The Laird's Bride by Anne Gracie

Author:Anne Gracie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gracie Enterprises
Published: 2023-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

JEANNIE TOOK A DEEP breath, smoothed her hair and her skirts for the dozenth time, and knocked on Charles Sinclair's door.

"Entrez!" She hoped he didn't intend to conduct the whole conversation in French. She spoke a little French but wasn't very fluent.

A slight, dark-haired manservant opened the door and stepped back with a welcoming gesture. The tall figure of Cameron's uncle rose to greet her.

"Good morning, Mr. Sinclair, I . . ." Her voice trailed off as she looked around her in amazement.

It was as if by stepping through the door she'd been transported from a Scottish castle of plain gray stone and wood to . . . to some sumptuous French palace. It was all lightness and gold and richly textured color.

The bedchamber she shared with her husband was lined with dark wooden paneling. Here the same kind of paneling had been painted white, and was ornamented with elegant gold-leafed molding. The stone walls above the paneling had been plastered and covered with delicately embossed pale green paper.

The floorboards, too, were painted white, and scattered with thick Persian rugs, richly colored and soft underfoot. On either side of a tall, white enamel stove hung huge, ornately gold-framed paintings of an aristocratic-looking man and a beautiful woman, both wearing high white wigs and sumptuous clothing. Echoes of a past age of elegance.

"My parents," Charles Sinclair murmured.

Crimson velvet curtains framed the windows. On the opposite wall another window framed a scene of bucolic delight, hills and trees and a pretty shepherdess in an old-fashioned dress trimmed with lace—lace? On a shepherdess? She was watching over sheep that looked like small fluffy clouds against the lush, green grass. Cleaner than any sheep Jeannie had ever seen.

She frowned, looking at those sheep. She moved closer and looked again. She glanced at the windows on the opposite wall. They looked out on a grey Scottish day in late autumn, all soft muted colors; slate gray, lilac, grey-green. She looked again at the shepherdess standing in bright sunshine in a colorful flower-dotted meadow. It didn't make sense. Apart from the very unScottish scene, this window was facing the wrong way—inward.

"Trompe l'oeil," Charles Sinclair said. "Do you like it? I painted it myself."

"You painted this?" Jeannie moved closer, and saw that it was indeed a painting. "But it looks so real. I'd heard you painted, but I had no idea . . ."

She examined the tiny figures, the illusion of lace on the shepherdess's dress, small exquisite details such as the tiny flowers growing in the grass and a bird pulling a worm from the earth. Everything looked so real until you were a few inches away from it and saw the texture of the paint.

"It's wonderful. I've never seen anything like it." Things that close up seemed like random blobs and smears, when you stepped a few feet away they turned into lifelike images.

"It's an old technique," Charles Sinclair said carelessly, though it was clear he was delighted by her praise. "Been around since the Romans.

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