Portrait of My Heart

by Patricia Cabot

  “He said for me to tell you that these were for missing you at the gallery this afternoon. He’s right sorry about it, says he doesn’t know how it could have happened, and he hopes you’ll forgive him if he did anythin’ to upset you.” Hill began tucking the long-stemmed flowers in with the ones from the day before. “And that the repairs you did on the … landscapes, were they? Yes, the landscapes … were perfect, and that he’ll see you at ten sharp tomorrow to start hanging them. Now, speakin’ of tomorrow, I thought you might want to wear the white satin for your exhibition, so I’ll press it first thing in the morning. The problem is, there’s a button missing from the gloves that match it—how you can be so careless, I don’t know—so I’ll have to take a trip to Trumps to see if I can find one that matches. There.” Hill stood back and gazed at her arrangement. “That’s quite nice, don’t you think? And they smell heavenly! So lovely to see a bit of color in winter, I always think.”

  Maggie looked at the half-blown blossoms. “Yes,” she said, but she wasn’t thinking about flowers. She was thinking about Jeremy. “Isn’t it?”

  Chapter 33

  Jeremy, throwing open the heavy double doors to the manor house, cursed irritably beneath his breath. The wind off the moor was biting and, what’s more, had garnered gale-like force in the two hours—two hours—it had taken him to get from the train station to his own front door. He’d conveniently forgotten, of course, what Yorkshire could be like in the dead of winter, particularly along the moors. He had had to hire a coach at three times the usual amount and then the damned thing had nearly blown over on the Post Road. The snow was so blinding that the coachman had almost refused to go on. Jeremy had to offer him another five pounds and half the contents of his whisky flask in order to convince him to drive on.

  And now, standing in the Great Hall, snow dripping from his boots and shoulders, Jeremy cursed again, this time at having arrived too late to be welcomed by anyone. It had to be past ten o’clock, a time by which, in the country, everyone had either retired or passed out from too much drink, one of the few distractions available of a winter’s evening. Lord, he couldn’t even find someone to relieve him of his cloak!

  Stomping across the flagstone floor, noting with disapproval that most of the candles in the chandeliers overhead had already been doused, Jeremy found a chair, upon which he promptly began to heap his sodden outer wraps. He was shivering uncontrollably by this time, and longed to find a fire, but he rather doubted any had been left going on the main floor. He’d have to find Evers—John Evers, he reminded himself—and get him to send someone to his chamber to build up a good blaze. Lord, what a homecoming. He ought to have brought Peters with him. He ought to have gone straight to Herbert Park, and had it out with Sir Arthur then and there. He was certainly in a foul enough mood for it.

  But, no. He was in just such a temper to have shot the old man, and that would never do. He’d never be able to convince Maggie to marry him after murdering her father.

  It wasn’t until he’d begun unraveling his muffler that he noticed the flicker of a candle flame approaching him through the gloom of the massive Great Hall, and then he called out, gruffly, to its bearer. When the flame came close enough to illuminate the identity of the person carrying it, Jeremy saw that it was someone he didn’t recognize, a girl of about fourteen or fifteen, with a riotous halo of blond curls framing a pretty, only vaguely familiar face. Her dressing gown was remarkably rich for that of a servant, of ice-blue satin brocade, and there appeared to be rabbit-fur trim on her slippers. Jeremy made a mental note to speak with his uncle about how much they were paying the parlormaids these days. Surely not enough to purchase satin brocade dressing gowns.

  Then the girl spoke, and Jeremy realized she couldn’t possibly be a parlormaid. His aunt would never hire anyone that rude.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, in a voice dripping with suspicion.

  Jeremy squinted at her. Her eyes were as frosty blue as her dressing gown. “I was just about to ask you the same question,” he said.

  “I’m Elizabeth Rawlings,” the girl replied primly. “I live here.”

  “Well, I’m your cousin Jerry,” he said, after overcoming a momentary shock. The last time he’d seen Lizzie Rawlings, she’d stood no higher than his hip. Now the top of her curly-haired head reached almost to his shoulder. “And I live here, too. In fact, I own this house.”

  She blinked at him. “You’re lying,” she said rudely. “My cousin Jerry’s in India.”

  “No he isn’t,” Jeremy said. “He’s standing right in front of you. What are you doing out of bed, anyway? Does your mother know you still make a habit of wandering about the house in the dark? I thought she weaned you of that ten years ago, when they caught you after midnight in the kitchens, stuffing your face with the remains of your brother’s birthday cake.”

  Lizzie’s bow-shaped mouth popped open, and her eyes went round as eggs. “Cousin Jerry?” she breathed. “It really is you!”

  “Of course it is.” Jeremy threw his muffler down onto the chair. “Where is everybody, anyway? This place is like a tomb.”

  Lizzie couldn’t stop staring at him. “Mamma is in bed. Mr. Parks told her she has to stay there until the baby is born, although she keeps getting up anyway. Papa is probably reading in his library. My sisters are all in bed, and I don’t know where my brothers are. Why is your skin such a funny color?”

  Jeremy glared at her. “I am tan. It tends to happen near the equator. Why are you out of bed?”

  “You needn’t speak to me,” Lizzie said indignantly, “as if I were a child. I happen to be fifteen years old. I can get out of bed if I want to.”

  Jeremy snorted at that. “In order to meet some young swain, no doubt. Who is it? One of the footmen? I’ll have him sacked on the morrow.” He seized her by the arm and began steering her toward the curved double staircase that led up to an open gallery overlooking the Great Hall on three sides. “And don’t think I’m not going to tell your father.”

  Lizzie pulled on her arm with surprising strength for a girl so slender. “Let go of me, you conceited buffoon,” she commanded. “I came down here in search of the book I’m reading.”

  “Oh, certainly,” Jeremy sneered. “What’s it called? The Young Girl’s Guide to Foolish Love Affairs?”

  “I happen,” Lizzie said, through gritted teeth, “to be reading Letters on Education, a treatise on women’s rights by Catharine McCauley, a contemporary of Mary Wollstonecraft who was much admired in her day for her eight-volume history of England.” On the word England, Lizzie managed to successfully rip her arm from his grasp, but only because Jeremy was too shocked to hold on any longer.

  “Good God,” he exclaimed. “What are you reading that for?”

  Lizzie primly tugged on the sleeves of her dressing gown, with all the fastidiousness of a cat. “Because, you ignoramus,” she said contemptuously, “I’m interested in the subject.”

  Jeremy groaned. She was her mother’s daughter, all right, despite the blond hair. He couldn’t remember a time when his aunt hadn’t had her nose buried between the pages of some piece of similarly dry reading material. He wondered what on earth it must be like to be Lizzie Rawlings, clearly a bluestocking trapped in the body of a chorus girl, and felt vaguely sorry for all the men who were going to have the misfortune of falling in love with her.

  “What,” thundered a deep voice, from the gallery overhead, “the devil is going on down there?”

  Jeremy looked up, and saw the tall, dark figure of his uncle at the top of the stairs. “Oh, hello, Uncle Edward,” he said casually. “Sorry, were we disturbing you?”

  “Jeremy?” He saw his uncle reach up and remove a pair of spectacles from the bridge of his nose. Good Lord! Jeremy nearly exclaimed. Edward Rawlings, farsighted? What other calamities had taken place in Jeremy’s absence?

  “Yes, Uncle,” Jeremy called cheerfully. “It’s me. I was just attempting to discipline your eldest daughter, but apparen
tly she thinks I’m the one in need of direction.”

  “Jeremy!” However much Edward had aged in his nephew’s absence, he’d still managed to retain his customary athleticism, as exemplified by the alacrity with which he descended the stairs in order to wrap Jeremy in an enormous bear hug.

  “Good Lord,” Jeremy cried, thoroughly embarrassed. His voice was muffled by the velvet of his uncle’s smoking jacket. “If I’d known this was the kind of reception I’d receive, I’d never have left New Delhi.”

  Edward, looking a bit surprised at his own emotional display over seeing his nephew again, abruptly released him, but retained a fond hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “Welcome home, my boy,” he said gruffly. “We missed you.” Then, squinting, he added, “You look terrible. How about a whisky?”

  “That sounds like an excellent idea,” Jeremy promptly replied. Then, as the two men started toward the staircase, Edward paused, and turned to pierce his daughter with a stern look as she crept toward the dining room doors, located in the center of the split between the twin curving staircases.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.

  Lizzie tossed him an aggrieved glance over her shoulder, but didn’t break her stride. “To fetch my book, of course,” she said. “I left it at my place at dinner.”

  “Well.” Edward cleared his throat disapprovingly. “Go and get it, and then get back to bed. And don’t let your mother hear about my letting you read at the dinner table, or she’ll have my hide.”

  “Yes, Papa,” Lizzie said with a long-suffering sigh.

  Turning back to Jeremy, Edward offered an apologetic smile. “They run a bit wild whenever their mother goes into her confinement. Pegeen’s been upstairs for only a day or two now, but I don’t think I’ve seen any of them since.”

  “So number seven’s being a bit reticent?” Jeremy inquired with a grin.

  “A bit, but I don’t imagine it will be long now.” Edward grinned back at his nephew as they began climbing the stairs to the second floor. “One look at you ought to be enough to shock your aunt into labor straightaway.”

  “That bad, eh?” Jeremy reached up to stroke his jaw, which was covered with dark razor stubble. “Lizzie didn’t recognize me, though I can’t say I knew who she was, either.”

  Edward studied him. “It’s the tan,” he said finally. “Not to mention the nose. You finally managed to goad somebody into breaking it for you, eh? Good job. I know how badly you wanted to rid yourself of that straight one you inherited. Too bad, though.” They had reached the top of the stairs, and were just turning toward the library when Edward paused to quirk an eyebrow at him. “I was thinking of breaking it myself, as soon as you got the courage to show your face around here.”

  Jeremy took a cautious step backward, remembering the mean fist his uncle swung. “If it’s about the Star of Jaipur, I can explain.”

  “Can you?” Edward looked only mildly amused. “This ought to be interesting. I saw the retraction in this morning’s Times. So I take it there isn’t going to be a new Duchess of Rawlings any time soon?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Jeremy said. “She just isn’t from India. She’s from considerably closer to home, actually.”

  Edward Rawlings had been accused of being many things, but slow was not one of them.

  “So that’s how it is,” he said shaking his head. “Pegeen told me you’d come home as soon as you heard about Maggie’s engagement, but I didn’t believe her.”

  Jeremy grinned at him. “Hope you didn’t place any wagers on it.”

  “As a matter of fact, I think I did. Damn me! I believe I owe the Rawlings Foundling Home a hundred pounds now.” Shaking his head with disgust, Edward started toward the library door. “Good God, Jerry. It’s been five years. Can’t you let the poor girl alone?”

  Jeremy’s grin instantly vanished. “No, I can’t,” he said stiffly. “Any more than you can let my aunt alone, apparently.”

  It was Edward’s turn to smile. “Touché,” he said, and turned the knob. Inside the library, Jeremy was relieved to see a roaring fire and a whisky decanter, already unstopped, set out on a sideboard. He immediately went to the fire and began to warm his hands, while Edward closed the door and poured out two generous drinks.

  “Here you are,” he said, handing one of the glasses to Jeremy. “To your homecoming.”

  “Thank you.” Jeremy tossed back most of the whisky in a single gulp, feeling the fiery liquid immediately begin to warm his frozen extremities. He was not yet well enough that a night spent in torrid lovemaking, and a day spent on various modes of transportation, did not completely exhaust him. And now, knowing that he still had the difficult task of dealing with his aunt—not to mention winning over Maggie’s family—ahead of him, tiredness crept in, like the cold, to permeate his very bones.

  His uncle very obligingly took his empty glass and refilled it.

  “Well,” Edward said with a sigh, sinking down onto his green leather couch, where he’d apparently been reading the newspaper just minutes before, since a hastily folded Times lay on the floor beside his feet. “Let me see if I have this straight. You joined the Horse Guards, got shipped off to India, killed a lot of rebellious Bengals, got promoted, saved the queen’s ambassador to Bombay from an assassin’s bullet, got promoted, prevented the Palace of the Winds in Jaipur from being destroyed by marauding rebels, got awarded the Star of Jaipur—do stop me if I’ve left anything out … .”

  “On the contrary,” Jeremy said, impressed in spite of himself. “You seem to have followed my military career to the minutest detail. Except for one minor point. The Star of Jaipur is actually a sapphire, not a princess.”

  Edward seemed to accept this easily enough. “Ah. And that article in yesterday’s Times?”

  “The princess seems to be having some trouble accepting my decision to take the sapphire instead of her.” He shrugged, as if to say What’s a poor fellow to do?

  Edward cleared his throat. “I see. Well, I must say, you managed to impress quite a lot of my peers with your daring, Jerry. There’s even been talk of siccing you on the Zulus, in Isandhlwana, to nip this rumored uprising in the bud. I did my best to try to talk them out of that idea. It’s my opinion you might be best utilized right here in England, consulting at Whitehall—”

  Jeremy sat down on the hearth, to better warm his thawing bones. “Whitehall?” He shook his head. “Really, Uncle, I don’t think I should like that at all. Isn’t that sort of thing for old retired admirals, the better to relive their glory days?”

  “It most certainly is not,” Edward said indignantly. “Whitehall is the headquarters of Her Majesty’s armed forces. You’d jolly well better say yes if they ask you to Whitehall, Jerry. There isn’t an officer alive who wouldn’t jump at the chance.”

  Jeremy shrugged. “Well, I suppose Whitehall is better than New Delhi. I’m damned tired of India. No whisky to speak of, and mosquitoes the size of your hand.”

  “And no women, apparently,” Edward said dryly. “Aside from this princess, I mean.”

  Jeremy scissored a glance at him. “What are you talking about? There were plenty of women.”

  Edward looked skeptical. “And yet it’s still Maggie?”

  “Of course it’s still Maggie,” Jeremy said, a bit defensively. “I think I’ve finally earned her, you know.”

  Edward raised his eyebrows. “Earned her? What are you talking about?”

  “Yes, you remember, don’t you? Our conversation in the stables after you, er, walked in on us. You accused me of being a ne’er-do-well. You said I hadn’t earned a girl like Maggie, since I hadn’t done anything with my life.” Jeremy leaned forward until his elbows rested on his knees, his whisky cradled in his hands. “Well, I think you’ll agree with me that I’ve done quite a lot with my life. I’ve risked it a hundred times over in service to my country.”

  “You’re not saying—” Edward set his own whisky, which he’d barely touched, aside. “Jerry
, are you telling me that you did all this—the Horse Guards, and Jaipur—to prove yourself worthy of Maggie?”

  “You don’t think she’s worth it?” Jeremy demanded, instantly on the defensive.

  Edward blinked. “Think she’s … Good God, Jeremy, that has nothing to do with it. I’m simply surprised, that’s all. I would have thought you’d have forgotten all about Maggie Herbert by now.”

  “Why?” Jeremy asked sharply. “You said five years ago that you thought she’d make an excellent duchess. Have you changed your mind? Or maybe Sir Arthur’s changed it for you. Maybe you agree with him that painting portraits isn’t a proper pursuit for a woman—”

  “That’s not it at all, Jeremy,” Edward scoffed. “All I meant is that five years is a relatively long time for a young man of your, er, lusty nature to remain … ahem … faithful to one woman. Particularly to a woman who, if I understand correctly, has recently announced her engagement to someone else.”

  “Well, why the hell else do you think I came back?” Jeremy demanded, standing up suddenly, and taking a quick turn across the room and back.

  “Good Lord,” Edward said, watching his nephew as he paced. “I never realized it before, but you’re even worse than Pegeen. When you get an idea into that head of yours, you stick with it, don’t you, come hell or high water?”

  Jeremy snapped, “Is that so wrong?”

  “Nothing wrong about it. Just amusing, is all. So. Have you killed her fiancé yet?”

  “No,” Jeremy said. “Though I’ve considered it. I thought I’d try a different approach. That’s why I’m here, actually.”

  “Really?” Edward looked interested. “Don’t tell that to Pegeen. She’s going to think you actually followed her instructions for a change.”

  Jeremy smiled. “Well, I did get her note. And I am glad to know that you’re all well … .”