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A true artist, Constantia had long believed, distinguished herself by the skill with which she manipulated perspective. One must be able to find the angle, the shadow, the unique focal point that transformed the ordinary into art.

For instance, she knew at first sight that to transform the little stone church into anything more than merely picturesque, it would be necessary to impose some distance between it and the viewer.

Ideally, several miles.

At that distance memory, or imagination, could render anything it liked from smooth, gray regularity: a rough and interesting ruin, perhaps. Or an edifice charged with gothic grandeur.

Distance, of either the physical or temporal sort, was not within her means, however, and she did not fancy standing longer in the drizzling rain. So when Lord Ryland opened the nail-studded oak door and ushered her into the rear of the nave, she began immediately to consider where she might best position herself to make a passably interesting sketch of the interior.

Why this drawing mattered to her, when the earl was likely the only person who would ever see it, she could not entirely say. Perhaps it was simply a matter of stubborn artistic pride. She didn’t like to waste her time on bad drawing.

Perhaps she did not wish to seem ungrateful. He had given her a present, after all, and paid for it out of his own limited funds—which she knew because, after he’d gone out that morning, she had tried to busy herself with straightening their things and his little leather purse full of her money had fallen onto the floor.

A peace offering, he had called the gift. An apology of sorts? For touching her?

Ironic, then, that she had found the gesture itself touching.

At least, until he had mentioned his belief that the act of drawing might restore her memory and, by implication, free him of his responsibility to her.

With a twitch of her shoulders, she shook away the last vestiges of anything that resembled sentiment. He might choose to describe paper and crayons as an impractical gift, an extravagance, but she was—or at least had been, until recently—a working artist. Why should she view the items he’d chosen as anything but practical? They were tools, such as any tradesman might require for a job.

Their footsteps echoed in the empty church, though it was not large. She could not recall the last time she had been inside a church; closed-door gatherings of strangers made her nervous. Lord Ryland, however, moved as if he were right at home in this quiet, holy place, and not at all as if he had reason to fear the strike of a lightning bolt.

After a moment, she heard the scrape of a door across stone as someone entered from the far end. A grizzled older man in rough clothes approached and swept off his shapeless hat in deference.

“Mornin’, sir. Ma’am. Tolliver, sir. Sexton.” He bowed his introduction. “Be there aught I can do for ’e?”

“I hope we’re not intruding?” Ryland approached the sexton. “We were charmed by your little church, and my, er, my wife wished to take a sketch or two.” He gestured with the art supplies before handing them off to her.

“Oh, aye.” The sexton favored her with a smile. “Newlyweds?”

It was, she assumed, Ryland’s hesitation that had prompted the question. She parted her lips to form some reply, but the earl interrupted with a stilted nod and a noncommittal “Hmm” that the other man seemed to regard as sufficient confirmation.

“I’ll jus’ leave ’e be, then, shall I?”

It was Constantia’s turn to nod, more eagerly this time, and Lord Ryland’s to speak. “I, er, I wondered if you wouldn’t show me around a bit while she works. You strike me as the sort of fellow who must know all the interesting history of the place.”

“Oh, aye,” Mr. Tolliver readily agreed, and with a wave of his arm he ushered Ryland deeper into the little church and began to explain the miraculous provenance of some scrap of tapestry that hung on one side of the chancel.

While the sexton held forth in respectful tones, Constantia took several slow steps down the aisle, evaluating the architecture, the quality of light and shadow it produced. After weighing her options, she eventually settled on a pew on the left-hand side, four rows from the back, and slid almost to the middle, where a pillar obscured most of the view of the pulpit but also forced an unexpected angle on the altar. Then she slid open the small wooden box and traced a fingertip over its contents.

Charcoals . She hadn’t used them in ages. Her own art teacher—or the closest she’d ever come to having one, in that wretched girls’ school where she’d been more scullery maid than student—had dismissively told his pupils that charcoal left behind dirty hands, making it unsuitable for ladies’ use. That, of course, had only made Constantia more determined to master the medium.

But the teacher had kept his supplies under lock and key. And sometime before she had managed to pick that lock, well before she had had to leave the school under cover of darkness, she had learned how to wield a brush instead.

Nothing had been the same since.

After so long, she was eager to try again. But she didn’t immediately select one of the thin black sticks. As always, she swept her empty fingertips over the paper in a pantomime of sketching, calculating without conscious thought the necessary mathematics—division, geometry—and rehearsing the gestures by which the little church’s interior would take shape beneath her hand. Though the page remained pristine, she could see the outline, knew where the first stroke must be laid, before she ever picked up an implement.

A movement in the corner of her eye pulled her gaze away from the altar. To her left was a row of three windows, each made up of nine rectangular panes of wavy glass. Through the middle one, she watched as the sexton and Lord Ryland picked their way through the churchyard, stopping now and again to study a moss-encrusted grave marker. Behind them, the dark sky threatened rain.

It looked a rather unpleasant history lesson, to her way of thinking.

She turned back to the scene she was meant to be drawing and selected one of the pieces of charcoal, carefully prying it up from the box with her fingernail. How fortunate that the fall hadn’t injured the hand she drew with. Tilting her head ever so slightly to one side, she touched the charcoal to the paper and laid down one sweeping line of black, so stark against the creamy white that she gave an involuntary gasp.

The thrill of creation would never cease to amaze her.

Another line, and another. She tried to imagine how the altar would look with more light, on a day that the sun shone through the windows. Her gaze wandered leftward once more, while with the tip of her middle finger, she rubbed a shadow into place.

Charcoals would certainly be a suitable medium for depicting the gloomy churchyard. The cloudy sky and gray granite stones. The human figures in the foreground, a stark contrast to the moribund scene.

Instinctively, her hand shifted to a blank space on the left side of the paper.

Four hasty lines established the window frame. The charcoal slid so smoothly across the paper she was hardly aware of making them. A smudge on the horizon, to convey the lowering clouds. Then a collection of curves and angles to suggest the stones in the churchyard—so many of them, clustered so tightly together, that she wondered whether there had been some long-ago epidemic. How had the little village weathered so many losses?

Of course she must include Mr. Tolliver, too, in his drab, practical attire. He was as necessary to the picture as the graves that he—and his father, and his father’s father—had dug.

Once she had placed the sexton in the scene, she paused to assess her work. Not her finest effort, but passable, given how little recent practice she had had in either the medium or the style.

Of course, the composition would be improved, more balanced, if she included Lord Ryland. The charcoal would work exceptionally well to capture his not-quite-black hair. And the slight stoop of the sexton’s shoulders—a natural consequence of the man’s melancholy trade, she supposed—would be better set off by contrast with the earl’s always erect posture.

Were her wayward fingers looking for an excuse to trace his shape?

That desire in itself was reason enough not to do it, though she had ample experience in making pictures that reflected nothing of her own feelings toward the subject. Art was the trade she had learned to ply to ruthlessly practical ends, no different from laying stone. Or digging graves.

Still, it would be far better if she were never caught drawing Lord Ryland again.

With a sharp breath, she dragged her attention away from the window and devoted herself to adding more details to the sketch of the altar. The perspective forced by the pillar made the space disjointed. Interesting , she told herself as she forced herself to focus on the picture she was expected to make.

She succeeded well enough that when a droplet of water splashed onto the sketch, she started. Looking up, she found Lord Ryland leaning slightly over her shoulder; she had not heard him approach.

“Forgive me,” he said as she flicked the moisture away before it could soak into the heavy paper. “I only wanted to watch you work.”

Rivulets of rainwater traced the sharply hewn edges of his cheekbones and jaw and carved unexpected waves into his dark hair. At the end of every curved lock, a droplet swelled and sparkled.

Clearly, he had been standing there long enough for one of those droplets to slip free.

“Did I spoil your drawing?” Worry shadowed his charcoal-black eyes.

She shook her head.

But he had. Or rather his absence had. The place in the sketch of the churchyard where he should have been, the space she had left empty, stared up at her now, stark as a gaping wound.

She had not fully understood something until that moment: What an artist chose not to include could sometimes reveal as much as what she drew.

“It’s quite remarkable,” he said, looking between her and the picture, “how a bit of charred wood can become the perfect implement to capture stone—in the right hands, of course.” His gaze traveled up the pillar then out across the nave. “I would not have thought this a promising vantage point. But you have made me see it all differently.”

She ought to have some reply at the ready for such remarks. She wanted, perversely, to point out to him all the things she’d done wrong. The hesitations and misplaced lines. The smears.

But no words came. The best she could do was incline her head, half in acknowledgment and half in demurral, a gesture of modesty he no doubt thought false.

After returning the charcoal to the box and closing the lid, she tucked the picture away between two other sheets and handed the whole to him to stow inside his greatcoat. Rising, she thanked Mr. Tolliver for the opportunity. Lord Ryland likewise expressed his gratitude and followed her out.

The rain had, for the moment at least, stopped. Across the street stood a shop selling all manner of goods— Price’s Mercantile , the window proclaimed. Was that where Lord Ryland had made his purchase earlier that morning? She stepped almost involuntarily toward it.

The interior of the shop was warmer and drier than the church, the gray midmorning light assisted by several highly polished lamps.

“Back again, sir?” a girl called as she bustled forward from the rear, confirming Constantia’s suspicion.

“You must be the one who told my husband about the church. Thank you.” Constantia dipped into a shallow curtsy. She took care not to falter in the lie about their relationship, a quiet reprimand of Lord Ryland, who had stopped a pace behind her.

“Oh, you’re the artist. I’m sorry we haven’t anything more in the painting and drawing line.” The girl looked around the shop, as if hoping something might materialize. “Might there be something else I can get for you?”

“As it happens, I could use a great many things,” Constantia said, trying to sound airy. “We’re on our honeymoon”—best to keep the story consistent throughout the village—“and our carriage broke a wheel.”

“Oh, dear,” said the girl, looking her up and down, lingering over the bruised cheek and rather battered pelisse. “And some of your things were spoiled in the accident, I suppose.”

A not entirely inaccurate surmise, to which Constantia nodded.

“Well, here’s gloves.” She waved with one arm to a display of narrow boxes.

“Ooh, lovely.” It had felt strange, to say nothing of chilly, to go about without gloves. Eagerly, she stretched out her hand, then snatched it back when she glimpsed her own fingers black with charcoal.

Thankfully the girl, who had turned away to consider what else she might offer her customers, did not seem to have seen.

But Constantia’s predicament had not gone unnoticed.

“Allow me.” Lord Ryland’s voice was gentle, as it had been last evening. She heard a shuffle behind her—the sound of him laying aside her sketching implements—and then he appeared beside her, handkerchief in one hand and the other outstretched, palm upward. As if he intended for her to put her hand in his.

Instinctually, she wanted to protest. But her bandaged hand was an impediment to cleaning up. As with so many things at the moment, she could not easily manage on her own. Still, she hesitated, glancing upward, her gaze landing first on his cravat, which was slightly askew, having been tied that morning without benefit of valet or mirror. At last, she looked into his face and found it unperturbed. Resigned. Perhaps ever so slightly amused.

This was not, in her experience, an expression rakes often wore.

She recalled what he had told her about his mischievous sisters—or rather, not what he had said, so much as how he had said it. With affection. And good humor.

Gnawing surreptitiously on the inside of her lower lip, she surrendered her hand to his ministrations. His touch was gentle and comparatively warm as he curled his fingers around the breadth of her palm and began to swipe at her blackened fingertips.

There was nothing suggestive in his touch, nothing at all to remind her of that morning’s embrace, however unintentional—or unintentionally libidinous—it had been. All the same, heat rushed into her cheeks and she had to make some effort not to allow her fingers to tremble in his grasp.

“Your handkerchief will be ruined,” she warned.

He rubbed a bit harder at a particularly stubborn spot. The charcoal had embedded itself around the callus on her middle finger, where countless pencils and paintbrushes had rested. “You can buy me another,” he suggested, a faintly wry curve to the corner of his lips.

Would that be an inappropriately personal gift? Or an eminently practical one?

When he released her hand, still rather stained but no longer likely to dirty whatever she touched, she hastily set about examining the gloves while he stuffed his ruined handkerchief into his pocket and turned to look at items on another shelf—almost as if they both knew that it would be best to put the intimacy of the moment behind them.

By the time the girl returned, Constantia had settled on a pair of kid gloves in a shade of dove gray that would not show wear, but which were still suitable for her present masquerade as a lady and a new bride. Then, after a quick peek over her shoulder to confirm that Lord Ryland was otherwise occupied, she chose a bar of perfumed soap for herself and a gentlemen’s handkerchief of narrow-hemmed cambric.

“What I should really like,” she told the girl, “is a bonnet. Mine was such a silly frippery of a thing,” she went on in a slightly louder voice, so that her supposed husband might overhear and their stories would not contradict, “would you believe it blew right away?”

The girl looked suitably surprised—or perhaps suitably disbelieving. “No. Nothing like that, ma’am.” A glance toward Lord Ryland’s similarly bare head. “Neither for ladies nor gentlemen.” She gave another searching look around the little shop, then a light flickered in her eyes. “Wait. I have an idea.” She bustled away and returned with a paper-wrapped bundle, which she opened to reveal a hooded mantle of moss green wool, lined with tobacco-colored silk.

In spite of herself, Constantia gave a little gasp of greedy pleasure.

“I suppose it’s not the sort of thing a fine, elegant lady such as yourself would usually wear,” the girl said, misinterpreting Constantia’s reaction. And perhaps she was right; Constantia hardly knew, because she had never before pretended to be a fine, elegant lady. “The barkeep’s wife ordered it for herself—came just yesterday. But you’ve the greater need, ma’am. If you like it well enough, I’ll just tell her it hasn’t come yet and order another.”

Guilt needled her. To take such a lovely garment from the poor, put-upon sister of the proprietor of the Coach and Cask.. .

But she has Jem to keep her warm until a new one arrives, Constantia rationalized. While she herself must face cold rain and a drafty carriage and who could predict what else in the wilds of Devon—or wherever she ended up, once she could no longer hide that there was nothing wrong with her memory and Lord Ryland either seduced or abandoned her. Or both.

Footsteps heralded his approach. He fingered the material, appraising its quality, then lifted the garment from its wrappings, shook out the folds, and draped it over her shoulders.

Warmth settled around her, but was it the wool? Or his touch?

He raised the mantle’s hood to cover her head, then tucked in a few stray curls here and there. “Perfect.”

Constantia knew she wasn’t pretty. She had freckles, an angular face, and a stick-straight figure. She didn’t need a looking glass to tell her that an assortment of scrapes and bruises, surrounded by hair made frizzy by a morning stroll through the damp air, were unlikely to have improved matters.

But in that moment, under the warmth of his gaze, she felt that she could be pretty—when viewed from the proper perspective.

Two days past, she would have regarded the look in Lord Ryland’s eyes as proof of his duplicitous nature.

Now, though, she found herself wanting to believe that he was kind and generous, the sort of man who valued practicality over fashion, but who also knew that young women sometimes needed to feel beautiful. Even when they really weren’t.

She understood the dangers of London and had done what she must to escape them.

But she had not anticipated the dangers of a simple carriage ride into the country. She did not know how to escape the treachery of her own thoughts.

“I’ll t-take it. Yes. Th-thank you,” she stammered as soon as his hands fell away, turning back toward the girl with hot cheeks and fumbling beneath the added layer of fabric for her reticule.

Once the purchases had been rung up, paid for, and wrapped, Lord Ryland stepped forward to pick up the bundle—everything but the mantle, which she still wore.

The girl nodded toward the array of packages. “Much obliged, Mrs.—”

“Cooper,” Ryland supplied, without hesitation this time.

They did not speak again until they were on the street. “Fortuitous, wasn’t it,” she said, mostly to keep from having to speak of anything else, “that she had this cloak waiting? But perhaps we ought to cut across before we reach the Jolly Gander. It might be recognized.” She glanced upward to see if Lord Ryland had smiled at her little joke.

His expression was abstracted, as if his thoughts were far away, though he did steer them back to the other side of the street with his free hand.

“ Is it Cooper, I wonder?” he mused, once they had gained the opposite pavement. “The name came to you so readily last night, I began to wonder.”

“I, uh...” She pretended to test its familiarity in her mind. In reality, she was recalling the day Lady Stalbridge had approached her while she had been sketching in the park. Some nearby children had been laughing and rolling an iron hoop. Constantia had thought of the cooper who had made the barrel from which the hoop had been salvaged and wondered whether he would have been gladdened by the sight. “No,” she told Lord Ryland firmly. “No, I don’t believe it is.”

But he didn’t appear to have been waiting for, or even listening to, her reply.

“Then this morning, as I watched you draw in the church, I thought that ‘Miss C.’ might be a reference to the artist’s critical eye. You see what others do not.”

The idea was surprisingly poetic, and more flattering than she had any right to expect, especially given the previous drawings she’d made of him.

“Perhaps,” she conceded, as they walked on toward the Coach and Cask. “Art does require perceptiveness.”

In the distance, she saw that their carriage was waiting in the stable yard. The repairs must be complete, for the horses were even now being hitched. A curious mixture of relief and apprehension surged through her, and she glanced up again, studying the contours of her companion’s visage, grateful for the shielding edge of her new hood.

In the case of Lord Ryland, had she failed in the past to perceive the real man?

Or was she now so desperate she was seeing only what she wished to see?