Charity Begins at Home

by Alicia Rasley

  At first tentatively, and then with gathering confidence, she daubed away at the great expanse of white. It was rather like painting a wall, she thought, then stole a look at Lord Braden. He was not painting a wall, she realized, as she saw the whale take shape under his deft hands.

  When she had covered the top half of the canvas with paint, he stopped his own work to study hers. After a moment of intense concentration, he nodded. "We'll let it dry until I paint the boat underneath. Then we'll have to add some shadow and contrast. You did well for now. Don't forget to rinse your brush in the bucket there, and then in the oil."

  She was too pleased with his laconic praise to retort that she, of all people, would never forget to rinse out her brush. But that done, she had nothing to do, and couldn't bring herself to leave.

  Lord Braden gave no sign that he wasn't content to let her watch him paint. Occasionally, as if he were tutoring a student, he pointed with his brush at some point on the canvas, explained why he chose this shade of black for the shadowy wrinkles above the eyes, or how he meant the open mouth to look like a tunnel into hell. It was all fascinating to her, listening, watching, as he worked.

  So though she had a dozen tasks to complete, Charity gave into temptation. She sat quietly on a pile of lumber in front of the window, her hands for once still in her lap. Even when he fell silent, she didn't let her mind dart about in its usual fashion, checking its list of unfinished duties, planning the rest of the week, crafting letters to her correspondents. No, there in a pool of sunlight she felt as warm and content as a cat. But like a cat, she was intent under her deceptive laziness, intent upon the artist making art before her.

  She liked to watch his slim hands, one balancing the gray-smeared palette, the other with an easy grip on a thick brush. His brush hand moved in small precise arcs along the outline of the whale, sometimes halting, then backing up to correct some infinitesimal mistake in an earlier arc. These were not the knobby splayed hands of a Kent farmer, neither the white exquisite hands of a London nobleman, used mostly for taking snuff and pulling on gloves. They were a working artist's hands, strong, hard, but elegant nonetheless in their grace and power.

  Finally she let her gaze drift to his face. He was so serious now. As he studied his work, his dark eyes narrowed and his straight brows drew together, but not in a forbidding way. Rather he seemed to confine his focus entirely to that square of canvas and paint, making minute unfathomable calculations and decisions, then acting to put them to effect. He no longer seemed to know that she was there. He might have been all alone, as intent as if this children's triptych were a fresco in the Sistine Chapel.

  Watching the play of light and shadow across his face, she wondered if such a concentration was uniquely masculine or uniquely artistic. She certainly could never shut out the world as he did or lose herself so completely in one activity. It was seductive, that solitude, that concentration, and sitting here, silent as he worked, she could almost imagine what it would be like, to be so very alone and yet so content.

  But the world was too much with her. When the sonorous church bells ran the call to evensong, she sprang to her feet. Half after five o'clock! She had been sitting here two hours, doing nothing! Her mind filled with the duties she had been neglecting: Mr. Greenaway's manuscript, the jumble booth collections, Charlie's lessons.

  But then she saw Lord Braden, standing slim and straight at the canvas, still frowning thoughtfully at his work. The great bells which called men in from distant fields were tolling only a hundred feet away. But he didn't hear them. And so she knew he wouldn't hear her slip out of the hall, to return to the world from which he had spirited her.

  Chapter Nine

  Francis's many virtues had never included subtlety. They had hardly finished lunch in the striped tent (the Greek folly had been deemed too spider-ridden for entry) before he began culling out the crowd that separated Charity from what he called her "prey." Cammie and the three boys were the first victims, ruthlessly sent on a nature walk in the adjacent woods. Anna was invited to climb up into the church tower, Francis declaring that once she saw the Greek monstrosity from above she would surely order it demolished before some neighborhood ruffians did it for her.

  Though she looked wary at the mention of the church tower, Anna joined into the conspiracy. With elaborate unconcern, she told her brother, "Show Charity your studio. She will enjoy that."

  So Charity and the amused Braden went off obediently toward Haver Hall. As they crossed the sun-filled meadow, she silently cursed her interfering brother. I would like to choose my own suitors, thank you, she thought righteously, kicking aside a pebble that lay in her path. But since very likely she would have made the same choice, and she did want to see Tristan's paintings, she thought it best not to make an issue of her brother's machinations.

  Lord Braden looked back at his sister, picking her way down the path to the church, her arm held securely by Francis. "I thought you said the whole point of this Midsummer fair was to fix the church tower. Are you sure it's safe for them to go climbing in it?"

  "As long as they climb inside, they'll be safe enough!" She stopped to point out the distant tower, a gray block in the sunlight, looming primitive and ominous over the pretty village. "It's only the masonry around the outside of the windows that needs repair. It keeps chipping off and falling. You must know cautious Francis would never put Anna in any danger! Except—" she glanced sidelong at him, "how does Anna feel about spiders?"

  "Hates 'em."

  They exchanged laughing glances, and Charity said with some satisfaction, "It will serve Francis right if she shrieks and faints and must be carried all the way down the stairs!"

  From the hill in the distance came childish shouts. The boys were embarking on their nature walk. With a shock Charity recognized the merry one as Charlie, laughing at one of the Haverton boys' interminable bickers. She had almost forgot what Charlie's laugh sounded like—startled and boyish above Lawrence's shout.

  Lord Braden laughed, too, hearing the children. "It was kind of you, by the way, to give my nephews parts in your great production. I understand you have tapped their greatest talent."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I asked if they had any lines to speak, and they said no, they are only to wield an oar on the boat, and to bellow with fear. They do," he added ruefully, "bellow very well."

  "Well, they were agog to see your painting. All the children were. But I thought it better to keep it covered. I've promised to reveal it when they've all learned their parts."

  "I'm to be an incentive, am I? I had best redouble my efforts, then, so as to be worthy of the wait." As he held open the hedgegate for her, he said suddenly, "Your brother and my sister think they are being very clever, arranging so deftly to send us off alone together."

  Charity took advantage of the moment he spent latching the gate to gather her thoughts. She recalled his instinctive withdrawal at the last luncheon they had shared, when he thought she was setting her cap for him. Had he decided he liked the idea after all?

  She was used to reading people instinctively, but she could not quite translate Lord Braden's signals, even as they applied to her. He was so much more enigmatic than most of the men she knew. She still didn't quite know why he had sought her out recently, whether it was merely out of gratitude or some other, more interesting emotion—and whether he resented or appreciated such transparent attempts at matchmaking.

  But his smile was rueful as he rejoined her on the walk. "I have lived abroad for so long, I am no longer accustomed to being ordered about by my elder sister."

  That was safe enough, talking about Anna, who was so much easier to interpret than her brother. "Doubtless it makes her feel stronger to dictate to you. It is kind of you to submit so.

  "And are you just being kind, to submit also?"

  Confused, she dropped her gaze to the path they were taking across the rolling lawn. The groundskeeper she had recommended had cropped the grass, she noted with ab
sent approval, but he hadn't got round to the finishing work yet. Bending down to pluck a handful of weed, she used the moment to gather her composure. "Kind? Not at all," she answered calmly, flinging the weeds away. "I just couldn't turn down a chance to see your work. Do you work on more than one painting at a time?"

  This response seemed to disappoint him. It was a moment before he said, "Yes, I like to have several canvases started. But my dealer in London is demanding one to show a special client." He cast her a speculative glance. "I'm certain the conspirators mean for us to stay away a good long time. Would you like to help me choose which painting to finish first?"

  Charity's mood suddenly brightened. Something told her that this special client might be very special indeed. A royal client, perhaps? "There's nothing I'd like better! If you don't mind, of course."

  "Why should I mind?"

  "Oh, because if I must choose, I must then tell you which painting I like best and which I don't like quite so well. Though I'm sure," she added hurriedly, "that I will like them all very well."

  Lord Braden shook his head. "If you like them all, then you will be of little help to me. Come, you must promise to be honest! You could never be as brutal as my teachers have been. I had one who used to rap me on the head with a palette because I used more red paint than any other student." He rubbed the back of his head, as if even the memory hurt. "After that, any critic who didn't hit me won my appreciation. Artists can't get through their training, you see, without developing a thick skin. A thick skull, also."

  "Well, you won't need either one, if I am to be the critic. I will like all your paintings."

  This promise made him pause on the path, reaching his hand out and taking her arm to stop her also. "How do you know that you will like them? How do you know I am not some hack-handed novice'? Oh, I know you have seen my masterpiece, 'Jonah's Whale,' but—"

  She was about to demur, but with a laugh he forestalled her. "Yes, I know you have been checking on my progress with the whale. I saw this morning how perfectly squared the cover was over the painting. I would never be so neat."

  There was no profit in denying her guilt, so she only observed, "The whale is nearly done, and it is done very well."

  "Ah, but perhaps that is the limit of my abilities. Perhaps I can draw nothing but whales."

  There was a teasing light in his eyes that entranced her, and even as they resume their walk she kept her gaze on his face. How easily he laughed with her now. His smile was almost carefree, easing the austere lines of his face. He could even make jokes about his own art, which Charity knew to be the most important thing in his world. "The whale is not the only work of yours that I have seen. I told you I saw two of your paintings at the Royal Academy. One was a lovely seascape—it was called Ferendisi."

  "And what was the other?" he asked. "I sent several and haven't heard yet which they mounted."

  She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it as the vision of the nude Aphrodite and the nearly nude Adonis flashed in her mind. "I don't recall," she replied haughtily.

  "Oh, that one!"

  Of course he knew exactly which she meant, and the lively light in his eyes told her that he found her primness particularly amusing. And considering the bold way she had spoken earlier in their acquaintance, she couldn't blame him. So Charity found herself laughing with him and describing her aunt's reaction to the Aegean Adonis, though not, it was true, her own. Candor had its limits, even among friends.

  He even showed his artist's eagerness for an audience, pressing her for the precise number of viewers who stopped at his paintings, a comparison with the admirers of J.M.W. Turner's works, and a list of the other artists represented. She warmed to the longing in his voice. She knew he was accustomed to spending the exhibition season in London and thought that he must miss the colloquy of his fellow artists. Impulsively she said, "The Academy's exhibition will be open yet for another week. Why don't you go up to town to see for yourself and meet that special client perhaps?"

  He paused only a moment to consider this, then shook his head briskly as if banishing regrets. "No, not now. There will be time enough for that in the future, when Anna is settled again. Besides—" he cast her a significant glance, "I've your whale and his Jonah to finish. And the fencing match Saturday, of course."

  As they approached Haver Hall, she considered him covertly from under her lashes. She had promised herself—and Francis—to take a holiday from thinking about the Midsummer fair today. But she couldn't help wondering if Lord Braden was a good enough swordsman to make the St. George audition a true competition. Crispin Hering was, of course, expected to win. But Lord Braden was lean enough for quick motion and all unstudied grace as he strolled beside her in his casual buckskins and soft Italian leather boots. And his hands, of course, were perfect—strong and yet deft. He would be good with a sword. An exciting match for the St. George role, she decided, could not help but increase interest in the Midsummer fair itself. And Lord Braden in motion, she added secretly, could not help but stir excitement among the young ladies in the audience.

  "There it is, my studio."

  They had come at the Hall from the back, and Charity shaded her eyes to see where he was indicating. "Oh, the old sunroom! We used to have puppet shows there when Kenny's little cousins came to visit. He used to chase us outdoors onto the balcony, and we'd climb down that oak tree to escape him."

  The preserving oak still spread its branches over the balcony. She put an affectionate hand on its sturdy trunk. "You see, the rungs are still here. Francis nailed them in, for he feared Ned and I would come to grief climbing down. Even Kenny made use of them when he wanted to sneak out at night."

  She gazed nostalgically up at the branches, recalling those childhood adventures, when the almost-grown Kenny was just as boyish as Ned and Francis was left to supply the mature wisdom. "We had such fun."

  She glanced guiltily at Lord Braden, wondering if he had had such childhood exploits. From what she knew of his life, she thought it unlikely. But he gave no sign of feeling deprived. Instead, he grinned at her. "It's unfortunate that you are too old and too dignified now to make the ascent."

  Charity had never in her life been able to turn down a challenge, even one she knew was unintended. "Too old'? You are mistaken, Lord Braden. I climbed a tree only last week to rescue a kitten. It's all a matter of skill—and privacy."

  "Privacy?"

  "Surely you know the rule—boys up first, girls down first."

  Lord Braden considered this somberly, his brows drawn together in a frown. "When I used to climb trees, propriety wasn't really a consideration. But if you insist—"

  She had never really supposed he would do it. He was lithe enough, of course, but it was rather at odds with a man's dignity to climb a tree. He didn't even take the easy route, up the rungs, but caught the first branches and swung himself up, something she in her encumbering skirts could never attempt. He was well into the sheltering branches before she remembered his hands, which were necessary not only to finish the whale triptych but also to fence that Saturday. "Be careful of your hands, do! Don't scrape them on the bark "

  His protest floated down from the upper branches. "Really, Miss Calder, I do know how to climb a tree without risking permanent disability."

  She strained to look up through the concealing leaves but did not see him again until he dropped onto the balcony and leaned over the wall. He was laughing at her, holding his hand out as if she might jump up and grasp it. "Are you coming? Or have you decided to take the long way through the house?"

  Charity sensed the Italian warmth now in his cool voice, the vowels were a bit longer, the consonants gentle. She recalled how tense he had been when they first met—was it less than a fortnight ago? He must have felt so inadequate to the task before him, and he was, like Charity, the sort to hate feeling inadequate. But now he was quick to laugh, quick to tease her about being a coward, showing a playful side she thought he usually kept hidden.

&nb
sp; I have been good for him, she realized, warming at the thought. She was used to having a positive effect on people; it was rather her purpose in life. But to make Lord Braden carefree, unreserved, that was especially gladdening.

  Now, laughing down at her from above, he looked like one of his own paintings of young gods, slim and golden in the noon sun. He had taken off his cravat and left the lawn shirt open at the neck. Charity's gaze lingered on that tantalizing triangle of chest, with its suggestion of dark curling hair, usually kept concealed. How came this to be tanned as golden as his face? She dropped her eyes, the heat rising in her cheeks as the likely answer came to her. On the Italian coast, she imagined, he dressed even more casually.

  It signified adventure, that careless dress, allowing quick escapes and freedom from restraint. She sensed again that foreignness surrounding him like a faint glow, as if the heat of the Italian sun still radiated from his body. She knew he was a gentleman, no rogue at all, but somehow he seemed more hazardous than the proper—or even the improper—English gentlemen she knew.

  His recklessness was contagious. She set aside any notions of modesty and decorum and glanced around to make sure the boxwoods encircling the garden concealed tier misdemeanor. Then she gathered her skirt in one hand and with the other took hold of the trunk and climbed up the rungs. She lost her sunbonnet before she reached the balcony. But her light sandals didn't slip off, and her feet stayed secure on the thick branch until, taking the hand Lord Braden held out to her, she dropped lightly over the wall.

  Once she found her footing on the stone floor, he released her. But that momentary contact was enough. She found that his fingers were callused, rough and smooth at the same time, and left behind a trail of heat on her hand. His merest touch thrills me, she told herself. But along with that illicit thrill came disquiet; she didn't know if she were quite ready to be thrilled, or if, indeed, this was the right sort of man to thrill her, this dark solitary man who was so foreign to her experience. Of course, she reminded herself, I wouldn't want to be so reduced that an ordinary man would thrill me.