Page 17 of A Brush With Love at Brookview Hall (Noble Hearts)

Fifteen

CORNELIUS

C ornelius climbed off the back of the cart and waved farewell to his friend. He might see Rainham again in Porthawen, but it would do no good for them to arrive together. They must seem strangers to each other.

It was not a long walk from the top of the rise down to the tavern that stood in the centre of the town.

The road was steep, however, and Cornelius carried a cumbersome pack on his back, complete with several days’ worth of clothing, a vast amount of paper and pencils, and his portable easel and paints.

He kept his pace slow, still mindful of his leg, which was not as much healed as he had suggested to Julia.

Julia. Try as he might, he had been quite unable to keep her from his thoughts.

He ought not to have tried to kiss her; indeed, it had been more dream than reality, a mere brush of his thumb, a matter of moments.

He had asked and she had not refused him and for a second, he thought she was receptive to his attentions.

But then, almost as quickly as she had let her head move towards his, she had stiffened in horror, recoiled, and fled.

And this was no mere missishness. She was really scared, and not—he believed—of him. Something surely had happened, back in London those five or six years past, and he needed to know what. How long had it been since he sent that letter to Hamilton? When would he have his reply?

He took another step and landed awkwardly on some uneven stones, jolting his knee. The shock of pain brought him back to the present, and he strove—not entirely successfully—to force Julia to the corners of his mind for the time being.

He was almost at the tavern. Just across the little bridge, down to the next lane, past the shipwright, and yes, there he was.

He paused before entering, taking a moment to check the application of greasepaint on his eye.

With the old cap and the shadows, it looked almost normal.

He hoped that the liberal application of ale would complete the illusion.

The innkeeper gave him no second glances and happily accepted his story of wishing to paint the harbour.

He was known there, and known to be an artist. If his coin was good, there would be few questions.

Within a few minutes, Cornelius had deposited his sacks in his room and made his way down to the tavern with his pencils and paper, in hopes of a drink and some conversation.

It was now late in the afternoon, and the setting sun was burnishing the horizon.

This was exactly the prospect he had hoped for, and before taking his table inside the tavern, he walked out to one stone seawall and set himself down, his board-backed paper and pencil in hand, to record the scene.

Long shadows and obliquely lit shapes tantalised him, the vista a study in chiaroscuro, the juxtaposition of darkness and light.

He let the pencil dance over the paper, hinting at the gold-tinted skeins and nets, the birds strutting on the beach around upturned boats, the men sorting the day’s catch, calling to each other, the women with their baskets and carts.

“You back, are ya?”

One of the men he had sketched on his first visit stood over him, hands on hips as he stared down at the emerging drawing.

“I am. This is a most wonderful scene.” Cornelius turned his face up with a smile. With his hat low over his brow, his bruises should not be apparent.

“Not so wonderful if ye’ve been out fishing all day,” the other man countered, “but I grant you, it looks fine enough on yer page. Here for a drink, then?”

“And to stay,” Cornelius replied. He closed the notebook and struggled to his feet. “This will be another painting in my collection, for my exhibition. I have a room for three or four nights, to begin the work, if not finish it. You must become accustomed to my presence, I am afraid.”

“Aye, that’ll be fine. The wife was amazed at your drawing you did of me. Quite couldn’t believe ‘twas done before my eyes. Would you meet her, show her yourself?”

“I would be delighted. Robertson is the name.” He held out his hand.

Word spread, as he expected it would, and by the time he staggered up the stairs to his room later on, he was the new friend of every man in town.

He was there in the mornings for breakfast, out on the pier during the day with his wide-brimmed hat hiding his bruise—thanking the stars for fair weather, of course—back in for tea, out again for the evening light, and inside again for dinner and ale.

Three days went by in this manner, and time well spent, for he had achieved his ostensible aim of producing studies for a nice set of paintings of the small fishing village.

He had worked these in watercolour, to be reproduced in a studio in oil, although he was quite pleased with the watercolours as well.

He admired his handiwork as the papers, clipped to their boards, stood propped against the wall to dry, and then wandered down for an evening of comfortable companionship.

He was, by now, so accepted a part of the scenery, so unexceptional, that the townsfolk had grown utterly at their ease around him.

He was greeted in the pub as an old regular.

Some folk stopped at his table to chatter, but most just went about their conversations as if he were not there.

This was what he had hoped for; this was when he might hear things.

That evening, as he sat with a group of friendly fishermen, sketching them as they sipped their ale, he heard about the excellent catch the men had brought in that day, and about Deck Geen’s inappropriate relations with the Widow Kimbrel.

Later, as the beer flowed freely, he caught a whisper that it was Tommy Skewes who had put the hole in the bottom of Alfie’s dory, and that young Kennick (whoever he was) had been seen around Old Lower’s farm the night his pig was stolen.

The next night, as he sat in a dark corner behind a pillar, he overheard some merchants discussing the latest robberies along the turnpike road and the price of whitefish, and later, some of the townsmen postulating over how Stephens ended up with a dislocated jaw and a broken nose.

Cornelius rubbed at his still-tender knuckles as he listened to that.

And, much later, when the lamps had burned low and most of the custom had gone home and Cornelius had pretended to nod off in his chair behind that pillar, some snips of conversation drifted their way towards his very alert ears.

“…another shipment.”

“Shhhh,” came the hissed response. “Keep yer voice down, Harry.”

“Ain’t nobody around to listen, save those blokes on the other side and that artist chap what’s asleep, and they all can’t hear us, I’ll be betting. His nibs wants you there. The gaugers won’t be looking that far off from town anyway.”

“Same place?”

“Aye, by the island, past Brookview.”

“It’s never close to a nice warm pub, now is it? Always out in the devil’s own country and with no moon to see by. Brandy?”

“He ain’t be telling me, just that it’s coming in.”

Anything else the men might have whispered to each other was lost when the innkeeper strode out, informing the remaining drinkers that it was time to be leaving. Cornelius made a great show of snuffling into wakefulness and then shuffled off upstairs to his room. But he had heard enough.

Now the question was, what was he going to do about it?

Rainham had stopped by the tavern on the third night Cornelius was there. They nodded politely at each other in the manner of men who have met briefly but have since forgotten each other’s name, but did not converse past the necessities of civility.

Still, a dropped piece of paper and scratch at the temple with the appropriate number of fingers was sufficient for Cornelius to convey a message.

It was all a bit strange, and rather exciting—or, rather, it would have been exciting had his adventures a week before not culminated in fisticuffs at a storage shed in a small seaside village on the far side of Brookview.

That was not at all pleasant to recall, and he mentally thanked Rainham again for saving him from worse injuries than he had received.

What would they think now, those naysayers from his youth who had scorned him for choosing the paintbrush over the sword, to see him scrapping in the dark and meting out worse than he received?

He prayed he would not have to repeat the experience.

What had possessed him to take on those bruisers, anyway?

He had been out surveying the scenery, exactly as he had explained to Julia.

Well, perhaps not exactly , for he was as much interested in the ship offshore and the interesting coves and inlets as he was in the wild landscape and the turbulent waves.

Nor had he been entirely alone, for on this particular evening, he had met Rainham and two of that gentleman’s men, with an eye open for brandy.

The rumours had been mostly correct, and their explorations took them to the shed in Bole Cove.

It stood at the top of a rise of land on the edge of the village, accessible from the rocky beach by a steep and uneven path, rutted by the passage of years of wheels.

Peters had crept inside while the others crouched behind seemingly abandoned barrels and a large outcropping of rock, and after a moment, he had signalled for Carew and Rainham to join him.

Cornelius was supposed to remain outside; his role was one of observation and not engagement.

But when he had seen the other men slink in from the steep beach path, he found himself compelled to rush in.

He still could not account for it. Rainham and his men were more than a match for these two ale-soaked intruders, although he did help to shorten the fight.

No, it was not out of obligation or a particular ability with his fists that spurred him into the melee.

Was it, then, the memory of those childhood taunts, of the cruel jibes and insinuations that he, the art lover, was not as much of a man as those who craved battle?

Or was it some strange image of Julia, with her hidden fire obscured behind her stern exterior, waiting for him to act? To prove himself?

That was foolish, for she was not the sort to laud violence. Still, he could not refute this strange need to show, somehow, that he was worthy.

And as much as he wished to deny it, he could not. He was lost. He needed to find a way to redeem himself in her eyes and somehow come back, once all this was over, to woo her and convince her that he was worth it. And if that meant throwing a punch in the dark, he would do it.

Heaven help his poor hands, the bruises were a small price to pay for Julia’s tender attention.

Cornelius gave a wry chuckle as he packed his few personal effects and his painting equipment.

He had made arrangements the previous evening for one of the lads with a cart to drive him back to Brookview Hall.

Returning now, with a set of paintings and no visible wounds that the last bit of greasepaint would not disguise, would occasion no questions, and he could walk in as if he had planned this excursion the entire time.

Julia would be there, of course. He ached to see her again. While his few days in the inn at Porthawen had been most productive in every sense, he had missed her dreadfully.

Her clear voice was the first sound he dreamt of every morning, and her lovely deep brown eyes were the last thing he pictured when he closed his eyes at night.

He wanted her intelligent conversation and insightful comments, and he wanted to keep working away at the shell that damped the wonder that she was.

Every clop of the horse’s hooves brought him closer to her.

Heavens, he was not starting to fall in love; he was entirely there, and he loved every moment.