Grace Burrowes - [Windham Sisters 05]

by Lady Jenny's Christmas Portrait

  “Paris reeks,” Lord Kesmore said. “Harrison’s scent is rather pleasant by comparison.”

  “He smells of linseed oil,” St. Just observed.

  “A point in his favor,” Hazelton murmured, “from Lady Jenny’s perspective.”

  Westhaven glanced around the group. “Then we are agreed. Lady Jenny will have no need of the dubious sanctuary of France. None at all.”

  ***

  Paris began to loom like salvation for many reasons.

  Jenny had checked the packet schedules. She’d made lists of what she’d take with her. She’d quietly packed up several boxes and stowed them in the bottom of her wardrobe, and just as quietly interrogated Aunt Gladys and Aunt Arabella about where a lady might find proper quarters in a decent part of town.

  Gladys had given her a long, pitying look, but had shared what she’d known.

  “You could do more with that necklace,” Elijah said, peering at Jenny’s portrait of Her Grace. “Pick up the highlights from the fire and Her Grace’s hair. Make them resonate with the ring she wears and the candles.”

  Elijah was a great one for making things resonate. Jenny was tempted to make his skull resonate with her retort, but she kept her tone civil.

  “I could tell you that your portrait is of a duchess, while mine is of a wife and mother. She doesn’t even like jewels, Elijah, but wears them so as not to hurt His Grace’s feelings.”

  Elijah wiped his hands on a rag and glanced around the room. “Your cat has abandoned us, and you’re peckish. Tea came and went an hour ago, and you’ve hardly left this room since you took a luncheon tray some hours before that. I was making a suggestion, Genevieve, not a criticism.”

  Outside, darkness had fallen. Jenny had painted for hours, not in an attempt to keep up with Elijah, but simply to be near him.

  “Is your portrait of Sindal’s boys done?” she asked, stepping back from her easel.

  Elijah used his rag to wipe paint from the handle of a brush, the way a soldier might wipe blood from a sword. “As done as it will be. West has written that Fotheringale harps on the lack of a completed juvenile portrait from me, though I showed them all the sketches.”

  Jenny passed him her brushes—Elijah was meticulous about tidying up at the end of each session—and took a seat by the hearth. “You can send them the completed portrait. Rothgreb wouldn’t begrudge you that.”

  Instead of cleaning the brushes, Elijah dunked them in a jar of turpentine—also across the room from the fire—and sat on the hearth beside Jenny. “Will you marry me, Genevieve?”

  He kissed her cheek while Jenny flailed about for a response, any response at all. “The paint fumes are affecting you, Elijah, or you’ve spent too much time imbibing His Grace’s wassail.”

  “You affect me. I paint better when you’re near, and I was warned about His Grace’s wassail—or Her Grace’s—by the regent himself. Marry me.”

  She wanted to say yes, even if this declaration was not made out of an excess of romantic love. “If I marry you, I cannot go to Paris.”

  He leaned back, resting his head against the stones behind them, closing his eyes. “I’ll take you to bloody Paris, and you can appreciate for yourself that the cats have ruined the place. Rome isn’t much better, though I suppose you’ll want to go there and sniff it for yourself too.”

  He’d promise to take her there, probably to Moscow as well if she asked.

  “Babies put rather a cramp in one’s travel plans.” Because if she were married to him, and Windham proclivities ran true, babies would follow in the near, middle, and far terms, and all hope of painting professionally would be as dead as her late brothers.

  “Your siblings all managed to travel with babies. What’s the real reason, Genevieve? We’re compatible in the ways that count, and you’re dying on the vine here, trying to be your parents’ devoted spinster daughter. Marry me.”

  He was tired, and he felt sorry for her. Of those things, Jenny was certain, but not much else. She hadn’t foreseen an offer from him that would ambush her best intentions and be so bewilderingly hard to refuse.

  “You need to go home, Elijah. I need to go to Paris. Painting with you has only made me more certain of that. If I capitulate to your proposal, I will regret it for the rest of my days, and you will too. You feel sorry for me, and while I appreciate your sentiments, in Paris I will not be an object of pity.”

  Nor would she be the object of marital schemes, and that… that was important too, though exactly why it was important, Jenny could not fathom.

  Elijah was silent for a moment, while beside him, Jenny tried to swallow around the lump in her throat, because she would also regret not capitulating to this proposal, even though giving up on a life’s dream for a man who’d proposed out of pity wasn’t prudent.

  “Compassion is not pity, woman. I find it puzzling that a lady who’s about to turn her back on all she’s known—family, friends, and familiars—exhorts me so relentlessly to go home.”

  The paintings were coming along nicely, which Jenny suspected was symptomatic of her first brush with channeling one kind of frustration into another kind of creativity. She would likely paint masterpieces in Paris as a result of the same frustration.

  Though in Paris, a woman could take a lover. The notion was incomprehensible—a procession of Denbys and glorified flirts who would only leave her feeling lonelier.

  “We are not going to marry, Elijah. My family stopped even pretending to chaperone us days ago, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “I noticed, though I drew a different conclusion entirely.” He took her hand, and she not only allowed it, she reveled in it. His touch was never presuming, but neither was it hesitant. “You will face challenges in Paris, Genevieve. When things go well, you’ll tell yourself that’s reason to stay longer. When things go poorly, you’ll tell yourself you can never leave in disgrace, and you’ll use even the setbacks and criticisms as justification for staying far from home.”

  He spoke from experience, and she hurt for him. Hurt for the very young man who’d taken on an unlikely profession and made himself successful at it.

  “I am not you, Elijah. I have nothing to prove. I want only to paint and to be taken seriously. My brother Victor died—”

  Jenny blinked, the lump in her throat turning painful and sharp without warning.

  Elijah drew her close, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and kissed her cheek again. “Let’s not argue. We have a few days left, and then we’ll part. What did you think of the green I added to the curtains, hmm? Did it pick up on the green in Her Grace’s eyes? I can tone it down, but I think I like it.”

  Jenny fell asleep, cradled against his body. When she woke up, she was in her own bed, alone but for the cat curled up at her feet.

  The cat whom she’d also miss when she went to Paris.

  ***

  “I’ve come to let you know that your portrait is all but finished.”

  Elijah had much more he wanted to say to Moreland, but the old fellow was a whirlwind, taking a batch of grandchildren out for a sleigh ride, escorting his duchess on various calls, and then disappearing into this very study to wreak God knew what mischief-by-correspondence with his cronies in the Lords.

  The stack of letters Elijah had sent in response to his siblings’ pleadings was dwarfed by the volume of Moreland’s epistles, and each was written in the duke’s own hand.

  His Grace sat back but didn’t rise from the monstrosity of a desk at which he was ensconced. Mistletoe hung above the desk, only a few berries remaining among the leaves.

  “Good work, Bernward. You’ll stay long enough to see all and sundry admiring your handiwork, though. Her Grace delights in the Christmas open house, and I won’t see her deprived of a chance to show you off.”

  Elijah turned his back on the duke, which was rude, but necessary if civi
lities were to be observed and His Grace’s Christmas decorations admired. “Her Grace would do better to show off Lady Jenny’s talents, my lord.”

  A chair scraped back. “Jenny enjoys her dabbling, but I was rather hoping she might enjoy your company more. Was I mistaken?”

  Behind the genial bonhomie of a doting father and relaxed host, Elijah heard a thread of ducal steel.

  A cloved orange was beginning to turn brown in the middle of a wreath on the back of the study door. “We enjoy each other’s company, Your Grace, but you have to know your daughter is not content.”

  Moreland came around the desk to stand beside Elijah at the window. “You’re not going to ask my permission to court her, are you?”

  The honesty was unexpected, also a relief, like the cold radiating from the window provided relief from the fire’s cozy blast. “She would not welcome my suit. You underestimate your daughter’s devotion to her art.”

  The duke snorted. “You’ve spent what, a couple of weeks with her, and you presume to tell me her priorities? I’ve known that girl since she first drew breath, Bernward. She’s no better at hiding her discontent from me than is her mother. The holidays are hard on them both is the trouble. Come calling when spring is nigh, and you’ll be well received. Both ladies are preoccupied now, with all the family underfoot and entertaining to be done.”

  His Grace’s voice had dropped with that observation, revealing sadness and possibly bewilderment. The latter made him less a duke and more like a man who had many children to love but only a father’s resources with which to solve their problems.

  “I expect to leave on Christmas Day at the latest, Your Grace. It’s time I went home to Flint Hall.” Outside, in the sprawling back gardens, a snowball fight was in progress. One was probably under way at Flint Hall as well.

  “Your mother will be pleased to see you.”

  His Grace had the most arrestingly blue eyes Elijah had ever beheld, also the most shrewd. “My father will not be glad to see me?”

  “Oh, of course, though Flint will likely refer to it as relief rather than sheer joy—if he refers to it at all. You took Jenny out to the family plot the other day.”

  Moreland was reputed to leap about like a March hare in his conversation, but Elijah grasped that the duke did little without premeditation—witness the impact of a complete verbal ambush on Elijah’s wits. “Lady Jenny and I went for a walk. I believe we were in view of the house for most of it.”

  Though not when they’d come to the graveyard and Jenny had wept silent tears against Elijah’s chest.

  “Her Grace and I remark the occasion of Victor’s passing with a visit to his grave, and we do as much for Bartholomew, my parents, and late brothers too. You mustn’t allow Jenny to feel obligated to make the same effort.”

  The footprints Elijah had seen in the snow made more sense. Not servants, not even a duke and duchess, but rather, two parents whose heartache would never entirely abate where two of their sons were concerned.

  “I sought to get her away from the paint fumes, Your Grace.” A lame answer, but the older man merely regarded the melee beyond the window, in which the women and children were administering a sound drubbing to the gentlemen.

  “Jenny is lonely, Bernward. With all her family around her, she is yet lonely. To the extent your painting afforded her a distraction, you have my thanks.”

  For a moment, Elijah considered the possibility that he’d been commissioned to paint the duke and duchess solely to distract Lady Jenny as the holiday approached and the Windham horde descended.

  Not even Moreland could be that calculating, could he?

  “You’re in correspondence with my father, Your Grace.”

  “I am. He and I do not see eye to eye on the Catholic question. I am a staunch Tory but cannot find much threat in allowing Catholics to vote when so few of them hold land or wealth adequate to qualify them for the privilege. Moreover, the entire debate has gone on too long and taken up far too many resources, and Wellington both agrees with me and has a grasp of Irish politics that eludes many an English lord. Your father’s views are to the contrary.”

  And for ten years, Elijah had been allowed to breathe paint fumes, when as successor to the Flint title, he ought to have been paying attention to issues such as this.

  “Do you have any artistic inclinations, Your Grace?”

  The duke turned back to his desk. “Her Grace is in charge of sweetness and light in this household, if that’s what you’re asking. I cannot sing, draw, paint, or otherwise account for whatever airs and graces my children claim. I plot and scheme to safeguard the realm, and that suffices to justify my existence in Her Grace’s eyes—also in the eyes of the Almighty, one hopes.”

  The duke was apologizing for Flint in some way, or distracting Elijah from the fact that Victor Windham’s brothers had not remarked the anniversary of his death, but Jenny and Their Graces had.

  And for that reason, because she still remarked her brother’s death, Elijah owed Jenny one more charge on the citadel of His Grace’s paternal obliviousness.

  “I’ve enjoyed my time here, Your Grace, but I cannot caution you strongly enough that Lady Jenny’s abilities should not be ignored. Talent such as hers deserves to be supported, not humored.” Any more blunt than that, and His Grace would likely eject Elijah from the premises bodily.

  Moreland resumed his seat, his expression amused. “My thanks for your words of advice, Bernward. Now hadn’t you best be joining the battle outside or that game of nine pins in the portrait gallery? One hears the entire mad idea originated with you, though I caution you that the young ladies will find a way to cheat if they can.”

  Nine pins in the portrait gallery—how apt. “My thanks for your patience, Your Grace. I think you’ll be pleased with the portrait you commissioned.”

  Though if Jenny’s plans came to fruition, Moreland would probably burn the thing, and his duchess would send the ashes to the Academy’s nominating committee.

  Fifteen

  “You look as if you’ve just lost your best friend.” Eve took a place beside Jenny on this observation, which leavened Jenny’s sense of desolation with a spike of resentment.

  “With all my family around me, how could I possibly be in want of companionship?”

  Eve watched their mutual siblings stepping through a minuet while their brother Valentine held forth at the piano. “The same way I can long to dance while the minuet plays all around me.”

  Marriage had settled Eve, and impending motherhood had only honed her already formidable instincts.

  “You’re admiring your husband, Lady Deene, even when you can’t dance with him.”

  “He’s promised me a waltz, though Valentine will probably find one to play at the speed of a dirge.” She fell silent for a moment as the dancers one-two-three’d around the space created by the music room and an adjoining parlor. “You would make a wonderful mother, Jenny.”

  The worst pain was not in the words Eve offered, but the combination of pleading and pity with which she offered them.

  “Becoming a mother usually contemplates becoming a wife first, and I’ve no wish to wed some man for the sole purpose of bearing his babies.” Not the sole purpose… As the dancers twirled and smiled, it occurred to Jenny that Victor had made her promise not to stop painting, but he hadn’t said anything specific about eschewing motherhood.

  Had he?

  Another pause in the conversation, while the music played on. Eve, however, was notably tenacious, so Jenny waited for the next salvo, and Eve did not disappoint.

  “You look at Bernward the way I look at Deene, the way Maggie looks at Benjamin, the way—”

  “Louisa looks at Joseph, I suppose.” And Sophie at her baron too, of course. They needn’t start on how the Windham brothers regarded their respective wives.

  “Louisa’s gaze is a
touch more voracious. I was going to say, the way Mama looks at Papa.”

  Ouch. Ouch, indeed. The duke and duchess turned down the room with the grace of a more elegant age, and yet, their gazes spoke volumes about the sheer pleasure of sharing a dance.

  Jenny stated the obvious as matter-of-factly as possible. “Their Graces dance beautifully.”

  Eve’s feet were propped on a hassock. She wiggled her toes in time with the music, the left and right foot partnering each other. “Bernward also dances quite well.”

  Elijah was dancing with Valentine’s lady, Ellen’s preferred partner being ensconced at the keyboard, as usual. “Bernward is dancing carefully, lest Valentine take exception.”

  Eve twitched her skirts. “Bernward is dancing with one eye on you, you ninnyhammer, and with the certain knowledge that all three of our brothers are waiting for him to come over here and get you to stand up with him. How many more times do you think you can check on the punch bowl between sets without Bernward taking insult?”

  Check on the full punch bowl, offer to turn pages for Valentine when he was playing from memory, or trim the wicks on the lamps that the footmen had trimmed not fifteen minutes earlier. This Christmas gathering was driving her mad.

  “I’m going to Paris after the holidays.”

  Jenny hadn’t planned on making the admission, but Eve’s good intentions—her meddling—were enough to pluck confessions from a saint.

  “Do you need money? My pin money is generous, and though one hears the Continent is affordable, I will worry about you.”

  Eve had been the second-to-last sibling to marry, and perhaps Jenny ought to have anticipated her reaction. Except she hadn’t.

  She absolutely had not. “You won’t try to stop me?”

  Eve’s feet went still. “I know what it’s like, Jenny, to be one of the few remaining Windham daughters without an offer, but I also know you could have had offers. I know you’re afraid if you don’t do something drastic, you’ll compromise and accept a wrong offer. I could not live with myself—”