Lady Jenny's Christmas Portrait

He took the tray from her, pausing for a moment so they were both holding it. “You wanted to marry him?” His tone suggested that a desire to contract the plague and pass it along to the regent would have been easier to fathom.

“I was sixteen, Elijah. I was even younger when I sent my brother Bartholomew off to war.”

He gestured with the tray. “Sit and explain yourself before the chocolate gets cold. You did not send your brother off to war.”

She sat at the head of the table, so they would be neither beside each other nor directly across. “I love the scent of cinnamon. Bart liked it in his chocolate too.”

“He would be your late older brother?”

Late—a euphemism for dead, but not much of a euphemism. “One of my late older brothers.”

Elijah slathered butter on a piece of bread, added ham and cheese, and passed it to her. “And you sent him off to war?”

She studied the food, studied her mug, and took a fortifying whiff of cinnamon and nutmeg. Elijah ought to go home; she knew this as clearly as she knew her destiny lay in Paris.

“Adolescents are prone to righteousness. Bart made the mistake of teasing me about my drawing once too often, and I—I suspect my female humors were in part to blame—I came at him with guns blazing.”

“You could not aim a gun at a living creature to save yourself.” He made himself a sandwich twice the thickness of Jenny’s.

“I have a temper.”

He munched a bite of sandwich. “You are passionate where your art is concerned.”

Only her art? Jenny’s hands tightened around her mug, because the idiot man was humoring her. “I appropriated my mother’s tactics. His Grace rants and blusters when he’s in a temper, but his words are not intended as weapons. Her Grace’s artillery is much quieter. She sniffs, she frowns, she mentions, she lets a quiet question hang in the air, and one is devastated.”

Elijah took up a knife and the apple. “What did you mention to your brother?”

Jenny set her mug aside, the scent of spices no longer appealing. “I mentioned that I was ashamed of him. He’d finished his studies and was idling about, getting his younger brothers into trouble, making Mama worry, and starting up horrible rows with His Grace. He drank excessively, at least by my juvenile standards, and he terrorized the maids.”

“If you knew that and you were his lady sister and little more than a child, then he should have been ashamed. Have a bite of apple.”

Elijah held out his hand with four eighths of an apple in his palm. She took two.

“You aren’t going to tell me young men are full of high spirits? That a young man needs to learn to hold his drink? That a ducal heir should have lived long enough to outgrow those high spirits? To produce the next heir?”

Elijah crunched off a bite of apple, the sound healthy and… reassuring. “If he’d finished his education, Genevieve, Lord Bart had had three years in that expensive conservatory of spoiled young manhood known as Oxford. He’d had years to lark about, chase the tavern wenches, learn to hold his liquor, and acquire the knack of living within an allowance. By the end of my first year there, I was serving as banker to the older boys, and had taught one of the chambermaids the rudiments of reading.”

The notion that not all heirs to titles had a misspent youth was novel. “Why?”

He passed her sandwich to her. “Because I am the oldest of twelve. I could not do otherwise. The cost of educating six boys and launching six girls is substantial, even for a man as wealthy as my father. I could not countenance squandering my education or setting an example that would allow any of my brothers to squander theirs. Eat your sandwich.”

She took a bite and chewed, finding both the food and the conversation fortifying. “Bart was not the oldest, not really.”

“He was the heir to a much-respected dukedom, which is responsibility enough. He was also likely at or near his majority by the time you took him to task, and I say it was high time somebody did.”

The sandwich was good, much better than cheese, bread, butter, and ham had a right to be. “He and Papa reconciled. Papa bought commissions for Bart and Devlin, though it made Mama cry.”

He passed her two more apple quarters, though she hadn’t touched the first two. “Mothers cry. I suspect fathers do too, but not when anybody’s looking.”

“That’s why you should go home.”

He paused while stacking together the ingredients for a second sandwich. “I assure you, the Marquess of Flint is not crying over my absence. We’re quite cordial. I meet him for dinner at his club at least once a quarter unless I’m traveling. I take tea with my mother. I entertain my younger brothers when they’re in Town.”

Idiot. Buffoon. Imbecile. Jenny posed her question sweetly. “And your younger sisters?”

He sat back. “You wield your mother’s weapons quite skillfully.”

“How long, Elijah?”

“I haven’t seen the twins since… for quite a while.”

“And they miss you, and when you persist in this foolishness, they will miss you yet more and think they’ve done something to make it easy for you to stay away. If you’re thrown from your horse tomorrow, Elijah, if you should sicken from bad fish and die, what are they to make of the example you set for them?”

He took a bite of his second sandwich and chewed slowly while Genevieve took a swallow of chocolate.

“I’ve written to them.”

She snorted and bit into an apple quarter rather than cry. When Elijah patted her knuckles, she nearly jumped in surprise.

“We’ll start painting tomorrow afternoon.”

Jenny rose and took her mug to the sink. By the time she came back to the table, she’d decided to allow the change in topic. “You will start painting. I will greet my siblings and their various spouses and offspring. Her Grace has made it plain that my presence will not be excused merely so I can look over your shoulder while you paint.”

“Then I’ll work on finishing up Sindal’s commission, and your parents’ portraits can wait their turns. Sometimes a project turns out better when I’m given a day or so to think about it.”

“You are doing this so you don’t get ahead of me. I expect you to be much faster than I am, Elijah.” He’d challenged Jenny to paint two portraits, one of each parent based on the same sittings he was using, and then they’d compare their efforts.

“I am not particularly fast, Genevieve, but I apply myself to my commissions in a disciplined fashion. Are you going to eat that cheese?”

She pushed the tray closer to him, realizing he had to have been famished before they’d come down here— and she was still famished.

“Why haven’t you kissed me, Elijah?”

He paused with a slice of ham and a slice of cheese rolled together in his fingers. “I kissed you the day I arrived here.”

“Hah. My brothers kiss their horses with more mischief than you allowed in that kiss.”

“Your brothers, all three of whom are reputed to be dead shots, dead shots who will arrive tomorrow. Then there’s Kesmore, whose aim is legendary, while Sindal looks like he might enjoy breaking my knuckles for his casual entertainment.”

She plucked the food from his grasp and took a bite, then handed it back. “Your point?”

He set it down uneaten and rose, his chair scraping back loudly in the otherwise quiet kitchen.

“Genevieve, we are under your parents’ roof. You are going to Paris, need I remind you, and while I understand a lady might need to lay a ghost or a regret to rest, kissing can lead to… to folly. To the type of folly that will remove Paris from your future, if it hasn’t already.”

He looked exasperated and… dear.

Jenny took a considering bite of her apple and wondered what it meant that she tempted him to folly—with mere kisses, she tempted him to folly. She took another bite of apple and realized that lurking at the edges of his