Lady Jenny's Christmas Portrait

Eleven

Breakfast was trial by tea and toast. Elijah’s host and hostess bid him safe journey to London, then drifted off to whatever business would fill their day. Elijah took his customary place, back to the windows, and prayed Jenny would have the wisdom to remain above stairs until his departure.

Then he prayed that she’d come down early and spend every possible minute with him before he rode out of her life.

Then he prayed that a blizzard might start up and prevent them both from leaving, because the developments of the previous night had been too complicated and overwhelming to allow a man to think them through clearly.

“My lady.” He rose as Jenny paused in the doorway, a vision in holiday green. “Good morning.”

Her smile was hesitant. “My—Mr. Harrison.”

He’d told her about the title. He’d very nearly told her he loved her. “Won’t you sit with me? There’s a little sun to be had at this end of the table. May I fix you a plate?”

May I tell you that despite the fact that I thought we were to be married, and you did not, I will always treasure the hours you spent in my arms?

He’d told her that much when he’d deposited her fast asleep in her own bed not two hours past and kissed her cheek in parting. How brave of me.

Her smile became more confident. “I’d like that. The day looks encouraging.”

No, it did not. The day looked all too well suited to travel. Her smile, though, looked encouraging. “What will you have?”

He heaped up a plate for her, knowing she’d never eat that much but wanting to give her something, even if it wasn’t what she’d asked him for last night. When they were seated at the end of the room nearest the hearth, Elijah filled her teacup with strong, fragrant tea and added cream and sugar.

This was the last bit of solitude they might have. “Are you well, Genevieve?”

“Quite, thank you. These strawberries are particularly good.”

He tried again. “You know there might be consequences from last night?”

She went still, a succulent berry halfway to her equally succulent mouth. “Consequences?” The word came out care-ful-ly, as if she hadn’t realized any such thing. “But you didn’t… I thought… Heavens.”

She’d blushed nearly as red as the strawberry.

“I did not.” Thank a merciful, benign, forgiving Deity. Elijah had not spent his seed in her body. “There can still be consequences, and you will not bear them alone.” He passed her a folded piece of foolscap. “My man of business always knows where to reach me. If there’s need, you will contact me immediately. Promise me, Genevieve.”

She took the paper, stuffed it in some secret female pocket in her skirts, and nodded.

A tension in Elijah’s chest eased. “Butter?”

“Please.”

Ah, God, not that word. He buttered a slice from the toast rack in the center of the table. “What will you do with yourself today, Genevieve?”

“My parents will collect me shortly, and I’ll probably spend the morning planning the house party with Her Grace.”

He chose a toast point for himself and tried to memorize the curve of her cheek. “House party?”

“My entire family is gathering for the holidays. Morelands can hold such a crowd, but it’s quite an undertaking. When did you stop putting butter on your toast, Elijah?”

He stopped chewing and stopped trying to pretend. “I’ll miss you, Genevieve, and I’ll worry about you. Will you come see the children’s portrait when it’s complete?”

“If I’m still here, of course. I’ll miss you too. Very, very much.”

Two verys. The tension eased more, which was no help. Without anxiety to mask other emotions, Elijah felt a welling sense of loss, as if leaving Sidling was another leg in the long and ill-advised journey away from Flint Hall.

“Ah, there’s my darling girl!”

His Grace the Duke of Moreland came striding into the breakfast parlor, cheeks ruddy from the cold, smile warm, blue eyes merry. “Jenny, my dear, I have missed you this age.”

She went into her father’s arms, while Elijah got to his feet.

Her family should not have her back yet, please, not just, quite, already… yet. “Your Grace, good morning.”

The duke hugged his daughter, clearly a man who need not stand on ceremony, and a papa glad to be reunited with his offspring. And then, with an arm still around Jenny’s shoulders, His Grace turned that smile on Elijah.

“Bernward, felicitations of the season. I hope my girl hasn’t been pestering you too awfully. She does take her little pictures seriously.” He winked at Elijah and kissed Jenny’s temple, while Elijah wanted to tear her from the older man’s side.

Little pictures.

“Lady Jenny and her considerable artistic talent have been an inspiration, Your Grace. I could not have achieved what I did here, much less in so short a time, without your daughter’s assistance and insight.” Too short a time.

“Right. Jenny, are you ready to go, or can you spare your old papa time to visit the nursery?”

The relief in Jenny’s eyes was subtle, too subtle for a blustery old duke to comprehend. “You can visit upstairs for as long as you like, Papa. I’ll finish my breakfast.”

“Bernward, good day. I’m off to corrupt the youth of England.” His Grace wrapped several slices of stollen in a napkin and strode off, and not a moment too soon.

“They’re not little pictures, Genevieve. You have talent. Never doubt that.”

She sat with the air of a convict whose petition for a royal pardon had just been denied. “Papa loves me. He loves all of his children. Mama does too.”

And their love was choking her. Jenny consumed her breakfast in silence, while Elijah sensed he’d underestimated the depths to which she dreaded her return to Morelands.

“You will take Paris by storm, Genevieve.” Another nod, and Elijah felt despair wash over him, because how was she to take Paris by storm when she hadn’t yet secured decent lodgings? When she had no clue where to begin with the gallery owners and shopkeepers?

Rather than offer her more hollow assurances, he offered her relief from his company. “Will you see me to my horse?”

“Of course.”

They traveled through the house until Elijah paused with her in the entry hall. “Which cloak is yours?”

She passed him a pretty green wool cloak with cream trim, the buttonholes elaborately embroidered in a gold fleur-de-lis pattern.

“You’ve been planning your escape for a long time, haven’t you, Genevieve?”

“Years. More dreaming than planning. I’m planning now. This is your scarf.” She wrapped soft purple wool around his neck, and almost as if they were married, they dressed each other for the chill beyond the door. “You’ll show the nominating committee the sketch of the boys’ portrait?”

“Of course.” He did not tell her he might come back for a few more sittings, because French dragoons couldn’t have marched him back at gunpoint. Until she left for Paris, he’d be wise not to set foot anywhere in Kent. “You won’t lose the direction for my man of business?”

She stroked an ungloved hand over his scarf. “I promise, Elijah. Good-bye.” Without warning, she went up on her toes and kissed him. “Safe journeys, and Elijah?”

Somewhere nearby, a sprig of mistletoe hung—or should be hanging. Elijah kissed her back. “What?”

“Go home. Reconcile with your family. I’m leaving my family behind, but I’ll also take them with me in a sense, if they’ll allow it. You can’t racket around forever, pretending you’re an orphan when you’re a titled lord with a family you love, and who loves you.”

This was not what he’d expected from her in parting. He escorted her from the house, lest he be tempted to kiss her again. “Is that advice my Christmas token from you?”

“No.” She fumbled about beneath her cloak and produced a small packet wrapped in red paper and tied with a green bow. “This is.”

“Thank you.” Whatever it was, it was small enough that Elijah could tuck it into his pocket. “I have something for you as well. You must open it in private.”

He led her to his horse, opened the leather tube he used for keeping sketches safe in transport, and passed her a small paper rolled up with a red ribbon. “In private, Genevieve. Happy Christmas.”

Mistletoe bedamned, waiting groom bedamned, and whatever eyes were watching their parting from the house be double damned, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her full on the mouth.

“I wish things could be different, Genevieve Windham. I wish it with my whole heart.”

She rubbed her cheek against his scarf as if drawing in his scent one last time. “I double damned, perishing wish they could too, Elijah Harrison.”

He stepped back, relieved to see she was smiling, because then he could smile too. The groom was busily studying the snowy driveway, which was fortunate, because those smiles—and the pain they held—said worlds about what might have been, what should have been, and what would never be.

Louisa, Countess of Kesmore, paused to admire her son, who gurgled up at his mother happily. “I believe this child will have his father’s nose.”

Jenny looked away from the mutual admiration society that was mother and son, to yet another gray winter day beyond the window—the third such day she’d spent under her sister’s roof. This time.

“Joseph has a lovely nose. A nose suited to his character.” The child, however, had his mother’s nose. Any fool could see that.

Louisa tucked the infant against her shoulder. “One forgets you study things like noses. Was it so awful at Morelands?”

Yes, it had been. More awful than usual, which Jenny blamed on Elijah Harrison, Lord Bernward, painter of portraits and stealer of hearts.

“Just the usual: Her Grace could not decide which suite should be assigned to which family, though we went through the same exercise last year and nobody complained regarding their quarters. She couldn’t decide whether to assign the children a separate breakfast parlor, make up a children’s parlor in the nursery wing, or have everybody share the usual breakfast parlor closest to the kitchens.” Jenny rose to pace Louisa’s private sitting room, lest she start shouting. “Mama thought perhaps the open house should start earlier, then decided that no, the family should have an hour or so to gather before the guests arrive. And then the menus…”

The duchess could spend days dithering over menus, when she knew down to the smallest grandchild what each individual’s preferences were.

Louisa sat the child in her lap, holding his tiny hands in hers. “When was the last time you painted something, Jenny?”

“I haven’t been one place long enough to set up my easel.” And she’d been drafting chatty, curious notes to her aunt Arabella, who’d often traveled to Paris early in her marriage.

Louisa’s mouth quirked, suggesting Jenny’s usual talent for dissembling wasn’t going to meet with success. “I thought you’d cobbled together a studio of sorts in the east wing at Morelands, near the nursery suite.”

This was why Jenny had sent a desperate request to her sister, begging an invitation to visit, why she’d fled—fled—her own home.

“Her Grace decided paint fumes would be harmful to the children and instructed the footmen to pack up my ‘artistic whatnot’ until after the holidays.”

Louisa paused in the entertainment of the chubby little fellow on her lap. “Unpack your whatnot. Tell Her Grace that, of the seventy-three private rooms at Morelands, you need one for your art. That’s not too much to ask, Sister mine.”

Louisa would have asked. She would have done so at a family meal, debated with her own mother until she’d gotten the room of her choice, and then had it set up exactly to her liking before sunset on the same day.

“I did ask. She said she’d think about which room she could spare for my little hobby, and, Sister, I wanted to perishing shriek at her.” Bloody, perishing, damned shriek, at her own mother.

“Don’t we all, occasionally?”

Jenny had paced half the length of the parlor before Louisa’s words registered. “You want to shriek at Her Grace?”

“This is the selfsame Her Grace who gave me Fordyce’s Sermons for my sixteenth birthday and sent my Greek tutor packing in the name of establishing economies.”

“I’m sorry.” And this was exactly the kind of sibling support Jenny was going to miss terribly when she moved to Paris. “I hadn’t realized she’d done that. What was she trying to accomplish?”

“Take this baby, please. One cannot drink tea and hold Kesmore’s heir, lest one’s clothing comes to grief.”

Jenny obediently took custody of her nephew, a stout, cheerful infant who would be crawling ere long—which she would not be on English soil to see.

“Her Grace sent the tutor packing because I had exceeded his abilities, I’m guessing, but he was still somebody with whom I could discuss my translations, and that was…”

“Important to you. This child has gotten heavier since I was here barely a week ago.”

“They do that, rather like men get handsomer when you fall in love with them. I received a note from Her Grace this morning, Jenny.”

Louisa’s voice had lost its typical brisk, pragmatic inflection. Jenny cuddled the child closer and braced herself accordingly. “And?”

“Your parole is at an end. She must have you back before next week’s guests arrive, but don’t worry.” Louisa patted Jenny’s hand. “When I take you home, I’ll make sure your studio is reestablished, and not in some priest’s hole or butler’s pantry, either.”

You have talent, Genevieve. Never doubt that.

“A butler’s pantry might do, Louisa, if it were entirely mine and had at least one decent window.”

Louisa set down her teacup and scooped her firstborn away from Jenny. “That’s the problem with you, Genevieve. You are too nice. You ought to have a fit of the sulks, grumble to Papa, and pick at your food until Her Grace realizes she’s blundered—Papa is very obliging about these things when he thinks he’s being clever. Mama is proud, but she does love us.”

Louisa understood cause and effect the way Jenny understood images and light, and yet the idea of sulking, grumbling, and dissembling in this fashion was… exhausting. “If you’re to return me to my dungeon, I’d best gather my things.”

Louisa rose with the child on her hip. “Yes, you had. Joseph had a note from Mr. Harrison.”

Jenny rose too, hoping the weakness in her knees was momentary. “I trust he fares well?”

“He’s considering some commissions in Northumbria. Said he’s taken an interest in juvenile portraits, of all things, and that the Academy’s nominating committee was very encouraging when they saw his sketches of Sophie’s boys. What do you suppose Papa has gotten Her Grace for Christmas this year?”

“I haven’t the least notion what His Grace has gotten for Mama. Northumbria is lovely this time of year, and Mr. Harrison’s composition was quite good.”

Louisa paused in her march toward the door and gave Jenny a look that suggested Bedlam might be lovely this time of year as well—if one enjoyed subarctic climates in winter. “We’ll restore your studio, Genevieve, and when the grandchildren arrive, Her Grace will be too busy managing His Grace to trouble you over it much.”

Elijah used the entire journey from London to consider his latest of several dinners with the nominating committee.

He’d had Buchannon’s butler announce him as Lord Bernward; he’d dressed to the very teeth in sober evening attire; for the first time in years, he’d shown the Harrison family crest on his town coach.

Even old Fotheringale had been impressed with the sketches of Sindal’s sons. The composition was good art, as evidenced by the fact that it became more interesting the longer one studied it. West had muttered that the portrait harked back to Sir Joshua’s skill with juvenile subjects, and no one had contradicted him.

Elijah’s gelding slipped on a deceptive patch of ground, more ice than road. He let the beast right itself, scanned the horizon, and wrapped his scarf more snugly around his chin.

The evening had had two sour points.

The first was when Fotheringale had harrumphed into his port that one unfinished portrait hardly demonstrated depth of skill or range of ability. Anybody could pull off one pleasing portrait of children, for pity’s sake.

The second was when Fotheringale had gone off on a tangent about the Academy finally being free of the pernicious influence of dabbling females. He’d squinted at Elijah, as if his tirade ought to have particular meaning, and Elijah had remained quiet.

Which had been a mistake. A prudent man seeking a well-supported nomination would have chimed in with ringing endorsements of Fotheringale’s sentiments, except in his mind, Elijah kept seeing Genevieve Windham sitting at the breakfast table and eating strawberries she could not taste while her dear, doting Papa casually tromped all over his daughter’s dreams.

Mindful of the lowering clouds and the increasing wind, Elijah pushed those thoughts aside and asked his horse for a faster pace.

“There, you see?” Louisa pulled on her gloves with the same confidence she did everything. “Ten minutes of asking Mama’s opinion, thirty minutes of overseeing the footmen as they moved your easels and whatnot, and twenty minutes of setting things to rights, and you have your studio back, better than ever. Now I had best leave you, or my daughters will have fed the cloved oranges to Lady Ophelia.”

Jenny fastened the frogs of Louisa’s cape, wishing her sister could stay longer. “I thought Joseph’s pig preferred lurid novels.”

Louisa’s smile was wicked and gleeful. “Lady Opie doesn’t get a crack at those until Joseph has read them to me first. I threatened to name our firstborn Radcliffe, and oh, the lengths Kesmore traveled to bribe me from that notion.”

“You are so happy.”

Jenny hadn’t meant to speak the words aloud, much less sound forlorn when she did. Louisa paused with a red merino scarf half-wrapped around her neck, her smile fading. “I am. You will be too, Jenny. Christmas is the season of miracles, and surely, with all the holiday socializing, the mistletoe, the wassail… Did you know Eve and Deene exchanged their first kiss under the mistletoe?”

“I am not Eve.” And Elijah Harrison was not Deene. Elijah Harrison was on his way to Northumbria, where winter was very cold, and mistletoe likely hung from every rafter.

“Joseph and I kissed under the mistletoe too, before we were engaged. I daresay mistletoe had something to do with Sophie and Sindal’s initial dealings.”

Jenny glanced around at the soaring entrance hall to the Morelands mansion. Mistletoe was in evidence, of course. She wanted to burn every sprig and branch of it.

“I’m going to Paris, Lou. After the holidays.” The packet schedules were up in her room, and four days ago, Jenny had sneaked into the attics and set a pair of cedar-lined trunks to airing.

Louisa stopped fussing with her bonnet strings. “To Paris? Are you going to shop? With Their Graces?”

“No, I’m going to Paris to study art. They do that there—allow women to study art, not simply dabble with watercolor still lifes. I’ve had seven Seasons, and I cannot… I have no interest… Victor once said…” Louisa was studying her with what looked like understanding—or pity. “Will you write to me, Lou?”

“For God’s sake, of course I’ll write to you, but Paris? St. Just would cheerfully take you North with him, or Valentine would welcome you to Oxford—”

“No more damned racketing about as the doting maiden aunt. An artistic calling requires sacrifices, and it’s time I started making a few in the right direction.”

There. Jenny had put the situation into words any sibling could comprehend. Victor and Bart would both have approved.

Louisa left her bonnet strings trailing. “You just cursed, and now that I think on it, you haven’t called me dearest… I can’t recall the last time you called me dearest. Are you sickening for something, Genevieve?”

You have talent, Genevieve. Yes, she was sickening, and that was Elijah Harrison’s fault too. “I beg your pardon for my language, and I am not sickening for anything. I do not relish telling Their Graces that I am eloping. If I tell them, the holidays will be most difficult.”

Louisa studied her for an uncomfortably long moment. “If you don’t tell them, you’ll break their hearts. They need time to grow accustomed to this, Jenny. You’ll regret ambushing them and leaving them no time to adjust.”

Yes, she would. She’d also regret giving them time to change her mind about it.

“I reached my majority years ago, Louisa, and I have a competence from Grandmother Himmelfarb. Their Graces cannot deny my heart’s desire indef—”

The row of coat hooks along the wall by the porter’s nook caught Jenny’s eye.

“Think about this, Jenny. A step like this cannot be untaken, and you’ve never even visited Paris. You might hate it. Joseph says the stench on rainy days is horrendous.” Louisa treated Jenny to a fierce hug, kissed her cheek, and took her leave.

While Jenny ran her hand over a purple scarf of very soft wool with a subtle tartan print woven into it. She lifted it off its hook and brought it to her nose.

“Elijah.”

“I have a dozen grandchildren, counting various stepgrandchildren and works in progress. If you want subjects for juvenile portraits, we’ve a full supply. More brandy?”

Elijah passed his host an empty glass. “My thanks, Your Grace. Perhaps we could focus first on the painting for Her Grace that you mentioned in your note?”

In his summons, more accurately. The epistle had been three sentences long, and every word had savored of imperatives.

His Grace handed Elijah back a half-full glass, topped up his own drink, and resumed a seat on a blue velvet sofa near the fire. The blue of the velvet brought out the blue of Moreland’s eyes, something Lady Jenny had probably often noted.

“I still managed to look distinguished,” His Grace said. He wasn’t smiling, and the words bore no humorous inflection, and yet Elijah had the sense the man was poking fun at himself. “I’d like to memorialize myself for Her Grace before old age transmogrifies dignity into stubbornness and ducal consequence into pomposity.”

A towering need to search the premises for Genevieve Windham receded—but did not disappear—as Elijah considered his host’s words. A portraitist often became a repository for confidences, a consequence of time spent in close proximity to people who could not camouflage their thoughts and emotions with activity.

“This is not a public portrait, then?” And how did one convey on canvas the essence of a man who could use the word transmogrify convincingly?

His Grace considered his drink. “This is a gift for my duchess, not a statement of Moreland power and influence. The woman I love deserves such a token, but it’s one I’ve neglected over the years. To sit for a portrait has always seemed… arrogant, to me. Her Grace would have it otherwise, and so you see before you a willing subject, as it were.”

To Elijah, His Grace’s casual use of the word “love” was more impressive than all the polysyllabic blather Moreland had at his command. “My recent work at Sidling notwithstanding, I do not make a credible holiday guest under your roof, Your Grace. Her Grace will have to know the portrait is being done.”

“Young man, do you think I’m going to sit still for hours with only your company to occupy me? Of course Her Grace will know. She will supervise the entire undertaking, making sure I behave myself adequately to see the painting completed. You will consult her on every detail of the composition, and thwart her wishes at your mortal peril.”

This was beyond an imperative; this was Moreland Holy Writ, perhaps Windham family Holy Writ as well.

“Of course, Your Grace, though to finish the portrait between now and the first of the year will be difficult. I haven’t yet completed Sindal’s commission, and I’m sure you’ll have holiday duties that interfere with your sittings.”

“You are a bachelor, so allowances must be made.” His Grace rose, took up the poker, and jabbed at the fire. Elijah studied the duke’s movement, the way he hunkered before the hearth, the confidence with which he wielded a substantial length of wrought iron.

His Grace was not merely spry, as that adjective was applied to old men who yet managed to dodder around unaided. The duke was limber, lithe, and strong, full of energy and… determination.

“When you wed,” Moreland said as he replaced the poker in its stand, “you will understand that he who fails to make proper gifts at the proper time where his lady is concerned risks disappointing that lady, and living with the shame of his failure well beyond the end of the occasion. Do you know why I maintain a conservatory here, Bernward?”

“To protect delicate plants over the winter and conserve them for the next year’s spring.”

“To give my duchess flowers when she’s in need of them. You’re here for the same purpose, to give my duchess a portrait when she’s in need of one.”

No, Elijah was at Morelands because he could not get out of his mind that sketch Genevieve had done of him when he’d been trying to write to his sister. The rendering had been accurate, but it had been another image of a lonely man—also a man bewildered by a simple bit of correspondence to a younger sibling.

And in some dim corner of his brain, Elijah perceived that the answer to his loneliness lay in Genevieve Windham’s hands—or at least the temporary relief of it.

“I’ll need some help if I’m to be done before Christmas, Your Grace. Perhaps Lady Jenny might again assist me?” He took the last sip of his drink in hopes that request might come across as casual.

“What says you have to be done before Christmas?”

Lady Jenny’s travel plans said it plainly enough. “The Academy announces its new members along with the honors list, Your Grace. I’d like to be back in London to congratulate the new Academicians.”

And he did not want to be here when Jenny went on her wrongheaded, misguided, unnecessary pilgrimage to Paris. For it was a pilgrimage, though Elijah had yet to determine what transgression on Jenny’s part necessitated such a penance.

“You will not disappoint my duchess, Bernward. The portrait will be done in time for our open house on Christmas Eve.”

“As you wish, Your Grace.”

“Then be off with you. Any footman can see you to your quarters. Jenny’s about somewhere, unless her sisters have impressed her into doting on their offspring again. Ask the footmen. Put off dwelling at the family seat as long as you can, Bernward. One loses track of one’s family in these old mausoleums.”

Bernward. The title didn’t feel as awkward coming from Moreland as it might from many others. “Thank you, Your Grace. Am I to join the family at meals?”

One could wait above stairs in evening attire for a summons that never came, or one could plainly ask.

“For God’s sake, of course you will dine with us. Her Grace would never forgive me if I suffered Charlotte Beauvais Harrison’s darling boy to shiver away his meals in a garret. And you have some correspondence.”

The duke stalked over to the mantel and swiped up no less than three letters, which he shoved at Elijah. “Your womenfolk are after you, and spying on my house, no doubt. Never underestimate the espionage of females, Bernward. You will tell your sisters Morelands is gracious, snug, and majestic—regardless of drafty corridors, tipsy maids, or footmen who linger near the mistletoe.”

The tone was gruff; the wink was charming. Elijah took the letters, feeling as if the Earl of Bernward had just been welcomed into some benevolent protective society of males who must endure the holidays without cursing before the womenfolk.

“My thanks, Your Grace.”

Elijah took his leave, and had spotted no less than eight fat sprigs of mistletoe before he paused to wonder how his family had known he’d be at Morelands, when four days past Elijah himself had been convinced his next destination was Northumbria.