Free Shades of the Past by Sandra Heath

thick brown brows, and was dressed in a black coat and gray breeches. His hair was concealed beneath a powdered bag wig which made him look rather severe—in fact, his whole demeanor was somewhat imposing—and Laura felt a perverse desire to laugh as she thought of him in a prize ring with Ha’penny Jack! It was hard to imagine anyone less like the traveling showman, and she couldn’t help thinking Dolly Frampton must be a woman of broad taste in men.
    He opened the carriage door. “If you’ll follow me, madam, Sir Blair is in the lower gardens with Miss Deveril and Mr. Woodville.”
    She looked into his shining blue eyes, and with a start realized there was something oddly familiar about him. She felt she’d seen him somewhere before. Perhaps she’d noticed him at the ball. Yes, that must be it.
    Gathering her skirts, she alighted. Peacocks were calling on the lawns, and the summer breeze rustled the ivy that had begun to cloak part of the house façade. The air was sweet with the scent of flowers, and horses whinnied in the nearby stables as she followed the butler toward the gardens on the other side of the house.
    Her heartbeats quickened. In a matter of moments now she’d see Sir Blair Deveril again.
     

Chapter Six
     
    There was no evergreen windbreak in 1818, so the view over the valley was unbroken as Laura followed the butler to the gardens. As she scanned the valley for the stream and the field gate, she saw a flash of sunlight on glass under the solitary elm tree a little further along the lane. The carriage Ha’penny Jack had mentioned! She gazed intently, and was able to see enough of it to know it was very like the one she’d noticed yesterday. There wasn’t time to wonder more about it because the butler led her further around the house and the view changed.
    Suddenly she could see the canal. It curved from an adjoining valley like a silver ribbon, passed a waterside inn, and then came directly toward the hillside before vanishing somewhere below the Deveril House gardens. Barges moved slowly on the shining water, and more were moored along the bank. A whitewashed cottage, right on the canal bank, stood directly at the foot of the hill, and as she looked, a man ran into view from where she believed the tunnel portal must be. He called to a woman hanging washing in the cottage garden, and she immediately left what she was doing. More men came from the cottage and nearby barges, to gather concernedly by the cottage gate. Laura could tell something was wrong, but then the curve of the hill cut the view as the butler conducted her across a sunny terrace in front of the house, and down balustraded stone steps to the sloping flower-edged lawns.
    Gardeners were scything the grass, much to the annoyance of the peacocks, whose complaining cries echoed in the warm air. Beyond the birds’ noise, Laura heard laughter, and then saw Blair, Marianna and Stephen in an arbor that was overgrown with roses. They were seated on white-painted wrought iron chairs enjoying cool glasses of lemonade from a tray on a little table, and Blair’s three spaniels were on the grass at his feet.
    * * * *
    It was an idyllic scene of which Laura could hardly believe she was part, even if only briefly, but as the butler led her across the sweet-smelling lawn, she knew it was all very real.
    Marianna wore a yellow and white gown and a wide-brimmed yellow silk hat with daisies around the crown, and her shawl and red velvet reticule lay on the table before her. She was seated beside Stephen, who had on a green coat and fawn breeches. He glanced at his love with an open adoration that would be impossible to misinterpret if Blair chanced to look, and it told Laura the Weymouth liaison had been resumed right here at Deveril House. The lovers were defying all the rules, and were guilty of betraying Blair’s trust. Heaven help Stephen if they were found out, she thought.
    Her attention moved to Blair himself. He was in an informal gray