Lady Jenny's Christmas Portrait (9 page)

Jenny picked up the discarded sketch pad, slid the box of pastels closer, and began to sketch, while William enthusiastically drew green streaks on Mr. Harrison’s trousers.

The Earl of Westhaven steered his horse around a frozen mud puddle, while the Duke of Moreland’s bay gelding splashed right through, indifferent to the breaking ice or cold, muddy water. Westhaven, like his horse, was more of a Town fellow, while the duke longed for the countryside.

“Her Grace is growing restless, sir. I trust you are aware of this?”

Meddling adult children were a loving father’s cross to bear. The duke glanced over at the handsome fellow who was his son and heir. “How is your wife, Westhaven?”

Westhaven rode bareheaded, so His Grace could see his son’s expression take on the sweet, distracted air of a man contemplating the woman about whom he was head over ears. “Anna thrives. She is completely over the birth of our second son, and completely in love with the boy. He’s a quiet little fellow, but sturdy and very alert. Anna says he takes after me.”

“She’s in good health then?”

“As good health as a woman can be when she’s the sole sustenance of a growing boy. It helps that this is not our first. We’re no longer raw recruits to the ranks of parenting.”

With two children still in dresses, Westhaven could wax parental, as if he’d invented the occupation himself upon the birth of his firstborn.

“How many siblings do you have, Westhaven?”

“Seven extant, two deceased, an increasing variety of siblings by marriage. What has this to do with my mother’s discontent, Your Grace?”

Westhaven was a plodder, not given to leaps of intuition but incapable of missing a detail or failing to notice a pattern. When he took his seat in Parliament, England would be the better for it.

Though as a son, he could try the patience of a far more saintly papa than His Grace.

“I have raised ten children with Her Grace and been privileged to partner her in holy matrimony for more than three decades. Do you think I wouldn’t know if the woman were growing restless?”

Westhaven’s lips quirked up in a smile his lady likely found irresistible. As a young husband, His Grace had possessed such a smile, though ten children had rather dimmed its efficacy with their mother.

“I suppose not, sir. I could escort her to Morelands, if that would help.”

“You will do no such thing, Westhaven, nor will you intimate to my duchess that you’ll spirit her away from my side. You will caution your brothers and brothers-in-law not to make any such offer either.”

A rabbit nibbling on a patch of brown winter grass looked up as the horses ambled along the path. Nose twitching, the little beast seemed to weigh the pleasures of filling its belly against the danger of remaining in sight of humans. It snatched another few bites then loped away.

“I confess myself puzzled, Your Grace. You are usually Mama’s slave in all things, and the entire family is to gather at Morelands for the holidays. I don’t know why you’d deny her the pleasure of preparing for our arrival, when she’s so anxious to quit Town and return to Morelands.”

His Grace was not above dissembling when it came to his family, though he’d learned that dissembling was a fraught undertaking where his duchess was concerned. So with his firstborn, he dissembled only a little.

“I haven’t found Her Grace’s Christmas present yet.”

Westhaven’s expression softened. “Your Christmas presents put the rest of us fellows in the shade, you know. Anna won’t even hint what I might give her. If His Grace can come up with such inspired gifts, then surely a small token shouldn’t be beyond me?”

Balderdash.
Anna, Countess of Westhaven, was likely already hinting about a little sister for her pair of boys.

“Each year, it becomes more difficult to find something original, something unique. The challenge is to think of a gift your mother hasn’t even admitted to herself she longs for.”

Though she longed to have her family gathered together for the holidays. His Grace could be stone-blind and still see that.

“So you’ll tarry in Town until inspiration strikes?”

“If I must.” And because Westhaven would be Moreland someday, His Grace went on in the most casual of tones. “I don’t think Jenny minds keeping Sophie company while your mother and I are in Town, particularly not when Harrison also bides at Sidling, doing portraits of the little ones.”

Westhaven brought his horse to a halt at a fork in the bridle path. “Harrison? Elijah Harrison? The painter?”

His Grace’s bay came to a halt as well. “Harrison is Flint’s oldest boy, though he’s likely close to your age by now. Fancies himself a portraitist, and when old Rothgreb was grumbling about children growing up too soon, I might have mentioned Harrison to him.”

“Elijah Harrison served as Kesmore’s second at last year’s duel,” Westhaven said. He stroked a hand over his horse’s crest. Westhaven had inherited shrewdness from both sire and dam lines, so His Grace said no more but let his son ponder the puzzle pieces. “Seemed a decent sort. There’s been no gossip about the duel, in any case.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that, just as I have no idea what I’ll get your mother for Christmas, though I’m scouring the shops until something comes to mind. I trust you’ll pass along any worthy ideas?”

“Of course.” Westhaven looked like he might have a question brewing in his handsome head.

His Grace lifted a hand in parting accordingly. “My regards to your family, Westhaven, and I’ll look forward to seeing you out at Morelands ere long.”

Westhaven saluted with his riding crop and trotted off in the direction of that wife and family, while His Grace considered whether and how best to explain this latest parental gambit to his dear wife. Perhaps she’d have some idea how long two artists might be thrust into each other’s company before the creative passions took over.

***

Reading Reynolds’s
Discourses
was getting Elijah nowhere. The grand old style of portraiture—an approach that flattered subjects, carefully posed them, and surrounded them with heroic symbols of great deeds—was fading.

Children had no heroic deeds, in any case. They had sticky fingers, silky curls, and a particular scent, of soap and innocence, that Elijah had forgotten.

The door to Elijah’s sitting room creaked open. His first thought was that a footman, presuming the occupant to be abed, had come to douse the lights and bank the fire.

His second thought… evaporated from his mind when he saw Genevieve Windham standing inside his door in her nightgown and robe, a sketchbook clutched in her hand.

“I want to do you in oils,” she said, advancing into the room. “I will content myself with some sketches first. I trust you can remain awake for another hour.”

“Awake will not be a problem.” Sane, however, became questionable. “Genevieve, you cannot remain in my rooms with me unchaperoned when the rest of the house is abed.”

She flipped a fat golden braid over her shoulder. “I was unchaperoned with you at breakfast; I was unchaperoned with you in your studio before the boys arrived. I was unchaperoned with you in the library when the children went for their nap after luncheon. How did you expect to pose for me, Mr. Harrison, if not privately?”

“You are—
we
are
—not properly clothed.”

Her gaze ran over him assessingly, as dispassionately as if this Mr. Harrison fellow were some minor foreign diplomat with little English.

“Had I been accosted in the corridor by my sister, Sophie would have taken greater notice were I not in nightclothes. Besides”—a pink wash rose over her cheeks—“I have seen you without a single stitch and memorialized the sight by the hour with pen, pencil, and paper. Perhaps you’d like to take a seat?”

He would like to run screaming from the room, and nearly did just that when a quiet scratching came from the door.

“This will be our chaperone,” Lady Jenny said.

To be found alone, after dark, with a lady in dishabille could also be his downfall. The Academy would quietly pass him by, his father’s worst accusations would be justified, and the example he was supposed to set for all those younger siblings would become a cautionary tale.

As he watched Genevieve stride across the room to the door, Elijah realized being found with him could be her downfall too, the loss of all the reputation and dignity she’d cultivated carefully for years. The Royal Academy might admit him in another ten years, despite some scandal in his past—Sir Thomas had been accused of dallying with no less than the regent’s wife—but Jenny’s reputation would not recover.

“Genevieve—”

She opened the door a few inches, and a sizable exponent of the feline species strutted into the room, tail held high. This was the same dignified, liveried fellow who’d shared a bed with Elijah at Carrington’s. “And here we have Timothy?”

“None other. He can hold a pose for hours and all the while look like he’s contemplating the secrets of the universe.”

“While we contemplate folly. Genevieve, you take a great risk for a few sketches.”

She moved closer to the fire and tried to shift his reading chair.

“Let me.” He moved it rather than pick her up bodily and deposit her in the corridor. “Will that do?”

“Turn it a bit this way.” She gestured with a finger, a clockwise swirl. He moved the chair as quietly as he could. “Now sit, as if you’re lord of all you survey.”

Elijah surveyed a looming disaster, on several fronts, and one very determined woman. “You have one hour, my lady, and then you and your familiar will go back to whatever dungeon you sprang from. A few sketches could get you married to me for the rest of your life, should we be discovered.”

She made no indication she’d heard him. Instead, she was frowning at the chair, the fire, the
Discourses
, while her cat stropped itself against her nightclothes.

“I’ve never had the nerve to get myself ruined,” she said, moving a branch of candles on the mantel. “I’ve had the opportunity, in case you’ve wondered. Take your seat, Mr. Harrison.”

More and more dangerous, but at least she was observing propriety in her form of address, which was how one was supposed to treat a model.

Drat the woman.

He sat, feeling like a prisoner about to be shackled. “What constitutes an opportunity to be ruined, if not the present circumstances?”

She took a position cross-legged on the floor near his feet, the firelight finding every shade of highlight in her hair—red, gold, white, wheat, bronze, and indescribable combinations thereof.

“His name was Jeffrey Denby, and he was my drawing master when I turned sixteen. He was charming, handsome, and had just enough talent to fool my parents for a summer.”

Elijah abruptly forgot about career interests, looming scandal, and the frustrations of trying to sketch small children who could not hold still. “Did he fool
you
, Genevieve?”

She flipped open her sketch pad and stared at the blank page. “Twice. I did not consider the first encounter a fair measure of the experience, novelty being an issue, but the second time…”

Blessed, blasted saints. She should not be telling him this. She should not tell
anybody
of this, ever.

“The second time?”

“I was mortally disappointed. One reads poetry and overhears the maids giggling and one’s brothers boasting, and one develops expectations.” She produced a penknife and sharpened her pencil to a lethal point. “I am not as ignorant as you and the rest of the world might think. Lift your chin.”

He obliged, when what he wanted to do was hunt down this sketch-pad-toting Lothario, shake the man’s teeth loose, and break his untalented, presuming fingers. “Are you trying to make me look imposing by sketching me from below?”

“I’m trying to find a position where I can be comfortable for an hour.”
At
his
feet,
of all places. “Hold still.”

She set her sketch pad aside and rose up on her knees. Elijah was obediently staring straight ahead, so he didn’t divine her intention until deft fingers undid his cravat. That was bad enough, but then—merciful deities preserve him—she stroked her hand over his throat.

“The textures of a man’s skin are a challenge,” she said, stroking him again. “Your cheeks are roughened with a day’s growth of whiskers, but your throat is smooth, and your chest…”

She unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a chest sprinkled with dark hair, a chest trying not to rise and fall rapidly.

“If you spend much more time posing your subject, Genevieve, you’ll not have an opportunity to sketch the poor devil.”

With one finger, she nudged the placket of his shirt aside, off center, baring some muscle to the light of the fire. “Like that,” she said as she drew the finger down over his heart, moving the shirt aside another inch. “Now do that off-in-the-distance look you have. Contemplate deep things.”

She sank back on the hearth rug and took up her sketch pad.

He could contemplate
nothing
, because all thoughts led to her and to the sorrow and surprise of finding out that she’d broken the rules while still a girl. Many did. Many broke the rules only to redeem themselves by marrying their partner in mischief.

The cat jumped into Elijah’s lap, a heavy, purring mass of fur and warmth.

“Leave him,” Jenny muttered. “He’ll keep leaping on you until you give up attempting to deport him. Timothy becomes fixed on his goals.”

Elijah shifted slightly as the cat settled in and commenced washing itself.

“With your drawing master, Genevieve…?” How did he ask an impossible question?

“Mr. Denby. Louisa called him the pulchritudinous Mr. Denby.”

“Of course he would have been beautiful, and he would have known how to use his beauty on young girls, but
why
him
? You are the daughter of a duke, lovely to behold, well dowered, and notably agreeable in disposition. Why risk your entire future for disappointment in some dusty attic or stable?”

Her pencil paused on the page. “He preferred the minstrel’s gallery in the ballroom, which was dusty enough, but bore little risk of discovery.”

Not even a cot, no candlelight, no fragrant, leafy bower with the murmur of a stream nearby. No sensation of the soft summer breeze or gentle summer sun on naked, eager young flesh. No place to drowse in a lover’s arms, no intimacy about such a setting at all.