Lady Jenny's Christmas Portrait (7 page)

Her ladyship’s needle momentarily paused over her embroidery hoop then resumed stitching. She was a demon with her needle, was her ladyship. She could conjure any scene in fabric and thread, and some of her creations were quite fanciful. Even a man whose art was limited to pen-and-ink sketches could tell that much.

Joshua took a hefty swallow of a mixture that well deserved the appellation “punch.” He tossed it back so easily his lordship felt a spike of pride.

“Elijah has eleven siblings, your lordship. That would be a lot of felicitations, if I knew where to send them.”

“Include your mother’s, and it will be a veritable deluge. I always know where your brother is, and I always have.”

The barrister’s eyebrows rose, and his lordship had the satisfaction of seeing Joshua for once looking flummoxed. To eliminate any lingering confusion, the marquess touched his glass to Joshua’s and winked.

“Here’s to a happy Christmas, Joshua, for every member of my family.” His lordship offered the words not only as a toast, but also as a prayer, the same prayer he’d been sending up for nine long years.

People lied.

Jenny assured herself of this as she joined her sister and brother-in-law in the breakfast parlor. All the people who said sitting to Elijah Harrison was a pleasant experience were perishing liars.

Sophie beamed a smile from her place at Sindal’s elbow. “Good morning, Jenny! I hope you slept well.”

Jenny had tossed and turned for most of the night, wondering how—and
why
—a wish to see Paris had been announced to Elijah Harrison as something far more permanent and binding. “I slept splendidly, dearest, and you?”

“Well enough.” Sophie cast a speaking glance at her husband. “Sindal, be a love and fix Jenny a plate. We must fortify her against the ordeal of the holidays at Morelands.”

Sindal rose to his blond, golden height. “Jenny, prepare to be stuffed like a goose, though the boys would have me remind you that sanctuary always awaits you here. What is your pleasure?”

To be sketched the livelong day by Elijah Harrison, even if it did leave her feeling… emotionally ravished. Wonderfully, exhilaratingly, emotionally ravished. The things she’d said to him…

“Some toast will do.”

He set a plate before her laden with toast, omelet, crispy bacon, and several sections of a Spanish orange. “Sindal, I am not going a-Viking. If I eat all of this, I’ll have to let out my seams.”

Sindal paused to kiss his wife’s crown. “One can never have too much of a good thing, and you
are
going a-Viking. Sophie says you’ve agreed to help with the boys’ sittings, which I’m sure Sven Forkbeard himself would shudder to attempt.”

Sindal’s people had come from the North, as was evident in his height, blue eyes, and the intrepid courage with which he’d taken on marriage to Sophie Windham. Jenny liked him tremendously, and yet, the way he regarded Sophie was hard to watch so early in the day.

“Children are sometimes more themselves when parents are not in evidence,” Jenny replied, touching a dab of strawberry jam to her toast.

Another look passed between Sindal and his lady, reminding Jenny that they’d met and fallen in love when Sophie had maneuvered a few days of solitude one fine Christmastide—a few days of freedom from the loving eyes of the duke and duchess.

“Good morning, my ladies, Sindal.”

Elijah Harrison stood in the doorway in informal morning attire. At the sight of him, Jenny’s hunger skittered sideways, into a bodily longing that had nothing to do with food.

“So, Harrison, any last wishes before you take on the Vandal horde?” Sindal pushed the teapot down the table as he spoke. His smile was friendly, though Jenny sensed an element of challenge to it as well.

“Tell my brother Joshua not to put up with any of his lordship’s nonsense, and never to underestimate her ladyship.” Elijah poured for himself and passed the pot to Jenny. “Though I’m sure your sons are delightful.”

They were—also complete hellions.

“Jenny will be on hand to ensure nobody is seriously hurt,” Sophie said. “You must help yourself to whatever appeals at the sideboard, Mr. Harrison. Cook is in alt to have company, though there will be more directly, based on Her Grace’s last letter.”

An alarm sounded through the fog created in Jenny’s mind by the sight of Elijah Harrison’s hands in morning light. “Mama has sent along some news?”

“She has. Papa has decreed that we’re all to gather for Christmas at Morelands this year. Her Grace is vexed because Papa will not remove to the country yet, and such a large house party will require significant preparation.”

Sindal winked at his wife. “His Grace is not done with his holiday shopping.”

Mr. Harrison stirred cream into his tea, apparently used to marital glances and winks over breakfast. “I thought shopping was the province of the ladies. I have six sisters whose letters—when they bother to write—are filled with dispatches about this and that shopping sortie. Even the two youngest like shopping for books.”

He stirred his tea counterclockwise then clockwise, a slow dragging of the spoon along the bottom of the teacup. Jenny wondered if he stirred his paints with the same symmetry—first one direction then the other.

“Papa must find Mama the perfect Christmas present every year,” Jenny explained. “Some years, we don’t know what he gives her, but we know a gift was bestowed in private. One year it was new chandeliers for the ballroom in Town, another year he found her a Shakespeare folio. Another year, he borrowed the regent’s chef for a private meal of Her Grace’s favorite dishes. Papa can be ingenious, and he’s very determined.”

Mr. Harrison rose, aiming a smile at Jenny. “Determination is a fine quality. Would my ladies like anything else from the sideboard?”

Sophie came to her feet. “I am quite finished, thank you. I’ll have the boys brought up to you in an hour, Mr. Harrison. Sindal, come along. A paternal lecture about decorum wouldn’t go amiss.”

Sindal was on his feet in an instant. “Of course, my love. The children can always use practice ignoring their father’s advice.”

And thus, Jenny was alone with the man who’d kept her up most of the night.

“Do you mind if I sit beside you?” Mr. Harrison asked. “The sun is in my eyes on the other side of the table.”

He didn’t wait for her reply, but took a seat to Jenny’s left. No footman stood guard over the sideboard—or the proprieties—but the door was open, and Viscount Rothgreb or his lady might come down at any time. Rothgreb was Sindal’s uncle, the one responsible for commissioning the boys’ portraits, but a very elderly fellow who likely took a breakfast tray above stairs.

“You’re going to eat all of that, Mr. Harrison?”

He glanced at his plate, which held steaming eggs, ham, bacon, and toast. “I’ll have some oranges and stollen on the next pass. What can you tell me about your nephews? And please be honest. Once Rothgreb joins us, diplomacy will be the order of the day, unless I miss my guess.”

“His lordship is a late riser, but he’d be the first to tell you the boys are very active little fellows.”

Mr. Harrison grimaced and tucked into his eggs. “I thought one was yet a baby.”

“He’s fifteen months. He walks, he talks after a fashion.” He also put all manner of inappropriate objects into his little mouth, cried piteously at the least sign of injury, had not one iota of sense, and could illuminate the world with his smile.

The disappearing pile of eggs suffered another grimace. “And the other boy?”

“About twice as old. He runs everywhere, yells everything, and is a prodigious good climber.” Kit was also very gentle with Timothy, who’d been known to take a swipe at Sindal on a bad day.

The grimace became a scowl, the first Jenny had seen from Mr. Harrison. “I suppose they abet each other’s mischief?”

“Siblings generally do.” To wit, sisters abandoned one with handsome, interesting men at the breakfast table. Sophie had either failed to note Mr. Harrison’s abundant charms, or she trusted that all in her ambit were as virtuous as she.

The wages of successfully appearing virtuous were constant temptation to behave at variance with those appearances.

Mr. Harrison sat back, his hands braced on the arms of his chair as if he’d rise and leave.

“Is there a problem with your meal, Mr. Harrison?”

“Yes.” He reached for his teacup then dropped his hand without taking a sip. “No… there is a problem with my digestion.”

Gracious heavens. “Is it the company? I would not impose on Sophie and Sindal above stairs, but I have correspondence—”

He shook his head and glanced at his plate, then at the plaster molding of disporting cupids above them, then at Sindal’s vacant place at the head of the table. “I’ve never done a juvenile portrait.”

His tone was a blank page. Jenny could not tell if he dreaded the task before him, resented it, was bored by it, was challenged by it, or… feared it. She could, however, hazard a guess he wasn’t looking forward to spending days painting two small boys.

“Painting is painting, Mr. Harrison. Shapes, colors, light—the process doesn’t change based on the subject. As children go, these two are attractive, and Rothgreb will be pleased with any reasonable effort.”

He shifted to focus on her, his expression fierce the way a raptor was fierce. “
I
will not be pleased with any reasonable effort.”

The conversation became more and more fraught, and Jenny had no clue as to why. “You are reported to have high expectations of yourself. You once burned a portrait of Princess Charlotte with her dog because it did not meet with your approval. Such standards have earned you significant respect.”

And what might the regent give now to have that likeness of his late daughter?

“This portrait will determine whether I gain acceptance to the Royal Academy. Nobody puts it in such blunt terms, because there’s always a vote involved, but ever since Reynolds made painting children so popular, it’s like a tacit requirement. One must paint royalty and near-royalty, academic subjects, and even the occasional landscape, but one must also paint children.”

“You do not like children?”

Something flickered through his eyes, something sad and bewildered. “I was a child once. That is the extent of my understanding when it comes to children.”

Jenny considered him as he sat beside her, a plate of food growing cold in front of him, his finger tracing the rim of a blue jasperware teacup.

She was going to take advantage of him, shameless, wanton advantage. The knowledge was wicked, scary, and exhilarating—like the notion that she’d remove to Paris, with or without her family’s blessing. “I will make a bargain with you, Mr. Harrison. You give me eight hours of your time sitting, and I’ll assist you with the children for as long as it takes to complete their portrait.”

His reply was immediate. “I already owe you an hour, and I don’t see how you’ll collect an entire day of my time without drawing the notice of our host and hostess. This time of year, there’s hardly eight hours of proper light on a good day.”

“I’ll work with you by candlelight, and you will instruct me.” She reached over and stopped his finger as it circled the rim of the cup, this way then that way. “You will be brutally honest with me, and you will not spare my feelings. You will criticize every flaw, every mistake, every bad judgment you see in my work. Those are my terms, or we have no bargain.”

She kept her hand over his, as if she’d trap him with a single touch.

Though he didn’t pull away. “You cannot go to Paris, so you seek to bring Paris to you here.”

She did—the part of Paris that had to do with improving her art, though the part about living her own life, indulging her own passions, and escaping her family would have to wait. She said nothing to him about all of that, because he could refuse her even what she’d asked for.

Mr. Harrison turned his hand up and laced his fingers with hers. “My lady, you have a bargain. Now, what else can you tell me about the children?”

***

The holidays had an inexorable quality, the way a blight on the crops took over the countryside or a plague transformed a city into a morass of mourning. Holiday offerings crept onto menus, an innocuous initial step, like a few old men falling ill. Servants busied themselves swagging the eaves with greens, and even that wasn’t something a man need take notice of when his occupation kept him indoors during daylight hours.

Then, like an advancing illness, wreaths appeared on windows, cloved oranges were hung in public rooms, and table trees appeared in family parlors. Those of Germanic inclinations, which was to say a substantial portion of the aristocracy, might even have larger Christmas trees.

“The house is looking quite festive,” Elijah said as he escorted Lady Genevieve to his makeshift studio.

She glanced about, no doubt taking in the red and green ribbons wrapped around the oak banister and the tapestry of Father Christmas hung over the main staircase like a heraldic banner.

“Sophie and her baron have fond memories of Christmas. My parents are of the same ilk, and Louisa and Joseph are falling into the same camp. Surely your family has some Christmas traditions?”

“They indulge in much silliness.” Or they had, ten years ago. A change of subject was in order. “Am I to understand that you enjoy your sister’s hospitality because Their Graces are still in Town?”

“Nobody states it quite so plainly, but every time my parents leave Morelands, I am invited somewhere on a cheerful pretext. I am to assist Sophie with her baking. I was to keep Louisa and Joseph’s daughters company because they’d be simply too much for Aunt Gladys. Earlier this fall, Westhaven’s wife, Anna, needed my artistic flair to help her redecorate their nursery for the new baby.”

Elijah’s spirits inched upward. “This makes you furious, being shuffled about.”

She paused at the intersection of the main upper corridors and closed her eyes. “One can’t be angry at people who are trying their best to
love
one,
but
my
artistic
flair
?” She was quietly, beautifully incensed.

“They do acknowledge your talent.”

“They denigrate it in the same breath. Hold still, Mr. Harrison.”

He was so bemused with her ire, he didn’t understand what she was about until she’d gone up on her toes and slid a hand to his nape. Her other hand rested on his chest, and a whiff of jasmine came to him on the thought:
She’s going to kiss me.

And
I’m going to let her.

Soft, soft lips pressed not against his cheek—Lady Genevieve was no coward—but to his mouth. The kiss was chaste—no tongues, no expressing the groan that lodged in his chest, no plunging his hands into her hair and desperately clutching her to him. And yet, he could taste anger on her and a frustration that wasn’t entirely artistic.

When she might have eased away, he settled his arms around her and brushed his mouth over hers. Kisses could be about anger, but they could be about so much more too: joy, pleasure, comfort…
lust
.

He dropped his arms. “Happy Christmas, Lady Genevieve.”