Grace Burrowes - [Windham Sisters 05]

by Lady Jenny's Christmas Portrait

  Plainer than that, he could not be. Not without lapsing into profanities, but what mattered the committee’s blessing when Genevieve was packing for the Continent, and the last coffin nail was being pounded into Elijah’s relationship with his family?

  Genevieve had told him to go home, so home he would go.

  Buchanan regarded him for another moment, looking less like a politician and more like a man who’d once rendered portraits and had the knack of reading faces. “I’ll get your father’s package. It’s in my study, and your drawing is with it.”

  Elijah followed him through a chilly, dank house—the damp could not be good for all the art displayed on the walls—into an equally chilly, damp, and cramped room toward the front.

  Buchanan’s study had good light, though. As Buchanan opened a cupboard and extracted a leather tube about thirty inches long, Elijah realized they were standing in what had once likely been a studio.

  “Do you miss it?” Elijah asked.

  Buchanan passed the leather case over, his eyes revealing comprehension of the question. “I do. I should not have stopped, but the Academy is a fine institution, and it wanted guidance. I was never as talented as some, but I miss the painting. I do miss it.”

  He let go of the case, and his lips quirked up. “I’ll keep your sentiments regarding the committee to myself, for now. That is a fine, fine portrait, Bernward.”

  Elijah turned to follow Buchanan’s line of sight, only to be gut-punched by the painting hanging against the far wall.

  Genevieve and the busy, laughing little boys, old Jock snoozing happily, and everything Elijah had ever wanted summarized in one painting. Even as his mind comprehended that the portrait was good—better than he’d known—his brain was scrambling to make sense of the painting in its present context.

  “What is that doing here?”

  “I agree,” Buchanan said, stepping closer to the painting. “If I’d commissioned this, I would never have let it out of my sight, but it arrived with a note from no less than His Grace the Duke of Moreland, with leave for the committee to consider it when deciding upon their nominations. Said his daughter, whose artistic sensibilities eclipse those of any academy member, required it of him. Even Fotheringale shut up for once. You apparently have a talent for rendering children.”

  Or for rendering any setting that included Genevieve Windham, and yet the committee’s flattering reception of this one painting did not change anything—anything of consequence—one bit.

  Though Elijah spared an internal sigh for Genevieve’s generosity of spirit. Maybe a return to the Harrison family seat would help ease that ache—and maybe not. “I’m off to Flint Hall, Buchanan. You’ll want to send that painting back to Kent with all due care.”

  Elijah snatched up the case of drawings and departed. When he’d traveled halfway to Flint Hall and had to stop to rest his weary horse, it occurred to him to wonder what was in the case.

  Some of his mother’s drawings? She was quite talented… and yet, the package was for his lordship. A gentleman did not open another gentleman’s mail.

  Though Elijah’s drawing of Jenny and the children was in there, and Elijah was seized with an abrupt yearning to look upon that image. He wanted to indulge the impulse now, before he dealt with the drama of his arrival at Flint Hall, before Genevieve left the country for a journey that could go on for years, before anybody who knew him might observe his folly.

  He appropriated the snug at a familiar posting inn, opened the case, and unrolled a thick sheaf of drawings. What they revealed had him cursing, laughing, and climbing back on his tired, muddy horse.

  ***

  “So you’re really going?” Louisa kept the question light, because Jenny was in love, and people in love were prone to inconvenient histrionics, as were people in expectation of interesting events.

  “Aunt Arabella has agreed, so yes.” Jenny held a boot in each hand, ordinary lace-up half boots, but they must have had some significance known only to her, because she held them as if they were… original poems penned by a beloved.

  “And how long will you be gone?”

  “I don’t know.” The boots went into a trunk, placed gently, like an infant’s baptismal gown might have been stowed away. “Have you seen my—?” Jenny worried a nail then retrieved an embroidered bag hanging inside the door of her wardrobe.

  From her seat at Jenny’s escritoire, Louisa watched as the little bag got the same sentimental treatment. “What’s in there?”

  “Elijah’s Christmas present to me. He left it on my pillow before he came downstairs on Christmas Eve. The embroidery is his mother’s, and it’s exquisite.”

  Embroidery, no matter how beautiful, was tedious as the devil, and Jenny could create more fantastic stitchery even than what graced that bag. “He gave you the bag?”

  Jenny nodded, her gaze on the bag where it lay on top of the other contents of the trunk. She might have been regarding the mortal remains of a beloved pet, based on her expression. “He gave me sketches, I’m sure of it. I’m saving them for when I’m in Italy, or Austria. Possibly France.”

  Or maybe Bedlam. Louisa shoved to her feet and snatched the bag from the trunk. “You haven’t even opened your Christmas present, and yet you won’t leave the country without it. You, Sister, are in a state.”

  Jenny said nothing, and that gave Louisa pause. The old Jenny, the Jenny who called everybody dearest and had to have a sketchbook in her hands, was never in a state, much less one she admitted openly.

  This Jenny had a softness about her, and while she was given to leaving rooms abruptly, and sometimes looked as if she’d been crying, she was an easy person to love.

  Eve’s brilliant ploy with Deene’s supposed Christmas gift had not worked, or not worked well enough, and Their Graces were watching these travel preparations with worry in their eyes.

  Worry for Jenny, who’d never given anybody cause to worry.

  Louisa opened the bag and peered inside. “These are not sketches.”

  “They’re not?”

  Before Jenny could grab the bag back, Louisa extracted a sheaf of letters. “Oh, good. Some are written in German, and I do enjoy German. This one’s Italian, and there are several in French. This must be… I didn’t know Elijah had a grasp of Russian.”

  “He spent a year in St. Petersburg. Let me see those.”

  Louisa handed over one, the first one in French, and watched while Jenny translated.

  “Oh, that dear, dratted, man. That dear, dear…”

  Rather than listen to Jenny prattle on, Louisa translated another of the French missives. “These are letters of introduction. Your dear, dratted man has written you letters of introduction all over the Continent. This one is written in French but addressed to some Polish count. This one is to some fellow on Sicily. Will I ever see you again?”

  “There are ruins on Sicily. Greek, Roman, Norman… Beautiful ruins.”

  What that had to do with anything mattered little compared to the ruins Louisa beheld in her sister’s eyes. “Was he trying to send you away?”

  Jenny handed Louisa the letter, watching with a hungry gaze as Louisa tucked the epistles back into their traveling bag. “I didn’t ask Elijah for those letters, and I won’t use them.”

  “Why in blazes not?” Blazes was not quite profanity. When a woman became responsible for small children, her vocabulary learned all manner of detours.

  “Because he’ll never get into the Academy if he’s seen promoting the career of a woman in the arts. The Academy has been his goal and his dream for years, and he’s given up years of time among his family to pursue it. There’s unfortunate history between one of the committee members and Elijah’s mother, and it will obstruct Elijah’s path if he’s seen to further my artistic interests. I would not jeopardize Elijah’s happiness for anything.”

  Elijah
. Not Bernward, not his lordship, and certainly not Mr. Harrison. Perhaps Eve’s pretty, empty box hadn’t been entirely in vain.

  Louisa pronounced sentence as gently as she could. “You love him. You’re in love with him.”

  A young girl, a girl who’d never known real heartache, would have beamed hugely at this pronouncement and fluffed her hair or twitched her skirts. Jenny’s smile as she regarded her nearly full trunk was that of a woman, a woman who’d endured both life’s joys and its sorrows. “I love him.”

  Being a Windham, this was a life sentence without hope of parole or pardon. “Does he love you?”

  The smile dimmed, went from soft to uncertain. “Elijah is very kind. He cares for me, but he gave up everything to pursue his painting professionally—home, family, social connections—and now he has a chance to have it all back and more. The regent has taken notice of him. His family is clamoring for him to return to Flint Hall. As a Royal Academician, Elijah can accept their invitation without causing injury to his pride.”

  Jenny’s recitation made no sense, though it resembled the convoluted maunderings of people overcome by sentiment regarding a member of the opposite sex. Louisa attempted to apply logic to the situation anyway.

  If Bernward returned Jenny’s sentiments, he’d pop in at the ancestral pile, appease the family, then turn his horse right around and stop Jenny’s mad flight. His chances of doing so were enhanced if somebody—say, the Earl of Kesmore—made certain the exact details of Jenny’s departure and itinerary were put into Bernward’s talented hands.

  “I think you should read these,” Louisa said, passing the bag of letters over to Jenny. “Bernward has lovely penmanship, and you should know which doors he’s so graciously opened for you.”

  Also, how far away those doors were. Louisa led her sister to the escritoire then sent the footman in the hallway for tea and cakes. As much praise as Bernward had heaped on the talents of the woman whose aspirations he ought not support, it was going to take Jenny quite a while to read his letters.

  The door banged open, but it was not one of the small Windham grandchildren charging into Jenny’s sitting room, but rather, Their Graces—His Grace at a brisk pace, Her Grace following more decorously behind.

  “Your father has come up with a wonderful addition to your itinerary.” Her Grace sounded particularly pleased with His Grace. “You really must consider it, Jenny. Why, at this rate, we’ll be sending you to darkest Peru and the Sandwich Islands!”

  Eighteen

  Louisa’s expressions were not often hard to read, but Jenny’s sister looked torn between humor and exasperation.

  “Perhaps you’re sending Jenny to Sicily now? She says there are wonderful ruins there. Greek, Roman, and what was that other?”

  Such a helpful sister. “Norman,” Jenny said. “Though we have Norman ruins aplenty here in England.”

  Her Grace beamed at the duke. “We can convince Arabella to nip down to Sicily, can’t we, Percival?”

  As if traveling half the length of Italy was on a par with tooling out to Richmond. Jenny felt something building inside, something she’d felt since Elijah had been nowhere to be found after the Christmas open house. Whatever it was, it was not ladylike or pretty, but rather, loud and maybe even profane.

  “Of course,” His Grace replied, looking equally pleased. “And then they can sail around to Venice. You cannot miss Venice, Jenny. They make glass there, and the place has canals. You like a pretty canal now and then, don’t you? You could sketch—”

  “Venice would make a nice stop off on the way to Vienna,” Her Grace added. “And a respite from Florence. Florence will overwhelm you, I’m sure, with its basilicas and palaces. Florence ought to be pronounced the madonna capital of the world, according to your father.”

  “And the bridges, my love. Don’t forget the bridges. Jenny can sketch those too.”

  Except Jenny hadn’t sketched a single thing—not even Timothy—since Elijah had gone away. Timothy had been obliging, but Jenny’s hands had lost the ability to render an image on a page.

  “Bridges are pretty,” Louisa noted. “I should think canals might tend to stink, particularly in summer.”

  “Not these canals,” His Grace pronounced. “The sea tides keep them sparkling, or so the guidebooks say. So it’s decided. Rome, Sicily, Florence, and Venice. Marvelous.”

  Louisa sent Jenny a look that had a hint of daring about it, and the loud, profane urge beating against Jenny’s insides took on an edge of dread. Elijah had written those letters, and Louisa would open her big mouth and see every single letter put to use.

  “You forgot Pompeii,” Louisa said, as if mentioning a misplaced handkerchief. “Any trip to the Italian states surely ought to include Pompeii and Herculaneum. Is Jenny going to see the pyramids while she’s larking about the Mediterranean?”

  I will kill my sister, even though her husband is a flawless marksman.

  Her Grace slowed in the act of clapping her hands, so what resulted was instead a prayerful pose. “Percival? Might Arabella—?”

  In the years—the decades—of travel Jenny’s family was planning for her, Elijah would find some other lady to become his marchioness. He’d find a woman without troublesome artistic inclinations, one who’d never ask him to pose for her or argue with him over the proper use of the color green.

  Never need him to tell her she was brilliant, never smile at her as she built a house of cards any child might topple in an instant.

  Jenny shot up from her seat at the escritoire. “No.”

  Three heads turned toward her, as if noticing she was present for the first time. The duchess’s hands fluttered to her sides. “No? You don’t want to see Pompeii? I suppose it is a sad place, full of ruins and death—but very artistic too.”

  The place was full of naughty frescoes and objets d’art a lady wouldn’t even be allowed to see—without a husband along to insist she be permitted.

  “No Pompeii, no Rome, no Italy.”

  His Grace frowned. “Straight to Vienna, then? I suppose that makes sense, particularly if you’re interested in seeing Moscow and—”

  “No Vienna, no Moscow, No Buda, no Pest. No anywhere.”

  A slow grin broke across Louisa’s face, and Jenny’s parents both, doubtless by coincidence, found it necessary to study the carpet.

  “What about Paris?” Louisa asked. “Surely you don’t intend to give up Paris?”

  The duchess admired a wedding ring she’d likely worn every day for thirty-some years. His Grace said nothing.

  But they were listening. Jenny had told them no, and they were listening to her every word.

  “What I might have with Elijah is worth more than all the art in the entire world. Maybe Paris is in my future. I don’t know. All I know is that I must take myself to Surrey before I go anywhere else.”

  Her Grace studied her for a moment, and Jenny braced herself for a lecture about being steadfast in pursuit of one’s goals and travel arrangements having been made. Papa would chime in with comments about young ladies not knowing their own minds. He would profess to be confused, while dripping disapproval from every syllable, Her Grace having taught him a thing or two about raising daughters.

  No matter. “Where I need to go isn’t Italy or Russia or Paris. I need to go to Surrey. I’ll walk there if I have to, but I must leave within the hour.”

  His Grace laced his hands behind his back, which signaled not a lecture but an entire speech in the offing. The duchess, however, slowly raised her arms and opened them wide.

  Jenny was preparing to deliver a speech of her own when she noticed her mother was smiling. “I thought we were going to have to send you abroad for you to find your senses, Genevieve.”

  Jenny went into her mother’s embrace, while the duke muttered something that sounded like “About damned time.”

  “J
oseph says Bernward is headed off to York for another commission,” Louisa said. “If you don’t want to travel two hundred miles north in the dead of winter, you’d best make haste to Flint Hall.”

  ***

  “You, sir, are a fraud.”

  In the privacy of the Marquess of Flint’s study, Elijah toasted his father as he made that accusation. His lordship looked pleased, though Elijah had spoken in complete earnest.

  “Your mother accuses me of being a rumgumptious scalawag, which in a French accent sounds dire indeed, and now you promote me to the status of felon. It is wonderful to have you home, Elijah.”

  “And it is wonderful to be home.” An understatement among understatements, also beside the point. “Explain these, if you please.”

  Elijah passed over the leather case Buchanan had given him and watched while the marquess unrolled the lot.

  “Oh, my. I’d never thought to see these again. I suppose Buchanan passed them along?”

  “He did. They’ve been collecting dust in some cupboard or other for the past few decades.” And yet, the drawings were brilliant, each and every one a masterpiece in pen and ink. “I was told you were a skilled caricaturist, nothing more, and yet you can draw like this.”

  His lordship remained silent, gazing at a drawing of a much younger George III. His Royal Majesty had two small princesses on his lap, everybody attired for court, but the image was redolent of love and affection nonetheless.

  “They say old George still asks for his dear little Amelia.”

  Such regret, such commiseration.

  Such talent. “Papa, I do not understand. Your ability easily eclipses my own, and yet you put your art aside. What could have possessed you to stop creating when you have an eye like this?”

  Every detail was superbly rendered, every nuance of expression carefully drawn. Elijah had spent half his trip down from London and a long night wondering why such skill had disappeared into a dusty cupboard. Through a joyous reunion with siblings, mother, and father, he’d kept that question to himself, but in the cold, bright light of day, he needed an answer.