Page 31 of A Brush With Love at Brookview Hall (Noble Hearts)

Twenty-Five

CORNELIUS

B y the position of the sun, it was not much after noon when next Cornelius opened his eyes, although he felt that he had been asleep for years rather than a couple of hours.

He lay still under the blankets, letting his eyes drift open while his mind sorted through a mist-like muddle of images and recollections, trying to make sense of where he was.

His arms felt heavy and his legs ached, and something pressed against his side, but he was not uncomfortable.

Then the soft weight at his side shifted and his eyes snapped open.

Julia!

Now what had he done? This would do nothing to repair her tattered reputation. He tried to slide out of the bed, to somehow create the illusion that he had been elsewhere all the while she was sleeping.

“Do not be silly,” her sweet voice murmured, all husky with sleep. “Nobody is here in the house to know, and fewer are about to care. You fell asleep and I found myself too tired to move. I lay down for a minute—or that was the intention—but I fell asleep as well.”

What had happened to the strict, rule-bound creature he had first met? He far preferred this Julia to that previous incarnation.

He felt better for the slumber. His head was clearer and no longer ached so desperately, despite his cracked lips and the spot by his ear that was rather tender to the touch. With deliberate movements, he struggled to sitting, and then gingerly began to move his knee.

Julia responded to his groan.

“Let me rub in more of the balm. Will the trouser leg roll up that far?”

He turned to her in horror.

“You cannot!”

“It is a knee, Cornelius, and I have seen such before. Remember that I am no stranger to the arts of healing.” Without his leave, she sat up and began fussing with the cuff of his borrowed trousers, loose and ill-fitting as they were, until his leg was exposed to the mid-thigh.

He blushed hot. What a laugh, to think of the wild reputation of artists.

She, however, seemed free of any embarrassment.

She reached for the jar of the pungent ointment, massaging it into the swollen joint with sure, strong fingers.

Cornelius groaned again as she worked through the sorest spots, but it was a good pain that promised healing.

He tried not to think of the other sensations her fingers were producing.

“Now,” she said as she worked, “I must know everything. I have long had my suspicions, which have changed as I learnt more, but I would most dearly like to know the truth.” She scooped more of the liniment onto her fingers and continued her ministrations as she stared at him, waiting for him to speak.

“I confessed all to you, and I did rescue you. It is only fair that I know what it was all about.”

Her hands moved down to his calf, kneading the muscle and drawing out words he had not intended to divulge. Each press of her fingers into the knots in his legs pulled more of the story from his lips, until he knew he had to confess it all.

“It was a simple matter, really,” he said at last. “Or, perhaps, it is less so. I do not know where to begin. I was merely supposed to observe on behalf of the government, informing them what I discovered. They knew there were smugglers about and needed particular details in order to catch them.”

“But you are an artist. Surely that is not any disguise, for I have seen your paintings. How did you become involved in all this?”

“It was… Well, I suppose I ought to go back further. Much further, to explain… Ouch!” He cringed when Julia began working the aches out of a particularly tender spot behind his knee.

“It is, at the core of matters, my father’s fault. He was a colonel under Wellington, a brave and important member of the duke’s cadre of advisors, and is now highly placed in government. I was always a disappointment to him.” He moaned again as her fingers moved down toward his foot.

“You? A disappointment? I can scarcely believe that.” Her hands eased their torturous kneading and dipped again into the jar of salve.

“Alas, it is so. He was a soldier, a strong and relentless man, but I had no desire for that sort of life.

I was a good student, but my interests lay more in art and poetry than tactics and boxing.

I spent my childhood hoping for his approval, aching for his attention, but I could not force myself into that sort of life.

I simply wanted my father to love me. I even accepted the commission he bought me, but it was hopeless.

I was a terrible soldier and a worse officer.

“I received, on my twenty-first birthday, a small bequest from my maternal grandfather, as part of my mother’s marriage provisions.

The small income it provided was nothing to what I might have enjoyed had I satisfied my father’s wishes, but it was just enough to live on.

I sold out, to his extreme displeasure, and went begging.

I am not a rich man, Julia, and I never shall be, but I am content.

“I had spent some time as a youth dabbling in painting with some masters in London.

My father had thought that if I had some training, it would satisfy me enough to allow me to pursue a military career.

It did quite the opposite. But now, I went to these men and laid my case before them.

I wished to be a painter, and nothing else would do.

“Master de Wint took me in as an apprentice in his studio and offered me the support and encouragement that my family never provided. He helped me earn enough to study with masters in Italy, and he arranged for the introductions I needed. He was the parent I had craved as a child, and I admire him more than anybody. I owe all my present success to him, and I hope you will agree to meet him one day.”

“Roll onto your side,” Julia said, “and let me work on the back of your calf.” He did so with some degree of discomfort, as she spoke on.

“I would be honoured to meet Mr de Wint. He must be a very kind man. But how did this lead to you seeking out smugglers? That is quite a deviation from studying art in Italy.”

He bit back another whimper as she began kneading another painful spot just below the back of his knee, before transferring her attentions to his other leg. This one was not as sore as the first, not having been injured so badly, but it would not suffer for the care.

He breathed deeply for a moment before continuing.

“I suppose I never ceased trying to please my father.

I did not need his approval anymore, and I was beginning to make a reasonable income as an artist. I received first one minor commission for a portrait, and then another for a hunting scene—which I did not enjoy, I must add—and then for some landscapes, until my name was not unknown.

But I wanted to show my father that I had made something of myself, and that I was not the cowardly dandy he imagined me to be.

“I knew Rainham from my short days in the army, and we had remained friendly, even after I sold out. When he approached me, I felt it was the perfect opportunity to show my father I was worthy of his regard, after all. Except,” he sighed, “it appears I am not.”

Memories of his father’s casually cruel words came flooding back.

You don’t have the guts, you’re soft, you’ll never be a real man .

Even as a child, when his preference for beauty over roughhousing became evident, he had suffered his father’s scorn.

Sissy. Miss Molly. Unnatural . The derisive looks, the barely obscured sneers, the constant reminder that he was never good enough: these had been his daily bread for far too long.

“I believed it, too.” The words fought their way out, each torn from him like a festering limb and leaving him empty.

“I did not understand it until now. I heard him so often and wished so much for his love that I believed him. If I had been better, stronger, more willing to fight, I would have deserved his love. I wanted to prove myself not to him, in the end, but to myself. And then, when you rejected me, I wanted to prove myself to you as well. And I failed.”

Bitter bile fought with the tears he had never allowed himself to shed as a child. And a realisation edged through the cracks in the wall he had built.

“I tried to be clever, and I was captured, and I might have jeopardised the whole operation. I suppose he was right. I am not worthy, after all.”

Julia’s hands were no longer pressing the ache from his knees, but had moved up to his back. She lay down once more and wrapped herself around him.

“Never say that. You are so very worthy. You bring joy and light to a cruel world. You show us that there is beauty when we start to lose hope. You are colour and joy. You make me smile. You have taught me that I can live again, despite my own sad tale.”

“I will never be good enough for my father.”

“Perhaps that is so, but he will never be good enough for you.”

And those simple words, plainly spoken and without fanfare, settled into the broken part deep within him, filling the gaps that his uncaring parent had left empty for too long.

His father was the one lacking, not him. He was exactly who he was meant to be.

Ignoring the jolt in his knee, Cornelius twisted around until he was facing Julia, and caught her up in his arms, as she held him in hers.

“You really believe that!”

“I do,” she replied.

He pulled back enough from her embrace to contemplate her. That lovely face, just inches from his own, held a look of such penetration he could hardly comprehend it.

Although he fancied himself a landscape painter, he had first made his way painting portraits, and these still comprised the bulk of his commissions.

As such, Cornelius prided himself on reading and understanding facial expressions and emotions, all the better to guide his subjects and capture the most suitable such look on canvas.

But he had never seen anything like the adoration that shone from Julia’s fine eyes. Fathomless, dark and beguiling, they bored into his soul and found, beneath the years of self-doubt, something precious at the centre of his being.

“Good God, I love you!” The words escaped before he could stop them, but he could not wish them unsaid. He pulled back a bit more, to take in all her expression. He needed to see not just her eyes now, but her brow, her mouth, the set of her jaw.

Nothing spoke of disdain or disgust. She even smiled, tentative and hopeful, and her eyes grew shiny with emotion.

“I do, you know.” Now that he had spoken, the words would not stop.

“I have loved you almost since first I saw you, and certainly since the first time you chastised me for my irresponsible behaviour.

I saw something marvellous in you, and I have been honoured to see that ember grow into a glorious bonfire of colour and light.

And every time I think I have given you everything I have, I find I love you more.

“Do you think, my incandescent Julia, that you might learn to love me back?”

The smile she gave grew wider, and she blinked shining dark eyes.

“I cannot learn it, for I already know it, so deep within me that it is part of me now. Yes, I can love you. I do, and I have for longer than I have wanted to admit.”

Cornelius let out a sharp laugh.

“This is not what I envisaged. When first I dreamed of finding my perfect match, I imagined a moonlit night under a canopy of starlight, or a sun-soaked arbour surrounded by fragrant roses for my proposal.

It was never meant to be with a scarred and wounded body clad in old, borrowed clothing, in a creaky farmhouse bed.

But you are here with me, and I cannot imagine a better place in the world.

“Will you, Julia? Will you throw your lot in with this pathetic artist? I cannot promise you gold and jewels, but I can promise you my devotion. I will dedicate my life to making you happy, to keeping the colours bright, and letting you soar to whatever heights you desire. Will you marry me?”

The smile now threatened to burst the confines of her beautiful face, and she threw her arms about him again.

“Silly man!” she laughed. “Of course I will.”

And then, with nothing else to say, he kissed her.