Page 121 of The Ladies Least Likely

CHAPTER FIVE

“ S o, your duty,” Harriette murmured as she floated down the curving staircase of Renwick House from the chambers on the second floor to the large, formal staterooms on the first. “Is that why you’ve returned to England?”

“In part,” he said briefly. He watched the stairs, not her.

She glanced at the portraits and landscapes lining the plastered walls, an odd mixture of oils and watercolors, all of them conventional, none of them terribly good.

“My mother’s been attempting to summon me home for years. I felt it was time.”

“Do you want to marry?”

“I must. There’s no one else. The title reverts to the Crown if I end the line.”

He halted as she paused at the curve, and she studied him.

The blue of the suit brought out the deep tones of his eyes, the sky of an endless summer.

He smelled like a cake of fresh soap, a blend of citrus and spice.

His skin had turned bronze by exposure to sun, and she would wager the brown of his natural hair had acquired golden highlights as well.

The mature lines of his face were a painter’s composition, every feature symmetrical and in proportion, but they came together in a compelling, animated way.

And he was an earl, with estates all over Britain. Every woman alive would want him.

But of course, being Ren, he wouldn’t know that. The old tenderness pinched at her heart. Eleven years abroad and he’d become an intriguing man, but the eyes looking at her were the same old Ren—guarded, hopeless. In all those years, no one had made him see his own strength or beauty.

She would. She would produce a portrait that showed him true, the depths of his mind, the integrity of his character, the playful side and the serious side and his most secret, hidden dreams. She would bring him so alive on the canvas that every viewer would see his worth; she had that power.

She’d spent the past eleven years studying her craft and while she had much to learn, she was better than any other artist she’d seen hung on these walls so far.

She hugged his arm, relieved that she could do something for him. She wasn’t using him to gain a foothold among society painters. Well, she was, but he would benefit, too.

And she would make sure the bride he chose was worthy of him. She would find him someone beautiful and kind and also wealthy. Someone who could offer him everything Harriette did not have to give him.

“Your limp is much improved,” she noted as they proceeded down the broad marble staircase.

He held with one hand to the elaborate bronze balustrade, and she held to him, supporting him, though he didn’t need her to.

He didn’t hobble as he had as a youth, but instead he put his good foot on each step, then brought his lame foot to meet it, like a child learning to descend stairs.

But he did it with such cool deliberation that one had to know him to know he was compensating for something.

“I met a doctor in Italy who is developing new cures for clubfeet,” he said. “A young professor named Scarpa. He put me through a series of exercises and manipulations, and then he tried a surgical correction.”

A smile quirked up half his mouth. “I nearly lost my foot to sepsis, but after I pulled through, the good doctor designed me a special shoe.” He held it out to show her.

"I had a cobbler here cover it in leather and make me a matched set, and if I ever break it or wear it out, I shall have to return to Italy to find Dottore Scarpa again. "

“Does it hurt?”

“Always.” His smile faded as they reached the bottom of the flight and paused in the small marble hall.

“In the Scandinavian folktales, when the waterborne creatures like selkies or undines come ashore and take their land form, their feet feel as if they are walking upon hot coals or knives. It is the price one pays to appear human.”

“Oh, Ren.” Brave, noble, determined Ren. She knew a bit about sacrificing to appear like others, but she didn’t walk on knives as a consequence.

The countess had already swept into one of the two formal drawing rooms from whence the sounds of conversation and amusement drifted. Harriette stood still, taking one last moment to have Ren all to herself before she had to turn him over. Was there a woman in these rooms who deserved this man?

“And your speech,” she said, searching his eyes.

Where was his confidence, his assurance?

There weren’t a hundred men in all of Britain who held precedence before him.

He owned this house and the land it stood upon, and many other lands besides.

He acted like all this was a suit he might lay aside at any moment, when he could never escape his position or what it demanded of him.

That fine lip twisted with bitterness. “There’s no remedy for that, I’m afraid.

I’m going to look a fool in front of all these people, but I think that’s what my mother wants.

She shows the world that her son is a simpleton and a cripple, so she might be pitied and petted for bearing up so nobly under such affliction.

Then, if I marry a girl like her, she will have someone to complain to of the burdens she’s been given to bear. ”

“You are not a simpleton and you are not a cripple,” Harriette said sharply. “I haven’t heard you stammer once with me.”

“Because you don’t terrify me nearly as much as my mother,” Ren said. “Ready to throw yourself to the lions?”

Her smile mirrored his, more of a smirk. If only he knew how closely that thought echoed her own. But she was not the pure, noble Christian being thrown into the ring by a cruel Roman emperor to suffer torments that would lead to her sainthood. She was the furthest thing possible from a saint.

The countess had recognized her name. Most of the people in these overly ornamented drawing rooms would also.

And in all too short a time, Ren would know it, too—what she’d done to get where she was. He’d risen above his circumstances, and she had fallen.

She pressed his arm to her breast, needing his strength, his solid warmth.

If she could overcome his deep dislike of exposure long enough to paint him, she would make a portrait so beautiful it could go a long way toward redeeming herself.

Not enough to be worthy of him—she’d never be that.

The thought plunged a knife through her heart.

He gave her a quizzical look, but she wasn’t ten anymore, with no secrets and not a single thought for her future. She saw now, all too well, how wide a chasm gaped between her and her childhood friend.

But he offered, for the moment, a place beside him, and she was weak enough to take advantage while she could.

The formal drawing room of Renwick House occupied the front part of the first floor, positioned to best catch the light from the tall, narrow windows that faced the square.

The last time Renwick had seen it, the room had been a heavy tomb of dark paneling and massive Jacobean furniture, reflecting the era when Renwick power and influence had been at its peak.

His mother had redecorated in the neoclassical style, but without any sense of the restraint or harmonies that made that style work.

Everything was heavily curved and a bold red or green or gold, and being currently thronged with people all dressed in outrageously bright costumes of varying colors, the room assaulted the eye as well as the nose.

Beside him, Harriette stiffened, and he wondered if she regretted her decision to come to his rescue yet again. He laid his free hand over the slim fingers curled about his arm, holding her in place.

“No bolting now,” he murmured. He steeled himself to endure the usual reactions of strangers with the discipline honed by the many new experiences of his tour.

He would not show his aversion to notice and curious stares.

He would pretend not to see the revulsion on the faces of the delicate.

He would hide his annoyance at their pity and his irritation at those who would attempt to become too familiar because of that pity, or because he was the Earl of Renwick despite everything.

Normally, facing a room full of the cultured and elegant and well-born and rich, he felt suffused with dread at a long night of guarding his tongue, saying as little as possible so his stammer did not strangle him.

Were he a common man, in a common trade, his disabilities would scarcely be a matter of note, when so many of the population were marked by injuries or illness or scars.

But in the nobility, among those born to power and rule, such afflictions were a curse.

His father had taught him none of the things other men learned from their fathers—how to hunt, how to shoot, how to gamble, how to make a fine leg—but the old Earl of Renwick had ferociously impressed upon his son all that his title and station demanded, and all the ways he failed.

The minute he’d lighted on English soil, his mother reminded Ren of his responsibility to bear an heir and perpetuate the line.

His father had bragged that the earls of Renwick won their title and lands by helping Henry Tudor keep his throne, then looked around at his heir and complained that a line of strong, fierce warriors for cause and king had degenerated to weaklings.

Didn’t his mother equally fear what madness and deformity might await further in the line? Ren did.