“Adolescents are prone to righteousness. Bart made the mistake of teasing me about my drawing once too often, and I—I suspect my female humors were in part to blame—I came at him with guns blazing.”
“You could not aim a gun at a living creature to save yourself.” He made himself a sandwich twice the thickness of Jenny’s.
“I have a temper.”
He munched a bite of sandwich. “You are passionate where your art is concerned.”
Only her art? Jenny’s hands tightened around her mug, because the idiot man was humoring her. “I appropriated my mother’s tactics. His Grace rants and blusters when he’s in a temper, but his words are not intended as weapons. Her Grace’s artillery is much quieter. She sniffs, she frowns, she mentions, she lets a quiet question hang in the air, and one is devastated.”
Elijah took up a knife and the apple. “What did you mention to your brother?”
Jenny set her mug aside, the scent of spices no longer appealing. “I mentioned that I was ashamed of him. He’d finished his studies and was idling about, getting his younger brothers into trouble, making Mama worry, and starting up horrible rows with His Grace. He drank excessively, at least by my juvenile standards, and he terrorized the maids.”
“If you knew that and you were his lady sister and little more than a child, then he should have been ashamed. Have a bite of apple.”
Elijah held out his hand with four eighths of an apple in his palm. She took two.
“You aren’t going to tell me young men are full of high spirits? That a young man needs to learn to hold his drink? That a ducal heir should have lived long enough to outgrow those high spirits? To produce the next heir?”
Elijah crunched off a bite of apple, the sound healthy and… reassuring. “If he’d finished his education, Genevieve, Lord Bart had had three years in that expensive conservatory of spoiled young manhood known as Oxford. He’d had years to lark about, chase the tavern wenches, learn to hold his liquor, and acquire the knack of living within an allowance. By the end of my first year there, I was serving as banker to the older boys, and had taught one of the chambermaids the rudiments of reading.”
The notion that not all heirs to titles had a misspent youth was novel. “Why?”
He passed her sandwich to her. “Because I am the oldest of twelve. I could not do otherwise. The cost of educating six boys and launching six girls is substantial, even for a man as wealthy as my father. I could not countenance squandering my education or setting an example that would allow any of my brothers to squander theirs. Eat your sandwich.”
She took a bite and chewed, finding both the food and the conversation fortifying. “Bart was not the oldest, not really.”
“He was the heir to a much-respected dukedom, which is responsibility enough. He was also likely at or near his majority by the time you took him to task, and I say it was high time somebody did.”
The sandwich was good, much better than cheese, bread, butter, and ham had a right to be. “He and Papa reconciled. Papa bought commissions for Bart and Devlin, though it made Mama cry.”
He passed her two more apple quarters, though she hadn’t touched the first two. “Mothers cry. I suspect fathers do too, but not when anybody’s looking.”
“That’s why you should go home.”
He paused while stacking together the ingredients for a second sandwich. “I assure you, the Marquess of Flint is not crying over my absence. We’re quite cordial. I meet him for dinner at his club at least once a quarter unless I’m traveling. I take tea with my mother. I entertain my younger brothers when they’re in Town.”
Idiot. Buffoon. Imbecile. Jenny posed her question sweetly. “And your younger sisters?”
He sat back. “You wield your mother’s weapons quite skillfully.”
“How long, Elijah?”
“I haven’t seen the twins since… for quite a while.”
“And they miss you, and when you persist in this foolishness, they will miss you yet more and think they’ve done something to make it easy for you to stay away. If you’re thrown from your horse tomorrow, Elijah, if you should sicken from bad fish and die, what are they to make of the example you set for them?”
He took a bite of his second sandwich and chewed slowly while Genevieve took a swallow of chocolate.
“I’ve written to them.”
She snorted and bit into an apple quarter rather than cry. When Elijah patted her knuckles, she nearly jumped in surprise.
“We’ll start painting tomorrow afternoon.”
Jenny rose and took her mug to the sink. By the time she came back to the table, she’d decided to allow the change in topic. “You will start painting. I will greet my siblings and their various spouses and offspring. Her Grace has made it plain that my presence will not be excused merely so I can look over your shoulder while you paint.”
“Then I’ll work on finishing up Sindal’s commission, and your parents’ portraits can wait their turns. Sometimes a project turns out better when I’m given a day or so to think about it.”
“You are doing this so you don’t get ahead of me. I expect you to be much faster than I am, Elijah.” He’d challenged Jenny to paint two portraits, one of each parent based on the same sittings he was using, and then they’d compare their efforts.
“I am not particularly fast, Genevieve, but I apply myself to my commissions in a disciplined fashion. Are you going to eat that cheese?”
She pushed the tray closer to him, realizing he had to have been famished before they’d come down here—and she was still famished.
“Why haven’t you kissed me, Elijah?”
He paused with a slice of ham and a slice of cheese rolled together in his fingers. “I kissed you the day I arrived here.”
“Hah. My brothers kiss their horses with more mischief than you allowed in that kiss.”
“Your brothers, all three of whom are reputed to be dead shots, dead shots who will arrive tomorrow. Then there’s Kesmore, whose aim is legendary, while Sindal looks like he might enjoy breaking my knuckles for his casual entertainment.”
She plucked the food from his grasp and took a bite, then handed it back. “Your point?”
He set it down uneaten and rose, his chair scraping back loudly in the otherwise quiet kitchen.
“Genevieve, we are under your parents’ roof. You are going to Paris, need I remind you, and while I understand a lady might need to lay a ghost or a regret to rest, kissing can lead to… to folly. To the type of folly that will remove Paris from your future, if it hasn’t already.”
He looked exasperated and… dear.
Jenny took a considering bite of her apple and wondered what it meant that she tempted him to folly—with mere kisses, she tempted him to folly. She took another bite of apple and realized that lurking at the edges of his rejection was a lovely consolation that had to do with chivalry and respect.
“So I’m to content myself by painting with you instead?”
“You want to go to Paris. Painting with me seems a good use of your time while you’re making arrangements for your travel.”
His words reminded her that she still hadn’t read the packet schedules, or started filling those trunks. “Come sit.”
He obliged, but he would not look at her. Instead, he interrogated the last bites of ham. “When will you know?”
He would not write letters of introduction for her, but he’d provide her as much artistic instruction as he could before her departure. Jenny was trying to decide whether to be pleased or disappointed when his question registered.
“When will I know what?”
He looked around, as if her brothers and brothers-in-law might have been hiding in the kitchen’s deep shadows. “Know if you are with child.”
For an instant, she thought she’d heard hope in his voice, but then common sense asserted itself. Hope and anxiety were close relations—she’d heard nothing more romantic than an unmarried, honorable man’s worry.
The next ins
tant was spent grieving that she did not carry his child and would not ever have with him the domestic riches the rest of her family enjoyed in such abundance.
In the very next instant after that, she vowed it was time and past she made those travel arrangements he’d alluded to.
“I’m sorry, Elijah. I should have told you when I laid eyes on you several days ago. You have no need to worry about impending fatherhood. Finish the ham.”
His expression gave away nothing. Not relief, not disappointment, not irritation. Nothing.
“Was this why you came back to Kent, Elijah? Because you were concerned about a child and you did not trust me?”
His lips quirked up. “I trust you, Genevieve. I came out to Kent to accept a ducal commission, and now it has turned into a double commission with the possibility of an entire gallery of juvenile portraits to follow. I do not regret my decision, but it’s late. Let me escort you to your room.”
She wanted to argue, but he hadn’t given her anything to argue about. Her entire family would descend tomorrow, and even the thought of their noise and activity was wearying.
Elijah took the tray to the counter. Jenny rinsed out his mug and let him hold the candle as they walked through the house.
“You don’t need to see me to my room, Elijah. I’ve been sleeping in the same place for nearly a decade, and I know where it is.”
He said nothing, but rather, winged his arm at her. Jenny wanted to slap him on the elbow. She wrapped her hand around his sleeve instead and let him lead her through the chilly house.
“You’ll miss your room when you’re in Paris.” His tone was regretful rather than taunting, and he was right. She would miss her room.
Even her room.
“I expect Timothy will have abandoned me again tonight,” Jenny said. She’d miss Timothy too.
“He does keep one’s feet warm. This is your room?”
She dropped his arm. “My very own. Good night, then. You’re going back to the studio?”
“Perhaps. Sleep well, my lady.”
“You too.”
When she should have turned and slipped into her room, Jenny instead indulged in a spot of folly—necessary folly. She wrapped her arms around Elijah’s waist and held on. For a moment, he held still. Then, he set the candle down on the side table and returned her embrace.
He gave her no words, but he did hold her until she stepped back, kissed him on the mouth, and withdrew into her room. She stood on her side of the closed door, listening to his footsteps fade, not in the direction of his room but back toward the studio.
And, of course, there was no sign of Timothy anywhere in Jenny’s room.
“Elijah Harrison is the only person who takes my art as seriously as I do,” she announced to the room she would miss.
Jenny lay awake for some time, wondering why she wished it were not so, and trying to get her feet warm.
Thirteen
Genevieve Windham was an unscrupulous, lovely, audacious fiend who also happened to be a genius with paint. Elijah leaned closer to her and tried not to inhale jasmine and folly through his nose.
He gestured at her canvas, toward the beginnings of a fire in the hearth. “How did you do this?”
“You put yours closer to the corner of the canvas, where it won’t be structural,” Jenny said. “I wanted mine to anchor the illumination in Her Grace’s expression as she listens to her husband’s voice.”
“Your father reads Shakespeare very well.”
She stepped back from the paintings just as Elijah’s hand—without any communication with his common sense—came up as if to touch her hair.
“I’m sure Papa has Her Grace’s favorite sonnets memorized by now, just as I’m sure Her Grace will send a footman up any moment to fetch me. The hordes will start arriving ere long.”
“Then let her send a footman, Genevieve. Let her be the one to think, ‘Jenny certainly is intent on her painting.’”
She studied the beginning of her portrait, which was like no work Elijah had ever begun. Her use of color vaulted over the rules—rules for the oil medium she’d likely never been taught—to achieve results that stunned, intrigued, and pleased.
“If Her Grace were going to get the message that I’m intent on my painting—if anybody in this family yet living were—they might have gotten it when I was sixteen. I’ve managed to knot my smock…”
She turned around, presenting Elijah with temptation in the form of her exposed nape. He knew how that skin tasted, knew the warmth and sweetness of it against his tongue.
He stepped closer. “Are you doing this on purpose, Genevieve?”
She sent him a cross look over her shoulder. “Yes. I typically knot up all my smocks so I’m held prisoner in them until a passing stranger rescues me.”
She had made a knot, probably because she’d been too proud to ask him to tie her a simple bow. He had to bend down to study it. “Hold still.” The thing was stubborn, so stubborn that when Elijah gave it a stout yank, Jenny stumbled back against him.
“Oh, damn.” He used his nose first, drew it along the top of her collar where warmth and fragrance threatened to annihilate his balance. “Your painting is a wonder.”
So was her hair, so soft against his cheek. So was the place beneath her ear, where a man was doomed to kiss her. So was—
A tap sounded on the door. Had it been the deferential scratching of a servant, Elijah might have missed it, but it was a stout tap, more of a loud knock.
“It’s stuck,” he said, stepping back. “Perhaps it will have to be cut off.”
Cut off, indeed.
She gave him a curious look and went to the door. The squealing when she opened it was deafening.
“Maggie! Oh, my dearest, dearest Mags! I’ll get paint all over you. I’m so glad to see you!”
And at the same time: “Jenny! Oh, you’re painting. Of course you are. Hang the paint and tell me everything. Let me see you. Oh, I’ve missed you so!”
Elijah had been forgotten, relegated to such insignificance he might as well have never existed, and yet he listened to Jenny and her oldest sister greeting each other and felt the sweetness of it like a punch to the chest.
His sisters carried on in exactly the same way, every time they ran into him. The twins would likely squeal him halfway to Surrey.
Jenny gestured awkwardly behind her back with one hand. “Help me with this stupid knot, and you must greet Lord Bernward.”
Elijah pulled his thoughts away from the notion that an artist need not have good hearing, and smiled at Jenny’s sister. Maggie Windham, now Maggie, Countess of Hazelton, was taller than Jenny, red-haired, and lushly curved. Her beauty was more grand and severe than Jenny’s, and Elijah would have bet his Associate Academician status that Jenny could do a phenomenal portrait of her.
“Your ladyship, good day.” He did not pick her hand up because his fingers sported splatters of brown and white paint.
“Lord Bernwood.” Her smile was cool, her green eyes full of mischief. “Good day. You will wish Jenny a Happy Christmas now, because I must have her all to myself for the duration. We have much, much to catch up on. Jenny, get out of that old winding sheet and come along. St. Just got a later start from Town than we did, but I’m sure he’s right behind us.”
The espionage of women had started up already.
“Turn around, Genevieve.” Elijah saw the countess’s eyebrows rise at his tone, but Jenny—biddable, sweet Jenny, now that her family was in evidence—turned around and swept tendrils of golden hair off her neck. The pose was incendiary, it had such erotic overtones.
Elijah picked up a penknife and sliced through her knot. “You’re free. Enjoy visiting with your sister.”
Jenny shot a fleeting glance at her just-begun portrait, a glance of such longing Elijah nearly wished the countess Happy Christmas before pitching her into the corridor on her pretty bum.
“I’ll tidy up here, my ladies. Lady Hazelton, a pleasure.”
While Elijah could no longer see the mistletoe, because his vision was consumed with Jenny Windham. The New Year could not arrive soon enough, but as Elijah studied Jenny’s painting, his unease on her behalf grew.
The French took their art seriously, and Jenny’s unconventional approach might draw their fire. Bad enough she was a woman, and worse yet she was a talented woman. If some of the established portraitists perceived that she was a brilliant, talented woman, the result could well be savage. Was that what she sought in France? Persecution rather than freedom?
Jenny’s cat, who had taken to following Elijah about in the secret way of cats, stropped itself against his shins. “She’s not taking you either, old boy. Best find some other lady to dote on you.”
Another rap on the door interrupted Elijah’s study of Jenny’s handling of fire.
A tall, dark-haired, green-eyed man stood there, looking fierce and disgruntled. “You’re not Jenny.” He had the same angle to his chin as Jenny, and eyes that had seen the world at less than its best.
“You must be her brother. Elijah, Earl of Bernward, at your service.”
“Rosecroft. It being Christmas, you address me as St. Just or suffer dire consequences.” The man’s bow was the merest gesture. “Where is my little sister?”
A small, dark-haired girl came galloping down the corridor. Timothy shot through Elijah’s feet and made it to the mantel in a single determined bound. “Papa! Papa, Mama says to tell you she and Baby Belle are with the aunties in the library. The aunties want to kiss you hello. They already kissed me on both cheeks, and so did Grandpapa and Grandmama!”
The fierce expression became fiercer yet. “If you value your life or your sanity, Bernward, remain above stairs until dinner.” St. Just’s daughter led him away, a man facing inescapable doom—a man who also hadn’t even glanced at the paintings.
Elijah had barely collected Jenny’s brushes for cleaning when yet another rap sounded on the door. When Elijah glanced at the mantel, Timothy was nowhere in sight.
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