A Fresh Perspective, A Regency Romance (7 page)

“Where is Megan?” he asked, when Tom went with him to the local inn to see to the disposition of his carriage and team.

Tom gave him a sliding, sideways look. “She and her new friends have ridden to Ambleside. Traveling performers are entertaining at one of the inns. Megan will not be back until midnight.”

“So late?”

“Yes. Has me rather worried. Augusta will not say a word to Megan about the wild ways of this group she has taken up with. She has whispered in my ear a request that you wean her away from them if you can. You will have far better luck at it than Gussie, and well she knows it.”

“Who does Megan attach herself to?”

“Better you should experience them firsthand. I would like to hear your unbiased opinion.”

Not another word was to be wrung from either of them. Reed was fed fit to bursting on Tom’s catch of the day, broiled perch fresh from the lake. After a long-winded chat in which he caught up on all of Tom and Gussie’s news, he retreated to the little attic room designated his. By the light of the moon, and two flickering candles, he played with the figures in the ledgers until his eyes watered with fatigue. Tucking himself into bed, his mind turned over the trouble of his family finances as much as it toyed with the idea of Megan falling into bad company. He thought he would wait up for her, so restless was he, but in the end, candles burned out, he dropped off, only to be awakened by laughter, the nicker of a horse, and low voices.

He rolled out of bed, cracked his head on one of the low beams of the angled attic ceiling and stubbed his toe on something in the dark. Hopping and groaning, he made his way to the window, through which voices and a slice of moonlight filtered.

Below him he recognized the dark shapes of four horses and their riders. One of the shapes dismounted and helped a second to dismount.

 “There you are, Senorina Breech. As promised, safely returned to your sister’s care.” The man spoke with an Italian accent, rather sultry Italian at that. “Do your limbs tremble from having ridden so far?” He dared ask!

“Bloody flirt!” Reed murmured, rubbing his toe, but fully prepared to climb over the sill to pummel the man if he overstepped his bounds again.

Megan’s response was a trifle breathless. “I am fine, thank you. Thank you for a  marvelous adventure, both to witness the farce at the inn, and to ride through unfamiliar country in the moonlight. How very kind you all are, inviting me to accompany you.”

“Our pleasure entirely,” the Italian murmured. He appeared to bow over her hand to kiss it.

“Glad you could come.” A female voice. “The players were so bad as to be almost droll, weren’t they?”

“Shall I see you inside?” The Italian continued to test Reed’s nerves.

Megan’s laughter floated up to him, the teasing sound strangely foreign because it was another man made her laugh. “An unnecessary kindness, Giovanni. Good night.”

A chorus of good nights, and an outrageously forward
“Arrivederci, carra mia, buona notte,”
as the Italian remounted. The horses were turned. He heard the creak of the door below. Returning to his bed, Reed stared at the ceiling, ears keen to the small sounds Megan made as she settled for the night. It occurred to him that they had never slept beneath the same roof before. The idea of it, combined with his memory of the scene that had unfolded beneath his window, disturbed him.

Carra mia
, he had called her! How had Megan so quickly become this stranger’s dear? And Megan, as if she had known the Italian for a lifetime, addressed him by his first name! Reed tossed about in the bed, more uncomfortable with his thoughts than with lumpy feather ticking or numbers that did not tally.

Sleep did not come easy. He rose later than was usual the following morning, happy with the anticipation of seeing Megan. On reaching the hearth, however, where Augusta and Tom cheerfully toasted bread over the fire, he discovered that Megan, once again, was gone.

“She and her new friends have gone to the top of Helm Crag. There is a wonderful view of Grasmere Vale they mean to paint,” Augusta said.

“Helm Crag? Where is that?” He hoped he did not sound as disgruntled as he felt.

Tom handed him a warmed piece of the local, flat oat bread and followed him out the door to point to the hilltop in question. “Gussie and I trekked up there with them at the crack of dawn. Megan required help carrying her painting gear. Once they had set up their easels, however, we left them to it. Do you have a mind to head up there yourself?”

Of course he had. His whole purpose in coming was to see Megan, to sound her out on the recent turn of events in his life, to seek comfort, companionship and advice. Reed grabbed up a second piece of bread, threw his sketchpad and pencils into a knapsack and headed along the path Tom directed him to follow. He should have set a leisurely pace, lingering to enjoy the delightful countryside he passed through, but he was dismayed, even a trifle wounded, that Megan went off to paint without him in the company of strangers--one a seductive Italian. He hurried, and all of it uphill. His breath grew short. A stitch developed in his side. His pulse throbbed with unusual force in his temple. His mouth went dry.

Reed did not stop until, red-faced and gasping, he saw Megan. Contrary to his expectations, she was not surrounded by a company of strangers. She did, in fact, appear to be alone. Goal in sight, he wiped the dampness from his brow with shaking handkerchief. With his Claude glass he framed the marvelous, glittering lake spread out beneath them. Megan--her back to him, brush in motion--was his foreground.

“
Scusami!
You stand in my way,” a melodic, masculine voice broke his concentration.

Megan turned. Gleefully she called out to him. “Reed!” But Reed stood transfixed by the sight of the gentleman who begged him to move. Like Giovanni Bernini’s David, the man was sculpted perfection in the flesh. Dark hair, thick and curly, sprang from a noble brow, his perfectly proportioned nose and jaw seemed chiseled by a master’s hand. His cupid’s bow mouth and thickly lashed eyes were almost feminine so great was their beauty. Hauntingly familiar, it took Reed a moment to realize that the man was the spitting image of Narcissus, son of the river god from his new tapestry.

The godlike creature frowned--dark eyes, dark brows mobile--passionate in a manner that was anything but British. “No, no, Senorina Breech,” he passed paint stained fingers through the springing curls of his hair, throwing them into romantic disarray, “You must not move. My painting, it is not finished.”

“He’s right, you know,” a male voice again, amused this time and very English, wafted down from above them. “Foreground figures ought not to walk away in the middle of their rendering.”

Reed’s head swiveled. A gentleman and his easel, rather like a mountain goat, were perched on a rocky outcropping above them. His was not a handsome face. It was too long and angular, the mouth too wide, the nose too
retrousse’
. And yet this fellow had an interesting look that compelled Reed to stare as much as he had at the godlike Italian. Perhaps it was his piercing green eyes. Perhaps it was his attitude. The man was completely at ease with himself and his surroundings, no matter that he perched precariously on a slender ledge. He exhibited undeniable poise and grace when he abandoned his painting and clambered down the rock face to regard the Italian’s unfinished watercolor.

“He has captured the light well enough.” He nodded approval. “But figures do not come easy to Giovanni. I, on the other hand, am a dab hand with figures who are overshadowed by atrociously muddy skies.”

“Together you could make masterpieces,” Reed suggested.

“There is more merit to that idea than you could possibly realize.” The man smiled, the expression throwing the angular planes of his features into an arresting arrangement of light and shadow. “You must be the Reed who could not come.” He held out his hand. “I am Richard Frost.”

Megan was beside them then, tugging enthusiastically at his arm, crowing, “Reed! Is it really you? Have you brought sketchbook and paints with you? Isn’t this area absolutely divine? One could paint every day and never run out of new and interesting views.”

“How are you Nutmeg?” Was all he had a chance to utter before she was introducing him, first to Giovanni Giamarco, whose resentment at having his painting interrupted might still be read in the brooding petulance of his expression, though he thrust forth his hand readily enough and wished him,
“Buon giorno.”

When Reed responded,
“Buon giorno. Che bella veduta!”
admiring the view in the man’s native tongue, he warmed only a little.

Reed informed Megan he had already met Frost.

“Have you met his sister? Where has she gone, my lord?” she asked of Frost.

Reed searched his mind to determine which Frost this might be if he was addressed as a lord. “Are you related to Lord Frost, Earl of Banning?”

Richard Frost raised an eyebrow over one of his remarkable green eyes as if the concept amused him as much as it surprised Reed. “My uncle. And this is my sister, the honorable Laura Frost, who makes everyone question just how honorable she is by wandering off without informing her chaperone she means to do so.”

Reed turned, with no expectation of encountering beauty, given Richard Frost’s dirth of it, and was knocked quite unsteady by the vision of perfection that met his eyes.

Laura Frost was not at all happy with her brother’s reprimand, but, even miffed, one could not mistake her for anything but a diamond of the first water. She arched a proud, pale, perfect brow at him, her eyes the same striking shade of green as her brother’s. It was the only way in which they resembled one another. Her face was as pale and unblemished as a perfect pearl, her features all gentle curves. Her nose was the only feature at all angular and it was so proudly aquiline one did not doubt for a moment that Laura Frost was honorable indeed. The rose of her mouth was the only color about her, save the green in her eyes. She had not the typically ruddy cheeks of the fair-complected. Her hair was heavy, straight and blond, so smooth and fair a color as to seem almost colorless. She regarded Reed down the length of her regal nose, the depths of her eyes guarded by eyelids half closed.
The world
, Miss Frost’s expression would have him believe,
was a dreadfully boring place most of the time
.

“Charmed.” She languidly extended her hand.

Chapter Eight

T
hough she was not the woman he had come all the way up a mountain to see, Reed could not ignore Laura Frost’s extended hand. Politely, he saluted it.

Lord Frost seemed not to care one way or another. He returned to his eyrie atop the rocks, scrambling up with as much grace as he had scrambled down. Megan, beyond a cursory welcome, seemed more interested in calming Giovanni, who made no gentlemanly attempt to disguise his distress at having his painting interrupted.

“A passionate man, our Giovanni,” Laura Frost correctly interpreted the direction of Reed’s gaze.

When he turned to look at her, she said smoothly, “I begin to believe he may be passionate about your Miss Breech.”

“Oh?” Reed had suspected as much. He felt disappointed in his accuracy.

“His attention has been quite unshakably fixed these past few days.” Her whisper was soured by the faintest trace of irritation. “Are you bothered by the idea?” She eyed him quite keenly. “I am not quite clear just what the relationship is between you and--what was the charming endearment you used--Nutmeg?”

“We are friends.”

“Only that?” She arched an exquisitely fine eyebrow.

“We grew up together.”

“Ah! Platonic love? How very charming.” She might have as convincingly yawned and said,
How very boring
.

“Megan is the closest thing I have to a sister.”

She had a mysterious smile. In a brief show of teeth it lifted her lips at the oddest moments. She smiled now. “I shall warn Giovanni. In my estimation, there can be no watchdog more tenacious than a gentleman who has adopted the position of sibling to a female, my lord. It is my lord, is it not? Megan mentioned that you are titled a viscount, with a castle in Hereford.”

Reed had more important things on his mind than pleasantries concerning Talcott Keep. Her words alarmed him. “Does this Italian require a warning? Is he bothering Megan?”

The flickering smile evidenced itself again. “Have I not just warned you, sir, that my Italian friend is a passionate man?”

Reed cleared his throat uneasily. “So you have.” There was a hint of passion in the manner in which the honorable Miss Frost passed the tip of her tongue across the fullness of her lower lip, something that further substantiated the impression in the clinging nature of her arm, though her heavily lidded eyes still spoke coolly of nothing but boredom.

“And you, sir?” her eyes narrowed, studying him. “What is your nature?”

Reed blinked. “I don’t know that I am the best judge.”

“Who better?”

She flirted with him. He was not a complete stranger to flirtation. “Megan claims I am a romantic idealist.”

A spark of interest fired in her eyes. “Does she? We shall have to see about that.”

All Reed could see at the moment was that Megan seemed to have forgotten him. Her attention and conversation were directed to none other than the overly attentive Giovanni, who with far too familiar a manner, adjusted the tilt of her head.

When he would have interrupted the touching tableau, the honorable Miss Frost diverted his attention by slipping his sketchbook free from his hold. “Do you mean to tediously devote yourself to drawing and painting like the others?”

“What? Oh, yes, I suppose I shall.”

Giovanni brushed past him. “
Scusatemi
. You will be so kind,” he gestured broadly, “as to stand out of my way.
Si?
”

“But of course,” Reed obligingly stepped aside. As he did so, Miss Frost snaked her arm through his. “You draw very well,” she said, with a cursory flip through his sketches. “There is a prospect not a dozen steps from here that you may find even more pleasing than the one before you.” She nodded languidly at the view of Giovanni once again repositioning Megan.