Examining the sketch now, Jenny realized she’d used the idea of illumination from below to imbue a cozy scene with lurid, satanic shadows. The choice had not been conscious, but it had been effective.

Now, Jenny could barely stand to glance at the sketch. “I noticed that the people who tend to the poorhouses were always well fed, always comfortable. It drove me mad to see that. I gave away all my pin money for years, until Westhaven remarked that I wasn’t wearing new frocks—or perhaps Victor peached on me. As sick as he was, he fretted for me and encouraged my art without ceasing.”

Elijah set the sketchbook aside and angled his body to wrap both arms around her. “Victor died of consumption?”

She nodded against his throat. “The poorhouses are breeding grounds for all manner of disease. When Victor fell ill, he forbade me to go back lest I suffer the same fate, and I was”—the lump in her throat was going to choke her—“I was relieved. I was relieved never to go back.”

“You still give your pin money to charity.”

Another nod, because she was weeping now and burrowed so closely against Elijah, they might have been making love.

He said nothing more, and for long moments, Jenny cried like she hadn’t cried since Victor’s death. Cried without worrying that she sounded unladylike, cried without worrying that she’d never stop.

And throughout all of this tumult, Elijah held her close. She had the sense that if Their Graces had burst through the door, Elijah would not have moved unless and until Jenny had regained her composure.

“I m-miss him.”

“Victor.” Not a question.

“He could make me laugh. Even when he was dying, he could make me laugh, and he never protested when I sketched him.” She’d filled pages of the same sketchbook with images of her brother, chronicled his long, miserable battle with an enemy nobody ever defeated. Another entire notebook held Bart, always laughing and smiling.

“Victor understood you.”

Three words holding a world of insight. “He understood everybody. Victor was a charming man, but by the time he died, he was a wise man too.”

“When did he die?”

Another quiet comment, but this one reverberated through Jenny bodily. She lifted her face, not caring that she looked a wreck. “Right before… Christmas. He died right before… I did not realize… It never occurred to me…”

When she settled against Elijah again, she felt less at the mercy of grief, and on the strength of the one simple insight. “The anniversary of his death is next week.”

And her family would ignore it. Perhaps in the privacy of the ducal apartment, Their Graces would acknowledge the date somehow. Maybe some of the glances between her brothers would be about old loss, but in public, the past was not part of the upcoming holiday.

Elijah brushed her hair back from her face and said nothing, though his silence was comfortable, like Timothy purring right beside her.

“I want to look at those sketches,” Jenny said. This was not entirely truthful. She dreaded looking at those sketches, but she also wanted to know what Elijah saw in them that was brilliant.

“Next week, when we’ve made more progress on Their Grace’s portraits. For now, you need sustenance.” He produced a handkerchief, which Jenny put to use and did not return to him.

“I need to compose myself.”

He withdrew his arm but remained right beside her. “No, you needed to lose your composure. I think you also need to go to Paris.”

An after-shudder hit her, though she was done with her tears. “You’re concluding that only now?”

Timothy rose and stalked across Jenny’s lap—why did such soft little paws land like jackboots?—to get to Elijah.

“I knew you wanted to go to Paris, that you longed to be there. Now I understand that you need to go. It will be hard, Genevieve. When you’re starting out, there’s competition from every quarter, and it won’t help at all that your papa’s an English duke.”

She reached over and stroked Timothy’s sleek, dark fur. He was not purring, which struck her as odd. “I know that. Will you write me some introductions?”

He hesitated a single instant. “You won’t need them. Your talent will be your introduction, and the French have discernment, Genevieve. They can spot ability, regardless of how unconventionally it’s presented, or how unusual the artist.”

His refusal hurt, but his compliment was genuine. He had faith in her. The notion comforted wonderfully. She set aside the temptation to wheedle anyway. “I am famished. Shall we have our luncheon?”

“We shall.” He picked Timothy up and rose to set him on the mantel. The cat looked about itself, clearly not pleased with the change of location.

“He’s contrary,” Jenny said. “That’s exactly where he wanted to be earlier, but now he must find fault with it.” Would she be equally fickle about Paris once she’d arrived there?

Elijah helped her to her feet then surprised her by pulling her into his arms. “We will look at those sketches, Genevieve. They are magnificent.”

She did not question the embrace, but rather, closed her eyes and breathed in his scent. “Next week, then. I will hold you to it.”

He surprised her yet again by kissing her. His lips on hers were warm, firm, and lovely—nothing fleeting or demanding. When he raised his head and did not step back, she tried to figure out what his kiss had been about. Respect, of course. Elijah was never disrespectful of her person.

But even more than respect, his kiss had tasted of awe, as if he were kissing a goddess come to earth. Jenny leaned against him, abruptly feeling fatigue to go along with her hunger.

“Come, my lady.” Elijah shifted to link their arms, ballroom promenade-fashion. “We will fortify ourselves. Your brothers will likely be stirring, the mistletoe is still threatening from every corner, and if I understand aright, yet more family will be arriving today.”

His smile said that amid all that mayhem and holiday nonsense, she would have an ally. She would have a quiet place to come and paint; she would have a handkerchief when she needed one.

She’d have a friend who would not risk any more folly with her, regardless of how badly she’d miss him once they parted.

The realization hurt with a whole new pain, particularly when she thought back to when he’d noticed her the previous afternoon as she’d sat quietly in her dim corner. She’d studied her brothers, with their wrists, chins, and glances, and she’d studied Elijah too.

He missed his family, missed them more deeply than he likely knew. She would go to Paris, but if there was any benevolence to the holiday season at all, Elijah would give in to a towering case of homesickness and take himself off to Flint Hall.

Fourteen

Marriages developed a language as sophisticated and subtle as any code devised by the War Office—more so, for being flexible. The better a man understood that code, the more peacefully his marriage would proceed.

Charlotte glanced up from her embroidery hoop in a manner that told Lord Flint she’d been patient long enough. “What does your son have to say for himself, Flint?”

He did not pass her the letter, not with Prudholm lurking by the window, gilding the shine on some adolescent sulk. “Elijah? Just the usual. His commission is coming along. He’s in good health. Lady Jenny Windham has more than a bit of talent. He encloses Her Grace’s recipe for wassail, along with a warning to imbibe it in moderation. He’s having to keep his studio locked when not in use to keep all the Moreland progeny from coming to harm with the paints and such.”

“Your son is a trial to a mother’s heart, but he understands the little ones.”

From a reading chair in the corner, Pru let loose a snort that might have resembled a cough.

“Moreland’s letter is more interesting.”

Her hand paused in midair, the needle drawn as far from the fabric as it would go without snapping the thread. “His Grace wrote to you?”

“Moreland has ever been a reliable correspondent. He says Her Grace has insisted that the artists be left to their work and disturbed as little as possible, lest her present not be completed by the Christmas Eve open house.”

“I have eleven other children to look after, Flint. I am not spending my Christmas Eve in some bouncing sleigh, freezing my—” She fell silent, her French grasp of subtleties stealing the rest of her outburst. “Artists?”

“Elijah has asked for Lady Jenny’s aid in the studio, but His Grace says it has turned into some sort of art lesson for his daughter. She’s handy with a paintbrush, according to her father.”

Flint leaned closer to the candelabrum, as if to see the words more clearly. He was in fact thwarting his wife’s impulse to snatch the letter from his hands.

Charlotte stabbed her fabric as if it were the villain in a bad farce. “Handy with a paintbrush? That is ridiculous. That is a man who does not comprehend portraiture. That is a papa who is not paying attention. If Elijah says the girl is talented, then she’s likely a genius.”

“Perhaps.”

She looked over at him, arching a Gallic eyebrow that had captivated him across many a ballroom and every one of their bedrooms. “Flint, you try my patience worse than all your sons put together. What else does His Grace say?”

He chose his words carefully, because Prudholm had stopped shifting and sighing and using every other aggravating means to remind his parents of his presence. If Oxford was to continue benefiting from Flint’s largesse, they’d give in to his pleading and start Hilary term on Boxing Day.

“He implies that his sons and daughters have a tacitly agreed-to schedule, upon which they routinely intrude on the studio—to look for missing children, to extend an invitation to tea, to inquire about the whereabouts of a particular cat.”

His marchioness made an impatient wave with a graceful hand.

He got to the point, to the troubling, puzzling point. “They none of them report anything of a questionable nature when they drop in unannounced, though neither Elijah nor Lady Jenny is willing to let anyone inspect their works in progress.”

For a moment, Lady Flint was silent, and this was exactly why Flint hadn’t waited to bring matters to her attention. What could it mean that Elijah was closeted with an artistically talented, pretty, available young lady for hours at a time, and not one hint of impropriety could be discovered in his dealings with her? What did it mean that for the first time in nine years—nearly ten—their firstborn had mentioned a young, lovely, unmarried, well-dowered woman of suitable station in his correspondence?

“Elijah is probably preoccupied with whether to join us here this year for the holidays,” her ladyship observed. She held her hoop at arm’s length, studying a scene of snowflakes and pine trees so real, Flint expected it to reek of pine boughs.

Pru shifted on his chair and turned the page of a book. The first page he’d turned in more than fifteen minutes.

“Elijah will join us,” Flint muttered. “I have every confidence he’ll heed his mother’s summons.”

“I do not summon anybody, Flint.”

Prudholm’s book snapped closed, and he exited the room without a word to either parent. A subtle and wearying tension left with him.

“Your youngest son makes a poor spy for his siblings,” her ladyship said. She glanced at the door through which their baby boy had just stalked. “Flint, you must not worry. That Elijah does not trouble the young lady means he respects her, and better still, he respects her art. The lady’s siblings collude with her to keep any mention of longing glances and little touches from Their Graces’ notice. All will be well.”

Ah. When she explained it that way, it made perfect sense. As a younger man, Flint had been heedless with many a merry widow, willing chambermaid, and courtesan, but never again once he’d met his Charlotte.

“What is that you’re embroidering, my dear?”

“A shroud for the fools at Oxford who think young men ought to be sent home for the holidays to stomp about the house, nip their papa’s brandy, and tease their sisters.”

“You love that scamp,” Flint said.

She sent him a look, part parental commiseration, part exasperated wife.

“Pru reminds me of you, Flint. He makes the grand gestures and is full of posturing, and it’s all a diversion. The boy is plotting something. Elijah likely is too. The Harrison male is a crafty creature and determined on his goals, something I love about every one of them.”