Her sister slapped a hand to her chest. “I wouldn’t say that,” she said, affronted. “I mean, even if it is tr—” Prudence wisely let the rest of that go unfinished. She coughed into her gloved fist before continuing. “Either way, what has happened is water under the dam.”
“That is not it. It is ‘over the dam’ or ‘under…’” Poppy caught the twinkle glimmering in her sister’s pretty eyes. “You’re trying to distract me.”
“Undoubtedly. Is it working?”
“Not a bit,” she lied, adding a teasing smile in return.
“There,” Prudence said, clapping her hands. “That is far better. I’ll not have my sister sit around her townhouse crying all day.”
“I don’t cry all the day,” she grumbled, shifting on the bench. In fairness, when they did come to visit, Poppy had greeted her kin with eyes still red from tears that she surely had to be nearly empty of.
“Very well, most of the day,” Prudence conceded. “But sitting around and waiting for Tristan’s mother to journey from Dartmoor?” She shook her head so hard, her straw bonnet fell back. “No. No. No. That woman is atrocious and if you thought Tristan being gone was reason for tears, wait until you share a roof with your mother-in-law. Horrid woman. Horrid. Horrid. Horrid.” Prudence slammed her bonnet back into place, and readjusted the dark sapphire ribbons.
At a loss as to whether to laugh or cry, Poppy buried her head in her hands and opted for the former.
“Never tell me you’ve gone and begun crying again,” Prudence said, sounding so put-out that Poppy’s shoulders shook all the harder.
And this time, when she picked up her head, Poppy dashed tears of mirth from her eyes. “I love you, Pru.”
Prudence’s lips formed a tremulous smile.
“Everything I ever said about Penelope being my favorite is slightly less tru—oopph,” she grunted as Prudence’s boot connected squarely with her shin. “I was teasing.”
“Which I’ll allow is better than your crying.”
Poppy laughed once more. When she was with Pru, she could almost forget that Tristan had gone. “Oomph.” Bending down, she rubbed at her injured shin. “What in blazes was that one for?”
“You’ve got your teary-eyed Tristan look, and I’ll not allow it. As it is, I feel in large part to blame.”
“You’re to blame for me marrying Tristan?”
“Indirectly, one might say. I’m to blame for your meeting him. Because of my husband and their friendship, that is.”
“Ah, of course,” she said with mock solemnity. God love Pru and her inability to detect proper sarcasm.
“As such, it is my responsibility to see that you’re not sitting around pining.” Pru’s gaze sparkled with resolve. “Tidemore women do not pine.”
“Actually, you pined a good deal.”
“That was different.” Prudence made a show of adjusting her bonnet strings.
“Oh?” She arched a brow. “And how so?”
“Because you’re my sister.” Her elder sister slid onto the bench beside Poppy. “I will see you smile again.”
“It has been a week,” she whispered; resting her head on Pru’s shoulder. A week of her heart breaking and tears falling and missing him. There was that, too.
“I’m so angry with him, Poppy,” Pru whispered. Stroking the top of her head the way she had when Poppy had burnt her favorite doll while having it pretend to smoke one of their brother’s cheroots.
“Don’t be.”
Her sister briefly stilled her fingers. “You’d excuse it?”
“I’d understand it,” she said wearily. Oh, upon learning what he’d intended and then in the immediacy of his departure, she’d railed at Tristan and his decision all over again.
“How?”
“Because at night when I’ve been unable to sleep, when I think of Tristan and…everything that’s come to pass, I understand that he made me no promises. I asked him to marry me.” Like Prudence had put an offer to her own husband. “Knowing I loved him. Knowing it would never be enough.” And worse…expecting that he would come to love her. She could admit to that, too. “And in that, I deceived him,” she finished on a faint whisper. Tears sprang again from those never-ending wells.
“Come now,” Pru gently chided, resuming her distracted stroking of Poppy’s head. “None of that. Today is a day where we shan’t think of husbands or marriage proposals or any of it.”
“We don’t have to do this,” she pleaded, not for the first time since her sister had arrived unexpectedly and announced her plans to bring Poppy to the Summer Exhibition.
“Oh, pooh. Of course we do. We always attend.”
Held at the Royal Academy, the summer-long event in Burlington House featured paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures and, for that, had become one of Poppy’s favorite times of the year.
In the end, the carriage rocked to a halt in Piccadilly, stealing the decision for her. “Here,” Pru shoved Poppy’s sketchpad into her arms, and then reached for her own supplies. “This shall be fun. You’ll see,” she promised, as the driver drew the door open and held a gloved palm inside.
“Pru?” Poppy said quietly; calling her from leaving. “Thank you.”
“I love you,” Pru said simply and then hopped down.
Mustering as much enthusiasm as she could, Poppy gathered up her reticule and hurried to join her sister, and the waiting lady’s maid who’d accompanied them. They walked along the cobbled stones; where throngs of patrons were streaming through the three doorways leading to the exhibition.
And for all the ways in which her heart had ached these past days, as she swept inside the arched entryway, the same exhilaration she’d always found from the arts swept through her.
“That is better,” Pru praised, her eyes already devouring the portraits and paintings that ran from the floor to the ceiling. Every last spare corner of the academy occupied by some piece of artwork. “Where are you going?” she called belatedly.
Lifting a hand in parting, Poppy didn’t look back. “To explore.”
And as Poppy wound her way through the crowd, the people around her remained wholly absorbed not in her or her scandal or her hasty marriage and then husband’s subsequent departure, but rather the work on display. And here, she could simply become…lost.
Her sketchpad resting against her shoulder, she studied the exhibits, a blend of pieces that harkened back to the Greek and Roman classics, to the English landscape…when from across the room, a framed painting caught her eye. Cutting a swathe through the crowd, she found her way to the exhibit.
An oil on canvas, the artist had also captured a landscape, and yet…
Poppy angled her head; studying the piece at various angles.
There was a rawness to the land; a wildness at odds with the tame English countryside. Both beautiful and haunting, bare trees and hollowed-out trunks sprang around a lake in a haunting juxtaposition of death springing from that water.
“You have a problem with it?”
It took a moment to register that the owner of that rude query had, in fact, directed it to Poppy. She blinked several times and stiffened as she registered the gentleman standing just beyond her shoulder. Close enough to annoy but not close enough to be considered rude.
“I beg your pardon?” she asked when he still made no move to abandon his spot. Dismissing him, she directed her gaze forward.
“Been staring at it for the better part of fifteen minutes.”
He’d go away.
But there were two certainties: one, she’d no intention of giving up her spot to some pompous gentleman who no doubt took exception to a woman being here. And two, she’d no intention of paying him any further note. “Have I? As a rule, I generally find it crass to spend one’s time at museums consulting a timepiece.”
The right corner of his mouth quirked. “Crass?” He spoke with an unfamiliar accent; it contained the traces of a crisp English but tended more toward the flat tones of an American.
“Rude,” she supplanted, even as she well knew it wasn’t a definition he sought. “Either way, I’m here admiring the painting.” And there was an entire exhibit he could occupy himself at until she’d moved on. And petulant as it may be, as all the visitors began filing to the front of the room for the upcoming lecture, Poppy dug her heels in and prepared to stay all the longer for spite alone.
“You’re admiring it, then?” Alas, it appeared the oddly dressed stranger had no intention of leaving.
“Well, not necessarily admiring.”
“Judging, then.” She was going to correct that erroneous supposition but he cut her off. “And what gives you the right to judge anything hanging in here, princess?”
“Two eyes. That is what gives me the right.” The blighter. Just another gentleman who thought a lady had no right to analyze artwork, or have a meaningful opinion on it. Unlike Tristan. Tristan had only ever insisted she own her appreciation of artwork. He’d never questioned either her opinions or her right to them.
At the dais, the President of the Royal Academy stepped to the forefront. “I welcome you all to the Summer Exhibition. Each year, we are brought together…”
“Do you wonder why they refer to it as a summer exhibition when it’s held in spring?”
“Hush,” she said from the corner of her mouth, willing the boorish stranger gone so she could resume her study.
“…The first exhibition was held now some fifty-six years ago…”
There was a smattering of applause at that announcement from the speaker.
“I mean, it would be as arbitrary as calling it a Winter Festival and hosting it in April,” he went on.
Poppy gnashed her teeth while the president of the Royal Academy spoke of the longstanding history of the exhibition and the distinguished artist who’d be honored that year.
“I’ll go,” the stranger vowed.
Thank goodness.
“After you tell me why you don’t like it.”
“I never said I didn’t like it.”
“…Largely self-taught, Mr. Caleb Gray relied upon books to develop his study of art.”
Poppy straightened, and the stranger forgotten, she focused on that introduction of the exhibition artist. Ladies in Polite Society were expected to have art lessons, and yet, they were prohibited from attending classes or lectures given at museums. As such, she’d simply accepted that her artwork would always be considered inferior for that reason. Only to find—
“So which was it? Admiring or judging?” the stranger interrupted her musings. “You’ve been frowning at it for the better part of twenty minutes.”
Which implied that not only had he been studying her but had been doing so for some time.
“Don’t inflate your ego, princess. Has nothing to do with you.”
Poppy sputtered, “I did not say anything,” she said loudly, attracting stares from the sea of patrons who turned in unison, before looking back to the monotone president droning on. “You are uncouth,” she muttered.
He winked. “Uncouth is a requisite of being American.”
Why was he still here? And more, why was she still here? Adjusting the small burden in her arms, she started around the stranger.
He neatly slid into her path, that movement so slight as to not be noticeable and raise attention. “Isn’t the purpose of attending an art exhibit to discuss art?”
“Yes. Just not with strangers.” Poppy did a search for Pru, and found her near the front of the auditorium, speaking with Lady Diana Marksman, the daughter of a duchess, who’d married the head guard of the Hell and Sin Club.
Pain: vicious, biting pain clutched at her chest as the pair was joined by Diana’s husband. A husband who accompanied his wife throughout London and all over Europe in her love of art. That was what I wanted. With Tristan.
“Doesn’t seem like you English ladies are gonna learn much if you’re just talking to each other.”
It took a moment for the boorish stranger’s criticism to penetrate her own miserable reverie. “I beg your pardon?”
A handful of inches shy of seven feet, the man was a veritable giant, and he lifted his broad shoulders in a shrug. “Sitting around, sipping tea, comfortable in your homes as you create art that no one will ever see.”
She gasped as fury whipped through her. And yet…something held her stinging reply back.
I dare because I might have been banished by society, but I’ve fought at every turn, and you? You speak of me, but you’ve done something far worse. You’ve hidden yourself…not because of Rochford but long before him, because you’re too afraid of what the world might actually say about your talents. Coward…
The stranger was such an aching echo of Tristan’s own challenge, that emotion swarmed her.
And accepting that the tenacious bounder wasn’t going to leave her unless she answered, Poppy relented. “The painting does not know what it wishes to be…it doesn’t know whether it wishes to represent life…or death and so a person cannot sort out that which he sought to convey.”
“Why can’t it be both?”
She paused, as the first words this man had uttered to her made sense. “I…it can,” she at last conceded. It is why the imagery evokes both a sadness and light.
“Exactly.”
She started, failing to realize she’d spoken aloud.
“Do you sketch, princess?”
Poppy followed his gaze to the sketchpad she still clutched. “Don’t call me princess.”
“I wouldn’t…if I had a name.” He winked.
And it occurred to her…the bounder was trying to learn her name.
“Fine, princess it is, then. May I?”
Except, there was nothing even remotely improper in his eyes; instead, he again gestured for her sketchpad…
I speak as though what you do is safe. You’d call me out, and yet, bold and spirited and proud as you are, you’ve hidden yourself away. In empty rooms of your sister’s hotel, away from Polite Society. On your sketchpad… Where no one will ever see your work or know what you do…
Her husband…he’d been correct about so much. It was why even now she found herself handing over her work to the unlikeliest of people: the rude stranger before her.
He flipped through quickly, with a methodical turn of the pages, not so much as pausing as he turned. Snapping the book closed, he held it over.
And said nothing.
Which was fine. His opinion didn’t matter. He was a boorish, strangish man.
It was also why, as he turned to leave, she should be nothing but relieved. “Well?” she called after him. For his opinion did matter. She did wish to know what the world believed of her work, even as nausea roiled in her belly at the same time for fear of it.
“It’s all safe.”
There it was again. That word.
Poppy’s toes curled in her boots, digging into the leather soles. “You barely looked.”
And the nameless stranger took that as invitation to return…which may have been what he’d intended.
“Your skies are all perfectly blue. They conjure summer. The grass is crisp, a sharp emerald that depicts that same season. There’s no contrast. There’s no thought in it.”
There’s no… And Tristan proved correct once more…she had been hiding herself away. From this. From this criticism that shouldn’t matter because it came from a stranger, and yet, was all the more agonizing, because it did. “Oh,” she said, deflated because she had to say something. She’d not let herself say nothing.
“Not all of them.”
Poppy lifted her chin at a defiant angle. “I’m not looking for false compliments.”
“Pfft, princess, I don’t hand out any compliments, false or otherwise. Tenth page.” His was a dare.
Hefting her book open, Poppy licked the tip of her index finger and flipped through the sketchpad—and stopped.
Her eyes slid closed.
The sketch she’d created for Tristan’s mu
ral.
“Those dogs, poised to strike, the birds in flight; you’ve captured your loathing for hunting, and yet, also the excitement men find in the sport.”
He’d seen that. Speechless, Poppy hugged her book protectively close.
“I saw that. Whatever emotion compelled you to create that, princess? Find it again.”
“…and introducing Mr. Caleb Gray.”
“Excuse me, princess,” he drawled.
And with a slow-growing horror, Poppy followed his march, praying, pleading…please don’t let it be—the gentleman approached the dais and was met with another series of applause as Caleb Gray took up a spot at the front, and looking out through the crowd, his gaze found her.
“Bloody hell,” she whispered.
He winked. It was him. The lead artist whose work was on display. And she’d stood there beside him, the whole while rude and—
“You were speaking to Mr. Gray!”
Poppy gasped. “Pru, you startled me,” she said lamely.
“What did he say to you?” her sister demanded, catching her by the shoulder. “Or dear God”—horror stamped her features—“what did you say to him?”
“I…nothing,” she lied as mortification crept up several degrees. After all, her sister suspected that Poppy had insulted the gentleman…which she had. She’d only questioned his painting and skill. “He…looked at my work.”
Prudence’s eyes threatened to bulge from her face. “And what did he say?”
“He was…unimpressed.” Not wholly. There’d been one work he’d seen promise in.
“Unimpressed.” A scowl replaced her sister’s earlier reverence, as they looked to the front where Caleb Gray was just making remarks to the crowd. Brief remarks. No more than a handful of curt sentences, without so much as a “thank you” for his work being displayed, and then he was striding swiftly from the dais. “The boor,” Pru muttered. “Your work is magnificent.”
Yes, Poppy had been of a like mindset until the gentleman had rightly called her out for it. Safe. Tristan and Gray were both correct. For all the ways Poppy had believed herself bold and adventurous, in her work and in her life, she’d never challenged herself to see more…nay, to want more and expect it of the world. “He wasn’t wrong, Pru.” He was…
Courting Poppy Tidemore (Lords of Honor Book 5) Page 25
