Page 2 of A Landscape of Love

Dearest Hart,

I am so proud of you for all you have achieved. The sketches you sent of your plans for Beresford are quite stunning. I cannot wait to visit and see the results of your hard work. I must admit it troubles me you are working for such a man. The duke is not well liked. Bedwin barely deigns to even acknowledge him, if that gives you a clue.

I knew his wife and sincerely pitied her. A pretty little thing, far younger than her husband and so obviously terrified of him, I wished I could have helped her. She died bringing their youngest son into the world. Rufus, I believe. Have you met him? I know your opinion of Richmond well enough, a vile creature. He’s been dangling after Cat these past weeks, though I believe she has his measure.

I think there are two daughters, though I have only met the elder, Lady Fidelia, briefly. She put me very much in mind of her mother. I believe she missed the season because of ill health, but I know no more about it than that. Her younger sister, Narcissa, made her debut last year and caused quite a stir. A beautiful girl with an impressive dowry.

Though it infuriates me that odious man should treat you as a common labourer, I cannot help but be glad you are not staying at the house. You would have hated dining so formally, for the duke is a high stickler and everything done on a grand scale. Have a care in your dealings there, my dearest boy. You must tread carefully around Beresford and his family. I know tact is a foreign concept to you, but for heaven’s sake, try.

―Excerpt of a letter to Mr Hartley De Beauvoir, from his mother, Mrs Minerva De Beauvoir.

9th January 1850, Hardacre Hall, Hardacre, Derbyshire.

“You there… Harris, is it?”

The young man nodded and hurried up to Hart. “Yes, sir?”

“Tell the men to take a break, but I want this entire section marked, and the levels recorded by the end of the day. Is that understood? We’ll start stripping the turf tomorrow and I want it ready to begin first thing.”

“Certainly, sir,” Harris said, giving him a nod.

Hart took off his hat and wiped his brow on his shirt sleeve. This was the most tedious part as far as he was concerned, measuring and taking levels, plotting out where paths and hard standings would go, but it was also the most important. If he made an error now, it could have disastrous consequences. So, although he was champing at the bit, desperate to set the men to digging and changing the landscape before him, he had to hold himself in check. Measure twice, cut once, his father had always told him, and his patience and methodical way of working was something Hart aspired to reproduce.

Movement in the distance caught his eye, and he turned, seeing a young woman walking along the lakeside. She made a lovely if wistful picture, her figure delicate and her skirts flowing around her as she moved. He had seen her before, always by the lake, walking with her head bowed. Her fair hair, tucked under a simple chip bonnet, had come loose in places, escaping its pins, and blew about her face as the breeze caught it. One of the duke’s daughters, so he’d been told. Hart stopped what he was doing and watched as she moved along the shoreline. Harris said she was Lady Fidelia, and that she loved the gardens and walked them every day, but Hart doubted that. He didn’t think she saw the gardens at all. She might put one foot in front of the other and move through them, but she did not engage with her surroundings. How could she when she rarely looked up? A troubled soul, Hart thought, feeling a surge of regret that someone so young and lovely should be so melancholy. He wondered what it was that drove her to walk alone for hours at a time. Most likely a doomed love affair, he supposed. She was young yet, though, so she would bounce back in time. He doubted a woman like that would have a problem attracting a suitable mate, and imagined how the men must have fallen over themselves to get close to her during the season. Perhaps it wasn’t that easy though. He knew himself how many men of the ton viewed women as property and treated them as such. Was that what made her so unhappy – the prospect of a marriage like that? Cursing his wayward train of thought he forced his attention back to the job at hand. Not his problem, he reminded himself sternly. Turning his back on the young woman, he walked back to the men, ready to set them back to work.

It was barely dawn the next day when Hart left the cottage. The morning was frosty, a thin mist wreathing the ground and swirling as he walked. Too lost in thoughts of the day ahead, and not expecting to see anyone at this hour of the morning, Hart started in surprise at a cry of alarm. Head snapping up, he saw a woman in front of him, clearly as shocked by his appearance in the dim light as he was by hers. Hart could only stare at the vision before him, momentarily struck dumb by her beauty. For a moment he had the fanciful notion she was a fairy queen, so incongruous was the sight of her in the dreary cold of a misty morning. Slender and fair, her skin glowed, almost luminous in the frail dawn light. Hart stared unashamedly, unable to tear his gaze from her, for she was as magnificent as Titania herself, and as untouchable as the moon.

“Who are you?” she demanded breathlessly.

She appeared almost ghostly in the swirling mist, her abundant pale hair loose and shimmering silver. A thick black cloak covered what he suspected was a nightgown.

“Hartley De Beauvoir, my lady,” he managed, finding his wits at last. For this must be Lady Fidelia, the mournful figure he had seen walking by the lake. “Your father has commissioned me to landscape the gardens here at Hardacre.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, glancing around as if she expected to find someone watching her. “I see.”

“I beg your pardon. I did not mean to startle you,” he offered, afraid he might frighten her as she was obviously alone, but she seemed to have lost interest in him already, her gaze fixed on some distant place he could not see.

“It’s of no matter,” she murmured, and hurried off, moving through the garden like a wraith.

Hart suppressed a shiver, more disturbed than he liked to admit by the odd encounter. What on earth was her father thinking, letting his daughter run about the grounds half-dressed at such an hour?

“Bloody aristocrats,” he muttered, unsettled and angry that such a beautiful young woman could be so neglected.

Though many of his closest friends had titles and his mother was a cousin to the Duchess of Bedwin— a family he greatly admired — that did not change his opinion. Too many generations of inbreeding had consequences, and now half of them were mad as badgers. A pity, he thought, watching her go, for she had looked exceptionally lovely in the moonlight, like a magical water sprite come to tempt a flesh and blood man into the inky depths of the lake. A woman as delicate and lovely as that could certainly make a fellow lose his wits and behave like a fool.

“Not for the likes of you, my lad,” he said, shaking his head at the very idea, but the image of Lady Fidelia lingered, disturbing his peace of mind, and making him wish she had not run off so quickly.

He saw her again, later that same day, and the next morning, and the one after, always at a distance, always in the garden. She seemed to care nothing for the weather, neither cold nor rain kept her from walking. The path she took was erratic, however, and he never knew where she would appear. Though he told himself it was none of his business, the lady’s obvious melancholy troubled him, and he found it difficult to keep his thoughts from returning to her.

Hart leant on the spade he’d been using, having just sent the men off to have a bite to eat. They’d made excellent progress so far. He thought perhaps they were a little surprised at him, for they had exchanged glances when he’d taken his coat off and rolled up his sleeves. Not that he cared. This was the best part, as far as he was concerned. He was too eager to see progress, to sit back and watch.

“Oh dear. It’s such a mess.”

Hart turned, hurrying to tug his sleeves back down as he discovered Lady Fidelia looking at the expanse of bare earth around them with an uneasy frown. He snatched up his coat, shrugging into it. Not that she was looking at him, only frowning at the discarded barrows and spades.

“For now,” he admitted. “But it will be lovely soon enough. Better than before, I promise.”

She looked directly at him then and his breath caught. Her eyes were a clear blue, crystalline, and framed by thick dark blonde lashes. Beautiful. Hart admired beauty in all its forms, and she was as close to perfection as he felt it likely to get. Her fair skin was flawless even in the bright light of day, almost translucent, but there were deep shadows beneath her eyes. He wondered when the last time was she’d had a good night’s sleep.