Page 16

B y late morning, Constantia had given up any pretense of teaching her students anything about art that day. The lesson on the importance of leaving empty space in a composition would have to wait until the sisters were capable of focusing on something other than foiling their brother’s marriage plans. At midday she shooed them out of the studio and listened to them plotting as they filed down the stairs.

As silence fell, she began to roam around the room collecting their sketches from the day before. When she reached the last table, she stretched out a hand for the drawing and froze. On the back of the sheet of paper containing the picture of the chair, Harriet had drawn something else. Something entirely new and yet devastatingly familiar.

Constantia had just slid onto the bench to study it more closely when she heard a peremptory rap on the schoolroom door. Swiftly setting the other sisters’ work on top of Harriet’s, she turned toward the sound. But before she could speak or move to open the door, it swung inward to reveal a perfect stranger: an elderly woman, slight of stature, wearing a high-necked, wine-colored gown and a frown.

Constantia scrambled to her feet. This could only be the infamous Aunt Josephine.

“I am Lady Posenby,” the woman said in a chilly voice. “And you must be the drawing master.”

She exhibited no desire for an introduction, so Constantia merely inclined her head and curtsied.

“I question the wisdom of encouraging my nieces’ inclinations in this area.” She pointed with a folded lorgnette toward the stack of drawings on the table beside Constantia. “But they are clever enough girls, so I trust they are making progress?”

“We have only just begun,” Constantia explained as the woman strode closer and began to inspect the pictures. “However, I am satisfied with what they have produced so far.”

“What a lot of waffle. I see nothing remarkable here,” she declared.

Was it Constantia’s imagination, or did she sound pleased by the discovery?

Lady Posenby raised her lorgnette halfway to her eyes to peer at the comment Constantia had written on Georgiana’s picture. “You mustn’t allow them to run roughshod over your rules,” she said, then added, not quite under her breath, “though certainly flowers seem a more fitting subject for young ladies than rickety old chairs.” Then she reached Harriet’s work. The lorgnette rose higher. “What’s this?”

“It, um, it appears to be a cartoon, ma’am.”

“Was this part of your instruction?” she demanded, whirling on Constantia. “To ridicule Ryland in the style of that awful magazine?”

For her part, Constantia hadn’t decided whether the cartoon was making more fun of Alistair or Aunt Josephine. But neither of them had fared well under Harriet’s pencil.

“Certainly not, ma’am. I believe Lady Harriet must have been doodling during the lesson.”

“Well, you ought not to permit it,” she said, crumpling the paper into a tight ball. “Just as Ryland ought not to permit his sisters to read that trash. The Magazine for Mischief , or whatever it calls itself.”

Constantia wanted to say a great many things in reply. But she settled for boldly correcting her ladyship: “It’s the Magazine for Misses , ma’am.”

“Read it, have you?” She turned the lorgnette on Constantia and looked her up and down. “I can’t say as I’m surprised. You artistic types aren’t much for the rules of polite society.”

Constantia bristled instinctively at the tone, though the words themselves were unexceptionable. The rules of polite society were, after all, the ones by which her mother had been as good as sentenced to death. Should anyone be surprised to find she had little patience for them?

“If you were looking for your nieces, they work here in the mornings. When the light is best.” She drew her spine straighter as she spoke, until she stood head and shoulders taller than Lady Posenby.

“It was you I wished to see.” And she looked displeased at having to crane her neck to do so.

Constantia made no effort to hide either her suspicion or her surprise. “Why?”

“You are familiar with those cartoons of my nephew, I take it?” Constantia managed to nod. “Well, now he requires a wife. His fortunes may be strained at the moment, but he’s still the Earl of Ryland. It ought to be no great feat to find a wealthy merchant’s daughter who will thrill at the prospect of being addressed as ‘my lady.’ But”—she gave the ball of paper a threatening shake before tossing it onto the floor—“the nonsense spewing from that magazine has made the task considerably more difficult than it ought to have been. That artist has made him ridiculous in the eyes of every young lady in Britain—and Ireland, too, for all I know.”

As she spoke, Lady Posenby directed her gaze out the window, as if scouring the landscape for potential magazine readers lurking in the bleak moorland. Constantia could only be grateful she was not scouring her face, for she feared the emotions at war there would reveal too much.

Did the Magazine for Misses truly have such reach?

Did her sketches truly have such power?

At the risk of betraying herself, Constantia said, “What does all that have to do with me?”

She’d wanted to prick Lord Ryland with her drawings, it was true. Though she had certainly never dreamed that by doing so, she could damage his marital prospects. But if what Lady Posenby said was genuine, it seemed she had, however inadvertently.

And she found she could not be sorry for it. Not now that she knew him better, knew the scent of his cologne and the taste of his kiss. The announcement that he intended to take a wife had produced an unexpected sting of jealousy in her breast. Some wicked part of her did not regret making his path more difficult.

Not, of course, that he ever could or would marry her —or that she wanted to marry anyone.

“Ryland seems to have judged you a competent artist.” She sounded skeptical but resigned. “Therefore, I wish to hire you to make a small portrait of him. Flattering, but not obsequiously so. He is handsome enough without exaggerating, do you not think?”

Constantia nodded, aware that Lady Posenby was not looking at her and thus might not even see the gesture but unable to make herself speak.

“I want something to reassure prospective brides about his true character. Help them see how wrong those silly cartoons are.”

Constantia’s heart began to thump in an alarmingly erratic rhythm. “Forgive me, ma’am. But why not, er, display Lord Ryland himself?”

Lady Posenby gave a soft harrumph of displeasure. “He says he’s completely indifferent to my choice and will come to Bristol once I have matters arranged, and not before.”

No wonder his sisters were unhappy—he did indeed seem to be taking every imaginable step to ensure he would be miserable.

“I see. And, um, where will the young ladies be viewing this picture? Do you have in mind a portrait for your home, or a miniature you can carry with you at all times?”

The grande dame whipped her head about with surprising speed, as if she suspected some mockery in those questions. And her suspicions were not far off—the situation was absurd, and Constantia was doing everything she could not to laugh.

Or perhaps that stinging sensation at the back of her throat was tears.

I draw and paint to suit my patrons, not myself , she had told him.

This picture must be no different.

Lady Posenby replied to her query with more questions. “Which size do you think would better show his features to advantage? Where do your skills lie?”

Constantia weighed her answer. She hadn’t the tools or supplies necessary for completing a miniature, the fine brushes or the ivory on which to paint. And even if she had, miniatures were delicate work. Her hands were already trembling at the prospect of painting Alistair’s picture, and she did not know whether she could stop them.

“A larger portrait, I think,” she said after a moment, though she hadn’t the oils or canvas for that either. But she could make do with paper and pastels, if she must. She would not allow herself to imagine the young ladies looking up at it and tittering amongst themselves, or one of them positioning herself just so in order to be able to fancy she had caught his eye.

“Excellent,” said Lady Posenby. “I shall inspect your progress in a fortnight’s time.”

Constantia nodded. But her ladyship, who obviously expected obedience, had not waited for confirmation and was already out the door.

When she was alone again, Constantia bent, picked up Harriet’s crumpled drawing, and straightened it out on the nearest table. The likeness to one of Miss C.’s cartoons was extraordinary. She would have to speak to the girl about the perils of imitation.

And satire.

A painting of Lord Ryland could be Constantia’s chance to make amends for every hurtful sketch she’d dashed off in a fit of pique. A chance, even, to make something of a name for herself as a portraitist, if Lady Posenby was pleased with her efforts.

And she had fairly itched to draw him again, had she not?

If completing a portrait of the man she now knew him to be would also be a kind of punishment, well, it was only what she deserved.

When the clock in the schoolroom chimed two, Constantia rose from the table where she had been pretending to work, smoothed her skirts with damp palms, and went downstairs. Carefully she followed the directions she had been given, down one flight and along a short corridor, then across the empty drawing room to a tall pair of oak doors carved with the faces of the twelve apostles, their features still surprisingly sharp in spite of the doors’ obvious age. Raising her hand, she rapped her knuckles firmly in the narrow panel between Matthew and Mark.

“Come.”

The reply was muffled by the thickness of the wood. If she wished, she could claim she had not heard it at all.

But she would not be a coward.

The breadth of Alistair’s shoulders greeted her as she entered the library. He was standing looking out a window with his hands folded behind him. Nearby stood a massive mahogany desk, its gleaming surface entirely bare.

“Forgive the intrusion, my lord. Lady Danielle told me I might find you here.”

He spun, obviously startled to discover the identity of his visitor. “I was expecting—”

“Someone else?”

He glanced once over his shoulder toward the window, then shook his head and strode toward her. “Not at all. I am at leisure.” He gestured toward a pair of chairs. “Come, sit down.” She perched uneasily on the edge of one seat, expecting him to take the other. But he remained standing, his hands still crossed behind his back. “My sisters have been cooperative pupils, I hope?”

“Oh, indeed, my lord.” At that, something wrinkled his brow—disbelief, displeasure? She relaxed her spine and added, more honestly, “To varying degrees.”

That earned a smile. “That’s more like what I expected to hear. But is that what’s brought you here this afternoon? They gave me to understand—and I have, er, noted myself—that you generally employ this time with your own work.”

Had he been watching the progress of her drawing of Rylemoor Abbey, waiting by the window for her to appear? The thought made her at once nervous and pleased.

“You are not bothered by my doing so, my lord? I would not like to overstep.”

One brow lifted in a skeptical arch. “Really? That would be a change.” His gentle teasing—no doubt the same fashion in which he teased his sisters—made her chest ache. Then he sank onto the opposite chair, the better to scrutinize her more closely. “Is everything all right, Constantia? You do not seem yourself.”

“All is well,” she said, feigning brightness. “It is only that your aunt—”

“Good Lord.” His laugh had an edge. “Do not tell me she approached you with her mad idea of having my portrait made?”

“She did.” She plucked at the fraying edge of the bandage around her wrist. It was no longer strictly necessary; she might better take it off than risk dragging it across a sketch and smudging the pencil. “And I have agreed to do it.”

“Oh.” He was on his feet again and in half a moment had placed the desk between them. “Well, given the ample practice you have with the subject, it should pose no challenge to you to make my picture.”

“But a portrait of the sort your aunt has commissioned is something rather different. It will require sittings, I’m afraid. At least a few.”

His shoulders rose and fell on a deep but silent breath. “I see. Well, that will be no very great matter. I’ll just pop round to the schoolroom a time or two, shall I?”

She had already considered what might become of whatever remained of her wits if she had to sit alone with him in the schoolroom, just a few feet away from her bed. “The light there is only suitable in the mornings, I’m afraid, and that is when I teach your sisters.”

“Ah.” He swept a hand in front of him. “Here, then?”

She glanced around the library, which felt heavy and dark in spite of high ceilings and a row of tall windows facing west. No one, not even Alistair, could truly be comfortable in such a room. Discomfort produced awkward portraits, and this one would be uncomfortable enough already. “Perhaps we would do better to seek a less...formal space?”

“Less stuffy, you mean,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. But there was a smile in his voice now, albeit a reluctant one. He ventured out from behind the desk again and propped one hip against its bulk. “So what did you have in mind?”

“I don’t pretend to know the house well.” She thought of the few parts of the abbey she had visited. “The family sitting room, perhaps?”

Quickly he shook his head. “Not unless you fancy working with an audience.”

“No,” she agreed. “No, that wouldn’t be ideal.”

“So, if I understand you correctly, you’d like to find, somewhere within the confines of this nearly six-hundred-year-old building, a comfortable place, with better than adequate natural light, where we won’t be disturbed?”

She gnawed at the inside of her bottom lip and nodded.

Silence fell as they both paused to think—well, she presumed he was thinking. Other than a steady drumbeat of the phrases I can do this, I must do this , her mind was an utter blank.

Eventually he pushed himself to standing and approached her chair. His features were carefully schooled to blandness, but there was something glimmering in the depths of his dark eyes that might have been anger. Or pain. Or perhaps both.

“I know a spot. Come with me.”

With the wave of a hand, he ushered her from the library, across the drawing room, and down a different set of stairs. Out of habit, she started to cross the entry hall before realizing he had turned in the opposite direction. Toward the west wing.

His stride grew longer, though not, she felt almost certain, out of eagerness. Determination, perhaps. In spite of her long legs, she had to trot to keep up. They walked along a passageway that was open to the courtyard on one side, a sort of arched colonnade. It was not difficult to imagine monks marching two by two from their cells to the abbey church.

At the end of the passageway stood another heavy oak door, this one studded with iron nails and shut with a rusted padlock. From his waistcoat pocket, Alistair produced a key of equal antiquity and opened it. With the aid of a shove from his shoulder, the door scraped across the stone. Though they were as good as standing in the open on this cold and damp day, the air that swept out of the door was somehow colder and damper still.

“Is it safe?” she asked, taking a last upward glance at the crumbling church tower.

“That depends entirely on how far you go.” He went in first and waited for her to follow. “You’ll need to watch your step.”

Heeding those words of caution, she kept close on his heels. Even in the dimness, she could make out wispy cobwebs and patches of green growth on the walls and at their feet. No one appeared to have passed this way in quite some time.

They walked through what must have been anterooms to the chapel proper. Offices, perhaps, or the sacristy. Here and there, fallen stones had tumbled into the pathway or crumbled almost into dust. When they reached yet another staircase, spiral and narrow, he led the way up.

It opened onto a large square room whose original purpose she could not begin to divine. Large windows, their glazing mostly intact, overlooked the grounds to the west and the north, an awe-inspiring expanse of wilderness. But it was not that which took her breath.

All around the room stood canvases, some half-finished, others blank. Some leaned against whitewashed walls grown dingy with age, while others stood propped on easels or lay across a large table. In one corner sat a glass-front cabinet filled with bottles she instinctively knew contained pigments. In another corner she spied a collection of cloth-covered bundles tied with twine, dozens of rectangles and ovals of varying sizes—shapes that bore all the hallmarks of Rylemoor Abbey’s missing artwork.

“I don’t—” she began, but stopped herself. For the next word would have been a lie. She did understand.

“My father’s studio,” he said, looking at her and not the room. “Will it suit?”

There had been hints, of course. She would not have been at all surprised to learn that his father dabbled in art, a pastime of which Alistair clearly disapproved. Harriet’s gift had come from somewhere, after all. But this.. .

She spun slowly in a circle, trying to take it all in. This wasn’t dabbling.

“Yes,” she answered quietly. “If you’re sure.”

“Of course,” he said, though his face could hardly have been less so. “Meet me here tomorrow at two, then, and we’ll begin.”

“How will I get in?” she asked, thinking of the padlocked door and wondering whether the intent had been to keep others locked out or keep the memory of his father locked in.

He reached for her hand and pressed the key into her palm. The metal was warm from his touch. “Take this. I have another.”

Then he turned to go, obviously intending to leave her to look around the space and assess its contents. She had taken only a step or two toward the cabinet when he reappeared in the doorway. “What shall I wear for my portrait?”

She thought of how his battered greatcoat coat set off the breadth of his shoulders, and the way he’d looked when rain had dampened his hair and made it curl. Swallowing past a sudden sharpness in her throat, she said, “Something that you believe will show you to advantage for your future bride.”

Again that unnameable emotion flashed in his dark eyes, but he nodded and left without another word.

In the center of the room sat a chaise longue covered in worn rust-colored velvet, its scalloped arm framed in gilded wood. She made her way across the floor and sank onto it, no longer convinced her knees would hold her. A small cloud of dust rose from the fabric. She tasted its bitterness on her tongue and wondered how long her mouth had been gaping. A shaft of late-afternoon sunlight pierced the omnipresent clouds, making the dust motes sparkle and transforming the chaise to a chariot of flame.

The artist in her felt as if the gates of heaven had just been thrown wide. In her wildest dreams she could not have imagined an opportunity to work in a studio like this, and certainly not here.

But when she recalled the anguish in Alistair’s dark eyes and considered how the late earl might have contributed to the present state of affairs at Rylemoor Abbey, she wondered whether he hadn’t instead opened the portal to his personal hell.

Either way, what might it mean that he had chosen to do such a thing for her?