* * *
Flint Hall was every bit as imposing as Morelands, and far more grandly appointed. Jenny suspected much of the art was her ladyship’s, though it wasn’t quite as warm or detailed as Elijah’s renderings.
“Their lordships will see you now.” The liveried footman was all that was correct and courteous, without being friendly. Her Grace swept by Jenny and paused outside a door to greet another lady of mature years.
“Happy Christmas, Your Grace!”
“Charlotte! Happy Christmas!” The ladies touched cheeks, linked arms, and Jenny felt misgiving uncoil in her belly. Elijah’s mother had that certain self-possession Jenny associated with émigrés and duchesses, a self-possession that might equate to impatience with a young lady seeking an audience with a son recently returned home. The marchioness turned a brilliant smile on Jenny, one that did not remind her of Elijah at all.
“Lady Genevieve, welcome. Elijah has told me much about you, and I confess I am most curious. Thomas, we’ll be having tea and a tray, please.”
As the ladies strolled into a roomy, paneled parlor, the marchioness bent her head close to Her Grace’s. “Did you like the portrait of His Grace? I am dying to see it. Moreland has such presence, much like Flint.”
Jenny did not hear the duchess’s reply, because Elijah was standing across the room, illuminated by a shaft of sunlight that showed him both tired and handsome.
So very handsome.
“Ladies, welcome.” An older fellow advanced, one who had Elijah’s eyes and chin. He bowed over Her Grace’s hand with old-fashioned courtliness, and still Elijah did not move from his spot by the window.
“And you must be Lady Genevieve. Elijah would no doubt enjoy showing you our portrait gallery, though we keep it chilly this time of year to discourage impromptu athletic competitions—to no avail, I might add.” Lord Flint cleared his throat. “Elijah?”
“Yes, Elijah,” the marchioness added. “The tea will take a moment, given the state of the kitchen of late. Show Lady Genevieve the portraits.”
Elijah held out his hand, and Jenny stifled the urge to run to him. “Nothing would please me more. Lady Genevieve, welcome.”
Still he did not smile. Jenny took his arm and processed from the room with him as if they were promenading around some ballroom before all of Polite Society.
“I should not have come.”
“I’m so glad to see you.”
They’d spoken at the same time, which caused Jenny to pause in her progress down a quiet, carpeted hallway. “I beg your pardon?”
Elijah glanced around. “My brothers are playing skittles in the portrait gallery, and it’s bound to be freezing. Come. We’ll have only a moment, and there are things I need to say to you.” He took her hand in his and tugged her into a room near the end of the corridor.
And Jenny allowed it—there were things she needed to say to him. They might be the last words she ever exchanged with him, but she needed to say them more than she’d ever needed to paint, draw, or embroider.
More even than she needed to keep a promise extracted by a wily, if mortally ailing, brother.
Elijah closed the door behind them quietly, and Jenny found herself in a room much like what the Windham children called Her Grace’s Presence Chamber. The walls were full of sketches, the furniture was as comfortable as it was elegant, and everywhere there was color. The upholstery was blue and cream, the gilding a mellow gold. Green pillows riotously embroidered with flowers added a comfy touch, and gold fleur-de-lis decorated the walls.
“There’s no red,” Elijah said.
“That’s what you wanted to say to me?” Though he was right. The room sported neither red nor pink, even.
“This is my mother’s parlor, and it has no red. But that is not what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say—”
He went to the door and locked it, which could presage either difficult words or—
He took her in his arms and brushed his mouth across hers. “We haven’t any mistletoe, Genevieve, and I know you’ll soon be on your way, but—”
Jenny went up on her toes and kissed him back, kissed him as if he were every destination on His Grace’s splendid itinerary and the place she’d come home to all rolled into one. “Hang the red, hang the mistletoe, Elijah.”
Hang Paris. She wanted to hang Paris, and yet she might still end up there. Jenny eased back, but did not leave Elijah’s embrace. “Happy Christmas, Elijah.”
His cheek rested on her hair. “That is your version of a holiday greeting now? I’ll not be introducing you to my brothers, if that’s the case.”
Jenny inhaled the scent of him and closed her eyes. To be in Elijah’s embrace was better than Paris, better than the world. “You left Morelands before I could give you my Christmas token.”
“I don’t need any tokens from you, Genevieve.”
He also apparently did not need to let her go, which was a fine thing indeed. Jenny, however, needed to see his eyes when she bestowed her gift, so she eased away.
“I need to offer this to you anyway, Elijah.”
He joined his hands behind his back, the same gesture His Grace had made when Jenny had announced a pressing need to add Surrey to the Itinerary from Hell. “If it’s a farewell, Genevieve, then you may—”
She put her fingers to his lips. “My gift is a question. I want to give you a question.”
He took her hand in his, his expression grave. “Ask, Genevieve. With me, you have ever only to ask.”
His fingers were warm around Jenny’s abruptly cold hand. Her heart thumped painfully against her ribs.
“Will you come to Paris with me?” That wasn’t what she’d wanted to ask, but it was close.
Elijah’s expression didn’t change. “Paris stinks, it’s full of Frenchmen, and they have addled notions of chivalry. Why do you want to go to Paris, Genevieve?”
He hadn’t said no. Jenny clung to that and to his hand. “I don’t want to go to Paris, and I’m not sure I ever did. I don’t want to go anywhere that means I can’t be with you.”
“Do you want a travel companion, Genevieve? If that’s what you’re asking, then I must refuse the honor.”
Pain threatened to buckle Jenny’s knees. “Not a travel companion. Not just that.”
“Somebody to paint with and appreciate art?”
“Not that either.” Because she would set aside her artistic aspirations happily in favor of creating a life with him.
“Good, because as much as I admire your talent and dedication, as much as I would enjoy seeing all the great capitals and treasures of the Continent—of the world—with you, I would decline that invitation too.”
It dawned on Jenny that he wanted her to ask a different question.
“What invitation would you accept? Tell me, Elijah, and I will extend it.”
He took a step closer. “You already have. You have invited me to love you, and I do, Genevieve. I love your heart, I love your gentleness and determination, I love your concern for all around you, and I love your kisses.”
He kissed her, a quick punctuation mark at the end of a lovely little list.
“But you won’t travel with me?”
“I’ve seen the wonders of the Continent, Genevieve. Stared at them for so long I was blind to much else, such as the wonders of a loving family and a welcoming home. Marry me, and I will happily explore those more impressive wonders with you, regardless of what country we find ourselves in.”
Marry me. The question she hadn’t known how to ask him. Jenny bundled into Elijah’s arms. “Yes. Yes to the family and the home, yes to becoming your wife. Nothing would make me happier.”
In the small parlor curiously devoid of pink or red, Elijah held her close, which was very good indeed, because Jenny felt as if she’d fly apart if he let her go, so great was her happiness.
“We can make Paris our wedding journey,” Elijah said, kissing her cheek. “Though I’d spare you a winter crossing if I could.”
>
She aimed for his mouth and ended up kissing his chin. “A New Year’s crossing, please.”
His hand slid down her back to cup her derriere and draw her closer. “I can’t wait a year.”
“This New Year.”
“Better,” he growled against her mouth. “Nearly tolerable, in fact. Kiss me.”
She did, and she was still kissing him when a tap sounded on the door.
Elijah smiled crookedly and eased away, pausing to tuck a lock of Jenny’s hair behind her ear. When he opened the door, Jenny saw his parents and Her Grace in the hallway.
The marchioness led the parental parade into the parlor. “Excellent! You are showing Lady Jenny your sketches. Her Grace tells me she has a similar collection, most of them done by her daughter.”
“Perhaps it will be a family tradition, then,” Elijah said. He slipped his arm around Jenny’s waist. “I am happy to inform the assemblage that Lady Genevieve has consented to be my wife. His Grace led me to believe my suit would be accepted, and Genevieve has indeed agreed.”
His Grace? As Jenny accepted a hug from her mother, she spared a thought to wonder when His Grace-of-the-never-ending-journey might have said such a thing.
“Welcome to the family,” Lord Flint said, bowing over Jenny’s hand. “Elijah, I suggest you complete the ceremony before you allow your lady to meet your brothers.”
“Flint, that is not funny.” Her ladyship bussed both of Jenny’s cheeks. “Now that Elijah has found a lady willing to put up with him, his brothers might well see the blessings to be enjoyed in the state of holy matrimony. Genevieve, well done.”
As Lord Flint led them back to the paneled parlor and poured generous cups of wassail, Jenny stayed by Elijah’s side.
“Do you really want to see Paris, my dear?” Elijah had bent close to whisper his question, while their mamas debated the use of the Windham chapel or the facilities at Flint Hall.
“Paris can wait. There are other things I want to see more.”
“Such as?”
Jenny gave him a very direct look. “If I’m to give up my art, then I expect certain consolations, Elijah.”
He set his drink aside. “Papa’s brew has addled your wits. What nonsense is this?”
“Someday you will become a Royal Academician, but not if your lady wife is showing up at Venetian breakfasts with paint on her fingers. I understand that.”
He studied her for a moment, as if trying to puzzle out which pigments would accurately depict her hair in strong sunlight. “You would stop painting, stop drawing, stop even embroidering?”
She hesitated only an instant before nodding. “I expect that home and family you allude to will keep me adequately occupied.”
“My mother bore twelve children, six of them boys.”
What did that have to do with anything? “I look forward to meeting your brothers and sisters.”
“Come with me, Genevieve. If you think a few babies will excuse you from your art, then you have much to learn as a future marchioness of Flint.”
He dragged her from the parlor, barely giving Jenny time to set her drink down, and hauled her up two flights of stairs and down a long hallway.
“This is the portrait gallery, also the cricket pitch, skittles hall, and pall-mall pitch, among others.” He opened a carved door and ushered Jenny into a room at least ninety feet long. “It’s cold. Take my coat.”
Frigid was a better word, but as Jenny gathered Elijah’s coat around her shoulders, she was content to endure the cold.
“You lot!” Elijah called to a group at one end of the room. “Clear out! I’m proposing to my prospective wife.”
Hoots and whistles resulted, and smiles from the young ladies, two of whom looked exactly alike but for their attire. As Elijah’s siblings filed past Jenny, the youngest fellow winked at her, and Elijah cuffed him on the back of the head.
“Pru is the worst,” Elijah said as he closed the door. “You must not allow him to cozen you, ever.”
Jenny made no reply, because she was too busy staring at the chamber before her. This was not a collection of a dozen or so renderings of the various Lords of Flint, but rather an exhibition, a room stacked as high as any in Carlton House with portraits, still lifes, landscapes, ensemble pieces, and the occasional academic study.
“Mother finds time to paint,” Elijah said. “You will too.”
Jenny turned a complete circle, taking in dozens upon dozens of completed works. They weren’t all brilliant—some were clearly experiments, others were quick efforts more whimsical than beautiful—but they all showed talent.
“She hid her talent for you,” Jenny said, hurting for the marchioness. “She did not want the Academy taking you into further dislike because she was so talented.”
“You’re wrong.” Elijah laced his arm with Jenny’s and started her on a tour of the room. “Mama has given away any number of paintings. She embroiders the most fantastic receiving blankets and christening gowns you’d ever want to see. What I’ve concluded is that she put aside the Academy’s notice because it really did not matter. In her day, she might have lobbied for membership, but she chose to be my father’s marchioness instead.”
Jenny gazed at smiling children, doting ancestors, Lord Flint on a bay hunter, Elijah as a young boy—she was going to study that one at length. “She made the better choice. The wiser choice.”
“She did, and we will too. There’s an epistle downstairs bearing the seal of the Royal Academy, and it has my name on it. I’m going to decline the nomination.”
As she had turned away from Paris?
“Accept it, Elijah. For your parents, for me, for yourself. You accept this gesture of recognition, and I will not give up my art.” He sent her a look that revealed his uncertainty, and Jenny fell in love with him all over again.
“You’re sure? I will never hide my wife’s talents, Genevieve. Not for them, not even for you would I do such a thing.”
Jenny wrapped her arms around him. “Your wife would not ask it of you, nor would she allow you to hide yours. But, Elijah?”
“My love?”
“As much as I look forward to sharing a studio with you and arguing with you about the proper use of the color green, I suspect we’re going to have a very large family.”
Elijah’s smile was devilish and sweet. “I suspect we will too.”
They shared several wonderful studios thereafter—at Flint Hall, at Morelands, at their London residence, and in the homes of each of Jenny’s siblings, Elijah having developed a preference for juvenile portraits and subjects being available in quantity.
They also argued over the proper use of every color in the rainbow, and over many other things besides.
And they had a very large, happy family, the first child—Rembrandt Joshua Harrison—making his appearance exactly nine months after the wedding.
Read on for an excerpt from Grace Burrowes’s
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The MacGregor’s Lady
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Hannah had been desperate to write to Gran, but three attempts at correspondence lay crumpled in the bottom of the waste bin, rather like Hannah’s spirits.
The first letter had degenerated into a description of their host the Earl of Balfour. Or Asher, Mr. Lord Balfour. Or whatever. Aunt had waited until after Hannah had met the fellow to pass along a whole taxonomy of ways to refer to a titled gentleman, depending on social standing and the situation.
The Englishmen favored by Step-papa were blond, skinny, pale, blue-eyed and possessed of narrow chests. They spoke in haughty accents, and weren’t the least concerned about surrendering rights to their monarch, be it a king who had lost his reason or a queen rumored to be more comfortable with German than English.
Balfour was neither blond, nor skinny, nor narrow-chested. He was quite tall, and as muscular and rangy as any backwoodsman. He did not declaim his pronounce
ments, but rather, his speech had a growl to it, as if he were part bear.
The second draft had made a valiant attempt to compare Boston’s docks with those of Edinburgh, but had then doubled back to observe that Hannah had never seen such a dramatic countenance done in such a dark palette as she had beheld on Balfour. She’d put the pen down before prosing on about his nose. No Englishman ever sported such a noble feature, or at least not the Englishmen whom Step-papa forever paraded through the parlor.
The third draft had nearly admitted that she’d wanted to hate everything about this journey, and yet, in his hospitality, and in his failure to measure down to Hannah’s expectations, Balfour and his household hinted that instead of banishment, a sojourn in Britain might have a bit of sanctuary about it too.
Rather than admit that in writing—even to Gran—that draft had followed its predecessors into the waste bin. What Hannah could convey was that Aunt had not fared well on the crossing. Confined and bored on the ship, Enid had been prone to frequent megrims and bellyaches and to absorbing her every waking hour with supervision of the care of her wardrobe.
Leaving Hannah no time to see to her own—not that she’d be trying to impress anybody with her wardrobe, her fashion sense, or her eligibility for the state of holy matrimony.
Her mission was, in fact, the very opposite.
Hannah sanded and sealed a short note mostly confirming their safe arrival, the earl having graciously given her the run of his library.
But how to post it?
Were she in Boston, she’d know such a simple thing as how to post a letter, where to fetch more tincture of opium for her aunt, what money was needful for which purchases.
“Excuse me.” The earl paused in the open doorway, then walked into the room. He had a sauntering quality to his gait, as if his hips were loose joints, his spine supple like a cat’s, and his time entirely his own. Even his walk lacked the military bearing of the Englishmen Hannah had met.
Which was both subtly unnerving and… attractive.
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