Prologue
Wilton House, Wiltshire, Salisbury
Jamie had spent all day waiting for this. Some of his fellow painters called it “the golden hour,” the space between day and night, when the world bathed in the golden glow of a sunset, and everything looked perfect and magical.
The only downside of painting during the golden hour was that you had to be quick. Too early, and you’d only get dull old daylight. Too late, and you’d find yourself finishing the painting in the dark.
Today, however, Jamie timed it perfectly. He was tempted to grin triumphantly at his own cleverness, but that was a recipe for disaster. Paint and canvas had a way of sensing cockiness and taking you down a peg or two. There were lots of wrong ways to paint a picture and very few right ways of accomplishing it.
So far Jamie was doing well. He preferred portraits to landscapes, but the picture he was working on today was a bit of both. It was a scene of a farmyard with majestic hills looming in the background and golden fields of barley. He was not a farmer. He couldn’t name all the crops that were so carefully tended or name the trees and plants which grew in the background, but he could capture some of their beauty. He’d always been better with a paintbrush than with his hands wrist-deep in soil.
Chickens scratched around the farmyard quickly, and he had been forced to paint a few scratching chickens from memory.
In the centre of it all, an old lady sat on a rocking chair, quietly and peacefully slumbering. She’d been asleep for close to an hour, long enough for Jamie to make the preliminary sketches and add in some blocks of colour. Now the golden hour was here, and he could start painting in earnest. The old woman might wake up any moment, ruining the picturesque scene, but Jamie was confident that he could capture most of the picture first.
He liked scenes with a little challenge to them. Painting portraits were the exception, as people fidgeted and yawned and wriggled as much they wanted. It did not matter how often they were told to stay still, they still seemed to move around without care of how their nose might turn out on their portrait.
Landscapes, however, tended to bore Jamie. What was the point? An artist could never properly copy the majesty and beauty of nature, so why bother to create a dull, flat copy? Besides, you could paint all day, and nothing would change except the light. There was no challenge there.
Jamie squinted down at his palette, carefully adding white to his ochre yellow until he mixed the perfect shade of gold for the old woman’s straw hat which was nodding in the breeze. There were touches of red on the brim of the hat, reflecting the fiery sunset. He’d better hurry, there wasn’t much time left to capture these colours. Tomorrow the old woman may not fall asleep in her farmyard. Even if, by some miracle she did, the colours of the sunset would be all different. Sunsets were like snowflakes—no two were alike.
Of course, Jamie had seen enough sunsets and sunrises to copy the way the colours would play across the scene. He could easily make it up, but that felt far too much like cheating.
Then he heard the crunch of approaching footsteps behind him, and his heart sank. Jamie didn’t turn around, not until he work out who was approaching him. There were no aggravated sighs and wheezes, so he knew it was not his father. There was also no clinking of jewellery or the rasp of a long skirt dragging across the grass, so he knew it was not his mother either.
The gait was heavy, but uneven, as if the walker was leaning too far to one side, dragging a limp or useless limb along. He was trying to be quiet, so as not to disturb the painter and his scene, but not quite succeeding.
It must be William, then.
“Hello, William.” Jamie said, not turning around.
“Hello, Lord Jamie. Your painting looks very pretty.”
Jamie suppressed a moue of annoyance. Try as he might, he simply couldn’t get William interested in the finer points of art. William loved music, and would listen to it for hours, but could scarcely keep himself awake when faced with even the greatest paintings of their time.
William had once been a soldier, and a rather a good one by all accounts. He was around thirty now and would no doubt have gone on to be a distinguished soldier, likely receiving promotions and advancements if an injury had not required his right leg to be amputated above the knee. The army had dropped him like a hot coal and offered a flimsy pension that would barely pay a month’s rent in London. William had tried to get work as a valet, eventually finding work with the famously reclusive Lord James Herbert, heir to the estate of Pembroke.
Unfortunately, William was not a good valet. He tried his best, but simply didn’t have the grace and finesse valets were supposed to possess. Jamie didn’t care as long as William kept his clothes relatively and helped him in and out of his coat and boots. His mother might complain that William couldn’t get the paint out of Jamie’s cuffs, but that hardly mattered to him. There would be paint on the very next day, anyway.
Besides, he liked William. William might not appreciate art, but he understood an artist needed to work on their craft and ought not be disturbed over mundane matters.
Like marriage, for instance. He thought to himself.
Of course, not everyone was as enlightened as William. For example, his parents, Lord and Lady Pembroke definitely didn’t seem to be.
William had made something of a racket, stumbling through the bracken and undergrowth to get to his master. He wore a false leg, but it was unwieldy, and Jamie knew it caused him pain. He’d often thought about ways to make wearing a false limb easier and more comfortable. Apparently nobody cared enough to make the lives of men like William easier.
With the noise he made, he’d woken the old lady in the chair. She sat up; yawning, stretching, and stiffly arose from her seat. Jamie sighed, putting down his paintbrush. He’d have to commit the scene to memory now, and try again later.
“What is it, William?”
“His lordship said I was to fetch you. They want to talk to you, my lord,” William said, his voice hoarse and gravelly from years of bellowing at the head of a troop of men.
“I suppose I know what this conversation will be about,” Jamie said, trying to sound lighthearted. But, it annoyed him that his valuable painting time had been cut short for another pointless lecture.
William grimaced. “I suppose so. Shall I carry your easel, my lord?”
“It’s alright, I’ll carry it. Here, you can take my box of paints.”
By the time the two men had packed up all of Jamie’s things, the golden hour was gone, and twilight was well on its way. William glanced down the hill one more time, noting the old woman now busily sweeping her courtyard.
“Did she know you were painting her, my lord?”
“No, why?”
William shrugged. “It seems a bit odd, painting people when they don’t know it.”
“I know, but that’s the only way I can achieve true authenticity. You can’t say that all those stiff-backed, dead-eyed portraits hanging in the Grand Hall are authentic, can you?”
“I suppose not. I don’t think I’d like it, though. Someone having a picture of me, and keeping it secret.”
Jamie, who had no less than three furtive sketches of his valet tucked away in his studio, smiled wanly.
Despite William’s missing limb, Jamie struggled to keep up with him. William was a hulking, broad-shouldered man, and Jamie was of average height, thin and delicate. He followed his valet through the undergrowth. Jamie never followed the paths, hoping he’d find new scenes and make it harder for his parents to track him down. It hadn’t worked yet, and they finally crested the hill that looked down on Wilton House.
Jamie’s heart sank. The knot in his chest, which had started unravelling as he painted, was tightening up again. Lights were flickering in the dark house, and for a moment, it looked like a face. The windows glowing like baleful eyes raking the surrounding landscape… looking for him.
A future earl should never go far from his home, James. He never can, you know. You can run as far and as fast as you like, but your inheritance will always bring you snapping back.
Jamie wasn’t sure whether his father meant that to be comforting, but it certainly wasn’t.
The ancient, sombre butler greeted them at the door. Atkins seemed like he’d been an old man forever. Even when Jamie was a child he was old, and his pale grey eyes still struck fear into Jamie’s heart.
“His lordship and her ladyship are waiting for you in the drawing room, Lord James,” Atkins intoned. His glance landed heavily on William. “Green, make sure Lord Herbert is properly ready to be received by their lordships.”
Jamie caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and winced. His dark hair was at an awkward length, and it could not be pulled back quiet yet. He didn’t even have enough of a curl to make his hair tidy and fashionable. There were a few leaves stuck in his hair, and it was thoroughly unbrushed. He face was tan, freshly sun-kissed by his many hours outside painting. His jaw-line was chiselled and sharp, but his eyes were fiercely green, especially in this light.
“Oh, damnation,” Jamie muttered. He raked his hands through his hair, dislodging the leaves and taming it a little. William stepped forward, licked the pad of his thumb, and before Jamie could do anything, rubbed off a smudge of paint from his cheek.
“William!” Jamie shouted.
“Sorry, Lord Jamie.”
“What’s what wrong with a handkerchief?”
“You borrowed mine, remember? To make those blots on your painting the other day.”
“Oh, right. So I did. Never mind. Can you put these in the studio?”
“Of course.” William hefted the easel and canvas under his arm, grinned at the incensed Atkins, and hurried along the hallway. William sighed, smoothing out his crumpled clothes as if that would do any good. “I’m ready, Atkins.”
Atkins hesitated and kept his hand on the doorknob then said, “Lord James, about Green. I really must…”
“I’m not dismissing him, Atkins,” Jamie replied.
“But…”
“No, I won’t budge. I like William.”
“He is a poor valet.”
Jamie shrugged. “And I’m a poor master. Shall we go in?”
***
The Earl and Countess of Pembroke had never been the best of friends. Together, they’d produced two entirely suitable sons; an heir and a spare. They did not live separate lives and had learned to get on with each other as best they could.
The countess had never been a beauty and tended to turn up her nose at those qualities in modern society girls. Breeding was important to her, and she boasted a long and rather intermarried family tree stretching back for generations. She sat before the fire, hands folded tightly in her lap, and looked rather as though she was angry at someone. That was probably just her face, though.
The Earl was a portly man, entirely bald, who struggled to fit in his chairs and his waistcoats of late. He had been strong-armed into marriage at a young age with a woman he did not like, and his naturally surly personality allowed him to become embittered and snappish. His children were not children to him. They were heirs, and that was something entirely different.
Both glanced up when Jamie entered, closing the door softly behind him.
“Mother, Father, good evening. I trust you’re both well?”
He received a murmur of “Very bad, very bad,” from the former, and an incoherent grunt from the latter.
“Did you call on Miss Hereford as I asked, James?” the earl asked shortly.
Jamie winced. At three o’clock he should have been visiting Miss Hereford and her parents, but he’d been scouting the hillside for the perfect location and perfect scene instead.
“I… I didn’t.”
The earl let out a huff of annoyance. “Good heavens, James! Sometimes I despair of you! This will not go on. You will attend this year’s Season, and you will find a bride. That is all there is to it. That rake friend of yours, Sir Henry, will find some suitable ladies for you to meet.”
Jamie swallowed. “I… I thought we agreed I wouldn’t have to participate in the Season until next year.”
“That was before you decided not to pursue Miss Hereford.”
“Miss Hereford doesn’t care for me, Father.”
“You’ll be an earl one day,” The countess interrupted. “If her head isn’t entirely filled with sand, she’ll understand the value of such a husband.”
The earl leaned forward in his seat; the chair creaking underneath him.
“You have to marry, my boy. Soon.”
“I’m only twenty-three,” Jamie tried again.
“Yes, and now you are my only heir!” the earl boomed. “You’ll marry before the year is out, or you’ll pay the consequences.”
Jamie bit his lip. He had no money of his own. Not a penny. While he would inherit the title no matter what, he wouldn’t put it past his father to rip the estate away from the title in order to spite his son. Besides, there was always the chance that Matthew might have children. As always, Jamie felt an ache of loss when he thought about his brother. He hadn’t seen Matthew since… well. Since before, when Jamie thought he would still be free, as the younger brother, to pursue his love of painting.
Things had changed, and they would never go back.
The countess cleared her throat. “Miss Hereford is not a poor choice, but I’m sure we can do better during the Season. I shall draw up a list of ladies for you to meet, Jamie.”
Jamie imagined himself saying no. He imagined repeating it louder when his father incredulously demanded to know what, exactly, he meant by that. He imagined pushing over a chair and storming out into the twilight, off to lead his own life. Finally free. William would probably come with him, carrying the paints, canvas, and easel. What else would Jamie need?
He did not do any of those things though. Instead, he bowed silently, and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Chapter One
Lindsay House, London
Catherine woke up to a headache, and she had only herself to blame. She’d drank entirely too much champagne last night. What had she expected beyond a headache, feeling groggy, and a poor night’s sleep?
“Morning, my lady!” Jane chirped, throwing open the bedroom door with a bang. She skipped over to the window, throwing open the curtains. Catherine burrowed her head into the pillows, desperate to avoid the morning light.
“Jane, please. My head. What time is it?”
“Quarter past nine, my lady.”
“Oh, good heavens. I’ve barely been in bed for five hours. Lady Emmeline Hurst’s soiree was last night, and of course one can never leave one of her soirees early. I want to go back to bed.”
Jane grimaced. “Usually I’d let you sleep, my lady, but his lordship wants you to come down to breakfast. He’s already there. He said to say that the bacon is getting cold.”
Catherine wondered if her father knew that the very idea of bacon would make her stomach heave. If so, he might well have done it deliberately. It might possibly have been revenge for her making him stay so late at the soiree last night.
Either way, she was going to have to get up and face him. There’d be questions, lots of them. Who did you dance with? Any titled gentlemen? Did you like any of them? Why not?
Then, of course, there’d be the usual lecture about how searching for the perfect partner was a waste of time because nobody was perfect, and she ought to try a little more. If he got too enthusiastic, it would bring on one of his coughing fits. Once, he’d been so angry, he had coughed until he spat blood. The physician had been called, and it had been a few tense and fearful days until he recovered.
Catherine had been so terrified, she’d been willing to marry the first suitable man she met if it meant her father would recover.
Catherine pushed her father’s illness to the back of her mind, bringing up the happier memories of last night instead.
Catherine sat up abruptly, throwing back the blankets and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. The movement made her head spin, but she knew from experience it would fade soon enough.
“So, how is Papa today?” Catherine asked briskly.
“He seems well, my lady,” Jane said, taking out a selection of linens. “He’s in good humour, I think.”
“I shouldn’t have made him stay out so late. Really, I should have gone home earlier. I told him I would be quite alright, but he wouldn’t go without me.”
Jane nodded, looking away. “He wants you to be safe, my lady. He cares about you.”
A lump rose to Catherine’s throat. She bounced to her feet, keen to work past this unpleasant feeling. It wasn’t as though her beloved father could die at any moment. It was going to happen one day. Catherine had just turned twenty-one, and Adrian’s determination for her to marry had only started in the past year, when his health had started to deteriorate.
“How about this one, miss?” Jane suggested, taking out a sage green gown.
It would suit Catherine well. She was pretty, and she knew it. She was no sultry beauty, no diamond, but she had strawberry-blonde curls and large, attractive grey eyes. There had never been a shortage of male attention, which only reaffirmed her knowledge. Green was her favourite colour, and she knew it would compliment her features and steely eyes.
“That one looks perfect,” Catherine said, smiling.
Lord Adrian Kennedy, Earl of Westmoreland, had clearly taken his time eating his breakfast and waiting for his daughter to appear. He glanced up at she skipped into the breakfast room, trying to look stern.
“It’s almost ten o’ clock, Cat.”
“And you and I had a very late night, Papa.” Catherine shot back with a smile, sliding into her usual place. The butler stepped forward and slid a plate under her nose, loaded with bacon, eggs, fried bread, tomatoes, and potatoes. Catherine’s smile froze. “Oh, I, uh, I don’t want any of this, but thank you, Vesta.”
“I had Vesta prepare that plate especially for you,” Adrian said, peering at her over his spectacles. He often read books at the table. While she enjoyed reading at the table too, her head hurt too much for it to be an appealing option at present. But Adrian had a battered old volume spread out on the table in front of him.
“Ah. Well, I’m not sure I’m hungry,” Catherine said, delicately pushing her plate away from her. Adrian sighed, taking off his spectacles. He was in his late forties, and up until a few years ago, had aged particularly well. He was tall and handsome, his hair a dignified mess of black, grey, and white. Catherine resembled her mother mostly, but she and her father had the same large, grey eyes.
“You need that food, Catherine. I saw you last night, you drank a lot and only picked at the food. The grease might turn your stomach, but you ought to eat. Come, I insist. Have some strong coffee, too.”
Catherine didn’t have the energy to argue. She sighed and picked up her fork.
They ate in silence for a few minutes, with Catherine stealing furtive glances at her father. He hated to be fussed over, and usually insisted he was completely fine right up until the moment he crumpled to the ground, unconscious. He looked well today, though. He had a healthy colour in his cheeks, and he hummed under his breath as he ate. These were all good signs, and Catherine started to feel a little better.
“So, who did you dance with last night?”
Ah, there it was. Catherine frowned, trying to recall the faceless gentleman she’d danced with. Some of them she did remember, like the deliciously rakish Captain Kirkland, who she knew was secretly engaged to Miss Frank, or the comical Sir Thomas Everett, who thought he was so clever.
Most of them, however, were simply convenient gentlemen with whom she could stand up for a cotillion or a jig. Catherine liked to dance, and for that, she needed a willing gentleman.
Adrian seemed to put the names of these gentlemen onto one of two lists: eligible and not eligible. If they were eligible, then he would repeatedly invite them to the house, and all but try and force them down the aisle with his daughter. If they were not eligible, he would tell Catherine never to see them again, and that was the end of it.
Adrian had always had a singularly focused mind. Catherine had seen it before, and it had always been amusing. It was less amusing now that it was directed towards finding her a husband.
“Oh, nobody much,” Catherine said airily. “Nobody you’d know, Papa.”
Adrian pursed his lips. “You ought to try harder to find someone suitable, Catherine. There were plenty of suitable men there last night. Lord Rathbone, for example.”
Catherine conjured up an image of a thin, cadaverous man who talked incessantly about catching and preserving butterflies. He’d called on her once, and fifteen minutes had never seemed so long. She shuddered.
“No, thank you, Papa.”
“What about Lord Paisley?”
“He is barely nineteen, Papa!”
“That isn’t such a bad thing! Gentlemen marry girls at that age all the time.”
“Yes, well, gentlemen in general are rather unpleasant things. I don’t want to marry Lord Paisley. He acts like a child. He threw peas at me across the table all evening at Miss Frank’s coming out ball and laughed as though it were the funniest thing the world. I wanted to stuff those peas up his nose.”
Adrian laughed at that, but quickly began to cough. Fear pulsed inside Catherine, and she glanced at Vesta, who was hovering nearby with a jug and a glass of water, should Adrian need it.
The coughing fit subsided, but Catherine’s spike of anxiety took longer to calm. She realised that she’d eaten at least half of her heavy, greasy breakfast without thinking, and it was actually making her feel better.
“You have to marry, Catherine. The sooner the better. I’d like to see you married at the end of this Season. I may not see another, and I must see that you will be provided for.”
Catherine flinched, her knife scraping across her plate, making a screeching noise that set her teeth on edge.
“Don’t say that, Papa.” Catherine said. “The doctor says…”
“I really don’t want to dredge all that up now, Catherine. Now, I know you don’t like me to arrange for gentlemen callers, but I really do have a decent chap I think you’ll like.”
Catherine’s heart sank. “Papa…”
“It’s Lord Reginald Coppery. He’ll be an earl one day, and that’s not to be sniffed at my dear. He’s going to pay a call later today, and we can see how you like him.”
Catherine bit her lip. She wanted to complain and tell her father that she didn’t want to be married. Every man she met in society was the same, and the ones she admired as friends quickly fell in love with someone else. Love simply was not in the stars for Lady Catherine, and she really didn’t mind.
I want to stay with you, Papa, Catherine thought, that treacherous lump rising to her throat again. I want to have fun, dance at parties, and drink too much champagne with my friends, happy knowing that my father is safe and well at home.
But there was no point complaining about the way things were, or what she wanted from life. Adrian was looking hopefully at her, waiting for her agreement.
“Papa…”
“I would like it very much if you took Lord Coppery seriously,” Adrian said.
Catherine swallowed hard, forcing a smile. “Well, if you like him, Papa, I’m sure I shall like him too.”
Relief spread over Adrian’s face, and he sat back in his seat, replacing his spectacles.
“I am glad to hear that, Catherine. He will arrive around two, I think. We must be ready, he’s very punctual. We’ll greet him together.”
Catherine smiled reaching across the table to take her father’s hand. “I’m sure he’ll be delightful.”
“Oh, I’m sure he will. Now, Catherine, don’t think I won’t notice you leaving the rest of your breakfast.”
“My corset won’t lace up if you keep plying me with food, Papa.”
“Nonsense. I like to see a young person with an appetite. You can be picky when you’re my age. Now, eat up.”
Catherine was feeling much better now and was happy to oblige.
***
Catherine wasn’t sure what she’d expected from Lord Coppery.
She certainly hadn’t expected him to bring his mother, though.
The current Countess of… well, she couldn’t really remember, sat directly opposite her on the sofa beside her rabbit-looking son and surveyed her openly, barely hiding her displeasure.
“Of course, my son is eager to secure an heir as soon as possible,” the countess stated.
Even Adrian flinched at her directness.
“Are you an only child…?” the countess asked.
“Lady Catherine,” Catherine said smoothly. “Yes, I am an only child.”
The countess pursed her lips together in displeasure. “Only one girl. How unfortunate.”
Adrian cleared his throat. “My dear wife, Catherine’s mother fell ill after giving birth, and she never recovered. She succumbed to her illness when Catherine was barely two years old.”
“That is a pity, of course, but the lineage must be secured. If my Reginald was unfortunate enough to lose a wife in childbirth, I should insist on his taking another as soon as possible. Isn’t that so, Reginald?”
Lord Coppery, who had barely ventured a word since he arrived, flinched at his mother’s voice. “Yes, Mother.”
Catherine had to fight back a sneer. Lord Coppery had ogled her shamelessly, chewing on the top of his cane and staring blankly into the distance while the others talked, as if the conversation had nothing to do with him at all. When the countess made a joke about Catherine’s reddish-tinged hair and Lord Coppery laughed obediently, Catherine was tempted to snatch his cane out of his grip and set about knocking them both on the head with it.
“Tell me, Lady Catherine, why are you not yet married?” the countess said, leaning forward inquisitively. She narrowed her eyes, like elderly women did when they thought they were being especially clever.
Catherine sucked in a breath. That was an impertinent question, even for a woman her age and status.
“I beg your pardon? I am one and twenty, madam. I’m hardly on my deathbed.”
The countess clicked her tongue. “Women age badly, my girl. There is really no time to waste. My Reginald is close to thirty, and he has at least twenty years left to find a suitable wife. Lady Catherine, I like to be straightforward with people. I always say that there’s no substitute for honesty. Tell me, why are you not yet married?”
Catherine smiled brilliantly. “I think I must just have exceptional good luck.”
The countess blinked. “Well, I’m not sure I would consider spinsterhood to be good luck.”
“No, I suppose you would not.”
“I would not like my son to marry someone who considered being unmarried as anything other than shameful.”
Catherine leaned forward, smiling smoothly and widely. She knew that her eye teeth were a little more pointed than they should be, and often gave her a disconcerting, ominous look. She hoped that was how she looked now.
“If I had to choose between a life of singleness and marrying your son, your ladyship, I would choose the former and count my blessings every day.”
Colour rushed into the countess’ face, and Lord Coppery’s jaw dropped.
“I have never… Reginald, let us go at once.” The countess blustered, setting down her teacup with a clack and climbing to her feet. Vesta ushered the two out, and the door closed, leaving Catherine and Adrian alone.
“You’re right, Papa. He was charming.”
Adrian groaned. “Alright, that was a terrible idea, I’ll grant you that. But I am serious about your marriage, Catherine. I shan’t give up, and I don’t expect you to give up, either.”
“The Artist of a Lady’s Heart” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!
The charismatic Lady Catherine enjoys soirees, gets easily bored, and doesn’t embrace the idea of marriage. With her ailing father pressuring her to marry though, she feels trapped among the many unimpressive suitors. When Catherine and an eccentric and art loving lord are brought together by fate, her world changes overnight and a secret correspondence begins between the two. However, her father’s disapproval will prove to be vital for her future happiness.
Will she choose to follow her heart or her duty as an Earl’s daughter?
Lord James Herbert never expected to be his father’s heir. When his older brother chose to join the clergy, Jamie found himself confronted with a vast estate and countless responsibilities. With his overbearing parents determined to find him a suitable match, he struggles to balance his new life with his love for art. That is until he meets the intelligent Lady Catherine who sparks his lonely artistic world with light.
Will Jamie paint his way into Catherine’s heart?
Exchanging letters is only the beginning of Catherine and Jamie’s stormy romance. Determined to maintain their bond, he starts painting her portrait and their affection shines in the brightest colours. However, threatening forces eager to separate them appear in their way. With Catherine’s worry about her father’s health and Jamie’s eccentric presence in society, can their love truly dispel the countless gloomy obstacles?
“The Artist of a Lady’s Heart” is a historical romance novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.
Hello my dears, I hope you enjoyed the preview! I will be waiting for your comments here. Thank you 🙂