Page 10 of The Lady Sparks a Flame (The Damsels of Discovery #2)

10

To confess the truth…I am not disposed to form a very favourable idea of chemistry, nor do I expect to derive much entertainment from it.

—Mrs. Jane Marcet

The next morning the sun hung midway to the top of the world, bare and unflinching in a gray-colored sky.

Stupid sun.

The gravel of the stone drive looping around the manor house sounded like gunfire when Phoebe walked over the tiny stones. Around back near the stable, Jonas and Sam stood facing each other. Karolina had come to get her, saying the two men were outside arguing, but now that she’d been assaulted by sunlight, Phoebe’s head hurt too much to intervene in whatever pissing contest was taking place between Jonas and Sam.

“Well, then, if the horses are lame, why not send a boy to the nearest village to fetch another set of them.” Sam did not speak louder than he had to, but he bit off the ends of his words in a manner that irritated Phoebe’s nerves.

The same nerves already overburdened by the suspicion she had propositioned Sam last night. The fact that she woke fully clothed in her own bed meant if she had, in fact, propositioned Sam Fenley, he had turned her down.

She would have remembered if he’d tupped her. Her headache wouldn’t be so bad, for one.

“There is no boy to send,” said Jonas.

Phoebe pressed two fingers against the throbbing between her eyebrows. It didn’t help, but perhaps the men would take the hint and shut up.

“No boy? Then send a man. Send yourself. Send out a woman if you must,” Sam said.

“I’ll go,” Phoebe said.

The men ignored her.

“We do not have a man to send. We do not have a woman to send. This is not London, where crowds of paupers roam to do your bidding.” Jonas folded his arms and stared at a spot over Sam’s left shoulder.

“Crowds of paupers? Who do you think I am?” Sam asked.

“Go yourself, Mr. Fenley,” Phoebe suggested, inserting herself between the two men. “It’s a six-hour walk to the nearest coaching inn. You could get a post from there.”

A plume of steam extended from Sam’s nose as he examined the boots he wore. Boots designed to travel short distances on paved streets, not hours-long treks on dirt paths.

“Or, you can stay one more day and ride out with the stable master when he comes back with the other horses,” Jonas said slowly, as if speaking to a petulant child.

Deciding the matter settled, Jonas turned on his heel and headed back toward the stables. Phoebe would have to speak with him, later. They hadn’t had much time together since she arrived, and she needed to know if Jonas would stay with her mother or return home to Lithuania.

“Will I…” Sam looked up and watched Jonas’s back with a thin-lipped frown. “Will I have to eat beet soup again?”

They’d had beet soup and jellied beef for lunch. Karolina had apologized for her outburst the night before, and Moti hadn’t even bothered to come down, asking for lunch to be brought up to her while she continued her counting of bed linens and candelabras.

“I will ask Cook to make something else,” Phoebe said.

“Are you going to throw yourself at me again?” A twitch at the side of his mouth betrayed Sam, but Phoebe’s face warmed anyway. She was grateful, though, he’d taken whatever she’d done last night with good humor.

That wasn’t the case when she’d used men as means of drowning out her awareness. There were worse things than a headache. Unlike drinking, if Phoebe picked the wrong man to use, the pain lasted long after the act.

Not with Sam, though.

Phoebe vaguely remembered Sam pushing her in the door and back to her own room.

“I don’t know,” she said now. Touching a finger to the side of her chin, she posed, as if in thought. “Are you going to attend dinner half dressed again? It’s hard to resist you when you’re practically naked.”

Relaxed, his mouth fell back into its usual shape and his smile started at the corners of his eyes.

My goodness, this man was beautiful in the clear light of day.

“I wasn’t naked, I was wearing a tie . I will have you know the haberdashers in London insist the cravat is on its way out of fashion. Out of fashion, Lady Phoebe, is not acceptable for a man such as myself.”

Nothing cutting came to mind. Nothing unpleasant or off-putting at all.

Despite her best intentions, Phoebe nodded in approval.

“A man such as yourself,” she said, then looped her arm in his, walking back toward the manor. “By this, do you mean the man who is fast becoming the face of a new generation of merchants stepping out from behind the counter to become as well known as the goods they carry?”

His mouth opened, then closed.

“I am appalled you choose to read rags like Gentlemen’s Monthly ,” he said. “ The Capital’s Chronicle is much more informative.”

Phoebe pulled him to the left, and they rounded the stone path leading to the back garden, such as it was.

“My father was a subscriber to Gentlemen’s Monthly . It was the only reading material lying around the house other than the books he kept for show in his office.”

This was the truth, although it had been Moti who’d brought the article to Phoebe’s attention, worried Lionel Armitage had Sam in his sights.

“Was the author of the piece more offended by the temerity of a merchant in the public eye or the fact that I bought a rival broadsheet?” Sam wondered aloud.

He shielded his eyes and gazed across the landscape. From here you could barely make out Tobias Hill, beyond which lay portions of Hadrian’s Wall.

“You are…” Oh dear. It had been forever and a day since Phoebe had complimented someone without an ulterior motive. Perhaps the Cumbrian air had a dulling effect on her brain, or the cold did something to her circulatory system to make her maudlin.

“You are an impressive man,” she said, fighting a blush. “The article had a condescending tone, but even Armitage could not hide the amount of success you’ve had in such a short time.”

As Phoebe feared, Sam came to a halt, his eyebrows arching to form a caterpillar-like rainbow across his forehead. The familiar glint of mischief sparkled in his eyes.

Yes. The cold must have confused her brain, for Phoebe continued. “I heard you, when you complained to Grantham; the obstacles in your rise are because you lack a title.”

The caterpillar broke apart when Sam furrowed his brow. Phoebe spoke quickly so the prickly sensation of being kind would be over with soon.

“Perhaps, the lack is your patience with yourself, Sam,” she said. “Most men would run over anyone in their way of a fortune. Instead, you are gracious and decent, and you’ve remained loyal to your family and your friends. I…”

Ugh. This was painful to her nerves, like the scratching of silver forks against porcelain plates.

Sam wasn’t making it easier, staring at her as though she’d grown two heads.

“As an uninterested and impartial observer, I would advise you to stop and look back at all you’ve accomplished.”

Why, oh why had Phoebe opened her mouth? ’Twas the opening in a floodgate through which words rushed out in an unpunctuated stream. “Ask yourself, if it were any other man that had done this, would you think he needed anything as superfluous as a title to help him along?”

Phoebe stared straight ahead at the vestiges of a shrubbery maze, waiting for a joke. When Sam said nothing, she glanced at him from the side. He wore a thoughtful frown and his jaw moved back and forth as though he spoke to himself.

A comfortable silence descended on them. They continued to walk along a small stone path that led to a narrow bridge spanning a nearly frozen stream. Black water rushed over stumps and half-rotted reeds, traveling west along the lines of the estate borders until it emptied into a small pond a mile away.

“If I wear a cravat,” Sam asked finally, “will you be able to refrain from throwing yourself at me?”

While grateful he hadn’t made a joke at her compliments, Phoebe wouldn’t blush again if that was his aim. “I suppose I will try,” she said with a sigh.

“That’s all women can do when faced with my presence. It becomes a strain, I tell you, to walk down the street and have women overcome with desire as I—shite—”

Phoebe gasped in alarm, then covered her mouth. Somehow Sam had stepped off the side of the bridge and stood, knee-deep in the black water.

“This is a dangerously deficient bridge. Anyone who crosses might fall off the side,” he exclaimed, looking around as though an invisible hand had pushed him off.

“How on earth did you manage to fall off a bridge that’s only two feet from the ground?” Phoebe offered Sam her hand.

Sam huffed and ignored it, dragging his soaked boots up the slight rise to meet her at the other side.

“I know an engineer who could fix this hazard,” he said, crossing his arms while water pooled at his feet on the slate stones making up the rest of the path.

“Did you love Margaret Gault?”

Oh, whyever had she asked?

As though the answer were written across the bald sun, Sam looked upward, then back at Phoebe.

“You truly are obsessed with me, aren’t you?”

A laugh flew up from her belly before she could stifle it, and Sam’s suspiciously white teeth flashed in his warm grin.

“Your laugh is like the honking of a goose,” he said.

Phoebe brought both her hands over her mouth.

“You are doomed, Phoebe. Now I’ve heard you laugh, I will never be happy until I hear it again. It is like the tinkling of a mirliton or the delicate baying of a donkey.”

His insults only made her laugh harder. So pleased with himself was he, rather than stalk off to the manor to change his boots, he walked backward, compelling her to follow him, listing off more comparisons while she continued to laugh.

Like an elephant’s sneeze, an orangutan’s belch, the bellow of a bull in heat; he threw the similes at her one by one, his smile growing wider each time, pleased with his own cleverness, even more pleased with her amusement.

Finally, a gust of wind flipped Phoebe’s bonnet up and a sprig of ribboned asters fell off. They chased the unraveling strips of peach and purple silk, both laughing, bumping shoulders like hoydens. Like friends.

Sam caught the ribbons at last and held them out to her. Phoebe ignored them, staring at Sam’s open expression, and drank in his genuine amusement.

“Stay,” she said, then bit her lip while her heart pounded in her chest from running. From running, not from fear he would laugh at her rather than with her. Fear he would know she meant it.

“Well, if you insist.”

Phoebe smiled.

“I’m going to spend the afternoon with your sister,” he said. “Do you know, does she read novels?”

Oh, that stung. Once again this merchant’s son had punctured her pride with his decency. Well, this was what they wanted, wasn’t it? A man to take care of her mother and sister, relieving the guilt Phoebe felt at having made a mess and the shame of her punishment.

Phoebe’s feelings didn’t matter.

What mattered was that this man who lived in light and fell up, down, and over whatever object he encountered at least four times a day was going to stay and share his warmth with them for a little longer.

As they walked back to the manor, Sam bemoaned the state of his boots, and enumerated the methods by which Phoebe was to salvage them. She had enough self-discipline to keep from laughing (Phoebe should take a boot in each hand, hold them up above her head, and run in circles until the boots dried; Phoebe should tie the boots to a pole and swing them around; Phoebe should write an ode to his boots before they were ruined) but nothing pierced the bubble of happiness resting in her chest against her ribs.

···

“ Still Life with Apple and Knife ,” Karolina supplied.

Sam diligently wrote the name of the painting onto a page of rag paper. The soft paper made from a mix of cotton and flax fibers, often reused from old rags, was a dark brown with tiny flecks of red throughout. Sam was grateful he had a pencil to hand, for the rag paper was poorly made and ink would soak through and spread, making his list illegible.

God forbid he’d have to go through this torture again.

“The artist is…hmmm.” Karolina turned the painting over to examine the back. “I cannot find a signature. We will have to investigate further. Next is Still Life with Cheese .”

He stifled a groan, but Karolina heard him anyway.

“Do you not care for art, Mr. Fenley?” she asked, her tone conveying disapproval.

They stood side by side in the great hall. The sun from yesterday had taken its leave and today’s sky remained a morose gray, casting the manor’s rooms in a veil of gloom. Sam suspected there wasn’t enough money for both coal and candles. He and Karolina struggled in the murk to identify the pictures hanging on the east wall.

Sam had already explained that the frames would bring more money than the paintings, but Lady Fallowshall insisted the paintings be sold at auction as well. She and Jonas were on the other side of the room, investigating the art on the west wall.

Their heads were bent toward each other, Jonas dwarfing the marchioness, so the ribbons of her cap came only to Jonas’s shoulder. They were not related by blood, for neither resembled the other. Nor were they lovers, at least not that Sam could tell. Was Jonas a butler, a secretary, or a headsman?

He was everywhere underfoot and nowhere to be found when furniture needed moving.

No one had offered information about Jonas’s relationship to these women.

One more secret in a house sick with them.

“…great painters. We are their stewards until they are sold,” Karolina was saying.

Sam hadn’t been listening, but he’d drifted off too many times in the past hour to say I beg your pardon one more time. Instead, he nodded and made a humming sound that could be construed as positive.

“Does that mean you don’t think we should celebrate the work of great painters?” Karolina asked, outraged.

Or it could be construed as negative, Sam supposed.

Karolina raised her voice with that last question, and within seconds, Jonas had crossed the room to stand behind Karolina, arms dangling at his sides like Arthur Kneland often did—he said he liked to have his hands free to grab a knife.

“No, no,” Sam said quickly, smiling at Karolina while keeping an eye on Jonas. “All I meant was…is it me, or are there an unusually large number of still life paintings?”

Karolina stared at him with a gaze like his younger sister’s. That look which expressed a certain pity and questioned a man’s intelligence.

If he had a tuppence for every time a woman gave him that look, Sam wouldn’t have to find a title. He’d be too busy swimming in a river of coin.

Her gaze, however, was mirrored by the giant hovering over her. They had the same way of lifting their eyebrows, bending their necks, narrowing…oh.

Sam figured now was not the time to ask if he was correct in guessing Jonas and Karolina shared a father.

“What do you mean?” Lady Fallowshall joined them, her lilac silk dress smothered beneath a tatted lace shawl, its pointed ends sweeping the floor, past even the hems of her skirts.

“Well.” Sam hesitated, then shrugged. He was past caring if his tastes and manners were that of a crass merchant looking to ingratiate himself with the aristocracy to better his station in the world.

That was exactly who he was if you substituted crass with good-looking .

Sam glanced at the list in his hand. “We’ve got Still Life with Apple and Knife , Still Life with Cheese , Still Life with Fruit and Dead Pigeon , Still Life with Persimmon , and Still Life with Dead Chicken and Sheaf of Wheat .”

The three of them remained silent, staring at him as though he were on display in a menagerie.

“What, exactly, is the great skill in painting things that are still ?” Sam asked. “Why is it fruit? Apples, persimmons, pears, grapes—why not pudding and cream or, if it must be fruit, fruit cake?”

Silence met his query.

In for a penny, in for a pound, he supposed.

“If I was to pay good coin for a picture of something, it should be something worth looking at, something I’ve never seen. I simply buy an apple and a pear and I’ve got my own live still life. See?”

Blinks all around.

Much to Sam’s surprise, it was Jonas who came to his rescue.

“The man is correct. Why paint food when you can paint battles?” Jonas asked.

The marchioness waved her hand, dismissing his opinion. “Faugh. Paintings full of smoke and dirt and blood. Who finds pleasure in this?”

“I do.” Jonas and Sam spoke in unison. They stared at each other in surprise, then shifted places slightly so they were opposite the ladies.

“The point of a still life is to showcase the artist’s talent in perspective,” Karolina explained slowly, as though to a child. “Look at the shine on the apple, the way it curves, and the realistic path of its shadow.”

Jonas shook his head and spoke in the same pedantic manner. “Apples are boring , Lina. Battles are interesting.”

Karolina’s lips pinched into a plum-colored butterfly. “Name one thing interesting about battles that doesn’t have to do with killing people.”

“Swords,” Sam offered. “Swords are interesting.”

“Swords have much to do with killing people,” the marchioness pointed out.

Sam and Jonas regarded each other.

“Uniforms? Uniforms are more interesting to look at than apples,” Jonas supplied.

Sam crossed his arms and nodded in agreement. “Fascinating. Buttons and medals and whatnot.”

“That is the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard!” Karolina exclaimed. “If you want to enjoy weapons, look again at the knife in the still life with the apple. You can make out where the blacksmith—”

“Terrible weapon. You would lose a fight with that knife,” Jonas opined, sniffing in derision.

Karolina’s brows lowered. “I’ll tell you exactly what I would do with that knife, why…”

Sam peeked over at Lady Fallowshall’s reaction to this squabble. To his great delight, she smiled behind her hand, watching Jonas and Karolina tease and laugh at each other.

Agreeing to stay at the manor wasn’t simply Sam’s reaction to Phoebe’s plea. He’d done so out of some bizarre intuition the Hunt family needed him here. They would be trapped in this place forever, simply fading from people’s memories and then from existence if he hadn’t been an anchor tying them to the real world.

The strange sensation of feeling necessary sat in his chest through the rest of the afternoon. It lent an odd solidity to his legs and clarity to his sight.

Was this what Sam had needed to keep himself upright? To stay in one place and strengthen its structure rather than forever rushing forward in search of bigger and better?

He’d replayed his conversation with Phoebe over and over in his head for the past two days, trying to decipher her aim. Why had she said such complimentary things? Was it to lull him into complacency before gutting him with some well-placed insult?

Or was it because she meant it?