The Stepsister's Triumph (2 page)

“Hey now, hey now, unhand my sister!” Lewis bawled jovially. Benedict moved his hand behind his back, but not, Madelene saw, before it had tightened into a fist.

“Not been importuning you, has he, Maddie?” Her stepbrother shook Madelene's shoulder. “Ha-ha!”

“Lewis,” she murmured. “I didn't realize you were here.”

Nature meant Lewis to be thin, but the amount of eating and drinking he did ensured that an early paunch blossomed beneath his gorgeously patterned waistcoat. No restrained dandy of the Brummel school, Lewis strove instead to be an “exquisite.” He liked a wealth of seals on his chains, huge, sparkling buttons on his coat, and outsized pins on his cravat, and he did not consider himself dressed if there were fewer than three rings on his hands. His pale ginger hair was oiled and carefully curled, or had been this morning. Now, it was just oiled and disordered, with slick elflocks hanging about his reddened ears.

“Where else should I be, eh? Especially with artists hanging all about my sister! Have a care, Pelham.” He waggled a finger under Mr. Pelham's nose. “Or I'll be calling you out.” Benedict looked down at Madelene. She was only able to bear the pity in his eyes for a moment, before she dropped her gaze to her own hands and saw, like his, they were knotted into fists. She forced them into a properly folded position. She must not let him, let them, see her anger. She must not make a display. If Lewis detected her true feelings, he would mock her for getting into a pet. Worse, Mr. Pelham would be disgusted. People were always disgusted by angry women.

“Ah, Miss Valmeyer, there you are!”

The new voice that hailed her was a woman's. Miss Deborah Sewell, Madelene's chaperone, strolled into the gallery. “And Lord Benedict! How delightful! I was only just now enjoying your rendering of Lake Geneva.” She waved her program book back toward the main gallery.

Deborah Sewell was an elegant woman, but it was not at all Lewis's sort of elegance. She was free and easy and perfectly turned out, with a smile always at the ready and the kind of wit that could cut any polite insult to pieces.

“Oh, Miss Sewell.” Madelene stepped up to her side and tried not to feel how much it was a retreat. Lewis gave her a bleary eye full of meaning, and she tensed inwardly. “Miss Sewell, I believe you've met my brother, Lewis. Lewis, may I present Miss Deborah Sewell . . .”

“Ah! The infamous lady novelist!” Lewis bent into a showy, unsteady bow. “Is this your idea of chaperoning my sister? I shall be telling Mother on you, just see if I don't!” He gave another hearty laugh that deepened the color in his cheeks and his ears.

Miss Sewell's smile was as cool and level as if Lewis had remarked about the weather. “As I'll be seeing your mother myself later today, I do suggest you be quick about it. Now, Miss Valmeyer, I promised Lady Adele and Lady Helene I'd fetch you along. We have a fitting this afternoon and must not be late.” She looped her arm through Madelene's and drew her away. “Gentlemen, I'm sure you will excuse us.”

Madelene wanted to look back over her shoulder, she wanted to let Mr. Pelham see the apology in her eyes, but Lewis would see her looking, so she didn't dare.

Benedict's friends had told him that his heart would return to life at some point. He didn't expect it to happen all at once. Neither did he expect that internal resurrection to fully and finally manifest itself in the urge to knock another man flat.

“Well, well. So sorry to have spoiled the tête-à-tête.” Lewis Valmeyer slapped Benedict's shoulder roughly. “Still, it's all for the best, eh? A mouse like my stepsister wouldn't do at all for a man used to a more . . . worldly sort, eh?” He beamed at Benedict, full of the satisfied superiority found at the bottom of a wine bottle.

“I do not understand your meaning, sir.”

Drunk he might be, but Valmeyer did not miss Benedict's tone. Valmeyer's father was a baronet, so Valmeyer himself qualified as a gentleman. If they exchanged words here, it might end on the dueling ground.

“Oh, just rambling, old fellow, just rambling.” Valmeyer winked heavily. “Still, chap's got to look out after his sister, even if she's only a step. Fortune hunters lurking in every corner, you know. Must have a word with that girl. Never home these days, always gadding about with that novelist woman . . . You'll excuse me, won't you? Yes, of course you will.”

Valmeyer attempted to saunter casually away and failed. Benedict glowered after him and fervently hoped Miss Sewell had gotten Miss Valmeyer out of the way, or that Valmeyer would trip over his own clumsy feet and break his drunken skull, or both.

“Good Lord, Pelham, I hope it's not me you're looking for.” Raphael Haggerty stepped up beside him. “You look ready to do blue murder.” Benedict turned one eye toward Haggerty in time to see him wince. “Sorry. Stupid of me.”

Benedict waved his hand to signal it was of no matter, which was not entirely true, but it would do him no good to pick a quarrel with Haggerty. Raphael Haggerty was a small, plump man who habitually dressed in a neat black coat with a single gold chain across his waistcoat. His sandy hair curled naturally, and the little man had an unfortunate idea that if he combed it up high, he'd make himself look taller. He was, however, a well-known art collector and dealer. Haggerty had sought Benedict out ten years ago when his first work had been accepted by the Academy. He'd wanted to hang some of Benedict's paintings in his private gallery. He'd also offered to act as an agent to sell those paintings. Benedict had accepted with pleasure. Most painters struggled to find buyers for their works and usually had to turn to teaching to earn a living, or attach themselves to a studio belonging to a better-known artist.

“Well, all will be forgiven when you hear the news,” Haggerty told him. “I've sold
The Prelude
for you.” He gestured grandly toward the canvas that had so entranced Miss Valmeyer. “It was hard going, too. What on earth possessed you to paint a girl in her boudoir? I'm stunned the Academy didn't take it down for Ladies Day. Historical scenes, that's what your patrons expect from you. Or more of those landscapes.”

“You've said,” Benedict growled.

“Well now I say despite all that, I've got you a very good price.” Haggerty beamed, waiting for Benedict's response.

Benedict shook his head. “I'm sorry. I've decided not to sell it.”

Haggerty looked at him as if he'd just declared his intention to fly to the moon. “Did I remember to mention that I got you a good price? A
very
good price?”

“You did.” Benedict inclined his head gravely. “And you're going to have to apologize for the artist. We are irrational creatures, filled with a fine disregard for matters of the real world. This painting is not for sale.”

Haggerty scrubbed at his face, and Benedict was fairly sure he heard the broker mutter something about God sparing him from all painters. “Very well, very well. Are there any other pictures that are declared off-limits? No? I have your word on it? Good. Oh, and plaster a more pleasant expression on that face of yours, or you'll frighten what's left of your potential patrons.”

Benedict watched the man straighten his shoulders and wade back into the crowd. He'd apologize later. Haggerty was very good at what he did, and Benedict was lucky to have him as a broker and a friend. Especially after all the long years when he hadn't been able to put brush to canvas and had turned first to wine and then to laudanum in an effort to rise above gray, fathomless despair that had closed over him when he watched the dirt and autumn leaves fall onto his wife's coffin.

But since the Windfords' house party, Benedict had become aware that despair had begun at last to recede.
The Prelude
was proof of that. And now, today, the despair had burned away, like the fog before the rising sun. Benedict's hand knotted into a fresh fist, and he pressed it against his heart, as if he were attempting to slow its beating. It hurt, badly, the way a limb that was numbed by cold hurt when warmth returned, but he did not want it to stop.

Madelene
, his mind whispered as he stared at the girl in white with whom he'd taken such care. He'd labored over her through the winter, blowing on his hands to warm them when the fire in his stove went out, because he didn't want to stop work to light it again.
Madelene.
He'd mused over her through the nights—adjusted, perfected, drawn, wiped away, and repainted—all in an effort to capture in paint and pencil the warm sensation of her presence.

He'd accepted the invitation to draw the chalk mural on the Windford's ballroom floor as a kind of mental exercise. The medium and scale were unusual. The seasonal theme held a mild sentimental attraction. He'd loved Christmas as a boy. His parents always filled their house at Innesdale Park with convivial friends and relations who brought plenty of other children with them. Those winter days were a time of gaiety, when the rules were loosened and the house was full of laughter. Benedict well remembered the thrill of excitement, not to mention the cold of the window glass against palms and nose as he and the other children crowded up against the panes to watch as the wassail men came banging at the door, belting out their raucous songs and demanding hot punch and beer.

Not that the Windford party was anything like those holidays. It was a stiff affair with the expected entertainments of cards, billiards, and flirtation. There was good food and drink, of course, and a little riding out and skating on the river, until the snow had closed in over all of them. But by the end of the first week, everyone was complaining of boredom and meaning it.

The work had remained interesting, though, and infinitely preferable to the effort of being polite among the sorts of people the Windfords invited to their home. It had taken days to cover the ballroom floor with the spreading mural of birds and red and gold ribbons and holly wreaths. His knees and shoulders had ached. He'd begun to fear he hadn't brought enough supplies, but the project still absorbed him. He'd learned that intellectual effort and the pride in skill could provide some substitute for deeper emotion.

But one of those days, morning or afternoon or evening, he couldn't remember, Benedict had become aware of being watched. There was a space of quiet in the back of his mind, like a gentle hand on his arm. He'd glanced around the ballroom. He saw the housekeeper and butler, discussing the decorations, the footmen on their ladders hanging fresh red and gold draperies. All were busy at their tasks, and if they were paying any attention to him, it was to avoid stepping on the sections of mural he'd already completed.

Then he saw it—a slight movement of the curtains in the musicians' gallery. At first he thought it must be some child of one of the guests. He went back to his work, intent on ignoring the presence. A child would get bored and sneak away soon, satisfied with the game.

But the next day, that same unaccountable quiet space cleared itself in his mind. This time when Benedict looked about him he was more careful, concealing the movement of his head by lifting his sketches up to better compare them to the completed plots of floor.

There, for a moment, he saw her; a figure in a pale dress, with red gold hair, not a child, but a young woman. It flashed through him in that instant that she was lovely and profoundly uncertain. Then she was gone, with nothing but the faintest movement of the curtain to betray her presence. But he'd seen her and he knew her. She was Madelene Valmeyer.

Benedict had lowered his sketches, and his gaze, to the floor. The stillness in the back of his mind trembled, and his heart gave one painful thump.

When the light finally grew too poor for work, Benedict had retreated to his room. But instead of studying his plans and making notes for the next day's work, he found himself casting his mind back over what he knew of the Valmeyers. The first Lady Reginald had died of a fever some years ago, and Sir Reginald had married again almost immediately. There was some scandal around the second Lady Reginald, though he didn't know its details. This, Benedict realized, meant Miss Valmeyer's invitations out must be few and far between. He did know Lewis Valmeyer, her stepbrother, was a habitué of the gaming tables who lost far more than he won. Rumor—and Benedict's friend, James Beauclaire—said Valmeyer didn't play with his own money but used his sister's.

Benedict wondered, idly, if she would return again tomorrow.

That had been the beginning. He hadn't let himself dwell on how significant it was that he'd spared her so much thought. After all, they'd had no direct contact. As he moved through the remaining dull days at the house, she never disturbed him, never approached him outside the ballroom. In fact, he seldom saw her at all.

Gradually, a sympathy rose up in him, and a distinct protectiveness. Things were not easy for a shy girl in a world that demanded its inhabitants display the correct blend of politeness and easy conviviality at all times. Probably she was lonely. There was a mistaken belief that shy people were sullen and did not like company. Benedict had never believed it. He found himself spending more time wondering about her; what she really looked like, what she thought while she stood up there. What had driven her into hiding. What it would take to bring her out.

That was when he'd begun to conceive
The Prelude
. It was an unfashionable scene, not grand or romantic or pastoral or any other thing. In fact, because it portrayed a young woman in an intimate setting, it bordered on the shocking, even if the subject was fully clothed and alone. Haggerty was right. People did not want such paintings. He'd hovered in the corners and watched the people glance toward it, perhaps twice as their attention grazed the walls full of paintings. Some had murmured in surprise. Mostly, though, they'd shaken their heads and turned their eyes elsewhere.

One young woman, however, did not. She'd stood in front of the painting, rapt.

“Is it you?” He hadn't been aware he'd spoken aloud, but he had, and she turned, and in that moment, he recognized her. It was not her delicate face that revealed her identity but the movement itself; that swift, alert motion, like a startled deer the moment before it whisked out of sight.

Madelene.
He'd had to stop himself from saying the name aloud. Not that “Is it you?” had been any better. But the ridiculous truth of the matter was that he'd been dwelling on her so long as he tried to decide exactly how to present her on the canvas, he'd almost forgotten she was a real person. Recognizing her, and having her recognize him in return, had been an absurd shock. His throat tightened and his mind seized up, and for a moment, after he'd blurted out that abrupt exclamation, he'd actually considered turning around and walking away without speaking another word.

Maybe I should have
, he thought uneasily.

Because nothing could have prepared him for the way her presence tumbled over him when their eyes met. He hadn't realized how rich the gold and copper color of her hair would be when he saw it up close; how complex and perfect the tones of her skin. He hadn't come close to doing her justice on the canvas. He'd no idea that her wide blue eyes were flecked with silver or that there was a ring of midnight black around her irises. As for the rest of her . . . her curves were delicate, perfectly formed, full and rich beneath her simple yellow and cream dress. She was so small, he felt he could have swept her off her feet with one arm only.

And he'd wanted to. God in heaven, how he'd wanted to.

It was ridiculous. The sort of irrational madness that was supposed to plague artists and poets and actors. But it was real. He knew it in the way his heart still thundered with that need and the way his sluggish blood stirred in his veins when he realized she was pleased with his efforts.

The artist . . . you . . . have caught her contradiction. You understand.

That shy, uncertain praise touched a chord in him beyond the artist's simple pride and the eternal vanity. As she'd spoken about the painted figure, for a moment, she had lost her hesitation. A kind of wonder stole across her, wiping away her self-consciousness, adding poise to her natural grace. Her soft voice thrummed through his bones, as if his being was a harp string beneath her hand. And he'd felt, or thought he felt—or desperately, painfully wanted to feel—an answering vibration in her.

Then her stepbrother had stumbled on the scene, and what little color she'd gained had drained away, leaving her once more lost, pale, and afraid.

It was a criminal act, like defacing a painting. He wanted to go out into the gallery and find her again, to see her and stand near her, protect her from her stepbrother and anyone else who might frighten her. He wanted to learn the planes of her face and the shape and depths of color of her eyes properly. He wanted to understand the tones and the warmth of her skin and just how the light caught in her red gold hair.

He wanted to touch her, to feel the warmth and the life of her.

Stop it, Pelham.