recently married, spoke up.
“Mr. Harrison is gallant, and he understands art. Deene says the menfolk chatted away an entire afternoon while Jenny eavesdropped, and Mr. Harrison had eyes only for her.”
Maggie picked up Timothy, though how he’d gotten into the room was a mystery. “Mr. Harrison insisted Jenny be free to help him complete his commissions, though when I pop into the studio, Jenny’s always before her own easel, spattered in paint and looking…”
“Happy,” Sophie said. “She looks happy when she paints.”
The cat started purring in Maggie’s lap, loud enough for all to hear.
“We’re agreed, then,” Louisa said. “Mr. Harrison makes Jenny happy, and Paris would make her miserable.”
Eve yawned, Maggie stroked the cat, and Sophie picked up an embroidery hoop. “Paris would make her miserable, if she were allowed to go, which will never come to pass as long as Their Graces draw breath. Shall we order another syllabub?”
Tea was an occasion for parents to leave their offspring in the nursery and gather below stairs for some sustenance and conversation. Because Jenny and Mr. Harrison remained in their studio, it was also an opportunity to compare notes.
“So what will you do?” Joseph, Lord Kesmore, asked his brothers-by-marriage.
Westhaven glanced around and noted Their Graces were absent, and the ladies were gathered near the hearth on the opposite side of the large, comfortable family parlor.
“Do? I wasn’t aware we were required to do anything besides eat and drink in quantities sufficient to tide us over until summer of next year,” Westhaven said.
The Marquess of Deene patted his flat tummy. “Hear, hear. And make toasts. One must make holiday toasts.”
St. Just shifted where he lounged against the mantel. “Make babies, you mean. My sister looks like she’s expecting a foal, not a Windham grandchild, Deene.”
Gentle ribbing ensued, which Westhaven knew was meant to alleviate the worry in Deene’s eyes.
“The first baby is the worst,” Westhaven said. “His Grace confirms this. Thereafter, one has a sense of what to expect, and one’s lady is less anxious over the whole business.”
“One’s lady?” Lord Valentine scoffed. “You fool nobody, Westhaven, but Kesmore raises an excellent point. Every time I peek into the studio in search of my baroness, all I see is that Harrison and Jenny are painting or arguing.”
“Arguing is good,” Kesmore informed a glass that did not contain tea. “Louisa and I argue a great deal.”
Respectful silence ensued before the Earl of Hazelton spoke up. “Maggie and I argue quite a bit as well. I daresay the consequences of one of our rousing donnybrooks will show up in midsummer.”
Toasting followed, during which Lord Valentine admitted congratulations were also in order regarding his baroness, and St. Just allowed he suspected his countess was similarly blessed, but waiting until after Christmas to make her announcement.
When every unborn Windham grandchild had been recognized by the assemblage, Westhaven said what they’d all been avoiding.
“My countess tells me Genevieve has taken it into her head to remove to Paris. I suspect she wants to avoid being aunt-at-large, while her own situation admits of no change. We are Jenny’s family, and Christmas is upon us. Harrison paints, he argues with her, and he has all his teeth. What say you, gentlemen?”
“Paris reeks,” Lord Kesmore said. “Harrison’s scent is rather pleasant by comparison.”
“He smells of linseed oil,” St. Just observed.
“A point in his favor,” Hazelton murmured, “from Lady Jenny’s perspective.”
Westhaven glanced around the group. “Then we are agreed. Lady Jenny will have no need of the dubious sanctuary of France. None at all.”
Paris began to loom like salvation for many reasons.
Jenny had checked the packet schedules. She’d made lists of what she’d take with her. She’d quietly packed up several boxes and stowed them in the bottom of her wardrobe, and just as quietly interrogated Aunt Gladys and Aunt Arabella about where a lady might find proper quarters in a decent part of town.
Gladys had given her a long, pitying look, but had shared what she’d known.
“You could do more with that necklace,” Elijah said, peering at Jenny’s portrait of Her Grace. “Pick up the highlights from the fire and Her Grace’s hair. Make them resonate with the ring she wears and the candles.”
Elijah was a great one for making things resonate. Jenny was tempted to make his skull resonate with her retort, but she kept her tone civil.
“I could tell
Elijah wiped his hands on a rag and glanced around the room. “Your cat has abandoned us, and you’re peckish. Tea came and went an hour ago, and you’ve hardly left this room since you took a luncheon tray some hours before that. I was making a suggestion, Genevieve, not a criticism.”
Outside, darkness had fallen. Jenny had painted for hours, not in an attempt to keep up with Elijah, but simply to be near him.
“Is your portrait of Sindal’s boys done?” she asked, stepping back from her easel.
Elijah used his rag to wipe paint from the handle of a brush, the way a soldier might wipe blood from a sword. “As done as it will be. West has written that Fotheringale harps on the lack of a completed juvenile portrait from me, though I showed them all the sketches.”
Jenny passed him her brushes—Elijah was meticulous about tidying up at the end of each session—and took a seat by the hearth. “You can send them the completed portrait. Rothgreb wouldn’t begrudge you that.”
Instead of cleaning the brushes, Elijah dunked them in a jar of turpentine—also across the room from the fire—and sat on the hearth beside Jenny. “Will you marry me, Genevieve?”
He kissed her cheek while Jenny flailed about for a response, any response at all. “The paint fumes are affecting you, Elijah, or you’ve spent too much time imbibing His Grace’s wassail.”
“
She wanted to say yes, even if this declaration was not made out of an excess of romantic love. “If I marry you, I cannot go to Paris.”
He leaned back, resting his head against the stones behind them, closing his eyes. “I’ll take you to bloody Paris, and you can appreciate for yourself that the cats have ruined the place. Rome isn’t much better, though I suppose you’ll want to go there and sniff it for yourself too.”
He’d promise to take her there, probably to Moscow as well if she asked.
“Babies put rather a cramp in one’s travel plans.” Because if she were married to him, and Windham proclivities ran true, babies would follow in the near, middle, and far terms, and all hope of painting professionally would be as dead as her late brothers.
“Your siblings all managed to travel with babies. What’s the real reason, Genevieve? We’re compatible in the ways that count, and you’re dying on the vine here, trying to be your parents’ devoted spinster daughter. Marry me.”
He was tired, and he felt sorry for her. Of those things, Jenny was certain, but not much else. She hadn’t foreseen an offer from him that would ambush her best intentions and be so bewilderingly hard to refuse.
“You need to go home, Elijah. I need to go to Paris. Painting with you has only made me more certain of that. If I capitulate to your proposal, I will regret it for the rest of my days, and you will too. You feel sorry for me, and while I appreciate your sentiments, in Paris I will not be an object of pity.”
Nor would she be the object of marital schemes, and that… that was important too, though exactly why it was important, Jenny could not fathom.
Elijah was silent for a moment, while beside him, Jenny tried to swallow around the lump in her throat, because she would
