A Lady's Dream Come True

by Grace Burrowes

“Nothing… Well, a touch of the poppy if matters grow dire, but then one has a headache and a muzzy mind, and it’s easier simply to endure. That feels good.”

  Oak rubbed her back, wanting to gather her in his arms and take on her pain for himself. He was being ridiculous, of course, but maybe Vera hadn’t had anybody to be ridiculous on her behalf before.

  “Shall I carry you up to your bed?”

  She drew back and smiled. “Gallant of you, but I’m quite capable of walking. Will you light me up?”

  “I will.” He retrieved his sketch pad and took up the remaining candelabra. When they reached Vera’s apartment, he came into her parlor with her and went so far as to light the candles in her bedroom.

  “Shall I undo your hooks?”

  The offer pleased her, if her smile was any indication. “You shall. How was Catherine’s drawing lesson?”

  “She is immensely observant, more observant than the average bothersomely astute adolescent. I suspect she has quite a bit of talent.”

  Oak assisted Vera to undress, a service made more intimate by the fact that he was simply trying to be helpful rather than hasten a woman from her clothes in the interests of sexual expedience. That insight occurred to him as he passed Vera her dressing gown and watched her belt it—loosely—about her waist.

  “I have neglected Catherine’s artistic education,” Vera said, taking a seat at her vanity. “Perhaps your lessons will help address that oversight.”

  Oak began searching through Vera’s hair for pins. “Have you considered a finishing school for her? Some of them have very competent drawing masters.” He set the pins in a green ormer shell on Vera’s vanity. The mother-of-pearl lining the shell’s inner surface caught the candlelight and cast a bright reflection into Vera’s folding mirror.

  Oh Lord, the compositions that came to mind when he was with her.

  “I have not thought that far ahead,” she said. “I hate to think of Catherine leaving Merlin Hall.”

  Oak found the last pin, and Vera’s braid slipped down over her shoulders. “She’s young. You have a few years to consider other options.” He set about undoing the braid and tucked her hair ribbon—lavender, a mourning color, but one that suited her—into his pocket.

  He spent the next few minutes brushing out and rebraiding her hair, then using the warmer on the sheets while she made use of the privacy screen. The excuses to linger were used up one by one, and the poor woman likely needed her rest more than usual. When Vera climbed under the covers, Oak hung the dressing gown on the bedpost, kissed her brow, and drew the quilts up around her shoulders.

  “Sweet dreams, Vera.”

  “To you too.”

  He picked up the branch of candles and prepared to leave, but her voice stopped him at the door. “Thank you, Oak.”

  “For?”

  She sat up, her braid a rope over her shoulder in the dim shadows. “For pinning back Jeremy Forester’s ears at breakfast, for noticing Catherine’s talent, for not being horrified by my biology. Or by my moods. For being you.”

  “The pleasure is mine.” He bowed, carefully, because he held the candles, and withdrew.

  The corridor was blessedly quiet, as was the whole house. Oak made his way to his rooms, oddly at peace with the day. Somewhere behind a locked door, Jeremy Forester and Tamsin Diggory were probably engaged in a happy tumble, a shared moment that signified nothing, provided it bore no consequences.

  Oak would have been doing likewise, had Vera allowed it, but her situation meant that instead they’d talked, they’d spent time together, they’d shared a different sort of intimacy. The romping was all quite lovely, and Oak hoped to do a lot of it with Vera, but the other…

  The other was precious, and fascinating, and would haunt Oak’s heart long after he’d made the trek to London, there to knock on the Academy’s door until they admitted him to their numbers.

  Chapter Eight

  “Dorning says you have inherited a bit of your papa’s talent.”

  Mr. Forester sauntered along the crushed-shell walk, swinging his walking stick at the fading roses. He connected with a bush, scattering pink petals all over the earth and the walkway.

  Catherine resented the interruption, but she did not resent an opportunity to converse with Mr. Forester more or less privately. He was interesting, almost as interesting as the way bright sunlight turned the side of a blade of grass white.

  “Mr. Dorning is a talented instructor. I wish Step-mama had come upon him earlier.”

  “Do you?” Mr. Forester gazed out across the garden, his mind clearly focused on something other than a passing discussion with a mere girl. “I’m not surprised. Your mind is a good deal brighter than the terror’s, and you are ever so much more pleasant to look upon.”

  Catherine sat a little straighter and wished she’d put up her hair that morning. “You aren’t to call Alexander the terror anymore, are you?” That had been decided at breakfast three days ago. Catherine wanted to verify with Alexander that Step-mama’s directions were being followed in the schoolroom, but hadn’t found the opportunity.

  “Whatever I call him, he remains a moody and indifferent scholar, doesn’t he? May I join you?”

  A gentleman asked such permission of a lady. “You may. Is Alexander at his drawing lesson?”

  “Yes, and thank the benevolent powers for that.” Mr. Forester took a seat a mere foot from Catherine, splayed his legs, and ranged an arm along the top of the bench. “The little blighter about drives me barmy.”

  That was an insult to Alexander, also a confidence of sorts. “Perhaps you drive him barmy too. He’s a small boy. You’re a grown man. If you don’t like being his tutor, maybe you should look for another post.”

  Mr. Forester’s smile blossomed into a grin. “I love a woman with a temper. Perhaps you inherited that from your papa too.”

  “I simply made a suggestion, Mr. Forester. And if I have a temper, I suspect that’s of my own making. Papa was ever sweet and patient with me.”

  Mr. Forester closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “As Mr. Dorning is sweet and patient with you?”

  The question hinted at unkind conclusions, perhaps about Catherine herself, more likely about Mr. Dorning.

  “Are you jealous because he’s an earl’s son?” Not that Mr. Dorning ever mentioned his family’s title. Catherine had looked him up in Debrett’s, and though he was far down along the succession, his brother was the present Earl of Casriel.

  “I am absolutely jealous of him,” Mr. Forester replied, opening his eyes, “but not because of some dusty old title he probably longs for in his secret dreams. I am jealous because he’ll be off to London in a few weeks and because until we are rid of him, he gets to spend an hour each day with you.”

  Mr. Forester slanted a look at her that she could not fathom. Was he gauging her reaction to his remark, sorry he’d been so honest, or teasing her?

  “Mr. Dorning is unfailingly proper with me, I assure you.” He had the knack of… Catherine did not know what to call his knack. He was always going on about light and perspective and compositional elements, but he’d not peached on her about taking a bit of air without Miss Digg’s permission. He’d acted as if putting up her hair was simply what one did before dinner. He spoke to her as if she was worth educating, not an extra duty imposed between the tasks he’d rather see to.

  Mr. Forester set the bottom of his walking stick on the ground between his knees and batted the handle from hand to hand. To lounge with his legs spread like that was not quite seemly, but the occasion wasn’t exactly a royal garden party either.

  “The proper ones are the fellows who bear the most watching, my dear Catherine. Has he tried to kiss you yet?” Mr. Forester aimed a considering glance at her mouth, as if her lips had become somehow different in recent days in a way that would prove whether she’d been kissed.

  “He certainly has not attempted to take any liberties whatsoever, nor will he.”

  “Then perhaps M
aster Alexander is not the slowest top in the household. I don’t suppose you were sketching Dorning’s handsome countenance?”

  Catherine held up her sketch pad. “I was trying to sketch the roses, because the canes and leaves are a complicated pattern, and that is my challenge at present. To render accurate representations of what I see.” Which required seeing in a way Catherine hadn’t been taught to see previously. Paying attention.

  Jeremy Forester was paying attention to her. Catherine wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She was uneasy, and also flattered.

  “If I had an hour to spend with you privately each day,” he said, “I’d not be wasting it on dreary old sketches and blown roses. You’re nearly fifteen. Girls get engaged and even have babies at that age.” His gaze brushed lower than her mouth, over her person.

  “Are you flirting with me?”

  He rose and bowed in a mockery of politesse. “Perish the thought. I’d be getting far above myself should I presume to that degree. If Dorning in any way oversteps, you will apply to me to address the matter. He could do with a sound pummeling, and I’d delight in delivering it to him.”

  Pummel Mr. Dorning? Catherine did not know if Mr. Forester was daft or in earnest. “Nobody need pummel anybody.” She stood and gathered up her sketching pad, penknife, and pencil.

  “Where are you off to, sweet Catherine?”

  “You ruined the bushes I was sketching. I must find another subject.”

  “I ruined…? I am abjectly sorry. You must allow me to aid you in your search. Come, take my arm, and we will investigate the garden.” He crooked his elbow at her and appeared to be entirely serious.

  Catherine took his arm and allowed herself to be escorted up the walkway as if the occasion were, in fact, a royal garden party. The experience was a tad unsettling and also lovely.

  Quite, quite lovely.

  “Is this all of them?” Vera asked, turning in a slow circle to survey the eleven paintings Oak had arranged about his studio.

  “Everything I found in the gallery. I’d be surprised if more lurk in the attic or in the frames hanging in your private apartment, but it’s possible. Eleven is a very odd number for a man who always painted in series.”

  Half of the compositions were not of Anna. Three were of a blond woman Vera didn’t recognize, two were renderings of a brunette with an impressive bust, and one was of the brunette and the blond in an embrace that was not remotely sisterly, given where and how the women touched each other.

  “I like this one best,” Oak said, nodding at the entwined women. “Never have I seen purple and orange harmonized so effectively, and all it took was some greenery, a few hints of red and yellow—et voilà tout—a wildly daring palette becomes all of a piece.”

  “Are you blind to the wildly daring subject?” Vera could hardly look away.

  “They are loving each other,” Oak said, taking the place at her side. “A common enough theme across all of the arts. In addition to the palette, the composition, the brushwork, and the very effective use of natural light, what makes this painting glow is that we’re not seeing one person caught in a moment of private pleasure. This is a moment between lovers. The whole relationship—the tenderness, yearning, frustration, and joy—is present in one image.”

  Vera set aside her shock and focused not on hands, genitals, and breasts, but on the subjects’ expressions.

  “The smiles are different,” she said. “Not like Anna’s dreamy secrets, but like… like…”

  Oak regarded her with patient humor. “Like I look at you?”

  Vera sank onto one of the two venerable wing chairs before the cold hearth. She was assailed by memories collected over the past few days.

  Oak taking down her hair at night.

  Oak holding her chair at breakfast, then performing the same courtesy for Catherine and Miss Diggory.

  Oak engaging Catherine in a lively argument about Mr. Turner’s brushwork.

  One recollection in particular stood out. Oak had accompanied the household to divine services and patiently endured the inevitable round of introductions in the churchyard afterward. He’d bowed over the hands of all three spinster Davies sisters, raised his voice to accommodate Grandfather Stiles’s poor hearing, listened with apparent interest to young Howard Frampton’s artistic aspirations, and—when Alexander had begun to shuffle from foot to foot at Vera’s side—he’d casually hoisted the boy onto his hip.

  “Note the change in perspective,” Oak had said quietly to Alexander. “When you are eye to eye with a subject, the scene is different.”

  Alexander had peered about as if he’d suddenly found himself cast ashore on the fair isle of Lilliput. All the while, Oak conversed politely with Vera’s neighbors, even bowing slightly to wish Grandmother Stiles a good day.

  When the time had come to return to Merlin Hall, Oak had suggested that he and Alexander walk the distance. To a man in his prime, two miles was a pleasant ramble. For a six-year-old boy…

  “Alexander, are you up to that challenge?” Vera had asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He’d nodded so vigorously his cap had come down over his eyes.

  “That settles it.” Oak had straightened Alexander’s cap and put the boy on his feet. “Let’s mind the mud puddles, and off we go. Do you know any tramping songs, lad? A good rousing hymn might do in deference to the Lord’s day.”

  They’d ambled out of the churchyard, Alexander marching along as if he, too, considered a two-mile hike a mere ramble. The sight of the man and boy in earnest discussion as they struck off across the green had brought an ache to Vera’s throat.

  Upon returning home from services, Vera had heard her son before she’d seen him. She’d been sitting at her desk, trying to pen a polite note to Richard Longacre, when through the open window, she’d caught a snippet of song.

  * * *

  There’s many men get store of treasure

  yet they live like ignorant knaves:

  In this world they have no pleasure

  the more they have, the more they crave.

  * * *

  Oak Dorning had a fine baritone, though the lyrics he’d sung—with Alexander’s descant kiting above the melody—were from a drinking song Vera’s brothers were fond of. She’d watched as man and boy strode up the drive, Alexander’s cheeks ruddy, his singing more robust than musical. Dirk had died too soon to have any moments with Alexander such as this, a Sabbath hour stolen to teach his son a hearty tune, an hour wandering the countryside on a summer day.

  Vera had missed moments such as this, but watching Oak keep a pace that Alexander could manage, she vowed that she’d do better at appreciating her children, and appreciating Alexander especially.

  And now, surrounded by Dirk’s art in Oak’s studio, Vera was hard put to appreciate her late husband at all.

  “I grant you,” she said, “the paintings are lovely. They are fine art, and they deserve to be appreciated as such, but I cannot sell them, and thus they must be stored out of sight.”

  Oak lowered himself into the second wing chair, and as often happened when another man’s hands would have been idle, he took up a sketch pad and pencil.

  “I could frame those paintings such that the signature is obscured. Nobody would know who created them save for the purchasers. Turn your chin half an inch—yes.”

  Vera had grown accustomed to Oak’s sketching habit. Over the past week, he’d sketched while she’d read to him in the late-night privacy of her bedroom. He’d sketched while they talked about her neighbors and family. He’d sketched while he’d acquainted her—by image and anecdote—with his many siblings.

  “The signature is half of what makes any painting valuable,” Vera replied. “If you obscure the signature, you diminish the value.”

  “Not necessarily. The signature is the easiest part of a painting to forge. Another half inch to the left… Thank you. I would utterly adore doing your portrait, and I assure you I would render my subject fully clothed.”
>
  “May I tell you something?”

  His pencil stilled. “Of course.”

  “You asked if I was concerned that Dirk might have painted similar portraits of me, not fully clothed.”

  Quiet patience was one of Oak Dorning’s many strengths. He regarded Vera with a steady composure that helped her complete her thought.

  “Now that you’ve raised the possibility,” she went on, “I am almost certain Dirk painted nudes of me. I’d awaken and find him studying me, though I always slept in a nightgown. He did come upon me at my bath more than once, and when another husband might have withdrawn, he found excuses to linger before leaving me my privacy. I never thought anything of it, because he seemed to think nothing of it. We were married, after all.”

  Oak shifted forward so Vera sat knee to knee with him.

  He took her hand. “Your privacy is not a detail, Vera. I will never render a woman on canvas who resembles you without first gaining your agreement. Particularly if my objective is a nude, for me to abuse your trust by failing to obtain permission to create your likeness is unthinkable.”

  “Thank you.” How she loved holding hands with him, loved the quiet decency he brought to every undertaking. “Oak?”

  “Vera?”

  “I am no longer indisposed.” This admission, which had been a topic of casual exchanges with Dirk on any number of occasions, caused Vera to blush. She hadn’t planned such an announcement, but Oak’s smile said he was glad she’d made it.

  “One did not want to admit to counting the days,” he said, “or the minutes. May I come to you tonight?”

  He always asked, he never presumed. “Unless you want me climbing into your bed at the midnight hour, you had better come to me.”

  “I would love for you to climb into my bed at any hour.” He kissed the corner of her mouth, which of course made her want to be kissed properly, so she remedied his off-center aim, and that resulted in Oak scooping her into his lap.

  “I have another confession,” she said, snuggling into his embrace.