Page 8 of Romancing the Artist

On and on the worry went.

Her father undid her grip on the seat with gentleness, then tucked her hand into both of his, drawing her attention to him. His clear blue eyes were soft with his care for her, and his words were likewise compassionate. “If you find yourself missing home, you need only write, and I will come for you. Though I doubt you will wish to leave even an hour earlier than what we’ve planned, Caroline. You have worked hard for this, my dear. Lady Inglewood took you under her wing all those years ago because she could see better than anyone how much you love your art. Trust her judgement and have faith in yourself, ma fille.”

His girl. A heavy sigh, one filled with relief, escaped her. He had started calling her that after he’d married her mother, in part to tease her as well as to show his love.

Because she had so hated learning French when they first met. But her Papa hadn’t let her give up those lessons, either. Her parents believed in her, and they had sacrificed much for her to pursue her passion.

“Thank you, Papa. I will do my best to make you proud.”

He gave her gloved hand a gentle squeeze. “You already have, Cara. We are always proud of you.”

Tears welled up in her eyes and her throat tightened before any coherent sound escaped her, then the carriage stopped, making them both rock forward. Her papa released her hand and opened the door himself, rather than wait for their hired driver or an Inglewood servant.

Neil Duncan wasn’t a man used to others waiting upon him. An observation that often made Caroline wonder what his life as a marquess’s son had been like, when such had been his due.

She took Papa’s hand, accepting his help to step down from the box where they’d spent the last several hours bouncing about on dusty roads. Then she looked up at Inglewood castle, and her heartbeat sped along with excitement.

Though she had visited before, the castle never failed to make her catch her breath. It rather looked like three completely separate buildings had been pushed together to make one grand edifice. There was the wing to the left of their entry that was made with white stone and blue-roofed turrets. The wing on the right of dark red brick that was older and had something of a Tudor style. And between the two differing structures was one of gray, with white columns, that if it stood alone would only be called a grand house, without any castle-like features at all.

The earl’s predecessors had vastly differing tastes when it had come to adding onto their ancestral home.

“Perhaps we should add some turrets to our cottage,” her papa remarked, studying the castle himself.

Caroline darted a quick look at him, and he winked at her. Teasing, of course. “Do not make fun in front of Lord Inglewood, Papa, please.”

He raised his eyebrows at her and grinned. The expression wasn’t reassuring at all. He and the earl had a history she couldn’t begin to understand, as her papa was quite tight-lipped about his past.

Servants appeared, as if by magic, even before the main doors to the castle opened. They bustled about, unloading Caroline’s two small trunks and a crate of her art supplies. She carried her portfolio of paintings herself, the canvases inside rolled carefully into the leather cylinder before she left home. She fixed the long strap over her shoulder, holding tightly to it with one hand, while looping the other through her papa’s arm.

The front door opened as Caroline’s eyes fell upon it, and out stepped the most sophisticated and elegant couple she knew. The Earl of Inglewood and his countess. When Caroline and her father drew near, she sunk into an appropriately deep curtsy while her father bowed more like a lord than a gentleman farmer.

The earl spoke first, his words more clipped than her papa’s, though his accent every bit as refined. “Lord Neil, Miss Clapham, welcome to our home.”

“Thank you, your lordship.” Her papa’s smile was friendly. “We are grateful that you extended an invitation to our Caroline. Knowing your lady wife, my daughter’s summer will be quite memorable.”

“We hope so,” Lady Inglewood said, stepping forward with arms outstretched to embrace Caroline, ending the formalities necessary for those of rank when greeting one another. As she enfolded Caroline in the welcome hug, she murmured, “I am glad you are here, Caroline. We will have a wonderful time. You can ask Silas.” She nodded her head to her husband. “He has heard me talk of little else these last weeks.”

“True enough,” the earl said, one corner of his mouth ticking upward. “We are grateful you are here at last, Caroline.” Then he met her father’s gaze. “Lord Neil.”

Her papa arched an eyebrow at the earl. “We have been over that, Inglewood. Mr. Duncan is my preference now.”

“I know.” The earl’s smile shifted into a good-natured smirk. “But it’s always difficult to reconcile the indolent lordling with the hard-working farmer. I can never quite believe my eyes.”

“Perhaps you should invest in spectacles. I have heard aging can rob even the nobility of their sight.”

“Given you are—what?—eight or nine years my senior, I must return your advice.”

“Five years, Inglewood. Only five,” Neil Duncan responded cheerfully, rocking back on his heels.

Though mortified by her step-father’s irreverence for the earl, Caroline did her best to ignore it. The two men always greeted each other as though they were enemies, though their antagonism never went farther than a few barbed words.

“The two of you are going to make Caroline fret,” Lady Inglewood said by way of chastisement. “Behave yourselves, or I will cancel dessert for both of you, the same as I would my little boy for misbehavior.”

They went inside, the earl walking with Lord Neil, and Caroline’s arm looped through her mentor’s. She listened with delight as the countess informed her of all the changes to the castle since the last time they had visited, and spoke with enthusiasm of a new supply of paint ingredients she had ordered from Paris.

Though she had visited Inglewood before, Caroline had never stayed a night within its walls. They had always taken a room at a nearby inn, stayed only for a day or two, then returned home. As a family. But this time, everything was different. The countess herself led Caroline to a room in the family wing, while a footman took her papa away to the guest wing since he would stay only a single night.

“I thought of putting you up on the other side of the castle,” Lady Inglewood said as they turned down a long corridor with walls the color of a summer sky and a long rug with looping silver and blue patterns to soften the sound of their footfalls. “But having you near will be so much nicer for both of us. Besides, you are practically family. And we will be acting as your guardians while you are with us.”