Romancing the Artist (Return to Inglewood Book 1), page 1
Romancing the Artist
RETURN TO INGLEWOOD
SALLY BRITTON
Romancing the Artist © 2023 by Sally Britton. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Published by Pink Citrus Books
Edited by Jenny Proctor
Cover design by Blue Water Books
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Sally Britton
www.authorsallybritton.com
First Printing: May 2023
To Marilee.
She Saved the Day.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Caroline’s Letters
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
The Inglewood Books
From the Author
Also by Sally Britton
About the Author
Chapter 1
JUNE 1823, DUNWICH
Picturesque. Most who visited the countryside surrounding Dunwich, a village beside the sea, called it picturesque. But beneath the shade of a cherry tree orchard, Caroline Clapham scowled at the canvas before her, upon which she had painted a depiction of sheep wandering beneath the orchard’s trees. Her landscape didn’t at all capture that lovely, dream-like quality that so many felt when they walked in that very same orchard.
“I cannot understand why my paintings lack the emotion I wish to invoke in them.” She examined the depiction of the fluffy white shapes nestled in the long brushstrokes of grass. “This is supposed to look peaceful. Instead, it is insipid. I can feel it, even if you won’t tell me that you see it.” She glared accusingly at her companion.
A pair of baleful brown eyes stared back at her, then blinked slowly. The aged audience to her rant, a brown dog with a curling coat and white fur upon her snout and around her eyes, hadn’t much to say on the matter. The dog whined, sensing the distress of her mistress.
Caroline’s shoulders fell, and she dropped her paintbrush upon the easel. “Sweet Muse. It isn’t your fault, of course. You’re not a classically trained artist.” Caroline knelt next to her dog, a beloved companion in all her pursuits for the last eight years.
Muse’s tail thumped against the ground happily as she leaned into Caroline’s gentle touch. There they sat, together in the shade of a cherry tree, upon a faded quilt liberally sprinkled with paint from hundreds of Caroline’s artistic projects.
At all of nineteen years of age, Caroline hadn’t yet found the secret to creating true masterpieces. Somehow, it still eluded her, that special something her mentor promised Caroline would one day find within herself. Yes, she possessed a talent and had turned it into a skill through a great deal of practice.
But the sheep on her canvas were only sheep. The trees, only trees.
“Maybe it’s the light,” she murmured to herself, tilting her head to the side as she studied the canvas. Muse whined again. The dog wanted more attention before Caroline focused on her task and wasn’t shy about letting her mistress know.
“Spoiled,” Caroline said softly, fondness in her voice. The dog had come into Caroline’s life the same summer as her papa. Everything had changed for her, her mother, and her grandmother, in those precious weeks that a lord’s son had stumbled onto their property looking for directions and a meal.
Caroline released a deep sigh, her eyes sweeping across the meadow between the orchard and the cottage where her family lived. That cottage had changed, too. After Mama and Papa married, they built on to the thatched building. There were more rooms with new purposes, including a bedroom for Caroline’s little sister and another for her twin brothers.
Leaning back on her elbows, Caroline narrowed her eyes at the cottage. She had sketched and painted that building a dozen times or more, and still she hadn’t possessed the skill to transmute the love contained within those walls to canvas or paper.
What was wrong with her?
Muse’s head turned, and her tale thumped happily against the blanket. Caroline followed the dog’s gaze to find her papa coming through the trees, rolling his sleeves down his forearms, his coat tucked under one arm. He spotted her at nearly the same moment and his expression brightened.
Caroline raised her hand in greeting, and he adjusted his direction to come to her side. She turned her attention back to her canvas. She kept both hands in her lap, though. There was nothing more she could think to do with this particular attempt at artistry.
“How goes the creative endeavor today, Cara?” Papa stood beside the blanket, peering down at her canvas while Muse’s tail thumped all the faster at his nearness. The dog adored Neil Duncan more than any other member of the family. He turned his attention to the animal long enough to give her a reassuring pat on the head.
Releasing a frustrated sigh, Caroline gestured to the blanket, inviting her stepfather to join her. “I am not certain you want the answer to that question. It will sound a great deal like complaining.”
Papa took a seat on the other side of Muse, keeping his boots well away from the fabric. “I don’t mind hearing complaints, now and again. What ails my artist, hm? Too much sunshine? Or is the sky not the right shade of blue today? Perhaps you need better brushes, made of silver and the hair of an exotic goat of some sort?”
She smiled despite herself, his familiar teasing somehow reassuring. She stuck her nose in the air. “You obviously do not understand the delicate temperament of an artist, Papa. I require a diet of raspberries and cream to perform the greatest work with my paints.”
“Ah, I see. You must excuse me. How did I not guess?” Papa studied her painting, his expression thoughtful. Without looking at her, he said, “Are you nervous about the summer?”
She considered his words, studying the profile of the man who had taken on the role and responsibility of fatherhood with more enthusiasm than most would, especially given she’d been a rather precocious child of ten when they’d met. “Not really. Not about spending the time away from home. But…what if Lady Inglewood cannot help me?” She looked down at her hands, seeing only one smudge of paint on her index finger. She rubbed her thumb over the dried dollop of white. “What if I can do no better, or learn no more, than I know now?”
Her papa’s large hand appeared, covering her own. She looked up to see him regarding her with gentle eyes and a smile that had soothed away her childhood worries on many occasions. “You have a gift, Caroline. Lady Inglewood was the first to see it, and your mother and I are proud of all the work you have done to turn that gift into a talent. You have grown so much already. Be patient with yourself.”
Though they were not the answer she wanted, his words soothed her enough that she managed a weak smile. “Thank you, Papa.”
“I am not certain you should thank me for anything.” He grimaced. “I would much rather you stay home with us. We will miss you, Cara.”
“Summer will not last forever, and you will have plenty to do with the other three children underfoot during the cherry harvest.”
Papa wrinkled his nose. “Yes. My three little helpers. Perhaps I should come with you to Inglewood and take up art myself.”
Caroline laughed softly. Lady Inglewood was an old friend of Lord Neil. It was through their connection that the countess had first seen Caroline’s childish attempts at drawing and offered to mentor the budding artist. “Too late for that. I’m beginning to think you will only miss me for all the work I do around here.”
“Not at all. You barely lift a finger.” He winked at her. They all helped when it was time to harvest the cherries, but it was true that Caroline did little else that could be called work. Her mother owned the farm, and her stepfather was the third son of a marquess. After their marriage, and a generous gift from her step-grandmother, life on their land was less about survival and more about enjoyment.
Caroline had been given more time to study and play, to practice her painting, and to grow from a child who ran barefoot through the fields to a woman with aspirations of one day seeing her artwork in a London gallery. Grand dreams, indeed, for someone who still milked the family cow every day.
A stick cracked, and Caroline tilted her head back until she could see the upside-down scene taking place behind her.
A girl of six with blonde curls streaming down her back stood as still as a statue, her green eyes wide.
“Caught you, Amelia,” Caroline said, not restraining the laughter in her voice.
Papa turned to look over his shoulder. “Here now, how long have you been creeping up on us?”
“Not even a minute.” The little girl’s eyebrows came down and her entire frame drooped with defeat. “I didn’t see the twig.” She came the rest of the way to the blanket, collapsing somewhat dramatically on her knees when she arrived at its edge.
“I don’t know why you are determined to sneak up on people.” Caroline flicked one of her sister’s curls over her shoulder. “If you wished to give me a fright, you’d only have to put a toad in my bed.”
The child shivered. “But then I would actually have to catch one. And touch it.”
“That is true.” Papa sighed sympathetically. “The poor toad wouldn’t enjoy it either.”
Caroline closed her sketchbook, then shifted about to tidy her brushes and paints while her Papa and Amelia discussed the feelings of toads. There was no use in struggling through her work anymore today. Whatever creative spirit had overtaken her had fled the moment she painted the fluffy white sheep.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked her sister. “I thought you were visiting Grandmama today.”
“I already visited her. I was gone all morning. Didn’t you notice?” Amelia’s eyes narrowed at her older sister.
Caroline raised her eyebrows as she checked lids on her paints one more time before placing them in her box.
Papa sounded thoughtful as he said, “Is that why it was so quiet around here?”
Amelia huffed and rolled onto her back. “I am not the noisy one. Those boys are the reason the house is so loud.”
“I suppose that is the way of things with twins. Perhaps it is time we go rescue your mother from them?” Papa stood and picked up the blanket, giving it a shake before folding it up, and tucked it under the same arm where he carried his coat.
Caroline put all her artist’s trappings into a large basket with handles that made it easy for her to slip the whole of it over her shoulder. The three of them, with Muse following dutifully behind, left the shade of the orchard for the cottage.
“Must you really leave tomorrow, Cara?” Amelia asked, her wide hazel eyes as sad as a pup’s. “And must you really be away, all summer?”
A thrill of excitement shot from Caroline’s heart all the way to her fingers and toes. Tomorrow. She had packed and repacked half a dozen times for the journey to the most marvelous place on earth.
Inglewood.
Even the name made her shiver with anticipation.
Papa answered before she could. “Yes, she must go. And yes, she will be away all summer. But we will have the best time we can while your sister is bored to tears without us.”
Amelia’s little nose wrinkled. “Won’t you write letters, Cara?” Her lips turned down and her shoulders drooped.
Caroline exchanged a glance with her papa, smiling at her sister’s sweet disappointment. To her surprise, she caught a look of concern in her papa’s eyes before he looked away.
“I will,” Caroline promised, pouring her cheer into her words. “As often as I can. And you can practice your letters by writing me back.”
As though a woman of eighty instead of a girl of six, Amelia heaved an enormous sigh. “I suppose that will have to do.”
Hiding her grin with a turn of her head, Caroline took in the scene of her home again. The barn, the chicken coop, her cat sunning himself beside the paddock fence. Cider, though nearing ten years of age, was still a champion mouser.
They entered the house through the kitchen, then walked through to the family’s front room where they spent most of the time. The queen of their house, Teresa Duncan, sat in her favorite chair with a book in her lap. She looked up as they came through, then stood and held her hand out to her husband.
“Here you are at last.” She lifted her cheek for her husband to press a kiss against it. Mama’s hair was dark, like Caroline’s, with the occasional silver strand amid the deep brown waves. “All of you smell like sunshine and spring meadows. What has everyone been doing while the boys and I took our nap?”
“Let me put my things away, Mama, and then I will join everyone.” Caroline walked on her toes around the two boys playing with wooden animals on the floor, depositing her things by the staircase to take up with her later. Amelia, exhibiting her youth, walked through the carved menagerie to hang her apron on the stair rail.
“Amie!” Alfred, the more vocal of the two brothers, protested loudly. “You’ll crush our lion.”
Victor, younger by a quarter hour, swiped up the lion before it could meet an ill fate.
Caroline didn’t pause to watch the rest of the scene, though she heard the children’s indignant tones and her mother’s soothing voice as she took her things up the stairs to her room. She entered her bedroom, which had once upon a time been her mother’s room, and opened the wardrobe that acted as storage for all her art supplies. She tucked her paints and brushes away with tenderness equal to a mother caring for a babe. Then she removed her paint-covered smock and went to work cleaning her hands and nails in the basin of water on her nightstand.
Sometimes, she wished she had a lady’s maid. Her mother had told her all about how a servant of that sort would see to the ladies of the house. Helping them with their hair, their clothes, drawing them baths. It sounded like an incredible luxury, though why someone would want help to do something as simple as bathing she couldn’t imagine. The life Caroline had lived since the death of her father—her mother’s first husband—hadn’t included many servants.
Even years after her mother remarried and their farm grew prosperous, they hadn’t “taken on airs,” as her friend Jill Martin liked to say.
Jill had a lot to say on all matters concerning Caroline. What she had said about Caroline leaving for the summer had stung. “You’re only going to confuse yourself, spending time with nobility when you’re nothing more than a farmer’s daughter.”
Caroline checked her hair in the mirror above her modest dressing table. Though born a gentleman’s daughter, she couldn’t remember what life had been like before her father’s death and her move to the farm. Though technically incorrect about her station in life, perhaps Jill was right about something else. Perhaps Caroline’s dreams were too far removed from her upbringing.
She tucked a loose, curling strand of dark brown hair behind her ear and patted the rest to ensure it would stay put. When all appeared in place, she left her bedroom with a light step.
When she walked into the room, her father sat on the floor with the children, marching the animals back into their wooden box. The boys giggled as their father purposefully made the wrong noises for the wrong animals. He roared for the ducks, squeaked for the lion, and crowed for the horse.
Amelia sat on one of the chairs, watching, and pretending to be above it all. Though she giggled as Caroline made eye contact with her.
Mama had resumed her place in the chair, the book tucked in her lap. Caroline found a place on the sofa and released an inelegant sigh as she leaned back into the cushion. There was nothing left for her to do, to prepare for her journey in the morning, other than wait. But the minutes felt like hours when one anticipated something especially exciting. She closed her eyes and willed the sun to set faster.
“What is Caroline doing?” Alfie whispered. “She looks bored.”
Caroline popped one eye open to look at her little brother, then to her papa, who stared at her with feigned surprise. He tipped his head to the side, regarding her with unconcealed curiosity. “Teresa? Does it seem to you as though our eldest is bored?”
“Is that what she is?” Mama’s eyes twinkled, and Caroline opened both eyes to look from one parent to the other as they spoke as if she was not present. “I cannot imagine what would cause such a thing.”
