Flaming June

by Emma V. Leech

  “Henry!” she exclaimed, trying her best to moderate her voice as she drew the bedcovers up to her neck. “What are you doing in my room at this hour?”

  He gave her a wary look before sending a longing glance at the paper and pencil he’d dropped.

  “I married you. You must stay now, and I can draw you. You said I could,” he added, a defiant glint in his eyes.

  Isabella looked back at him, somewhat surprised. It was the longest sentence she’d heard him speak.

  “Yes, I did,” she agreed, wondering if she ought to feel afraid or threatened by this large man in her bedroom, even if he was her husband. “But you can’t just come in and draw me while I’m sleeping.”

  “I can,” he objected, gesturing to the paper as he inched closer to it. “I did.”

  Isabella snorted, amused despite herself. “That doesn’t mean you ought to,” she replied, her tone dry.

  Henry shrugged his huge shoulders, unimpressed. “I didn’t wake you. I was quiet, so you could sleep.”

  “That’s true,” Isabella allowed, trying to be fair to him. Jack had said he didn’t understand the rules like most people, so she would have to teach him. “But I cannot have you coming in and out of my room as you please. It’s not right.”

  Henry moved to pick up his paper and pencil and the wooden board he leaned on to draw. “It is,” he replied, the words firm. “I married you.”

  Isabella quailed a little, wondering if he was implying his rights extended further than that, but he settled himself back on the bed and showed no interest in anything further than drawing her.

  “Henry!” she exclaimed as he put a new piece of paper out and began once more. “I won’t let you draw me.” Isabella scowled, folding her arms over the bedcovers in fury.

  “Can’t stop me,” Henry said, his tone placid. “I’m bigger than you,” he added, which might have been alarming if there hadn’t been the slightest glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

  Isabella scowled harder and wondered just how much he understood.

  “Go away!” she insisted, feeling irater than ever as he ignored her. She may as well have been a statue for all the good it did her. Henry sketched with the single-minded concentration of a man absorbed. Sitting back against her pillows with a flounce and a huff of fury, Isabella ignored him and hoped he went away.

  A good forty minutes later, her stomach growled, and Henry was still sketching.

  “At least show me what you’ve done,” she snapped, reaching for one of the growing pile of sketches on the bed. Henry’s hand slammed down on the papers and Isabella jumped. “They’re of me,” she objected, refusing to be cowed by him. He might be the size of a prize bull, but he wasn’t exactly bright. She could handle him.

  “They’re my work,” he countered, tugging the papers further from her.

  “Show me,” she insisted, frustrated by his obstinacy.

  To her surprise, Henry paused, staring at the papers and then looked up at her, a smile at his face that made her breath catch. Good heavens, she hoped she could get used to that smile, it was disarming in the worst way. “Say please,” he said, grinning at her now.

  “Why should I?” she demanded, more out of curiosity than any unwillingness to do so.

  “Because you must ask permission to touch,” Henry replied, a note to his voice which made her skin prickle with awareness. He was staring at her now with that intensity burning in his eyes that made her doubt he was the half-wit she’d believed him to be.

  “Please, Henry,” she said, the words grudging as she didn’t want him to feel he could manoeuvre her. Not him.

  Henry pulled the drawings up the bed where she could reach them, and Isabella turned them to face her. One by one she sifted through them, and her heart grew cold as she saw the image of an angry, hard-faced young woman staring back at her. Her throat ached, and she couldn't swallow.

  “Is that what you see, when you look at me?” she asked, hearing misery in the words.

  Henry shook his head, his expression a little puzzled as he gazed at her. “It’s what you showed me. It’s the mask you wear. Everyone has one,” he added as she stared back at him, bewildered by his words.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, though she knew what he meant well enough.

  “This is how I see you,” he said, picking the drawing up that had fallen to the floor. He handed it to her and Isabella felt tears prickle at her eyes. She had received lavish compliments in her time, told she was a beauty, a diamond, the embodiment of perfection, yet she had never felt it. The men were always flattering her for their own ends and her own eye was too critical. She’d been well trained to pick out the flaws by her mother, who was only too ready to point them out to her. Her hair was too yellow, a common shade. The heart shape of her face was attractive enough, but her nose too narrow, her cheekbones not high enough. Her mouth was a perfect little cupid’s bow, but too small.

  None of this showed in Henry’s drawing.

  The sketch revealed a sensuous image, a beautiful woman lost in dreams. Her hair spilled over the pillow in luxuriant waves, serenely content in her repose, the faintest trace of a smile at her lips.

  Isabella felt a tear gather and fall and slid the picture back to Henry, afraid to damage it by crying over the paper. Once more, her emotions seemed to push at her chest, threatening to overwhelm her. Henry pushed to his feet, his expression one of confusion and alarm.

  “Why are you crying?” he demanded, a thread of panic in his voice.

  Isabella wiped the tear away with the back of her hand. “I’m not,” she said, aware that he looked anxious again and not wanting to upset him further.

  “Don’t lie,” he shouted, making her jump. “I saw … I …”

  She sucked in a breath, about to explain, but before she could say another word, he’d slammed the bedroom door behind him. It opened again a moment later, a furious-looking Jack stalking in.

  “Good heavens!” Isabella cried, snatching the bedcovers to her neck once more. “Am I on public display?”

  “What’d you do to Henry?” he demanded with no preamble. “He just went past me in a right passion.”

  “Nothing!” she retorted. “I woke up to find him sitting on my bed, drawing me!” The words were indignant, and Jack hesitated, knowing as well as she did that this was pushing the limits of their agreement. He looked at the bed, though, and the half dozen sketches of a bad-tempered young woman. “Looks like you didn’t throw him out right away,” he observed, his tone insinuating.

  “As if I could!” Isabella shot back, furious and horrified, especially as she’d noted what a handsome man Henry was. Jack wasn’t to know how appalling her one encounter with a man had been. She had no desire to repeat the experience, no matter how handsome he was. Not with a man who was touched in the head. What an idea! Good Lord, what if she was to have a child like him?

  “All right,” Jack said, relenting a little. “I’ll have a word with him, though I doubt it’ll stop him,” he added. “And don’t bother trying to find the key to the door. You’ll only make him angry, and then you’ll get woken up, all right.” There was a warning note to his voice which, made Isabella stare with alarm.

  “You mean to say I can’t lock my own door?” She stared at him in horror.

  Jack shook his head. “No. I’m saying it’s not a good idea. Henry don’t like locked doors. He worries what’s behind them. He’ll get upset and likely break it down.”

  “Am I to have no privacy at all?” That both men had waltzed into her room without a ‘by your leave’ seemed to answer the question, but she asked it anyway, furious by now.

  She watched as Jack scratched his head, his expression thoughtful. “I’ll speak to him,” he said, nodding. “But you remember,” he added, his tone accusing. “You wanted to stay.”

  There wasn’t much she could say to that, so she glowered at him.

  “Well, then,” he asked, astonishing her as he returned to his first question. “H
ow’d you upset him?”

  Isabella threw herself back against the cushions with a flounce, rolling her eyes at him. The impropriety of Jack conversing with her while she remained in bed was staggering, but really, what was the point? “It was that,” she said, gesturing to the lovely drawing on her lap. “It …” She paused, her tone softening as she looked at it again. “It’s so lovely. I … I don’t know,” she said, throwing up her hands. “It touched me. I’ve never seen myself look so beautiful and it made me feel rather weepy, I suppose.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Jack said, shaking his head. “Don’t tell me you turned into a watering pot?”

  “No!” Isabella sat up a little straighter, indignant at the accusation. “One tear!” she objected. “And I wiped it away when I saw he was bothered by it.”

  “So,” Jack said, watching her. “He asked why you was crying and you said …”

  Isabella hesitated, remembering now that Jack had advised her to be honest, always. “I… I said I wasn’t,” she replied, feeling foolish now, though heaven knew why.

  Jack shook his head at her, his expression resigned. “He’ll think you lied to him. You did lie to him.”

  “I know!” Isabella snapped, frustrated now. “I just didn’t want to upset him further …”

  “He’s not a child,” Jack said, the words irritated now. “Don’t treat him like one. Why not tell him the picture was beautiful, and it moved you? He’d have understood that. It would have pleased him.”

  Isabella bit her lip, wondering the same thing. It would have been easy enough to confide her feelings to him, and she felt certain he would have understood, just as Jack said. So why not? She would have seen him smile, too, seen that happy warmth bloom in his trusting brown eyes. Yes. That was why she hadn’t.

  Chapter 7

  “Wherein Henry plans for the future.”

  “Henry, I’m telling you, it isn’t decent. I won’t do it.” Jack gave Henry his list back and folded his arms, aware of Henry’s determined gaze watching him. “No.” Henry stared, silent, but displeased. Jack huffed and shook his head. “You can’t expect me to ask for such things,” Jack wheedled, knowing he would not win this. Henry had made his mind up, and he’d not let it go now.

  Henry slid the piece of paper with the lists of items he wanted from town back across the table and Jack groaned. Going into a book shop was bad enough, the snooty devil that ran it always treated him like dirt. Having to order every available medical text on pregnancy and childbirth was the outside of enough. There was no way around it, though. Henry would get back at him if he didn’t do as he asked. As he was showing signs of joining the world again, Jack couldn’t risk sending him into a month of silence as he fumed at being thwarted. It gave him an opportunity, though.

  Jack let out a breath and sat back in his chair, regarding Henry now, eyes narrowed.

  “I tell you what, Henry. If I do this for you, you give something in return.”

  Henry’s shoulders stiffened, a wary expression clouding his face.

  “Isabella is a lady,” Jack began, wondering how best to proceed. “Life here is very different for her, difficult, too. You’re her husband now, and it’s your duty to make her happy. You remember, when your father spoke about your mother, about their life together?”

  Henry nodded, a slight frown at his brow as he considered Jack’s words.

  “She won’t want to live like we do, Henry.”

  Henry’s frown deepened. He shifted in his chair and stared down at his hands on the table-top, avoiding Jack’s eyes now. To be honest, Jack wasn’t sure why he was interceding on Isabella’s behalf except … he hoped. He still didn’t trust her an inch. That she was plotting to run away the minute a better opportunity presented itself was more than likely. Yet the way she’d acted with Henry a time or two, instinctively, and with no fear, it made him wonder. If Jack could make things comfortable for her, more like what she was used to, and if she could see the man Henry really was …

  “I think you need to start by giving her some of the things she wants,” Jack said, praying that the woman wouldn’t prove him a fool. “Let her have her room decorated, and the parlour, too. Give her a place that’s clean and pretty, where she can be comfortable.”

  Henry’s hands clenched as he shook his head. “No people.”

  Jack sighed. “Look, you’re usually out all day anyway, they could come and work while you’re not here. You’d be none the wiser. I’d make sure they’re gone before you get home.”

  Henry shook his head, still avoiding Jack’s eye.

  “Don’t you want her to be happy, Henry? Don’t you want her to stay?”

  Henry looked up then, fear in his eyes, such anxiety visible that Jack worried all the more. “I married her, she has to stay now.”

  Jack shrugged, hoping he was doing the right thing. If he upset the man too much, there’d be hell to pay. “She might not,” he said, his voice cautious. “If she’s unhappy. Women can leave, even married ones, they can run away, especially if their husbands don’t treat them well.”

  Jack watched the play of emotions across Henry’s face. It was strange how some days he was so shuttered up, and others he’d give himself away, his heart an open book. He stared at the table, at his big fists clenched one beside the other.

  “While I’m not here?” he asked, the words careful. He glanced up at Jack, who gave him an encouraging smile.

  “You wouldn’t see them. I’ll make sure.”

  Henry chewed at his lip, mulling this over. “I want to draw her,” he muttered, and Jack realised what he was getting at. Their conversations were often a kind of short-hand, with Jack filling in the gaps as best he could. Knowing Henry like he did, he usually understood.

  “Yes, that’s a problem,” Jack replied, rubbing his chin as he considered. “She’ll not be able to stay out all day like you do, even if she goes with you. Not in her condition.” Jack pondered the problem. “Well, we’ll get the decorators to work short days. It’ll likely cost twice as much, but that hardly matters to you, does it?” He wondered if Isabella had guessed just how wealthy Henry was. He certainly wasn’t going to volunteer the information. “You’ll have to make sure she keeps warm, though. Look after her, make sure she rests. Take blankets and light a fire for her, eh?”

  Jack watched as Henry nodded, his face grave. “I’ll look after her, and the baby,” he said, the words serious.

  “Good lad,” Jack said, giving a sigh of relief. “One more thing, though,” he added, remembering his conversation with Isabella. “You didn’t ought to let yourself into her room whenever you like.”

  Henry’s expression turned mutinous in a second and he folded his massive arms. “We’re married.” The words were succinct, and Jack shot him an anxious glance. “That’s true,” he said, treading this dangerous path with care. “But you wouldn’t like it if she disturbed you while you were working.”

  To his astonishment, Henry frowned at that and then shook his head. “Wouldn’t mind.”

  Jack gaped. He knew exactly how much Henry minded being interrupted while he worked. He stared, bewildered, so much so that Henry shifted, uncomfortable under his astonished scrutiny.

  “I like her,” Henry added, sounding defiant as he sat up straighter, folding his arms tighter still.

  “Well!” Jack said, rather indignant. “I like that. And what about me?”

  Henry looked startled by the tone of Jack’s voice, not understanding his annoyance at being usurped. “I like you, too, Jack,” he said, giving Jack the impression he’d bolt from the room if he didn’t moderate his tone. “But I like to look at her. She’s pretty.”

  Jack stared for a moment and then burst out laughing, finding himself laughing harder at the relief in Henry’s face.

  “Well, I can’t fault you there, lad,” he admitted, amused now. “She’s easier on the eye than my ugly mug, I grant you that.”

  Henry looked puzzled and then got to his feet. He paused and then tur
ned back to Jack. “Not ugly at all, Jack,” he said, shaking his head and looking perplexed. “You have a good face. Honest and strong. Kind. It shows in your eyes.”

  Jack felt a lump in his throat as Henry left, and laughed a little quieter. The fellow was disarming without even trying. He wondered if Isabella could resist the real Henry if he allowed her to see him for real.

  ***

  Isabella was unimpressed at the thought of spending hours of the next day outside.

  The weather had improved, and the sun shone, at least, but it was still frosty and cold. By nightfall, they huddled around the fire as the temperature plummeted. She stared into the flames, now, and spending the whole of tomorrow freezing while Henry studied her did not appeal.

  Still, Jack had no doubt had to work to get Henry to agree to have the decorators in, and Isabella was excited about it. She’d enjoyed choosing from the paper samples and material swatches they had supplied for her, spending days pouring over them, and the catalogues of furniture that Jack had brought for her from Bath.

  Her mother had never allowed her to choose things for herself before. Lady Scranford had always ruled the house, its décor, and Isabella’s wardrobe. Not that she’d been badly dressed. Her mother had a good eye for fashion, but her choices were always rather severe of cut, and the colours muted. Isabella had longed for something with a splash of bright colour, something that caught the eye. The deep blue dress she’d been wearing the night her mother had thrown her out had been the only one she’d ever gotten her own way on. Her mother had never allowed her to wear it out of the house before, though. Ironic, really.

  All the time she had pondered and made lists of her choices, Henry had studied her.

  She looked up now as she made her choices for the parlour they sat in, finding his dark eyes upon her as they flicked back and forth between her and his paper. The muted scratch of the pencil was as constant as the clock ticking on the mantle and Jack’s soft snoring from his chair by the fire.