She tugged at her cuffs. “For the first year, we were happy. Dirk took me to Portugal and Italy. Everywhere we went, he was lionized. I see now that we traveled only to the affordable places where artists tend to congregate. Of course, he’d have acquaintances in such venues, but to me, at that age… I was agog. I was the luckiest bride ever to swan up the church aisle.”
How wistful she sounded. “That delusion could not last.”
“Dirk had forgotten to mention that he had a daughter by a previous relationship. He’d forgotten to mention that the girl’s mother, whom he’d adored passionately for a very long time, had been gone less than a year when he proposed to me. He’d forgotten to mention a great deal. I had to learn to have disagreements with my husband over more than just how to skip rocks. That was hard.”
Oak’s parents had had regular, loud disagreements, and their arguments had never worried him. Papa could shift from thundering to teasing between the first and second halves of a sentence, as could Mama. For their worst rows, they would repair to their private apartment, from which they would emerge an hour or so later apparently once again in charity with each other.
That a married couple had to learn how to argue hadn’t occurred to him. “I take it your parents weren’t prone to disagreements?”
“Step-mama brooked no rebellion. Not in me, not in my father or my brothers. She ended up nearly bankrupting the family, and nobody checked her self-indulgence. My brothers will be decades undoing the havoc she wrought. My settlements were very modest, with Dirk providing nearly all the funds. That’s something else I learned only after I’d come to dwell at Merlin Hall.”
Oak took her hand, lest she decide that counting the linen had become urgently necessary. “Were you resentful of Catherine?”
“Resentful? Goodness, no. I was furious with my husband. The girl had lost her mother, and he’d handled his own grief by taking extended sketching tours. Then he chose a bride just out of the schoolroom and jaunted away on a succession of honey months with that bride. I was seven when my mother died. If my father had abandoned me like that, I might well not have survived.”
Vera’s hand was cold, so Oak enveloped her fingers between his palms. “You and Dirk resolved your differences?”
“That took time. Dirk’s friends were not at all the sort of people I was used to. He could get along with anybody, from duchesses to drovers. I was fit only for rural assemblies and informal dinners. I had much to learn. Then I conceived Alexander, and we found a sort of truce. Alexander was a happy, healthy baby. Dirk adored him and adored me for being the mother of his son. Dirk gave me two children to love, and for that I will always be grateful.”
And that seemed to be all she had to say regarding the past. If nothing else, the conversation had underscored that Verity Channing might be comfortably situated, but she had no fat settlements to fall back on and no wealthy family to assist with the raising of her offspring.
“You have occupied yourself since Dirk’s death with being a mother,” Oak concluded. “You haven’t allowed yourself any frolics.”
She rose from the trunk and shook out her skirts. “I haven’t wanted any frolics. Dirk’s friends were a tiresomely frisky lot. Prone to dramatics in their personal affairs and not the kindest of people. They brought a great deal of drama to this house, and why men must… They can indulge themselves without imposing on a woman, you know.”
She slanted a look at Oak over her shoulder, partly belligerent, partly curious.
He offered her a bland smile. “I have certainly engaged in self-indulgence.” At sixteen, he’d done little else.
“So one needn’t disport for the sake of a few moments of pleasure,” Vera said, pushing back a Holland cover to reveal a stack of canvases leaning against the wall. “The widowers and bachelors in the immediate surrounds have nothing more than that to offer. They aren’t about to take on two step-children, and while Merlin Hall is solvent, it belongs to Alexander after I die. I don’t need a man to manage my property, and I am thus not interested in remarrying for practical reasons.”
Oak remained on the trunk, enjoying the look of Vera in a brown dress with an outdated high waist. She’d probably had that dress since before her marriage, and the older style left more of her figure to the imagination.
“You don’t want to remarry, and you don’t want to frolic with somebody you’ll have to curtsey to in the churchyard for the rest of your days, and yet, you kissed me.”
“I did, didn’t I? I’d forgotten these were up here.”
She was changing the subject, flipping through the canvases one by one. They weren’t framed, and there were at least a dozen in the stack.
“They should be stored elsewhere,” Oak said, joining her. “Floors are prone to chills and drafts, and that’s hard on the paint.”
The paintings turned out to be landscapes, the majority depicting bucolic English terrain, with gently rolling hills, sunny skies, and fluffy sheep. Several were more dramatic, full of dark clouds and billowing trees pressed earthward by howling winds, and one was a nightscape, more eerie than peaceful.
“Dirk did not paint these,” Oak said.
“How can you tell? He liked to do landscapes between his more violent works.”
“Dirk Channing’s style is said to convey more in white space than many artists do with a full palette. One reason for that is his brushwork. He was willing to ruin his brushes for the sake of creating a texture that changed how the light affected his pigments. Look here, at the sheep and the clouds. Both white, and both more or less the same brushwork.”
Oak prosed on, though he was abundantly aware that Vera stood next to him in her comfortable old dress and that she’d eliminated the marriage-minded bachelors and the neighborhood widowers from consideration as lovers, but she had not eliminated him.
“Now that you mention it,” she said, “this doesn’t feel like one of Dirk’s landscapes, though I’m sure he did this exact vista several times. The view is an easy walk from here.”
“If this were a Dirk Channing painting, I could take a half-inch square from the sheep and from the clouds, and you’d know which one came from what part based on the texture and the subtle undertones in the white. The renderings here are lifelike, and the image is doubtless a good reproduction of the subject, but it’s not a Dirk Channing.”
Vera let the canvas fall back against the stack. “It’s not a treasure either.” She glanced around the attic, which held many such stacks of canvases. “Isn’t there a fairy tale about some fellow who spins straw into gold? Great huge heaps of straw?”
“Let me paint you. That will result in some gold.” Oak would like to do a series, especially now that he knew a little more of Vera’s past. The squire’s daughter had an instinctive sense for how a country estate should be run. The half-orphaned girl had a tender heart for children who’d also lost a parent or two. The widow had seen more of the world than she wanted to, and more of disappointment too.
Vera Channing was pretty, and she was more than pretty. Oak wanted to capture the more, as well as the lovely face and gracefully curved figure.
He also wanted to kiss her, and not only on the cheek.
“Who do you think did that landscape?” she said, resuming her perch on the trunk.
Oak forced himself to consider the sheep, the clouds, and the little stream running diagonally through the scene.
“Peter Denton has a tendency to structure his images with water. He’ll put a millpond or a stream at a focal point, or place his subjects on the shore of a sparkling lake. He’s also no great fan of textured brushwork, mostly because he hasn’t a gift for the technique. He and Mr. Turner were reported to have great rows about texture when they were both probationers at the Royal Academy.”
“Mr. Turner has great rows with many people. Dirk kept a cordial distance from him.”
“Mr. Turner and I have not met, though I’ve spent hours in his gallery. This might also be the work of Hanscomb Detwi
ler. He’s quick, accurate, and a good mimic, but he also lacks a sense of adventure when it comes to brushwork.” The painting held other clues to the artist’s identity—the specific blue of the sky, the manner in which sunlight was flatly reflected from the cottage windows—but Oak wasn’t interested in the painting.
He was interested in the woman wearing the old dress as she sat on the dusty trunk. “Will you kiss me again?”
“I want to, but I’m trying to determine my motivations. Behaving impulsively is the province of artists, not their widows.”
Oak took the place beside her. “I cannot afford to behave impulsively. I know what I want—a career as a respected painter—and like the neighboring squires and bachelors, I do not see myself becoming the unpaid steward-by-marriage at some country estate, no matter how charming the widow who owns it.”
“Honest,” she said. “I appreciate honesty.”
“I thought you might. I certainly hope to be dealt with honestly.” And that seemed to settle the matter. Neither of them was looking for a permanent attachment, and neither of them wanted a mindless indulgence.
They’d had their discussion.
“Would you like to kiss me?” Vera asked.
“Very much.” More than kiss her too. She had to know that.
She rose and twisted the lock on the door latch. “Why don’t we give it a try and see how it goes?”
Oak remained seated, the better to ignore the evidence of arousal this conversation was inspiring. “Will you regret this?”
“Will you?”
He considered that question, or tried to, as Vera stood before him. He would leave Merlin Hall in the autumn, and whether he painted her or not, he’d have created some canvases for Sycamore and Ash to hang in their club. He would travel to London to deliver those paintings in person and to renew acquaintances from his university days.
Nothing on that schedule precluded a few friendly interludes with a willing widow.
“No regrets,” Oak said. “No complications and no regrets.”
Vera stepped between his legs and looped her arms around his shoulders. “This is an experiment, Mr. Dorning. You will in some way be my first. Moderate your expectations accordingly.”
“Oak.” He took her by the hips and drew her closer. “An experiment, then.”
She pressed a luscious, lingering kiss on his mouth, and desire reverberated through Oak like a thunderclap. Her hands winnowed through his hair, and he rose, the better to gather her in his arms and lose himself in her embrace.
Coherent thoughts tried to swim against the tide of pleasurable sensation. Some notions were irrational. I’ve missed you so, for example, made no sense at all, though missing the voluptuous joy of an erotic kiss made all the sense in the world.
And other thoughts were howlingly inconvenient: Oak would be Vera’s first, as she’d said. Her first affair, her first intimacy as a widow, her first foray into a nonmarital relationship. She’d waited several years to take this step and had chosen him from among many options.
Oak was mindful of the honor she did him, and he offered her respect, liking, and desire in return. Even so, he could not ignore the plaintive, foolish voice in his head that envied the man who could take a permanent place at her side.
Vera made a soft, yearning noise in her throat, and a final conclusion managed to coalesce in Oak’s mind: The experiment was a success. If the hypothesis had been that he and Vera could enjoy a shared kiss, the hypothesis had been proved gloriously true.
Oak Dorning kissed as thoughtfully as he did everything.
Whether he was instructing Vera about the protocol for extracting a gig from a muddy rut, quizzing her on Dirk’s gallery collection, or explaining why a painting could not have been her husband’s work, he did so in a calm, orderly, self-possessed fashion.
His kisses were calm and orderly too—at first. He gently cradled Vera in his arms, nothing too passionate or abrupt in his movements. His fingers on her cheek were slow and warm as he traced her jaw and brushed his thumb over her cheekbones. When Vera touched her tongue to his lips, he reciprocated, easily, not as if he’d devour her in the next half minute.
While Oak kissed deliberately, almost leisurely, Vera’s response was anything but self-possessed. She had not been honest with him. She missed conjugal pleasure—missed it badly. No matter how angry she and Dirk had been with each other, how exasperated, they’d never brought those differences past the bedroom door.
Much thoughtful discussion happened in the marriage bed, much forgiveness and honest affection. An intimacy more precious than pleasure could accompany erotic satisfaction, and Oak Dorning would be a tender, considerate lover.
And relentless. The overtures that had started out as polite forays became subtly more intense, more maddening, for being offered by a man in complete possession of himself. Oak knew exactly what he was about, while Vera was fast losing herself in erotic anticipation.
“I don’t want to make a fool of myself,” she whispered, resting her forehead against Oak’s shoulder.
He stroked her back, and ye gods, what a pleasure to be held by a man in his prime. That thought might have been disloyal, but Dirk himself had told her not to wallow in widowhood, but rather, to enjoy life while it lasted.
Some of his friends had assumed her enjoyment should begin before the ground had settled over Dirk’s grave.
“I don’t want to make a fool of myself either,” Oak said. “An artist can be the subject of a caricature, a bon vivant who lives for pleasure, respects no authority, and dies young and disgraced, his potential never fulfilled. I refuse to be that fool, but I am…”
He nuzzled Vera’s cheek.
“Tempted, Oak?” He was also aroused, enough for Vera to know that she wasn’t the only one affected by an experimental kiss.
“I am lonely.”
Whatever she’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that. Men did not admit to loneliness. They made jocular references to their humors being out of balance, they flirted, or they sat in dim corners over-imbibing late at night. Dirk had had many, many lonely friends.
“Loneliness is part of being a widow.” Vera had never admitted that to herself, though it should have been obvious. “Maybe the worst part.” Loneliness could also—alas—be part of a marriage, even a fairly good marriage.
“I am from a large family,” Oak said, speaking quietly, his hands moving gently on her back. “My brothers are my best friends, and they are lately scattered to the four winds. I am happy for them, but I hadn’t thought… I am expressing myself poorly. I do better with paints.”
Vera took his hand and led him to an old sofa draped in a Holland cover. “Had you never left Dorset before?”
She had missed home terribly as a new bride, only slowly coming to realize the enormity of the step she’d taken when she’d spoken her vows.
“I’ve left Dorset many times. I went up to university, took courses at the Royal Academy, accompanied my father on his botanical jaunts all over Britain. He even traveled with me to Paris during the Peace of Amiens, and I’ve longed to return.”
Vera took the place immediately beside him, hip to hip, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“But it’s different, isn’t it,” she said, cuddling into his side, “when you realize that the next time you go back to the place where you grew up, the place you love so well, you will go back as a guest.”
They remained curled up together on the old sofa for a long, sad, sweet moment. The sheer bliss of adult affection blended with a touch of homesickness, and Vera felt tears threaten. Dirk would have told her to cry and be done with it, for surely joy would follow, but Dirk hadn’t always been right.
Sometimes, heartache followed heartache, a winter that never ended.
Oak kissed her cheek, an invitation for Vera to turn her head and kiss him back. She did, and that somehow resulted in her being on her back, one foot on the floor, Oak crouched over her.
“I want your wei
ght,” she said. Wanted the feel of a healthy male lying between her legs, his arousal pressing against her sex through a frustrating abundance of clothing.
Oak rested his forehead against hers, then sat up and offered Vera a hand so she might do likewise.
“We must not be precipitous,” he said.
Inspiring Oak Dorning to precipitous passion sprang up as Vera’s dearest wish. “You sound as dazed as I feel,” she replied, smoothing down his hair. “And you look a bit precipitous.” He looked more than a bit luscious, slightly flushed, a tad undone.
He smiled crookedly. “I found treasure in your attic, Mrs. Channing.”
Naughty man. “So did I. Frolicking won’t solve loneliness, Oak.”
“Maybe not, but I suspect one can find distraction from loneliness in a friendly frolic, and maybe passing relief, if one’s expectations are reasonable and one chooses one’s company carefully.”
Vera patted the tumescence disarranging his falls. “One, one, one. What are you sketching around, Oak?”
He took her hand, kissed her knuckles, and laced his fingers with hers. “I cannot offer you much. I will certainly do the work you’ve hired me to do. I will instruct the children. Other than that, I plan on leaving for London in the autumn, there to pursue my artistic ambitions. I do not foresee that my path will bring me back to Hampshire in the near future.”
“This honesty business can be taken too far, you know.”
“Until I leave for London, might we be friends, Vera? Friends and lovers? Either status would be a significant honor and a pleasure, but you aren’t looking for a mere bedroom convenience, and I don’t see myself serving in that capacity very comfortably. But a discreet liaison, a friendship that includes passing intimacy while I’m at Merlin Hall… Does that suit?”
She could not tell if he was talking himself into such an arrangement, or trying to convince her of its merits, but he’d hit on a necessary distinction. She did not want a bedroom convenience, and she did not want to remarry.
She did, very much, want Oak Dorning.
She rose and kissed him, then gave him another pat. “I will leave you here to compose yourself, while I find someplace quiet where I can consider the past hour and your interesting offer. The first group of paintings requiring restoration are in that stack.” She pointed to a Holland cover in the corner. “And I will see you at dinner.”
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