Laurie's Painter (sweet Regency romance) (4 page)

"No, Jenny,"
said Henry gently. "But it wouldn't be proper for you to stay alone, you
know."

"Oh!" she
protested weakly. "But Mrs. Hudson—"

"Mrs. Hudson isn't an
unmarried woman of the Quality, no matter how fallen on hard times. Say nothing
more about it! I'm still your elder brother," he insisted, in a tone attempting
to ape a firm fierceness, but barely concealing his warm, affectionate tone.

He gave her arm a squeeze,
and she laughed shakily, raising her gaze guiltily to Laurie's. Her green eyes implored
him not to think ill of her. "I did not realise how it sounded, sir."

"Of course not. But I
should be very disappointed if you were able to follow the fashion of the
redoubtable Mrs. Hudson, for then I should miss out on the opportunity to tease
you and observe what transports my home leads you into." He rose, smiling,
and reached for his gloves. Jenny gave him a startled blink; her brother a
glare.

"Adieu!" he
said. "Since I see you both need to plan the packing, or leave it to Mrs. Hudson—I
am quite curious about her now, you know—I shall return later with the plans
for your removal to the countryside. This weekend, perhaps? I can have a coach
arranged by then easily." His smile widened at Jenny's startled look and
her brother's increasing wrath.

"You—sir—are much too
high-handed!" Henry struggled to get up from his seat. His sister laid a
hand on his arm and stopped him, but he continued speaking. "I have work
to finish, far too much work. I cannot possibly get away to do your portrait
for a month, possibly longer."

"Ah, but you must,"
said Laurie gently, standing looking down at the pair and smiling slightly.

"I mustn't,"
insisted Henry. "I have obligations."

"Obligations, to
those who will put off paying your bills till you must dun them?" he enquired
sweetly. "I shall pay ahead."

"I have obligations,"
insisted Henry through gritted teeth.

And that, it appeared, was
something he would not budge on. Laurie tried reasoning with him, but it
failed.

"A gentleman does not
shirk his commitments. Whatever my current station in life, I was born to be a
gentleman and I am not going to do something so base."

Laurie reflected that he
had hardly asked the man to commit full scale armed robbery. He allowed his face
to become politely sardonic and gathered his gloves. "I can see you feel
strongly about it!"

"Indeed." Henry's
tired gaze glowered up at him. His eyes held a martial glow, as if awaiting the
battle. Laurie backed off from the fight. But Henry's stubbornness grew
annoying. He had no cause to aim his wrath at a man who was only trying to help
him. Surely he didn't treat his other clients with such rage?

As he rose to leave, Jenny
rose smoothly, smiling, and saw him to the door. He was surprised to see that
she seemed pleased by the way the conversation had ended, satisfied and happy
with him. That made Laurie feel better. Though why he should care what a chit
of a girl thought—

He dismissed that line of
thought entirely. It was no good getting over a bit of spring in one's blood
(even if it had picked the wrong time of year), by dismissing the object of
one's affections. For one thing, he wouldn't believe it. For another, he wasn't
entirely sure he wanted to get over it that way—or perhaps any other.

At the doorway he turned
to her. "I don't suppose you will talk to your brother...?"

She shook her head,
smiling up at him proudly. "I admire the way you got him defensive about
it," she offered in a low, confiding voice. "It was clever of you. Now
he's only thinking of when he'll go there to paint for you, not
whether
he will. And as he's promised, and said so much about honour, there's no
getting out of it now."

"But it will take him
months to finish all those paintings."

"Well, yes, perhaps,"
she admitted, still with a warm smile around her sparkling eyes, "but it's
winter. He wouldn't be up for travelling now anyway."

Laurie blinked. He'd
forgotten the difficulty for an ill person travelling in the cold weather. He
must be losing his wits. "Of course. I shall welcome you both in the
spring." He bowed to her deeply, and she curtsied in return. Her
expression was kind and gentle and approving, and somehow fond, as though she
had accepted him into their little circle without caveat. That smile gave him
warmth in his chest that carried him down the cold steps and into his vehicle,
and half the way home.

In the spring, Jenny would
be under his own roof. He wondered how she looked in a finer nest.

He wished he dare suggest
to Henry that some of the money Laurie would pay ahead could be used to deck
her out in finery befitting her station. He knew both siblings would probably
scoff at that—Jenny because she seemed so humble and fitted into her
poverty-stricken existence, Henry because he seemed so aware of their debt.

Perhaps Laurie could change
that, before spring came...

Chapter three

"Joysey, old man, I
do believe you were whistling." William Vale turned to grin at Laurie
teasingly. "And in the club, too! I wonder what the rules say!" He flipped
through an imaginary book, and his eyebrows rose. "You'll be docked a
guinea, I'm sure of it!" He closed the imaginary book and grinned, a
dimple showing on his wide face. "Tell us. What are you so happy about?"

Laurie had stopped
whistling. Now he stared at Vale, uncertain how to answer.

"It's a girl, isn't
it?" Vale's grin widened. "And here we'd taken bets than you'd never
fall for another!"

That was too much. Laurie
felt his spine begin to stiffen. He fought to keep from snapping at Vale. After
all, one could usually tease Laurie about anything at all. Perhaps Vale did not
know that the fact he'd made a fool of himself over a woman when he was a stripling
was still a sore spot. After all, he was not a close friend. Nor, apparently, a
very tactful man.

Vale continued. "Is
she an actress, perhaps? Or a real woman, someone you'd marry?"

Another man, Carlson, hearing
the bent of conversation, veered toward them, drink in hand. "Steady on,
old man! I thought you were the eternal bachelor, Joysey. You've never given in
and found yourself a bride?"

Vale clapped a hand on his
shoulder, grinning. "One of the new crop, is she? Diamond of the first
water, difficult to resist? Even you're not immune, old man."

"I never said I was. But
I haven't." His interest in Jenny Wilkenson (non-debutante) was, perhaps,
not entirely that of a friend, but surely it was a bit soon to think of marriage?
He felt his mouth go dry at the thought.

Then again, why not? If he
continued to feel this way about Jenny—this utterly
interested
—perhaps
she would be a good choice. Though his family had no title, their wealth was
plentiful. He would have to marry eventually to secure his family's bloodline,
and though he had put it off and had as little to do with assemblies and balls
and such things as possible since his humiliation, he knew it would have to
happen eventually, and if so, why not marry someone he truly liked?

At least, if he continued
to feel this way. There was something about Jenny that left him unable to
dismiss her or forget her. He found himself visiting the Wilkenson's home far
more often than he had any real excuse to, simply on the hopes of talking to
her whilst drinking their weak tea.

"Come then, why were
you whistling?" Vale's hand tightened on his shoulder as if he meant to
squeeze it out of Laurie. "Never say it's because you bought a new book! That
was the whistling of a man thinking of a woman."

Laurie arched an eyebrow,
his good humour overcoming his dark irritation at Vale's pushiness. This
statement was beyond absurd. "Oh? Do you keep track, then, of the
whistling of the British male? I suppose it's like bird calls. Do you go out in
the afternoons, waiting in the bushes, spying upon men to hear their
territorial calls?"

Carlson burst out laughing
and even Vale grinned. "Oh, well, joke if you wish! You certainly sounded
happy."

"I am happy. In fact,
I am happier yet having learnt of your new hobby. What do you call it? The
study of man-whistlers? So shockingly scholarly of you! Perhaps you'll write a
book and we can all be proud of you here at the club. 'The Calls of the British
Man.' Or perhaps—'Man Calls.' I shall await your efforts with interest."

By now others were
watching, smiling, enjoying the joke. Laurie's interrogation had been
forestalled. Vale grinned, seeing he'd lost control of the direction of the
conversation and acknowledging the defeat with his smile. "I shall
autograph you a copy—since you'll be in it!"

They both pretended to bow
pompously to each other; the surrounding men laughed. "Come on—I'll buy
you a drink, man-watcher," said Laurie, feeling tolerant in his victory. "You
must tell me about any other odd hobbies you have!"

Actually, he knew of Vale's
hobbies already. He was an excellent huntsman, a bruising rider, a great
whip-hand—and a particular ladies-man. And that was the reason he must never
learn of Jenny.

One could trust a man like
Vale about debts of honour, contests of any sort, even to keep his temper when
his teasing backfired. But one could not trust a man like Vale around a
beautiful and innocent young woman. He did not intend to risk it, certainly
not. Jenny was... his friend.

There was time enough to
figure the rest of it out later.

~*~

Jenny added another layer
of blue to the canvas. She stood back and regarded it. This would be the
background for the Kingston family portrait. Henry had said it needed to be
just so, a beautiful, almost satin blue, rich and reminiscent of a
Gainsborough. Jenny did love
blue
. Or as she thought of it, the bluest
of blue.

She used to have a dress
made of a rich, heady blue. It hadn't looked the best with her complexion—she
looked better in lighter blues, as her mother had pointed out—but when young
Jenny saw that fabric, she'd begged and pleaded until Mother gave in and had a
dress made for her little girl, a dress of the bluest blue.

How strange to grow up and
work with blues even more beautiful, yet to do it in secret, to help her
brother earn their living.

And now she had nothing
new to wear. Her most recent dress had been sewn painstakingly by rush light
when it was too dark for other work. She had pricked her fingers far too often.
The dress had not been well-cut and was of a plain pattern. That gingham dress
was now worn and faded. She'd made it last year, and nothing since. Her other
clothes had been reworked from the old Wilkenson wardrobe: clothes she'd
outgrown, things of her mother's, and a few very worn undergarments.

Something about putting on
undergarments that barely held together (full of holes, washed gingerly, and
patched often yet still dilapidated), made one feel the pinch of poverty more
than almost anything else. Perhaps because they were so personal and private. If
ever they didn't have to use so much of their money for repaying those detestable
debts, the first thing she would buy were smooth, new undergarments, things
that would make her feel like a woman instead of a scarecrow.

Her plain dress was the
best for doing the marketing, however. She could go out and be mistaken for a
servant—unless her words gave away her upper-class birth. Consequently, she
nearly always spoke in as low a voice as possible to attract the attention only
of the people from whom she bought.

Saffron for her brother's
consumptive cough remedy, bread or flour, butter, a bit of meat when they could
afford it, cabbage or potatoes. Tea leaves were bought sparingly. Sugar they
did without. Sometimes she bought ass's milk for her brother, since it was supposed
to be healthier for children or sickly people, but he deplored the expense.

It seemed they were always
thinking about expense and little else.
Cold? We can't afford more coal. Hungry?
We can't afford more food. Clothes falling apart?
Ah, but they
could
afford more clothes for Henry, simply because he could not be seen in public
without a good suit. Though she knew it was hardly fair, Jenny couldn't help
feeling a little pang as she sewed him new things and nothing for herself.

There was a rap at the
door.

Jenny looked up, startled,
from her lost thoughts and the canvas. She'd finished the blue background and
been going over it idly, lost in her thoughts. This would never do! She should let
it dry and begin work on the touch-up of another painting right away whilst
there was still light.

Instead, she moved to the
door with a rustle of skirts.

One thing she truly wished
they could afford was a servant—even part time—to help with cleaning and to
answer the door. It was so much more respectable to have a servant. And then
Jenny would not be alone when her brother was away. She was used to it, yes, but
there was something so very friendly about having someone else in the house. A
servant would perhaps even become a sort of friend.