Lady Jenny's Christmas Portrait (4 page)

“Shall we have a critique session?” he asked as he rose. “I’m sure the young ladies would be happy to assist us.”

His hand settled on Fleur’s dark curls, and the little girl went still beneath his touch—even Kesmore didn’t have that effect on his daughter—while Jenny felt her insides take flight. A critique session with Elijah Harrison?

“I have used up my half hour and then some, Mr. Harrison. I would not impose further.”

“Nonsense. My model has been very patient, as has my assistant, and I’m sure they’d be fascinated to see what we’ve created.”

“I can show you my sketch,” Fleur volunteered.

“What’s a critique session?” Amanda asked.

A critique session was when you put your heart in the middle of a busy thoroughfare and hoped at least some of the passing traffic didn’t roll directly over it.

Mr. Harrison smiled down at Amanda. “A critique session is when people who share a similar passion try to help each other improve their work. Like when you read your papa’s poetry and suggest a better rhyme to him.”

“Mama does that,” Fleur said. “She makes Papa smile. I know a lot of rhymes. Do you want to see my sketch?”

He held out a hand. “Of course.”

In one gesture and two words, he’d given Fleur a gift of confidence no one would take from her. Jenny envied her niece and understood now why people enjoyed sitting to Elijah Harrison.

He was quiet; he was reserved. He was not the most cheerful individual, and he could be brusque, but he was kind. She had not appreciated this about him when he’d joined in the critique sessions at Antoine’s, though her recollection was of a man who’d offered suggestions and observations, not criticisms.

He appropriated the brocade pillows and arranged them on the hearth, then held out a hand to her. “Come, Lady Jenny. Let us assemble the jury.”

His hand was warm, and he seated her as graciously as if they were at one of the Duchess of Moreland’s entertainments. Fleur and Amanda each tucked themselves against an adult, and Jenny tried to quiet her nerves.

He would not laugh at her work in front of the children, would he?

“Miss Fleur, your work comes first, lest you burst with excitement and rain feathers all over the room.” He took Fleur’s proffered sketch pad and regarded her efforts in silence for some moments.

“You are an honest artist,” he remarked. “You have chosen to present your aunt without even a hint of a smile. That was brave of you, but also accurate, given how hard Lady Jenny concentrates on her art. Lady Jenny, what can you add?”

Jenny took the little sketch, prepared to wax enthusiastic about some lines and squiggles, only to be brought up short.

“Fleur, you have a good eye.” On the page, a lady sat hunched in a rocking chair, the composition a heap of dress, chin, and severe bun, as if crabbed with age. No particular features were evident, and proportion was a lost cause, as was perspective, and yet, the child had managed to catch something of an unhappy intensity about Jenny’s posture. “I’m very impressed.”

“Let me see,” Amanda demanded. She plucked the sketch from Jenny’s hands. “That’s Aunt Jen. She loves to draw.”

Jenny wanted to study Fleur’s childish rendering at greater length, she wanted to draw Mr. Harrison forever, and she wanted him gone from the house.

“Lady Jenny, your turn.”

She passed her sketch pad over to him, feeling a pang of sympathy for accused criminals as they stood in the dock. And yet, she’d asked for this. Gotten together all of her courage to ask for this one moment of artistic communion.

“Well,” Mr. Harrison said, “isn’t he a handsome fellow? What do you think, ladies?”

“You look like a papa,” Fleur observed. “Though our papa doesn’t sketch. He reads stories.”

“And hates his ledgers,” Amanda added. “Is my hair that long in back?”

“Yes,” Jenny said, because she’d drawn not only Elijah Harrison’s hands, but all of him, looking relaxed, elegant, and handsome, with Amanda crouched at his side, fascinated with what he created on the page.

“I look…” He regarded the sketch in silence, while Jenny heard a coach-and-four rumbling toward her vulnerable heart. “I look… a bit tired, slightly rumpled, but quite at home. You are very quick, Lady Genevieve, and quite good.”

Quite good. Like saying a baby was adorable, a young gentleman well-mannered.

“The pose was simple,” Jenny said, “the lighting uncomplicated, and the subject…”

“Yes?”

He was one of those men built in perfect proportion. Antoine had spent an entire class wielding a tailor’s measure on Mr. Harrison’s body, comparing his proportions to the Apollo Belvedere, and scoffing at the “mistakes” inherent in Michelangelo’s David.

Jenny wanted to snatch her drawing from his hand. “The subject is conducive to a pleasing image.”

He passed the sketch pad back, but Jenny had the sense that in some way, some not entirely artistic way, she’d displeased him. The disappointment was survivable. Her art had been displeasing men since she’d first neglected her Bible verses to sketch her brothers.

“You next, Mr. Harrison.”

“Of course.” He passed her a charming little study of Fleur perched on the hearth, the tip of her tongue peeking from her lips as she concentrated on sketching Jenny. Something in his portrait reminded Jenny of Fleur’s sketch of her aunt.

“You made her hair tidier,” Amanda noted. “Fleur hardly ever looks that serious, though.”

“One takes a few liberties in the name of diplomacy,” Mr. Harrison said. He aimed a look at Jenny, likely intended to give the words deeper meaning.

He
was
tired, and he
was
rumpled. Where was the harm in showing those things?

“He means,” Jenny said in anticipation of Amanda’s question, “that one needn’t show every unflattering detail when trying to render a person’s essence on the page.”

“Like if the crow had some tattered feathers, you’d still try to show how shiny they were?”

“Yes, Amanda,” Mr. Harrison said, though he was looking at Jenny as he spoke.

The nursery maids returned, looking somewhat restored, and Jenny’s half hour—an hour in truth—with Polite Society’s most in-demand portraitist was over.

And in that hour, she had not earned his respect for her art. This should be a relief, should give her ammunition to aim at the part of her that wanted nothing but to disgrace herself with an artistic life, and damn the consequences.

As he escorted her down through the house, Mr. Harrison stopped on the first landing. “Why so quiet, my lady?”

The daughter of a duchess was capable of great feats of diplomacy, also great feats of courage. Jenny would never have an opportunity to work with an instructor of Elijah Harrison’s caliber again, or at least not for many years.

“You did not like my sketch.”

The servants had been busy. In the foyer below, wreaths hung in the windows, cloved oranges in the middle of the wreaths. The scents were lovely and the light cheerful, but the space, being high ceilinged and windowed, was cold.

“I liked your sketch quite well.”

“What did you like about it?” Because in five minutes, he’d be on his horse and disappearing into the winter landscape, and Jenny had to know what he’d seen in her work, even if he’d seen only trite, unprepossessing efforts.

“You are good, Lady Genevieve. Your accuracy is effortless, you’re quick, and your technique very proficient for one who has likely had little professional instruction.”

Those compliments would have distracted her, had she not been watching his eyes. His soul was not in those terse compliments, and he’d be gone in four minutes.

“But?”

He captured her hand and placed it on his arm, moving with her down the last flight of stairs. “But you rendered me tired and rumpled, when I was quite sure the fellow in that nursery was the most charming exponent of English artistry ever to aspire to membership in the Royal Academy. You also made me look…” He glanced around as they gained the empty foyer. “Lonely.”

“Amanda said you looked like a papa. I tried to convey the affection with which you—”

“I miss…” He frowned, unwound his arm from Jenny’s, and stepped back. “I have many younger siblings. It’s natural I should miss them from time to time. That you saw in me something I’d ignored in myself confirms your talent rather than denies it.”

Somewhere in that grudging admission was a true compliment, though likely one he hadn’t intended.

“Thank you.”

Which left nothing more to say. The footmen being derelict or preoccupied with decorating some other part of the house, Jenny took Mr. Harrison’s greatcoat down from the hook and held it up to him. Next she passed him his scarf, then held his hat and gloves while he buttoned up.

And then their time together was over, and Jenny heard the sound of many heavy coaches rumbling, not toward her artistic inclinations, but more in the direction of her heart. “Safe journey, Mr. Harrison.”

“My thanks for your hospitality.” He tapped his hat onto his head and pulled on his gloves. “Have you considered corresponding with old Monsieur Antoine? He’s very generous with his guidance, and not at all opposed to encouraging the talented amateur, regardless of gender.”

His suggestion cut in several ways, though it was intended as another compliment—to a talented amateur of the inconvenient feminine persuasion. “Monsieur is, as you say, very generous, but his eyes are failing.”

Mr. Harrison tossed the ends of his scarf over his shoulders in a gesture more Continental than English. “I didn’t know that.”

“Few people do. He has been helpful, though now when I call at his gallery, we spend our conversations on his reminiscences. He’s very proud of you.”

Mr. Harrison glanced up, as if entreating the heavens, then grimaced. “The Yuletide season has officially started.” He pointed to the crossbeam over the antechamber, where a swag of mistletoe had been hung.

“Louisa and Joseph are quite enamored of all things—”

Whatever nonsense Jenny had intended to spout one minute before Elijah Harrison trotted out of her life, she forgot as he put a gloved hand on her shoulder. “It’s a harmless tradition,” he said. “One I’ve had occasion to appreciate.”

With that, he kissed her, and not on the cheek as a proper gentleman ought. He touched his mouth to hers softly, a lingering, gentle kiss that conveyed… something. Regret perhaps, at having to face the miserable winter day.

Before he drew back, he whispered, “You’ll want to look at the sketchbook I used, and, Genevieve?”

He bore the scent of rosemary and lavender, and he was leaving.

“Mr. Harrison?”

“You draw wonderfully. Be proud of yourself.” He gave her cheek a quick buss and passed through the door.

Jenny held his compliment close to her heart—the real compliment, the one he’d whispered. She held his kisses closer.

“Yon beast will not go sound.” Joseph Carrington, Earl of Kesmore, scowled at Elijah’s horse as the gelding was led from the Kesmore stables. “Listen to the footfalls, Harrison. Your hind end is off rhythm.”

And
people
called
artists
eccentric.

“Kesmore, good morning. My hind end is traveling down the lane posthaste, though you have my thanks for providing shelter for the night in absentia.”

Kesmore’s frown—the man’s dark features had an entire repertoire of frowns, scowls, glowers, and glares—turned affectionate. “You will forgive my countess for not greeting you here in the yard. She must see to our son’s safe passage up to the house.”

Lady Kesmore, accompanied by a maid, was wending her way from the coach house up a shoveled path toward the manor.

“Congratulations on the birth of an heir,” Elijah said. “I thought you had only the two daughters.”

Kesmore’s affectionate scowl became a long-suffering affectionate scowl. “According to my wife, when the child’s nappies want changing, that boy is my son. When he’s charming every female in the shire, he’s her ladyship’s son. Weren’t you to have immortalized my daughters on canvas at some point?”

He would recall that, and likely recall that Elijah had dodged the commission. Now, Elijah needed juvenile portraits in his portfolio if the Royal Academy was to look favorably upon him, else he wouldn’t be ruralizing away his holidays.

“I apologize for not being here to receive you in person,” Kesmore said as Elijah’s horse was led away. “My lady and I had business in Surrey, and last night we tarried at her sister Sophie’s household rather than push homeward in dirty weather. The womenfolk must disappear into the nursery and exchange maternal intelligence while my brother-in-law and I disappear into his study and say nothing of any consequence beyond, ‘I’ll have one more tot, thank you.’”

“I see.” Marriage had turned the taciturn Kesmore into a chatterbox. The transformation was both disconcerting and… endearing.

“You don’t, but should the Almighty bless you with children, you shall.”

“If the Almighty would see fit to let me get to my next destination without further mishap, I will be most grateful.”

As Kesmore’s wife disappeared into the house, Kesmore resumed his perusal of Elijah. “I trust Lady Jenny made you welcome?”

“Very.” Kesmore’s eyes narrowed, and like an idiot, Elijah babbled on. “She is knowledgeable about art, and her company is enjoyable.” Also a sore trial to his self-restraint, which was why departure this morning was a relief.

Mostly a relief.

The thwack of Kesmore’s riding crop against his boot punctuated the soft whistle of the winter wind. “Lady Jenny can handle the hellions gracing my nursery, which ought to recommend her to half the bachelor princes in Europe. She talks horses with me, poetry with Louisa, politics with His Grace, recipes with—”

Kesmore broke off and waved one black-gloved hand in the direction of the house—a silly wave, hand up, fingers waggling madly. Elijah followed the man’s gaze and saw a woman in a third-floor window with a child in her arms. In a gesture ubiquitous among mothers, she was waving the baby’s tiny hand in Kesmore’s direction.

“The child probably can’t even see you, Kesmore, and he has no notion why you’re fluttering your hand around.”

“Neither do I, and someday, neither will you.” This time Kesmore waved his riding crop at the mother and child, who waved right back. Beside Lady Kesmore, Lady Jenny appeared in the window, a feminine incandescence in an otherwise prosaic tableau.

Elijah did not wave. Not to the baby, not to the baby’s mother, not to his aunt.

“Here comes your noble steed,” Kesmore said. “This is Bacchus. He’s a sensible lad once he gets the fidgets worked out, and he’s not particular about the footing.”

The sensible lad was about the size of an elephant, the same color as an elephant, and possessed of a hair coat worthy of a mastodon. The beast was also making shameless eyes at Kesmore.

“He looks sturdy enough.”

“Much like you, Harrison, he’s a treasure whose subtle gifts can only be appreciated over time. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to interrogate my sister-in-law regarding the offenses committed by my offspring in my absence. I will take on this thankless burden without my countess’s fortifying presence, while her ladyship tends to obligations in the nursery I am biologically incapable of assisting with.”

This was more married-man-papa blather about Elijah knew not what. To see what a short trip to the altar had done to a decorated veteran of the Peninsular Campaign, a bruising rider, and halfway friend was unnerving.

And yet, Kesmore was… happy. Scowlingly though radiantly happy.

“If you had to choose one of Aesop’s fables as your favorite, Kesmore, which one would it be?”

Kesmore paused midstride toward the manor and turned a puzzled frown on Elijah. “In what regard? A favorite moral, a favorite story? A favorite because the tale is brief and will get my daughters most quickly into bed?”

“Your favorite. The one you liked best when you were a boy.”

The frown disappeared, replaced by a half smile. “‘The Cock and the Jewel,’ I suppose. When a fellow is famished, all the gems in the world will not satisfy his craving for a simple crust of bread, no matter how others might value the pretty jewel.”

Elijah felt a whiff of relief. Little girls could draw roosters and gemstones, particularly with some assistance from their aunt.

“Be off with you,” Kesmore said with a flourish of his whip that had Bacchus looking nervous. “And you”—Kesmore pointed the whip at the horse—“no mischief, or Father Christmas will make you do pony rides all Christmas Day for both girls.”

The horse stood docile as a lamb at the mounting block. Once Elijah was in the saddle, Bacchus turned down the snowy drive without an instant’s hesitation, though Elijah cast one last glance back at the empty third-floor window.

***

“What is this?” Louisa, Countess of Kesmore, marched across the nursery and thrust a sketch pad under Jenny’s nose. “It doesn’t look like your work, Sister.”

Louisa did not glide about the house. She did not make small talk. She appropriated neither the airs and graces of a countess nor those of a recently published author whose poetry was acclaimed by the most discerning of the literati. She was simply Louisa: blunt, beautiful, and unfailingly genuine. Jenny loved her for those qualities but was not so enamored of Louisa’s unrelenting curiosity.

“It’s a sketch pad, dearest. The girls leave them all over the house.” With a brother underfoot, they’d learn, as Jenny had, to keep sketches under lock and key.

“I know it’s a sketch pad, Genevieve Windham, but what’s
this
?” Louisa held out the tablet, flipped open to a pencil drawing of… Jenny, sketching.

Jenny regarded the page with something between dread and fascination. Her hand closed around the sketch pad while her feet clamored to leave the room. “I suppose Mr. Harrison drew it. Some artists must draw compulsively.”

“Like you.” Louisa’s expression held only sympathy. “He’s good, though not as good as you are.”

Louisa was loyal to a fault too.

“Elijah Harrison is the most sought-after portraitist in London, unless you count Sir Thomas Lawrence, who is flooded with commissions and at the regent’s beck and call.”

“Which you ought to be. His sketch of you is quite good.” Louisa came closer to study the drawing. “He’s caught how fiercely you concentrate, like a raptor focusing on her prey.”

“Louisa, I know you are a poetess, but that image is hardly flattering to a lady.”

“Elijah Harrison has also caught you as a woman, Jenny. He drew you full of curves and energy, a female body engaged in a passion, not some drawing-room artifact showing off her modiste’s latest patterns. He sees that your beauty is not merely physical.”

Was that why he’d kissed her, or had it been merely a passing holiday gesture? “You are fanciful, Louisa.”

“I am honest.”

Both could be true, but one didn’t argue logic with Louisa and win unless one was Joseph. “Why do you say I’m better than Mr. Harrison?”

Louisa flipped back to the sketch of Fleur. “Look at this.”

“It’s very accurate, and if he had time to sketch me, as well, he drew both quickly.”

And why had he sketched Jenny, and then told her specifically to examine this sketch pad as he’d trotted out of her life?

“Portraiture is not exclusively about rendering an accurate image,” Louisa said. “Fleur is a happy little soul. She doesn’t have Amanda’s inquisitive nature or impulsivity; she likes to make others happy. Fleur is quick to sense others’ feelings, like my Joseph, but she hasn’t Joseph’s analytical bent.”

Louisa spoke with the assurance of a mother who knew her children. Fleur and Amanda were Louisa’s stepchildren, and Louisa had only known them a year; and yet, by virtue of marital alchemy, Louisa was their mother too.

Jenny did not point out that Louisa’s husband was quick to sense
Louisa’s
feelings, and probably only Louisa’s feelings.

“What is your point, dearest?” Louisa always had a point, sometimes arcane, sometimes irrelevant to anybody else, but she had a point. Jenny wanted to flip back to the sketch Mr. Harrison had done of her, to study it, to copy it, to see what he had seen when he’d drawn her. Maybe that sketch had a point too.

Louisa moved away, grabbing a receiving blanket from a pile folded near the hearth and shaking it out. “Mr. Harrison didn’t sketch
Fleur
. He sketched some little girl who looks like Fleur trying to make a drawing. He sketched what he saw, not what he felt.”

Jenny studied the drawing again, and admitted that Louisa’s conclusion was… not invalid. The image was accurate and whimsical, but not…
Fleur
. Her little-girl eyes, so full of life and vulnerability, didn’t stare up from the page. “He doesn’t know Fleur.”

This was true—it was also a defense of an artist who needed no defending.

“I suspect he doesn’t know children, or he doesn’t know a nature like Fleur’s. She’s purely sweet and easy to love, much like you.”

“Gracious, Lou, you’ve gone from spouting poetry to spinning fiction. I’ll leave you now and give your regards to dear Sophie.”

“And Joseph’s regards to Sindal too please, and keep the sketches, Jenny. I think Mr. Harrison meant them for you.”

Louisa didn’t smirk as she made that observation. Her green eyes held a touch of pity, though, the same pity Jenny bore lately from her aunt and uncle, her cousins, her siblings, and—she would swear to this—her very own cat.

As she drove the pony cart over the snowy lanes to her sister Sophie’s domicile, Jenny tried not to consider that pity, and yet, it circled her awareness like a shark among shipwreck victims.

The pity rankled because Jenny was pouting over Elijah Harrison passing through her life, leaving her a sketch, and departing without a backward glance.

Pouting was for children,
which
she
would
never
have
. Her family was a group of perceptive, forthright people, and yet, they would not talk about a sister who wanted to pursue art instead of holy matrimony.

They would only pity her.

“For Christmas, I would like to be spared my siblings’ pity.” The pony, a shaggy little scrapper by the name of Grendel, shook his harness bells as if in reply. “I would like to be appreciated for who I am, for my art, and yet…”

As she turned the little gray up the Sidling driveway, Jenny buttoned up her untoward resentments and longings. Paris was a dream, not a just desert.

Sophie, Baroness Sindal, was waiting in the foyer of her sprawling Tudor home, little Kit clinging to her skirts, and the baby—he wasn’t really a baby anymore—perched on her hip.

“Jenny, welcome! Sindal, take the children and let me have a moment with my long-lost sister.”

Sophie’s tall, blond husband hoisted the younger child to his hip and took Kit by the hand. “Jenny, you see how it’s to be. The menfolk banished to the nursery while temptation wafts up from the kitchen. I ask you, how are we to be good little boys when faced with such an ordeal?”

Sindal stood well over six feet, and yet around Sophie he was a very good boy indeed.

“Papa, pick me up!” Young Kit held his arms up and was obliged with a perch on Sindal’s other hip. “’Lo, Aunt Jen Jen!”

Kit shouted everything. Jenny could not recall the last time she’d shouted
anything
, and silently applauded the boy’s boisterous approach to life.

“Hello, Master Kit. When your mama and I have finished the stollen, will you come down and sample it for us?”

She reached a hand out to tousle his blond curls but stopped short of her goal, fingers outstretched, the child grinning at her. A queerish feeling came over her. Were she not a lady, she would have called it
excitement
. “Whose scarf is that?”

The scarf in question hung on a hook in the foyer, draped over a gentleman’s greatcoat, the pattern an unusual plaid done mostly in dark purple. When she’d first beheld that scarf, Jenny had noticed the colors—a green stripe, a lavender stripe—because the scheme had been unusual but quite pretty.

“That would be mine.”

Elijah Harrison emerged from the drawing room down the hallway and bowed in Jenny’s direction. “Lady Genevieve, we meet again.”

He was smiling. He was smiling, and he was
here
, and though she knew her sister, her nephews, and even Sindal were watching her, Jenny was helpless not to smile back.

***

Elijah was used to working in spaces not entirely conducive to producing good art, much less great art. He was used to manufacturing sunlight where none existed, opulence of setting where none had
ever
existed, and personality traits—charm, dignity, sagacity, even chastity—his sitters’ own mothers would never have ascribed to them.

He was not, however, used to ignoring the scent of Christmas baking while he set up his studio. Worse yet, through some quirk of antique architecture, he could hear Lady Jenny’s voice wafting up from the kitchen through the flue, hear her laughter and the lilt and rhythm of her speech, though he couldn’t make out a single word she said.