Lady Jenny's Christmas Portrait

The dog sighed. Kit dropped his aunt’s hand. “Can we wreck the card houses today, Aunt Jen?”

“We’ll see.” She watched Elijah as if he were about to pounce on her, which would have served nicely had the children not been present.

“I missed you at breakfast, my lady.” He could not have told her what he’d eaten, because he’d been so busy staring at the doorway and willing her to appear in it.

The light in her eyes shifted, became less guarded. “I missed breakfast. I slept late, so I took a tray.”

Last night, she’d said she’d miss him too, when she went to blasted, bedamned Paris. Her ambition had apparently coalesced into determination, and yet, he could not allow her to go to Paris.

This thought—this fact—had crystallized in his mind before he’d drifted off to sleep. He’d escorted her to her room—a mere three doors down the guest wing corridor—taken himself to bed, then tended to his own needs within five minutes of kissing her good night.

The relief had been temporary and inadequate, and as he lay among the pillows and covers, he’d come to the conclusion that Jenny Windham had nowhere near the sophistication needed to manage the predators lurking among the artists of Paris.

And yet, she’d hate him did he thwart her scheme.

“Maybe I could take a turn building the house of cards,” Elijah suggested. “Though I would, of course, need an assistant.”

“Me!” Kit yodeled.

Lady Jenny was indeed an experienced aunt. She affected a pout. “And then what am I to do? You fellows will have your fun, and I shall be left to sit by myself, with nothing to do, all alone, not even Jock to play with —”

“C’mon, Aunt Jen. I’ll help you too.”

Elijah suggested Kit choose the cards, making sure that knaves were paired with knaves, and queens with queens, and Jenny was to build the structure. William mounted up on his sleeping canine steed and sang a happy- little-boy tune no composer would recognize and no parent would mistake.

As William took up the reins of Jock’s ears, Elijah sat on the raised hearthstones and sketched. Excitement hummed along in his veins, a visceral recognition that he’d found the arrangement that would make a worthy portrait.

The point of view was only slightly from above, so that the shining crown of Jenny’s head was in evidence as she bent to peer over Kit’s shoulder. The feel of the angle was intimate, though, a child’s-level view of a relaxed morning.

Lines and shadows arranged themselves into a small boy’s smile and a sleeping dog’s contentment. While the fire crackled cheerily, the house of cards steadily grew, and Genevieve Windham’s hands became a subtle point of interest in the sketch.

When she sat back to admire her little card palace, Elijah caught her smile—loving, but always a bit wistful when in company with the children. He caught the way the boys looked at her too. They adored this relation who was as pretty as their mama, and never quite so stern. They adored her humor and affection, her gentleness, and her abiding regard for them.

The house of cards rose higher. Jock’s back leg twitched as he dreamed his doggy dreams, and William left off riding his gallant steed long enough to accept the knave of spades from his brother.

“Careful,” Jenny cautioned. “William is going to want to—”

On a gleeful cry from William, the knave went sailing into the upper stories of the palace, destroying twenty minutes of careful work.

William clapped his chubby hands then turned to Elijah, arms outstretched. “I-unt-up!”

The palace rose and fell several more times, Jock rolled over, and Elijah completed a detailed sketch of Jenny with her nephews. William occasionally supervised from Elijah’s side, then toddled forth to wreak destruction like a one-boy Vandal horde.

Jenny presided over it all from her spot on the rug, a serene, smiling presence with endless patience for busy little boys and their portraitist.

She would be wasted on Paris. Elijah started another sketch on the strength of that conclusion, a study of Jenny’s face as she regarded Kit’s efforts to find “an ace with a blood-colored diamond” on it.

Her smile, indulgent, tender, and yearning, said she even loved the child’s choice of words.

The door opened, something Elijah perceived with the part of his brain set aside for keeping track of matters not related to his sketch, like a porter’s nook in the front chamber of a grand house.

“Beg pardon, your ladyship. Shall I be taking the boys now?”

The nursemaid’s arrival would have been cause for much relief the day or two previous. “Another moment,” Elijah muttered, pencil flying.

“Soon, Norquist,” Lady Jenny said. “We were about to finish up.”

As he forced himself to retreat from the world of his sketch, Elijah realized the boys were trying to start a squabble over some lower order of card—a three?

“I-unts” became increasingly vocal, interspersed with “It’s not your turn,” until Elijah had to set his drawing aside and scoop William up in his arms.

“What you want,” he informed the child, “is a stout tickling.” He scratched lightly at the boy’s round tummy, provoking peals of merriment. William’s laughter, surprisingly hearty coming from so small a body, sounded to Elijah exactly as Prudholm’s had when that worthy was still small enough to tease and tickle like this.

“Elijah…” Jenny’s tone bore patience and a warning.

Don’t get the little ones all wound up, Elijah. You’re the oldest, and they look to you for an example of proper decorum.

He lifted the happy little fellow up over his head and slowly lowered him. “Enough, my lad. Time to go with nurse and have some bread and jam. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Or maybe some of your mama’s delicious stollen. Mmmm.”

“I want some of Mama’s Christmas bread too,” Kit announced. “Come along, Aunt Jen. We’ll share.”

Elijah stood, passed Sweet William off to his nurse, and took Aunt Jen by the hand. “I’m sure your aunt longs to accompany you, Kit, but she must stay here and help me clean up this awful mess.”

Kit’s gaze darted to the scattering of cards on the rug. To a small child, a deck held thousands of cards, none of which little hands found easy to stack. Such a pity, that.

“I’ll save you a piece of stollen, Aunt Jen.” Kit took his nurse’s hand and towed her toward the door. “’Bye, Aunt, ’bye, Mr. Harrison.”

“Au revoir,” Elijah murmured. When the door closed, he still had Genevieve firmly by the hand lest she attempt an independent retreat.

“The cards,” she began, turning away.

He swung her back to face him—“Hang the perishing, damned cards”—and kissed her.

“Elijah Harrison!”

He kissed her again, more soundly. “That’s for thinking you needed those children to protect you from me this morning. Which gave you more worry, Genevieve, the idea that I might take liberties, or the notion I could possibly look upon you with indifference by the broad light of day?”

She peered up at him. “Both?”

One syllable held a world of uncertainty, a world of feminine anxiety that Elijah could not bear for her to suffer. He wrapped her in his embrace. “Neither, you daft creature.”

Those words were no kind of reassurance, so Elijah cast around for others while he restored himself in some regard with lungfuls of jasmine scent. “I prosper as an artist, in part, Genevieve, because I’m a sober, hardworking fellow. I make no silly wagers. I rise early and tend to my work. I deliver on every commission I accept. You know this.”

Her arms came around him; her cheek rested against his chest. “I know you are a man.”

If she wasn’t convinced of that by now…

“I am a gentleman. I would not take liberties before others.” He fell silent as he realized the door—the very door not ten feet distant—was unlocked. Then, too, a gentleman would not take liberties at all.