’s a gawdy monstrosity.’ Hope laughed. She couldn’t help herself because he looked ridiculous among it all. Even the chandelier and the wall lamps sprang a plethora of deep pink glass flowers among the fussy cascading crystal droplets.

  ‘Don’t be so tactless, Hope!’ Her mother instantly bristled, despite undoubtedly thinking much the same. ‘Monstrosity is such a damning word.’

  ‘I am sure Lord Thundersley realises it’s a garish monstrosity, else he wouldn’t be so desperate to change it.’

  ‘That I do.’ His dark eyes danced as they drifted to hers over the top of her mother’s significantly shorter head. ‘I cannot step in here without feeling bilious, Miss Hope. Why else would I bare my soul and throw myself at the mercy of your family within minutes of meeting you all? I am a stranger in a strange land, in desperate need of a pious good Samaritan.’ He was clearly enjoying over-egging things because those mischievous dark eyes were twinkling as he waited for hers to narrow, so she stared blandly back simply to thwart him.

  ‘It’s all going to need to be stripped but as long as the plaster is good underneath it shouldn’t take too long.’ Her father ran his fingers over one of the tasteless gold-and-cerise tassels on the curtain tieback and grimaced. ‘The only salvageable thing, as far as I can see, is the floor.’

  ‘The parquet is nice.’ Charity shot Luke her best come-hither smile as she oh-so-casually sauntered past him with unnecessarily undulating hips. ‘And the ceiling and fireplace are quite lovely.’ Then, much to Hope’s complete and irrational consternation, her flirty sister’s fingertips slowly caressed the back of one of the enormous wingbacks which they had witnessed being delivered with the rest of his small cartload of effects. ‘And the workmanship on these chairs is exquisite.’

  To her relief, he didn’t flirt back or seem even remotely tempted to. If anything, he appeared oblivious of it. ‘It is, though I confess I bought them more for their size than the quality of the wood turning. The furniture in the Mayfair house was so delicate and spindly, I was terrified to sit on it in case I flattened it.’ Then he shrugged as he smiled at her sister before flicking Hope another amused glance which subtly let her know that he had noticed but was purposely ignoring it, and sent a distracting waft of something seductively spicy straight up her nostrils in the process. ‘Back in Cornwall we prefer substance over style and make things more robust.’

  ‘Including the gentlemen.’ Charity never missed an opportunity to beguile a new victim with some well-placed flattery and likely wouldn’t be happy until she had captured the heart of every breathing man in the capital, and beyond, under her seductive spell. In case he missed her overt message, she batted her eyelashes at him for good measure. ‘You must enlighten me as to where you acquired that jaunty earring. I heard a rumour it was on a pirate ship...’

  He laughed and tugged the gold loop as if he had long forgotten it was there. ‘Sadly, nowhere near as exciting. I spent two summers on a herring boat and was goaded into the earring when I balked at the suggestion of a tattoo.’

  ‘But still, you were a sailor. I’ve always thought there is something romantic about the sea...’

  Hope rolled her eyes at her sister before she stepped into the breach to save him. Or at least that was how she justified her tart interruption to herself. ‘What do you want done to this room, Lord Thundersley?’

  ‘Well frankly, as you can plainly see, anything would be an improvement, but I would definitely prefer something...subtler.’ Was that a veiled dig at Charity? She certainly hoped so. It would make a change to see a man not eating out of her little sister’s beguiling hands. ‘Something calm and soothing.’

  ‘I cannot say I blame you. This room is a bit like a sharp slap to the face.’

  Luke came up beside her and folded his arms as they both stared at the wallpaper again in mutual disgust. ‘Appalling isn’t it?’

  ‘I think it’s a way past appalling. I’d even go as far as to say it has boldly ventured into the darkest realms of the horrendous.’ She grinned up at him, until she caught Charity watching them with interest.

  Oblivious of that, Luke playfully nudged her with his elbow, causing her fascinated sibling’s eyebrows to raise knowingly. ‘If you think this room is horrendous, Miss Brookes, you should see upstairs. Although I am not altogether sure if I should show any of you what abominations Lord Clacton’s mistress did to the master bedroom. I’ve certainly never seen anything quite like it before. It’s enough to give anyone nightmares.’

  Her father had now moved fr
om the garish tieback to the peculiar gilt swirls painted on the door panels. ‘I know a man who can fix all of this and will not charge you an arm and a leg for doing it.’

  ‘You do?’ Luke received this news like a man given a pardon on the steps to the gallows.

  ‘I do. As I send a great deal of business his way, I shall also impress on him the urgency of the matter as he owes me a few favours and I dare say the quicker we erase this pink monstrosity from the face of the earth, the better.’ Her father pulled a face as he glanced back at the curtains. ‘I shall send a message to him presently and declare your case an emergency. Is it just this room or is the rest of the house as bad?’

  ‘The master bedroom is as bad, if not worse than here. The rest, thankfully, was spared.’

  ‘Then we must see that next!’ Her mother would take no refusal and immediately started towards the door.

  * * *

  As he had promised, the scarlet-and-black bedchamber was worse, and after they all trailed back to Number Twenty-One suitably dumbfounded by it all, Hope was dispatched to fetch a fresh pot of tea while Luke ensconced himself with her father in his studio to discuss suitable tradesmen and realistic London prices for fixing the mess.

  ‘What is going on?’ The swift arm through her elbow stopped her short of the kitchen. ‘Because I swear blind, Sister dearest, that something is.’ Charity wagged an admonishing finger. ‘I thought I sensed a strange atmosphere between you and Lord Thundersley yesterday, but after seeing the pair of you today, I am now utterly convinced of it.’

  ‘And apparently I am the one with the vivid imagination?’ Hope scoffed, feigning amusement as she tugged her arm away.