credibly over a crude rendering of some books and flowers.
“God’s toenails.” His carried the painting to the windows the better to goggle at it. George was the art connoisseur of the family, but Beck had been to enough royal exhibitions at various European courts and was enough his mother’s son to have something of an eye.
“This is quite good. I expect Heifer to yawn and stretch right in my hands.” She’d used brushstrokes to somehow render his fur nearly… pettable.
“The light on the mouse isn’t quite right.” Allie leaned over his forearm to peer at her work. “I’m working on secondary light sources, according to Aunt. She’s my teacher. I got Heifer right, because he will hold still and let me study him, but mice aren’t good subjects.”
“You could study a painting of a mouse, or do sketches to work it out.”
Allie looked intrigued. “I’ve never used a painting as a subject. It would have to be a good painting.”
“If you go to the exhibitions in London, there are all manner of art students sketching the masterworks,” Beck said, still fascinated with the little canvas, because clearly, he was in the presence of a budding genius. Allie’s quick mind and inherent creativity weren’t suffering for lack of hide-and-seek. The child was built to focus on things more interesting and sophisticated than which playmate was hidden under the bed.
“You’ve got a whimsical touch, Allie.” Beck tilted the frame. “You’re deadly accurate too. Don’t paint sad things, or you’ll have everybody in tears.”
Allie took the painting from him and frowned at it. “You don’t think I should stick to watercolors?”
“Are you competent with watercolors?” Beck asked, eyeing the room and seeing it made over into a studio.
Allie wrinkled her nose. “I’m competent. Watercolors are tedious, though, and best suited to tedious subjects, like weather and landscapes. For living things, oils are better.”
“But you’re not to paint portraits?”
“I am not.” Allie heaved a martyred sigh. “So I did Heifer, and I rather like it myself. I think I’ll do him again —Mama allowed it wasn’t quite a portrait.”
“You could also do my horse. There are people who make a great deal of money doing portraits of beasts for the very wealthy.”
“I could be rich?” Allie was pleased with this notion.
“Or you could be in a lot of trouble.” Sara’s voice cracked like a whip from the door.
“Hullo, Mama.” Allie’s features arranged themselves into careful neutrality, and Beck felt as if the sun had disappeared behind a maternal thundercloud.
He donned a smile and faced the bad weather. “Good morning, Mrs. Hunt. You look rested.”
She did. Rested and mortally peeved.
“Allemande, your aunt could use help preparing luncheon,” Sara said, her tone softening. “And there’s a bucket of scraps to take out to Hildegard. If you see Mr. North, tell him lunch will be ready soon.”
“Yes, Mama.” Allie scampered off, leaving a ringing silence in her wake.
“She’s quite talented.” Beck picked up the cat’s picture. “Quite talented.”
“She’s quite young,” Sara rejoined, but her tone was weary, despite her well-rested state.
“How are you feeling?” Beck intended the question to be polite but realized he truly wanted to know. She’d been dead on her feet the night before, and by his reckoning, had slept only eight hours. By the time he’d left Paris, he’d been capable of sleeping for days at a stretch.
“Rested.” She took the painting from him and sank down onto a daybed protected by a Holland cover. “Or maybe not rested enough. I feel like my head is wrapped in cotton wool, and I could just sleep until the flowers are up.”
“Laudanum leaves me feeling that way,” Beck said, sitting beside her uninvited. Laudanum had left him within a whisker of permanent oblivion, truth be known.
“I used only a drop. I only ever use a drop.”
“Good for you.” Beck studied her hands while pretending to look at the painting rather than let the conversation wander over the relative merits of laudanum, absinthe, hashish, and other poisons. “She says she’s working on secondary light sources. What are those?”
“Polly could explain it best, but if I tried to paint, say, the leg of that chair, I’d have to account for the effect of the sunlight coming directly in the window and for the light reflecting from the mirror behind the chair. One way to study it is to take away the mirror, then put it back, and so forth.”
“But Allie’s approach is more instinctive than that. She’s an artist, not a technician. For a young girl, she’s very, very good.”
“She scares the daylights out of me,” Sara said quietly as she rose and turned her back to him. “Any child is prey to the more powerful people in her life, but a talented child in particular. Allie is isolated here, I know, but I don’t think she’s unhappy. Polly is a good instructor, and there’s more to life than painting as long as Allie is with us. My own mother…”
“Yes?” Beck’s gaze went beyond Sara to the wide windows that opened on a bleak view of the snow-dusted Downs to the north. He had the sense this mother Sara alluded to lived off in that direction.
“She worried, like I’m worrying. Papa too.”
He took a step closer. “Over Polly’s talent? Allie said Polly is her instructor.”
Sara looked momentarily confused. “Yes, they worried over Polly, but over me too, and Gavin.”
“Who is Gavin?” Beck shifted again to stand beside her.
“Was.” Sara glanced over at him, a mere flick of her gaze over his face before she was again inspecting the hills in the distance. “He was our older brother, but he died shortly before I married. Everybody called him Gavin, but his real name was Gavotte.”
“Allemande, Gavotte… Was yours a musical family?”
“We were. My husband said he fell in love with my name.”
Her tone suggested this was not a cheering memory. “Sarabande,” Beck guessed. “It is pretty, and your sister would be Polonaise?”
“Polly for short, and I’m Sarabande Adagio.” Her lips quirked up, as if a housekeeper ought not to have such a fanciful name. “I was Sara Addy when was I younger.”
“That’s lovelier than Beckman Sylvanus Haddonfield. My mother wanted me to have a name that would stand up to the rigors of being the spare.”
“Are there rigors?” This time, her glance lingered on him. “You don’t seem like a man who’s burdened by his birthright.”
“That’s the second time the topic has come up today.” Beck shifted away from the substantial chill coming off the windows. “North quizzed me on it over breakfast, and his questions set me to thinking.”
“About?”
“What is a land steward doing reading the label of my soap tin?” Beck asked slowly.
“Waiting for his turn in the bath?”
“The label is entirely in French, Sara,” Beck said gently. “Florid, silly French. He quotes Shakespeare, and his clothing is made by the finest tailors in London. How much do you know about our Mr. North?”
“Not as much as you’d like to know, apparently,” Sara replied. “I know this. Until he arrived shortly after us, the place was a shambles. Lady Warne hasn’t been here for years and years, and if you think it’s a disgrace now, you should have seen it before Gabriel put his shoulder to the wheel.”
“I don’t dispute that he works very hard.” Beck regretted bringing the subject up at all, but if North hadn’t served in the military, the explanation he’d given for his scar was somewhat suspect. “And a man’s past is his own business, unless it’s going to haunt him and those around him.”
“We’re all haunted by our pasts.” Sara shifted away from the window, as if leaving the topic itself out there on the Downs. “Luncheon approaches, and that seems more worthy of attention at the moment. I trust Gabriel, and I do not feel comfortable discussing him behind his back.”
“Not well done of me,” Beck admitted. “I’m to spend the afternoon with him going over the books. Have you started on your shopping list?”
“I have not,” Sara said, preceding him through the door. “I spent the morning cutting out a dress for Allie. Warm weather finally approaches, and the only bolt of suitable material I have is summer weight.”
“And what about some new dresses for you and Polly?” Beck asked, putting her hand on his forearm. “You
