Page 30 of The Pursuit of Elena Bradford

30

“Forget those ducks. I want you to sit right here. Close enough to see your eyes.”

Kirby grabbed the stool he had in front of his easel and set it in a spot of dappled shade. This was going well. First seeing Andrew Harper with his demanding lady friend, which appeared to take him out of competition for Elena, and now here she was with her sister to let him paint her portrait. Laughing, glad to be there with him.

After she perched on the stool, he said, “But you have to remove your bonnet.”

“Mother won’t like it if she gets freckles,” Ivy said.

“I don’t freckle.” Elena untied the ribbons of her bonnet. “My hair may look dreadful though.”

“My dear lady, there is no way you could ever look dreadful, but don’t worry. If a few strands are out of place, I will make things right with my paintbrush.”

He smiled down at her as she removed the bonnet. Then he surprised himself by cupping her cheek with his hand. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t jerk back from his touch. Those eyes captured him. He stayed frozen as his heart seemed to melt inside him.

What was the matter with him? He pulled in a breath to steady himself as he tried to turn the near caress into something necessary for posing for the portrait. He slid his fingers down under her chin and tipped up her face the slightest bit. “That makes the light better on your face.”

He was relieved his voice didn’t sound as shaky as he suddenly felt. Something about this woman was making him forget to keep his emotions under control. If not for her sister standing beside him, he might have bent down to cover her lips with his.

He had kissed other women. Plenty of them. But those kisses had always been to please the women. The thought of kissing Elena would be to please him. She gave no indication she wanted to be kissed. She was merely sitting for her portrait.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t attracted to him. Hadn’t she gotten out of the stagecoach to walk with him even though her mother was calling her back? Didn’t her eyes warm with a different glow when she looked at him? He expected women to be attracted to him. Elena was a woman.

He hadn’t intended to be attracted to her. At least not yet. He must get that under control. Finding the right woman to marry was a business prospect. He had no intention of letting love spoil his chances of getting the monetary stake he needed. But some attraction could be a nice plus if Elena turned out to be his answer.

Certainly those ducks had done him a favor chasing away that Southworth girl. No attraction there for him. He could have made it work, but that was what it would have been. Work. Making Elena happy wouldn’t be work, only pleasure. With a little more time, he could convince her they belonged together. He took a breath to focus on her portrait. The tremble in his fingers surprised him. He couldn’t remember the last time he was nervous about making the first touches of color on a canvas. The brush in his hand often seemed to make the lines without his conscious thought. The shape of the face, the nose, the lips, the eyes.

He was almost glad when Ivy spoke to break his concentration.

“Elena, I think I should go see how Mother is feeling. It takes a while to do a portrait, doesn’t it?” The girl looked at Kirby.

“Art takes time.” Kirby pushed a smile out on his face. Normally he’d be well along with a portrait by now, but this one needed to be exactly right.

“I know. I can’t wait to see it. Keep looking beautiful, Elena. I will be back.” She hurried up the path away from the lake.

Elena didn’t turn to watch her. She was holding the pose he’d suggested. “How long do you think it will be?” she asked.

“Not all that long. An hour or so.”

An hour? Or so? Elena didn’t remember it being that long when she was watching Kirby paint Vanessa’s portrait the day before. But then she hadn’t been the one holding a pose. She shouldn’t have agreed to let him paint her. A sketch maybe. That wouldn’t have taken so long. A few pen strokes by a man who knew how to capture a face on paper.

She was curious about how he would make her look. Would she cringe when she was confronted with his vision of her? But at least, in his portraits, he always found a way to make the women attractive. That could be why he seemed hesitant to begin. Perhaps he wasn’t sure he could do that for her. She didn’t care about that. She knew she wasn’t a beauty like Vanessa. Or Ivy. A person was however the Lord made her. True beauty was more than outward appearance anyway. Pretty is as pretty does. She’d heard those words often, as did most little girls.

She hadn’t always taken them to heart and done as she should to make that inward beauty glow. But she could do more to change the inner her than the outer one.

So what if she had her father’s nose? It did what a nose was supposed to do. To prove it, she pulled in a deep breath and caught the scent of a nearby flowering bush.

So what if her hair was dark and straight instead of blonde and curly and her skin lacked the pale beauty of her mother and her sister? She reached to smooth down any stray hairs. She rather liked her dark brown hair and the fact that she truly didn’t have to worry about the curse of freckles if she shed her bonnet. But Ivy was right. Her mother would be aghast to see Elena holding her face up to the sun, even in this partial shade.

She pushed away thoughts about how she looked. However Kirby portrayed her in the painting, she would thank him sincerely. She wasn’t sure why he had volunteered to do her portrait.

Now that Ivy was no longer there with them and no one else had come to watch him paint as sometimes happened, a strained feeling settled between them. She tried to think of something to say, but she wasn’t sure she should speak. Surely she didn’t have to sit stock-still for an hour. Or so. Already her neck and shoulders felt stiff.

At least she could watch Kirby work. He wasn’t being as flamboyant as he usually was when others watched him produce a painting. And she did want to know more about him. They had no chance for anything romantic between them, even if Ivy was right and he was looking for a wife. Perhaps he hoped to find a rich wife just as her mother was looking for someone with unlimited resources to marry Elena.

Marriages weren’t always made in heaven. Sometimes they were made in the line to the bank. She sighed. Romance was good in stories where love could conquer all. But here in the real world, where her mother wanted her to marry a man like General Dawson, storybook romance needed to be forgotten.

She should have looked for the general before she came here to get stuck on a stool while Kirby painted a portrait she could not keep. The poor old man had been so upset. He could be ill. She mentally shook away that thought. The general was tough. He had surely handled much worse than Vanessa dying in his arms.

The silence kept building under the oak tree until it practically twanged in her ears. She had to find something to end it. “Does it bother you to talk while you’re painting, Kirby?”

That couldn’t be true. He had talked the whole time he was doing Vanessa’s portrait. But then he’d had an audience. Today there was only her.

“Forgive me. I am being uncharacteristically quiet, aren’t I?” He smiled over at her. “I’m concentrating on making the lines, your lines, right. Have you ever tried to draw someone’s face?”

“I did a portrait of my father once. At least, I tried. I’m not sure anyone would have recognized my efforts. Not even Father.”

“The person you are capturing with your pen or brush is generally the last to recognize themselves in their portraits. Few of us see ourselves as others do.”

“I suppose you are right.” She thought a moment before she went on. “I should have drawn him from the back, clipping one of his roses.”

“You still can.” When she gave him a puzzled frown, he went on. “You have that picture in your mind. You can draw it from memory. Just as I could draw your portrait without you posing for it.”

“Then why am I posing?”

“I could do a fair job from memory, but it is always better to have a visual in front of my eyes.”

“How is it coming? It seems as though it’s been an hour already.”

“Hardly, my dear. More like a quarter of an hour. But you don’t have to sit totally still. Feel free to move if you want.”

She did twist her head from side to side before she assumed the pose again. “Thank you for being so kind to my sister. She loved posing for the picture with the ducks. And she said you helped get the letter to her friend in Lexington.”

“She was excited about that. And about finding the coins Miss Southworth didn’t want for fear they might have fallen among some duck droppings.” He laughed. “Your sister didn’t have any qualms about picking them up.”

“Ivy isn’t afraid to go after what she wants.”

“And you?” He peered over his easel at her. “Are you the same?”

She fiddled with the ribbons of her bonnet a moment before she answered, “I don’t think I’ve ever been as sure about what I want as she is. Life can be complicated.”

“I suppose so.” He looked from her back to the painting as he went on. “But let’s make it simpler. Think about last summer. What were you dreaming of doing then?”

“Last summer.” She sighed. “I don’t think I was dreaming of anything. My life already seemed settled into a quiet little spinster corner.”

“Spinster!” He jerked his head up to stare at her. “Surely you jest.”

“Not at all. I spent many days in my father’s rose garden, sketching and painting. No suitors showed up at my door.”

“Would you have opened it if they had knocked?”

“Perhaps.” Elena smiled slightly. “I’m not sure. But this summer I am no longer hiding in my father’s garden.”

In some ways she supposed she was still finding gardens to hide in here. Her smile settled in a comfortable spot inside her as she remembered someone seeking her out in those hiding spots. She wished Kirby would finish the portrait. She wanted to go in search of Princess the cat. And Andrew.

“You have come out of the garden to charm everyone you meet. You are in much demand at the ball.”

“Only because the gentlemen need partners for the dance.”

“Everyone needs a partner, and here at the Springs, where romance seems to always be in the air, partners can be found.”

“Are you looking for romance, Kirby?” Her cheeks warmed. She couldn’t believe she said that out loud.

“An artist thrives on romance.” He smiled at her and then made a flourishing swipe with his paintbrush. “Are you ready to see your portrait?”

She stood up and looked around, not sure she wanted to see how he saw her. “Oh look, here comes Ivy. And General Dawson.”

“That old man knows how to keep a pretty girl on his arm.” Kirby didn’t sound happy to see him coming.

Elena wasn’t glad to see them coming either. Now she wouldn’t be able to slip away to find Andrew.

“Don’t you want to look at your portrait?” Kirby said.

“I’m not sure. As you said earlier, we don’t always see ourselves as others see us.”

He took her arm. “Come. Look at it before they get here.” He pulled her around to the easel. “You might like it.”

Elena stared at the face in the painting. It wasn’t her. It couldn’t be her. She touched her hair. Her buns on each side of her face felt tightly wound, the way they always were. But in the painting, the woman’s hair was loosely tied back with a few strands falling around her face. The woman’s eyes were a mixture of green and blue. And her nose didn’t look too big at all. This woman was actually remarkably attractive, even pretty.

“That’s not me.”

“I did change your hair.” He traced one of the strands with the brush he still held. “Freed it from its buns and pins.”

She looked at him and then back at the painting. “My eyes and nose are different as well.”

“No, this is you. Have you never looked in a mirror? Really looked.”

Ivy and the general came up behind them. Ivy clapped her hands. “Oh, Elena. It is wonderful.”

“It doesn’t look like me,” Elena said.

“But it does. Except for the hair.” She turned to General Dawson. “Doesn’t it, General?”

“It is a good likeness.” The general looked from the portrait to Elena and then Kirby. “Are you giving the portrait to Miss Elena, Mr. Frazier?”

“She says she doesn’t want it. She simply graciously allowed me to practice my art on her.”

“Then I’ll buy it,” General Dawson said.

Kirby shook his head. “It’s not for sale.”

“I see.” The older man’s eyes tightened as he looked at Kirby.

Elena frowned at the two men. She hadn’t expected the general to offer to buy her portrait, but Kirby’s refusal to sell it to him was even more surprising.

She decided to ignore them and turned to Ivy, still studying the painting. “You really think it looks like me, Ivy?”

“Of course. He captured you. It’s even better than the one he did of Vanessa.” Ivy’s smile vanished as she blinked back tears. “General Dawson says they are going to have a funeral for Vanessa later today. He thought we would want to know.”

“No family came?” Elena looked at the general.

“No,” he said. “Dr. Graham thinks it is best to honor her with a funeral and burial here on the grounds. He has his men digging the grave.”

“I can’t stand it.” Ivy sniffled. “To think about her under the ground. It’s just so awful.”

Elena put an arm around her. “Shh. We will remember her the way she was yesterday.”

“We have to go to the funeral.”

“Of course. When is it?”

“Not for a few hours.” The general spoke up. “So, come along, ladies. We will see what the dining room is offering for a midday snack.”

“Would you like to come with us, Mr. Frazier?” Ivy looked around. “I don’t see anyone waiting to have their portrait done right now.”

“You would be welcome.” The general’s smile seemed a little stiff. “However, Dr. Graham asked me to tell you he wants you to bring your paints and find him at the hotel. I think he wants you to do a last portrait of the unfortunate young lady before her funeral.”

Kirby’s face hardened. “I don’t do funeral portraits.”

“Then I suggest you let the doctor know that.” The general might have said “suggest,” but his voice had the sound of command. “Come along, ladies, before we grow faint with hunger.”

Elena took another peek at the painting before she followed the general. Could she really look anything like that? She turned toward Kirby. “Thank you for doing my portrait.”

“My pleasure. If you change your mind about wanting it, you only have to say so.”

“I told you I couldn’t pay you anything.”

“And I told you no payment was needed.”

“If General Dawson wants it, you should sell it to him.” Elena glanced at the general. Wanting the painting must mean he was serious about considering her as a bride. She wouldn’t think about that right now.

“I could make it worth your time,” General Dawson said.

“Not for sale.”

Kirby turned back to the painting to trace one of the strands along the face, her face, with his paintbrush. Elena could almost feel his touch. She put on her bonnet and tied the ribbons. When General Dawson offered her his arm, she took it. Ivy hesitated and then took his other arm.

As they headed toward the hotel, Elena looked at the walkway that wound up toward the rose garden where she had talked to Andrew that first morning. He might be waiting for her there now. But she had to go with Ivy and the general. She would find Andrew later.