"I don't want anyone to see it until after it's varnished," she added. "If it's accepted, you can see it in the Exhibition."
"Well, that's just silly."
She shrugged. "I'm an artist, temperamental and all that." She began backing down the corridor. "I'm going to put this in my room now, and you'd better not go looking at it."
It was his turn to shrug, as though he couldn't be bothered to walk that far to look at a stupid painting. He backed into his study, and she backed into her room and closed the door behind her. After leaning the painting against a wall, facing in, she covered it with a sheet. Then she balanced a hairpin precariously on the top edge, where it would be knocked off if anyone disturbed it.
There, she thought with a grin.
Impatient to see Sean, she ripped off her apron, smoothed her dress, left her room, and poked her head into Griffin's study. "I'm going to tell Lord Lincolnshire his portrait is finished," she said, although, of course, it wasn't.
Scribbling on some paperwork, Griffin didn't look up. "Lincolnshire will be sleeping now, Corinna."
"Maybe, but maybe not. I won't wake him. If he's sleeping, I'll go back in the morning."
"Take a footman with you. I won't have you walking alone in Berkeley Square in the middle of the night."
Did he really think she'd walk alone in London at night? That much of a rebel she wasn't. A lady could get herself raped or worse, even in Mayfair.
"I'm not the ninnyhammer you seem to think I am," she informed him. "I won't be long." Then she all but ran down the stairs, pausing just long enough to request a footman before she ran all the way to Lincolnshire House. Leaving the footman panting at Lincolnshire's gate, she lifted her skirts, raced up the portico steps, and banged the knocker.
Quincy answered. "Good evening."
"I wish a word with Mr. Hamilton."
"I'm sorry, but he's not at home, milady."
"He isn't? Oh." Disappointment was a sudden ache in her middle. How many hours must intervene ere she could press him to her throbbing heart, as the sweet partner of her future days? she recalled reading in Children of the Abbey. "I'll return tomorrow then, I guess."
She had just started to turn away when Deirdre came to the door. "Lady Corinna?"
Turning back, she dredged up a smile. "I was hoping to see your…your husband, Mrs. Hamilton. I have something exciting to tell him."
"He's been gone all day. A wee bit of trouble with his, ah…his latest painting." Deirdre slanted a glance to Quincy. "Would you care to come in?"
"Is Lord Lincolnshire awake?"
"I fear not." Sean's sister sighed. "He spent the morning closeted with his solicitor yet again. Then he complained of some pain—claimed the Regent was sitting on his chest again or some such thing. He passed out for a moment, then woke and fell asleep. He's been sleeping ever since."
"That doesn't sound good," Corinna observed, the ache of disappointment growing sharper. "I'll return tomorrow, when I hope he'll be better."
Deirdre nodded and took a step back to allow Quincy to shut the door.
"Wait," Corinna said, remembering something. "I've a question, if you wouldn't mind. About a word or a phrase I'm thinking might be Irish."
"Is that so?" Coming forward again, Deirdre looked curious. "What is it, then?"
"Cooshla-macree. Does that mean something? Or is it only a few syllables of nonsense?"
Sean's sister frowned a moment before her expression cleared. "Cuisle mo chroí," she repeated, the words sounding a bit different as they rolled off her tongue. "It means 'pulse of my heart.' Or 'sweetheart,' I suppose you might say."
"Sweetheart," Corinna breathed. "How about creena?"
"Críona, 'my heart.'"
"Ahroon?"
"A rún, 'my love.'" Sean's sister cocked her pretty blond head. "I find myself wondering where you heard these words, I do confess."
"I expect you know." Bursting with happiness once more, Corinna gave a startled Deirdre an impulsive hug before she ran back home.
FORTY-THREE
SEAN DIDN'T slam into the breakfast room Monday morning. He was much too drained, much too discouraged for so much emotion. At half past seven, he simply walked in and slowly sat down, feeling brittle, as though his bones might crack in the process.
Deirdre slid his cup of coffee toward him just as slowly. "No good news?"
"No news at all." He reached for the cup but didn't drink from it, just cradled its warmth between his palms. "No helpful news, at any rate. Maybe today."
She sipped her tea, watching him. "Lady Corinna came by to see you last night before you returned. Late, but I hadn't yet gone up to bed. She seemed rather…excited. Out of breath. I'm thinking she must have run all the way here from her house. She said she had something to tell you."
"Her painting must be finished," he said glumly. She'd completed it half a day early, which meant it must have gone well. But it also meant it was time to explain the facts.
"You don't sound happy for her. It's a good thing, isn't it?"
"Sure, and it's excellent." Now he could devastate the love of his life.
They both glanced over as the door opened. "Mr. Hamilton?"
A maid entered. The one who'd shown Sean upstairs the first day he arrived, the little bird of a middle-aged woman who'd informed him Lincolnshire was the most wonderful man in all of England.
Today she looked like an old woman, her face drawn in tight lines. "Nurse Skeffington asked me to fetch you," she said. "Your uncle is dying."
IN HER FAMILY'S Lincoln's Inn Fields town house, Rachael was going downstairs to have breakfast when her brother started up. "Oh, there you are," he said. "I was coming to look for you."
"You're up and about early." Pausing on the steps, she noted he was wearing shoes rather than boots, and a double-breasted tailcoat rather than a riding coat. "And isn't it Monday morning, Noah?"
"Of course it is,
