by Karen Ranney
Margaret wanted the girl to expand upon her comments, but questioning her further would only elicit Helen’s curiosity. English servants had more freedom than those in Russia. If an English servant didn’t like his position, he simply left it, choosing another household in which to serve. Russian servants were treated more like serfs.
A servant in the Empire also had a tendency to comment more openly. But that didn’t mean, however, that the servants in Russia gossiped any less. Observing the behavior of those they served brought about endless amusement. Perhaps they were amusing, seen through the eyes of those who labored from dawn until dusk.
Margaret worked as hard as any scullery maid, but it was not easily identified as such. She stood for long hours in front of a canvas, staring at a blank spot, envisioning the depth and texture she wanted to see there. The translation of what she saw with her eyes and felt with her heart was always difficult to accomplish. Other people always thought it should be an easy process, that painting should be no more complex than simply wishing the image to appear.
Did authors feel the same pressure? Did they feel the same reluctance when viewing a blank page? Did they sometimes resent those who expected that the craft, their talent, would be so easy to achieve? In the case of a writer, however, their tasks to prepare for writing were so much easier than hers. They needn’t obtain pigment from the four corners of the earth, or grind it for hours, or mix it with oil in small quantities so the paint was neither hard nor would take weeks to dry. A writer’s only preparation was to sit in front of a blank sheet of paper and armed with a pen as his brush, await that instant when inspiration eased the transition from nothingness to a work of art.
Perhaps her life would have been easier had she been nothing more than a scullery maid. But there had never been a choice of that. She’d known, since she was a child, she was destined to scribble, as her mother called it.
Her talent had offered up some protection over the years. She was Margaret Dalrousie, favorite of the Russian court. If she had been nothing more than a scullery maid, she would have been at the mercy of any man above her station.
And she doubted if the Earl of Linnet would have sent her chocolate.
For the first time, she wondered at the Earl of Linnet’s marriage. Had it been as happy as she envisioned? Had they been a pleasant couple to be around? For that matter, had they even encouraged visitors, or had they found themselves complete when alone?
She was rarely curious about the subjects of her painting, but perhaps this newfound interest in the Earl of Linnet and his wife was the price she had to pay for the ability to paint again.
Did she have the ability to paint again, or was she just occupying her time with all these preparations to prevent testing her talent? What if she tried to work, only to discover that the same thing happened here as in Edinburgh?
Suddenly impatient with herself, she poured linseed oil into the bottom of the jar and signaled to Helen she’d pounded the pigment enough. For the next quarter hour, she concentrated on getting the consistency and the color just right.
Then, and only then, would she worry about whether or not she could paint.
Chapter 15
The sitting room was a bright and sunny place this morning. The snow from the night before had given way to a bright winter’s day. The crystals of snow and ice glinted with the sun’s rays, making the world a sparkling place.
He could almost believe in hope and joy on a morning like this.
Margaret was in place behind her easel. Today she was attired in a dark green dress, and he wondered if she’d selected it for the color. Did it bring out the hue of her eyes? Was she even that vain? Or was it vanity for a woman simply to accentuate her best feature?
Strangely, he would have thought her above such acts. The Margaret Dalrousie he was coming to know would simply disregard reactions to her appearance. Or dare those who disliked it to take their opinions elsewhere.
“McDermott,” Margaret said, pointing at a chair beside the window, “if you will sit where you sat before, please.”
“You’re here early today, Miss Dalrousie. Are your paints all prepared then?”
She only nodded, once more pointing imperiously toward the chair with the end of her brush.
He did as she asked.
“Where did you meet Amelia?”
Surprised, he turned to face her, but all he could see of Miss Dalrousie now was the top of her head and portions of her skirt.
“Do you always appear like a disembodied voice?” he asked. “It’s disconcerting.”
“I can look at you, McDermott, or I can paint. I cannot do both.” She stepped out from behind the easel, focusing her intent stare on him. “Which shall it be?”
“Painting, of course,” he said, and sat back in the chair.
“In most cases I demand silence. But you would have me paint something not there, someone I do not know or cannot see. Consequently, I would like to paint a picture of her in my mind before I attempt to put it on the canvas.”
She stepped back behind the easel.
“But I don’t consider it conversation, McDermott. You are merely helping me define someone I can neither see nor touch.”
Nor could he. Isn’t that why he was here?
“Forgive me,” he said. “For a moment I almost forgot. You are not merely a neighbor. You are Margaret Dalrousie, famous painter.”
“While you are the Earl of Linnet, famous widower.”
He stared in her direction. Did she say anything that came to mind?
“You were more than that, once. Well, weren’t you?” She peeked out from behind the canvas, one hand resting on the easel, the other clutching a brush. She’d allowed her hair to do what it would this morning, and it curled in riotous disarray around her shoulders.
She was a gypsy, wasn’t she? An avant-garde kind of woman. How very odd she was here at Glengarrow and that he was attempting to converse with her.
“You cannot mourn forever, McDermott. You will either wither and die yourself, or you will become such a hideous creature no one wishes to be around you.” With that announcement, she stepped behind the canvas again.
“Have you become an Oracle now, Miss Dalrousie?”
“Where did you meet Amelia?”
He frowned at her, but because she couldn’t see him, the expression had no use whatsoever. He turned back to the landscape, his mind recalling those moments seven years earlier. Was that all it had been?
“At a dinner party my mother gave,” he said. “She was the daughter of one of my mother’s closest friends. She was French. I’d heard her name before, of course, and I’m certain we probably passed each other at one entertainment or another. Edinburgh society is not that large, after all.”
“What was your first impression of her? What did you think?”
“What an odd question, Miss Dalrousie. Would you rather hear what she looked like? What she wore?”
“Can you remember? It’s been my experience men do not have the memory for wardrobe. Women do, but then we are more fixated on such things. Take yourself, for example. You are wearing a white shirt and black trousers again. It’s your common attire. I don’t think you truly notice what you wear. If you had a valet, perhaps you would. Have you no manservant?”
“Which question shall I answer first?” he asked.
“What did you think of her?”
“I don’t have a manservant, because I haven’t had one since London. I live a different life at Glengarrow than I did at Parliament. There is no actual need for someone to tend to me.”
“Did Amelia serve that purpose?”
Anger was a strange emotion. Just when he thought he was not capable of it, it bubbled free from its restraint and coursed throughout his body like a wave of heat.
“As in tending to me?”
“Don’t wives do that?” she said blithely. “It has been my experience on observing marriages that women tend to act like a manservant. How very thrift
y that must be. Once you marry, you can dismiss a valet, a majordomo, perhaps even a housekeeper. For no more expense than a wedding, you have obtained a bevy of servants.”
“I thought she was very sweet,” he said, ignoring her comment. “Unprepared for the conversation at dinner, perhaps, but that was something that could be corrected with a little more experience of the world.”
She didn’t speak for a moment, and he was wondering what barbs she was going to throw in his direction next. She was the most irritating woman, but then he’d known that before he’d given her this commission. It was his own fault he was sitting here being pummeled verbally by Margaret Dalrousie.
“Why are men attracted to helpless woman?” she asked.
He frowned toward the canvas again. But the question wasn’t directed toward him as much as the air itself. She didn’t seem to expect an answer, because she went on. “I have seen Cossacks turn to trembling jelly at the sight of a lone woman’s smile.”
“Perhaps because such women make us conscious we are men,” he said. “Or we have a need to be protective. Or perhaps they simply remind us we’re stronger, more equipped to deal with the world. I do not expect any of your suitors felt the same, Miss Dalrousie. No doubt they felt their very manhood was in peril near you.”
There, they were at least equals in insults.
She didn’t speak, either to refute his claim or bristle with indignation at his comment. Her very silence shamed him. Words were powerful weapons, and he knew that only too well. He was considered a brilliant orator by some, capable of swaying crowds, persuading stubborn old men. But he didn’t apologize for the remark. She was the one who’d thrown down the gauntlet, and he had picked it up and thrown it back at her.
“She was wearing a yellow gown, and I thought she looked like springtime. I thought at first she was too young to be there, and only later did I realize she was only a year younger than I was. She never appeared to age, Amelia. Sometimes, I would see her and Penelope together, and I could see the shadow of Amelia as a child in Penelope’s face. I think, even as an old woman, she would have appeared youthful. She had that kind of face.”
Margaret still did not speak, but he didn’t allow her silence to affect him.
“She had pale blond hair and blue eyes. They weren’t her best feature, however. She had a lovely smile, one that was almost always present. Even in the midst of a domestic crisis, Amelia could find a way to look at the bright side. So, perhaps you’re right,” he said, conceding a point. “She was peacemaker and housekeeper, and no doubt a great many other roles. But the one I recall the most was that of wife, companion. Friend.”
“How tall was she?”
The comment came in a dull sort of voice, as if Miss Dalrousie was deliberately ridding her tone of any emotion at all. Had he truly offended her?
“The top of her head came to the level of my chin,” he said. How very strange that the comment should cause so much pain. Was it because he remembered all those moments when she’d stood next to him, or sometimes at night when she’d stand looking out at the world and he’d come and put his arms around her and rest his chin on the top of her head?
“She was not as tall as you, Miss Dalrousie. She had a delicacy to her that belied her strength. She was not petite, but she was not an Amazon either.”
“I’m not that tall, McDermott. I daresay I come to your nose. Or maybe your eyes. The tips of your ears, perhaps. But no more than that.”
When they next stood together, he would have to see if she was correct in her assessment.
“What shall you paint her in? Most of Amelia’s gowns were in the trunk we took to France. But there are some items of clothing still here.”
He had forgotten, for a moment, that she knew only too well how many of Amelia’s dresses were left behind. He’d thrown one at her, hadn’t he?
“And you are willing to remove them from their shrine?”
He was prepared for her insult this time. He only smiled.
“Why were you traveling to France?”
He was not prepared for that question.
“My wife’s father was French. She’d not seen him for some time. He was ill, and had never seen Penelope. When he invited us, it sounded like a good idea.”
He heard his own voice and wondered at the lack of emotion. Strangely, it was the first time he had spoken of the journey to France to a stranger. Would she probe still further? Was this truly serving the painting, or only Miss Dalrousie’s curiosity?
“Do you need me to find you a gown of hers?”
“Not at the moment,” she said.
“Is it even possible for you to do what I’ve asked, Miss Dalrousie? I’ve given you an idea of Amelia’s beauty, of how lovely she truly was. But can you paint that?”
“Did you never argue? Did you never once become impatient with her?”
“I’m certain I must have,” he said. “Neither one of us was a saint.”
“But you can’t remember those moments?”
He shook his head, then realized she couldn’t see him. “No.”
Silence stretched between them, in which time itself seemed elongated. Strangely enough, the moments were not unpleasant ones. It was as if Margaret allowed him this time truly to remember Amelia.
Where he was sitting was a warm place, and the pain in his leg eased. He stretched out his hand, his fingers widening in the sunlight. He’d been so cold for so very long.
“I have never met a perfect person,” she finally said. “I’ve met kind ones, and self-serving ones, and even cruel ones. But never a perfect person.”
“The fact I cannot remember her imperfections does not render Amelia perfect, Miss Dalrousie.”
“In your eyes, she is. And because she is perfect, because she is rare, because there is no one else who could ever measure up to her,” she said, “you will never relinquish her in your memory. Amelia would not want that for you. Unless, of course, she was selfish and cruel in her own way.”
He stood and faced her. Her face peered around the side of the canvas, then she stepped out from behind the easel. Brave Miss Dalrousie, capable of fending for herself. Courageous enough to face the Earl of Linnet in all his rage.
“Have you taken it upon yourself, Miss Dalrousie, to rid me of my grief? Do you think to reason me from it?”
“I think you are a rational man in the core of you, but I don’t think you know what to do with your grief. So, you wallow in it like a pig in mud and think yourself virtuous.”
He’d never come so close to wanting to throttle a woman as he felt at that exact moment.
“Have you ever lost anyone you loved, Miss Dalrousie? Are you that much an expert at grief?”
“I’ve never lost anyone I’ve loved, McDermott. But then I’ve never been in love. Must I experience either emotion before I comment on it?”
At the moment he was so enraged he wasn’t certain he could reason. And if he could reason, he wouldn’t be able to speak.
“You loved Amelia, and loving her no doubt brought you great pleasure. Her loss brings you great pain. But isn’t that the price you pay for love?”
He took one step toward her, then cautioned himself, remaining where he was. He didn’t want to get too close to Margaret Dalrousie at the moment. He might take her shoulders in his hands and began to shake her.
Damn her, she seemed to know it if that small smile was any indication.
“There shouldn’t be a price to pay,” he said, biting out the words.
She carefully placed the brush in the tray in front of the easel and took one more step to the side so he could see her more clearly.
“Why not? Why is love exempt from every other experience in life? There are always pluses and minuses to everything, McDermott. Why is love not the same?”
Perhaps at another time he might have agreed with her. Right at the moment, however, he would have done anything other than admit she had reason on her side.
“For all your pain, Mc
Dermott,” she said, clasping her hands together and staring at him with that intent look of hers. “I think you were very privileged.”
He turned and walked back to the window, clasping the sash with both hands.
“So if I have five years of joy, am I supposed to have five years of pain?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “That’s the first honest statement I believe you’ve made today. How admirable you are not to know all of the answers to all of the questions of the universe.”
“If it makes you feel better to be angry at me, then so be it. I’m not the one who visited you with grief, McDermott. I am only questioning why you are so angry at the fact you’re in pain.”
He turned back to her.
“Isn’t it better you feel loss than you feel nothing? Some husbands might even feel relief to be rid of their wives. Not you. There is pain in your eyes, McDermott. And I see the lights on at Glengarrow often enough to know you don’t sleep well. For all your pain, I find myself envying you.”
“Why in hell would you envy me?”
“Because you’ve known love. A great many people haven’t. I don’t know how long it will last, but this pain you feel now is an homage of sorts, don’t you think? It’s a way of bidding farewell to what you did know, and perhaps even preparing yourself for what the future will bring. It isn’t something to fear as much as it is something to endure.”
“And yet you’ve never grieved. How very generous you are with your advice. Do you ever ask yourself why you’ve never loved, Miss Dalrousie? Is it because you’re not capable of being loved? It’s an emotion that thrives on being reciprocated.”
She clenched her hands together tighter, but that was the only reaction to his words. If she had flinched, if her skin had paled, her eyes narrowed, if she had made any response whatsoever to his cruelty, he would have ceased right there and then. But she looked impassive, almost resilient, and resistant to anything he might say, and that very stoicism irritated him and pushed his anger up one notch.
