Perishing, damned inconvenient business, being a gentleman. He turned her face up to him by virtue of kissing her cheek. “And as for indifference, my dear, I am not capable of it where you are concerned. I rarely show intimate attentions to others, and do not share yours lightly.”
Those were still not the words a woman wanted to hear the morning after encountering the second man with whom she’d been intimate. Elijah knew this. He also knew she was determined to go to Paris, and more effusive sentiments would not be appreciated.
“You did not make love with me, not truly.”
She’d spoken softly, though Elijah heard the bewilderment in her voice—the hurt.
“I wanted to.” He stepped back, because making love with her right here and now was, in the opinion of his breeding organs, an increasingly fine notion. “I went back to my rooms, blew out the candles, thought of you, and committed the sin of Onan.”
The lady knew her Bible, as evidenced by the smile tipping up the corners of her mouth. “You thought of
“I could not get the image of you out of my mind, Genevieve. By firelight, your skin is luminous, and your hair…”
She sank onto the hearthstone while Elijah dropped to his knees and started picking up cards. “You have to know you are beautiful. Shall I make a list of your features?”
“I think you already have. Elijah, this is a wonderful picture.”
His morning’s work was in her hands. “It will do, I think. Something about the boys having fun in the same space, but not exactly playing together, works. It’s a brotherly composition.”
Whatever that meant. He was on his hands and knees, turning low cards face up, and pretending not to hang on the next words out of her mouth. His artistic soul teetered between destruction and glory on the strength of her next pronouncements.
“You’ve somehow caught the love, Elijah. I cannot wait to see the finished work.”
He sat back, relief lifting through him in mind and body. “You like it?”
She looked right at him. “I adore this.”
Elijah’s next youngest brother, Joshua, had once careened into him as they skated across a frozen pond. Faster than thought, faster than anything in Elijah’s experience, he’d seen his own skates silhouetted against a blue winter sky, a strange, incomprehensible image. He’d absorbed the perfect blue of the sky in the barest instant before finding himself flat on his back, unable to breathe.
Genevieve’s three little words, fired straight at him—
He passed her the full deck, rose, and collected his sketch. “I must thank you for all of your patience this morning with the boys. I could never have caught that little tableau were you not in the center of it.”
She took his proffered hand and rose. Whatever she might have said was lost to Elijah when somebody tapped on the door.
He dropped her hand and stepped back. “Come in.”
“Greetings, you two.” Vim, Baron Sindal, stood in the door in all his blond, Viking glory. If he thought it odd the room held neither children nor nursemaid, he did not remark it. “I come with a summons from my baroness. Luncheon is served, and then we’re to hitch up the sleigh and invade Louisa and Joseph’s peace for the afternoon.”
Perhaps that was for the best. Perhaps breathing room was a good idea all around. “Lady Genevieve, enjoy your outing. I’ll make a start on a canvas of this morning’s sketch.”
Sindal winged his arm at Jenny. “There’s a letter waiting for you down in the library, Harrison, and your painting will have to wait. Sophie was very clear that you’re to join us on the outing. She was sure you’d enjoy renewing your acquaintance with Kesmore, and I wouldn’t dream of sparing you my sons’ company when they’re in high spirits.”
He sauntered out with Jenny on his arm, a gracious host about his daily quotient of mischief. When the door clicked shut, Elijah lowered himself to the floor beside the old hound.
“I am not a stupid man, I’ll have you know.”
The dog thumped its tail once.
“I understand what Sindal was saying. He was warning me that no footmen were allowed up here to interrupt our morning’s work with anything so distracting as delivery of the post.”
Another thump, and amid the dog’s wrinkles, two sad, sagacious brown eyes opened.
“He was telling me he’s on to us, which probably equates to a warning that he’ll break my fingers if I trifle with his wife’s sister. He did not ask about the portrait. Neither he nor his lady nor old Rothgreb himself have inquired once about the portrait.”
In which, according to Genevieve, Elijah had “caught the love.”
He picked up his sketch. “She adores me. Said almost as much in plain English.”
Saying the words out loud sent warmth cascading through Elijah’s chest. He studied his work more closely, relieved to find that even on a deliberate critical inspection, the sketch still struck him as having that ineffable
The boys were the dominant elements of the sketch, and yet, there was Genevieve Windham in all her beauty at the center of it.
Her words came back to him as he noted details he didn’t recall sketching.
Which… he… had. His first commission of a juvenile portrait was going to be a resounding success because he’d caught the love. Lady Genevieve adored his work, him, and the pleasure they could share, and looking at the image he’d rendered of her, Elijah realized he adored her right back.
Alas for him, she adored Paris more.
“You must tell me how my son goes on.” Lady Flint accepted a second cup of tea from Her Grace, the picture of a gracious caller enjoying her hostess’s company, and yet, Esther saw the shadow in her guest’s eyes.
“I will report faithfully, you may depend upon it, Charlotte, but doesn’t the boy correspond?”
If Esther’s sons failed to write regularly, they knew a visit from their mama might well result—and from their papa. Then, too, the duke was an excellent correspondent—like any competent commanding officer—and set his sons a good example in this regard.
Lady Flint grimaced at her teacup. “Elijah is nothing if not dutiful. He writes to his father at least quarterly, and by some tacit understanding among their men of business, each always knows where the other is, but the letters…”
Esther put a pair of tea cakes on a plate and set them in front of her guest. She’d received Lady Flint in her private parlor, an airy, gilded space done in blue, gold, and cream. Esther kept sketches of her children on the walls, and considered this, rather than any of the formal parlors, her Presence Chamber.
Or perhaps her confessional. “When our boys write, their letters are like dispatches, particularly St. Just’s. They report crops and calves and nothing of any importance. The ladies must keep me informed of what matters—is everybody in good health? Is the baby walking yet? What were the child’s first words? When might a visit be forthcoming?”
“Dispatches—yes. Elijah should hire out as a weather observer. I know the propensity for rainfall in nearly every shire, know when the first frost is likely, and when the lavender blooms. But I do not know…”
Esther pushed the tea cakes closer to her guest. Percival would have polished both off by now. “You do not know how your child fares.” And now came the delicate part. “Does he enjoy travel, your Elijah?”
Charlotte picked up the little plate with the tea cakes on it, and regarded the contents as if they might reveal the future. As a young woman, Charlotte had never wanted for beaus, and it was her hands they all wrote sonnets to. French hands, maybe, graceful even in repose, hands Esther had envied at the time but did not envy now.
“Of all my boys, Elijah was the one least inclined to leave Flint. He loved the place, knew it as only a boy can know his home. He would harangue his father about which field ought to fallow, which ought to be planted in hops, and he was often right.”
Esther took a nibble of a vanilla tea cake with lemon icing—the chocolate ones being reserved for His Grace.
