A Portrait of Love (The Academy of Love #3) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,88

dining in their room.

The meal was delicious and they talked and laughed and bickered as they always did, now. But even so she sensed an extra layer of reserve settling upon him.

“Are you excited to be going home?” she asked as they finished a delicious berry trifle and lazed at the table with glasses of wine.

He shrugged, his smile fading a little. “This has been a pleasant idyll, but our real lives beckon, do they not? You must be eager to paint—have you been away from your work this long in the past?”

“Not for years,” she admitted. “But I have my sketchpad, which fills a void.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Is tonight the night you allow me to see it?”

It was a game between them: she sketched, he begged to see them, she deprived him. She didn’t know why, maybe it was just that she enjoyed his teasing attention. But part of her wanted to keep something that was just her own. After all, he had hardly opened himself to her, yet she was already so vulnerable to him.

“Not yet,” she said, swirling her glass and gazing at the ruby liquid.

“Not even if I show you something new and astonishing tonight?”

She blushed even as she laughed. “I do not believe there is anything left.”

He shook his head, taking her glass and setting it on the table before leading her into the bedroom. “The fact that you would doubt me breaks my heart.”

“Well, you will just have to convince me, my lord.”

Which is exactly what he set about doing.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The journey to Shropshire took several days longer than her first visit to Whitcomb.

Honey had assumed the task of massaging salve into Simon every evening and learned that his thin, damaged skin caused him more pain than he ever let on. Riding in a carriage—even the luxurious coach he had engaged—was never enjoyable for days on end.

They read to each other, played a game of chess on a traveling board, looked out the windows, and talked. But on the last day of their journey Simon became more morose with every mile.

Peel had left several days before them so, they traveled with only the services of Simon’s groom, John, a man who’d accompanied Peel from Whitcomb and was riding back with them.

“We are almost there.”

Honoria looked up from the book she’d been trying to read to see a long, tree-lined drive flickering past the windows.

Simon swung onto the seat beside her and pointed out the window, “This is Everley at its best. Watch for it—now!” His excitement was contagious and Honey gasped when the peaked roof of the big structure grew and grew until there was the entire building.

She squeezed his arm. “It is lovely, Simon.”

He grinned and kissed her soundly, his excitement almost manic.

By the time the carriage rumbled to a stop in front of the entrance there were perhaps a dozen servants lined up and waiting.

“We’ll need to hire more,” he said, his eyes flickering rapidly over the house, the servants, everything. “The ones here are a few old retainers and those the Amberlies did not take with them. Some families have worked here for generations.” He shot her a smile. “They’ll be glad to have Fairchilds back in residence.”

He was out of the carriage and handing her down almost before it rolled to a stop. Never had she seen him so excited.

“Hume, you look no older than you did when I was a boy.” Simon grabbed the older man’s—butler?—hand, his warm greeting clearly startling the stiff, proper servant

“It is a great pleasure to have you back, my lord.”

“It is wonderful to be back, Hume. This is my wife, Lady Saybrook.”

Hume bowed low. “Welcome to Everley, my lady.” He turned back to Simon. “Mr. Peel arrived two days ago and has been unpacking your trunks from Whitcomb. We have recently received a shipment from your house in London,” he said to Honey, “but have not begun to unpack until you were here to direct the staff as to where you wished to place your painting things. We have prepared the master and mistress’s—”

“Yes, yes. Very good Hume, let us go in.” Simon took Honoria’s arm and led her through the gauntlet, pausing just long enough to let her nod but not exchange a word, with all the gawking servants.

“You are in a tearing hurry,” she muttered as he all but dragged her up the steps.

He nodded, his eyes on the open doors ahead of them. “I’ve not been here for fourteen years.”

“What?”

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