She knew only one remedy for discontent, and she sought it now, wrapping her hair quickly into a paisley scarf and throwing on an untrimmed gown of buff cotton. After fastening the buttons down the front of the bodice she slung her russet coat over her shoulders, slipped into a pair of paint-splattered boots and made her way downstairs.
Hurrying through ante-rooms and along dim corridors she entered her atelier, a large wedge-shaped annex tacked onto the south-westerly corner of Foxwood by some distant ancestor. The space was far enough from the main rooms so she could work in isolation, and the smell of oil paint and turpentine did not intrude upon the rest of the house.
As she stepped across the threshold the sun cleared the hills and light streaked through the wooded slopes, dropping purple shadows into the dips and hollows of the landscape. Spellbound, Sophia stared for a moment before turning to look around the cluttered room. Her haven. Her escape from the demanding realities of life. Here she could take up her palette, select her colors and lay down rich, buttery oils to her heart’s content. If the result did not please her, it took little effort to scrape the paint away and begin again. It was a pity life’s disagreeable matters could not be dismissed so easily.
“Oh, do hurry up, Tabby,” she said to the tortoiseshell cat that had followed her along the passageway. “I do not have all day to stand here waiting for you.”
Tail in the air, the white-throated tortoiseshell studied Sophia with disdainful eyes before padding leisurely into the room and coiling herself onto a tapestry-cushioned chair in the sun while Sophia closed the door behind her.
Quite forgetting her intent to open one of the French windows even though she was well aware the fumes of paints and turpentine could be overwhelming, she crossed the stained carpet and stopped a few feet away from her easel to assess the study of Vanessa and baby Ash beside the lake at Ashton Castle. She chewed her lip. Would his grace think it good enough to gift to his wife on her birthday?
The duchess held an annual picnic in May to celebrate the day of her birth, with all-comers welcome. Even the servants at Northbridge Castle were given the afternoon off from their toils, for Vanessa would engage caterers from the township of Little Chippington just a short distance away.
As the growing light penetrated further into the conservatory, Sophia tilted her head and examined the painting with a critical eye. The colors pleased her, the contrast of dark and light was almost satisfactory, but she was disappointed in the overall effect, for it lacked the vitality she had been pursuing.
She considered the canvas for some time, squinting as she stepped towards the easel and away again. After procrastinating for as long as she could, she lifted her palette from the scarred refectory table and began to work, pleased she had mixed enough pigment the evening before to begin immediately.
Entirely absorbed, she was oblivious to the passing hours. When she pushed a lock of hair off her forehead with the back of one hand, and stepped back to assess her morning’s toil, the sun had travelled high across a sharp blue sky.
Just a lick of Alizarin, she thought—no, not even a lick, the merest brush-hair into the shadow on little Ash’s cheek and she might call that part of the painting finished. Biting her lip with concentration she advanced her brush and had only just applied the crimson paint when she heard a robust knock and the door was flung open.
She swung around to see Freddy charging into the room followed incomprehensibly by Mr. Cavanaugh! As Sophia wrestled with her suddenly scrambled thoughts, two of Freddy’s ubiquitous hounds bounded across the threshold, with Mrs. Brixton close on their heels.
Freddy, who’d burst into the room like a cannonball shot from its moorings, reeled back and bawled: “Pwahh! Stinks in here!”
Speechless, Sophia watched as he marched over to the windows, threw them open and gulped down several noisy breaths.
Rudely awoken from her nap the tabby cat rose on her paws, arched her back and transformed herself into a hissing, slit-eyed ball. But as the dogs approached, she evidently decided the odds were against her and launched herself through the door, causing Freddy to hop aside with a startled grunt.
Followed enthusiastically by the now howling dogs, the irate cat fled onto the terrace and across the lawn. She flew up into the branches of a plane tree, turning to spit at the hounds circling beneath. The slavering dogs clawed at the pale bark and howled at ear-splitting volume.
Bewildered, Sophia turned towards Mr. Cavanaugh who had halted just inside the doorway, his expression tense and watchful. The thin scar gleamed like a silver thread along his cheek.
“Miss Cranston.” He inclined his head.
Sophia’s stomach hollowed. She felt strangely numb as if she was bogged in syrup, unable to do so much as move a muscle. Freddy, his hounds, the tabby cat and their unholy racket faded into the distance.
So that was the smell he hadn’t been able to pin down, thought Bruno, flaring his nostrils. Oil paints and turpentine—indispensable equipment of the artist’s toolbox. Despite his resolve to remain detached, a wave of tenderness washed over him as he took in Sophia Cranston’s appearance. She’d made an attempt to confine her hair in another bright scarf, but flyaway strands drifted loose about her face and neck.
He turned his mind away from the length of fabric he’d caught yesterday and let fall at the end of his bed last night. He’d meant to return it this morning, but it had lain like a flame in the unfamiliar surrounds of his chilly bedchamber and he’d left it lying there, reproaching himself for his cowardice.
Paint spattered Sophia Cranston’s plain brown dress and in the fingers of one hand she clutched the handle of a red-tipped paint brush. A crimson smear marked her forehead. Staring at him with uncomprehending eyes—those clear grey eyes rimmed with inky black—she seemed oblivious to the mayhem outside.
This was categorically not how he’d planned to formally introduce himself to Sophia Cranston, and he was about to call Freddy to bring his dogs to heel when he looked past her to the standing easel behind and was transfixed.
He stepped closer and peered at the extraordinary likeness she’d captured; his glance brushed over the baby with his sleepy eyes and rosy cheeks—babies all looked pretty much the same to him—but the unique vitality of the duchess’s character sprang out from the canvas. He turned immediately to Sophia.
“Will you sell it to me?”
Her eyes widened. “I…it’s a gift,” she stammered, shaking her head.
“Exactly,” said Bruno turning back to the portrait. “I would give it to the duke.”
“But it’s going to be given to Vanessa for her birthday. His grace commissioned it. You can see I’ve painted it beside the lake at Northbridge where Vanessa holds her picnic every year.”
Bruno studied the picture again. The lake gleamed like black silk in the background. That primal sense of dread scraped across his nerves. Something in his expression must have alerted her for she touched a fingertip to his sleeve and brought her fine brows together. “Is there something wrong?”
He shivered. “You’ve captured it perfectly—too perfectly for me perhaps.”
He might as well confess, he decided, instead of shamming a courage he did not possess. They’d got off to an uncertain start and he wanted her to get to know him over the coming weeks, to trust him. She would soon be his sister-in-law and he didn’t want to deceive her in the smallest way. He allowed a wry grin to soften his features.
“You see, Miss Cranston I have a deadly fear of water. Even that small lake at Northbridge gives me the tremors.”
“It is very deep,” she said with a smile that lifted his heart. “And depending on the sky, the water sometimes looks almost black.”
He dragged his eyes away from her too-accurate depiction. Although it seemed improbable, he’d lately begun to wonder if this terrible fear inside him had its origins in the womb when his mother had been swept into the wild sea. It pained him to think of her ordeal and all the years they’d spent apart. But this
was not the time to lose himself in these unhappy thoughts. He smiled at his companion, who observed him with an air of anxiety he found touching.
“It’s an exceptional picture.”
He had risen early that morning to explore his surroundings, finding himself in a long gallery lined with generations of Enderby ancestors. He knew his mother at once, from the miniature his father had shown him the night before—a miniature the old man still kept beside his bed all these many years after her disappearance. The artist had rendered her likeness adequately but totally without the vibrance he saw in the paintings around him now. “But as it is meant for Northbridge, perhaps I could commission another.”
He caught her quickened interest, but gave her little opportunity to respond, his attention captured by their surroundings. Turning in a slow circle, a soft whistle escaped his teeth. As the extent of the work in what was clearly Sophia Cranston’s atelier began to sink in, his regard for her deepened.
Sketches and paintings were fixed to the walls, propped against chairs, benches and every other available surface. Sketchbooks—a lifetime’s work, he hazarded—their pages rippling with dried paint, occupied shelves and tables of all sizes. A ladder braced against the only windowless wall indicated the method of fixing finished pieces high up on the walls, although he shied away from the thought of her juggling hammer and nails while balancing on those flimsy-looking rungs.
Dried flowers and leaves, feathers, stones, entire wings and the skeletons of small creatures she must have found in the woods and gardens around Foxwood littered the broad windowsills. On the massive table nearby were containers of all shapes and sizes crammed with pigment, linseed oil, turpentine, brushes, flat knives, round graphite pencils and charcoal sticks among other paraphernalia of the painter’s trade.
The sheer volume of work was dazzling. He knew her to be only three-and-twenty and he wondered whether several generations of Cranstons had contributed to this impressive body of work.
“Is this all yours?” he said, hearing the note of disbelief in his voice.
She scanned their surroundings as if trying to assess them through his eyes, then answered simply, “Yes—except for a few sketches and watercolors of my sister’s.”
Two head-and-shoulder portraits fixed to a panel on the wall opposite particularly caught his eye. One depicted an elderly man whose grizzled features shone with intelligence and a kindly spirit.
She followed his gaze, bringing her free hand up to the collar of her dress. “That gentleman is Tom Broadworth,” she said softly.
The catch in her voice compelled him to turn towards her.
“He was my Grandmama’s gardener,” she said. “And my mentor.”
An odd mix, considered Bruno, but if his were the eyes and hands that had taught Miss Cranston, he’d wielded them well. “Your affection for him shines out,” he said admiringly.
Her crestfallen face aroused his compassion. Noticing she’d spoken in the past tense he indicated the portrait with a slight turn of his head. “Is he…?”
“He died some years ago but it’s heartening to have his eyes on me when I’m working.” She gave a helpless gesture that moved him, but he quelled his instinctive response to reach out and touch her, reassuring himself he’d be able to offer support in other ways once their relationship had been properly established.
His gaze sharpened when he studied the second portrait. In complete contrast to the gentle character of the first, the face of a handsome young man challenged him boldly. A pair of coal-black eyes sparked with what Bruno could only call mischief, and glossy black curls coiled from the careless confines of a red bandana. A gold earring glinted against swarthy skin and the rascal’s mouth quirked with a mocking smile. The overall impression was one of overt masculinity and an intimacy between painter and subject that Bruno found objectionable.
He quelled the twist of jealousy in his gut but could not blunt the sharp edge in his tone. “And who is this?”
Color seeped into her cheeks. Her gloved fingers played with a loose button on her collar. “He is a… friend.”
“A close friend?” He persisted, examining her with intense interest. Jealousy flared inside him, but he denied it on his own behalf and told himself his concerns were only for his brother. He would not have Freddy cuckolded!
Sophia stared at him. What on earth was happening here? Why had Freddy come and brought Mr. Cavanaugh? And what right did he have to glare at her with such a black expression?
The bitter tang of hot coffee penetrated the smell of oils. In the distance she heard the sound of crockery rattling and the tea trolley rumbling along the corridor. The howling of the dogs outside pierced her ears, adding to the sense of unreality.
She became aware Mrs. Brixton had been standing by the door for these last minutes, her purpose surely to act as chaperone against the presence of two unannounced gentlemen callers in Mama’s absence.
Unable to bear the pandemonium a moment longer she stamped her foot. “Freddy!” she shouted without confidence of a sensible reply, but she could not, after all, shout at Mr. Cavanaugh and poor Mrs. Brixton looked ready to expire. “What is this all about?!”
“Cat’s got the dogs bamboozled, what?” said Freddy, half turning from the spectacle he appeared to be enjoying immensely.
Mr. Cavanaugh shifted minutely to stand beside her. “Freddy!” he commanded, although Sophia noticed he did not markedly raise his voice. “Quiet those hounds of yours.”
Freddy threw a somewhat shamefaced look over his shoulder then made his loose-limbed way out towards the dogs, calling them to heel as he went. Satisfied she had got the better of her truly unworthy opponents the cat turned her back on the whole proceedings and began to groom her already gleaming coat.
The sleeve of Mr. Cavanaugh’s jacket rasped against the bare skin between the cuff of Sophia’s dress and the thin cotton glove she wore to protect her hands from the toxic oils.
He angled his face towards her. “I should apologize for our rude entry, Miss Cranston.”
Her fingers tightened around the handle of the paintbrush she held in one hand. “Why have you come?” she asked. “How do you know Freddy?”
Mr. Cavanaugh’s eyes hooded, and a chill struck at Sophia’s heart. Beyond all sensible reasoning, guided only by intuition, she knew the motives for this visit offered naught that could possibly allow her any gratification. The pulse in her throat began to beat erratically.
“I came to speak with Lady Cranston, but your housekeeper tells me she’s away.”
Sophia frowned. “Where has Mama gone, Mrs. Brixton?”
“Lady Cranston is visiting the duchess.”
“And my sister?”
Mrs. Brixton’s dour expression showed her routine displeasure at Annabelle’s leisurely habits—habits that saw housekeeper and maids traipsing up and downstairs burdened with trays more often than they saw fit, especially in these reduced times. “Miss Annabelle is still in her bedchamber. I did explain to the gentlemen,” she hurried on, shooting a disapproving glare in Freddy’s direction, “but Mr. Freddy insisted on being shown in.”
Sophia turned what she hoped was a commanding gaze towards Mr. Cavanaugh. “What business do you have with my mother?”
He stared past her and Sophia swiveled to see that Freddy was the source of his concentrated focus. At the same time, Freddy looked up. Sophia was struck by the look the two men exchanged. In Freddy’s expression she interpreted shy delight, on Mr. Cavanaugh’s, a curious mixture of affection and resolve.
Then, simultaneously, the men transferred their attention to her. She had stepped slightly away from Mr. Cavanaugh and she could not help but notice that the three of them formed a triangle with Freddy at the most distant point.
Hairs rose on the back of her neck. Some sixth sense warned her that behind their unspoken communication lay something of extreme significance. Instinct told her that, when it came, the revelation would not be agreeable. Her palms felt suddenly damp
.
Disregarding the nervous tightening in her abdomen she squared her shoulders. “I should like to know why you are here.” Although she directed her question to both Freddy and Mr. Cavanaugh, it was at Mr. Cavanaugh she fired another imperious stare.
His expression became severe. He put his hands behind his back and planted his booted feet astride. “I believe we should wait for Lady Cranston.”
“And I believe we should not. I am of age, Mr. Cavanaugh, and if you have something to say that affects me then I have every right to be told it.” But what could he possibly have to tell her? Or, more to the point, what was he keeping from her? None of this made sense!
Cavanaugh’s jaw remained inflexible and it occurred to Sophia that she was expending her ammunition on an inviolable force when she had access to a much more vulnerable target.
She turned to Freddy and smiled, calling on all their years of acquaintance. She held out her hand, palm upwards in a gesture of entreaty. “Freddy, do tell me why you are here.”
She disregarded Mr. Cavanaugh’s muffled exclamation. Freddy never could keep a confidence and she was certain her sugar-laced appeal would be repaid. She was not wrong.
Freddy sprang towards her. “He’s m’brother, Sophe!” His face flushed. His thin straw-colored hair bounced from his head with excitement. “Bruno’s m’brother!”
The paintbrush Sophia had been holding fell from her fingers and rolled across the floor. Fumes from the turpentine and paints mingled with the smell of coffee and rebelled against an empty stomach, for she had not eaten anything that morning. Bile rose in her throat.
“But Freddy… you don’t have a brother…” She reached for the corner of a small oak table nearby and found Mr. Cavanaugh there instead. He took her elbow in a forceful grasp.
Chapter Six
Gripped by a sense of unreality, she flung her head back and stared up at those Beaumont features. Less than an instant went by before Mr. Cavanaugh released her elbow, placed both hands gently but firmly on her shoulders and put her away from him.
The Beaumont Betrothal: Northbridge Bride Series Book 2 Page 5