Chapter 32

CHAPTER 32

" H as Lord Feverton gone out, Mrs. Boggs?" Cressida asked.

It was early in the morning a few days after their dinner at Edwina and Allan's home, and Cressida had expected that she would see her husband at breakfast. It was a surprise to find that not only was he absent, no plate had been set for him. That was something that only happened when Matthew wasn't in the house. Even if he wasn't planning on joining her for a meal, a plate was always set out just in case he changed his mind about it.

"Lord Feverton took a meeting unexpectedly," Mrs. Boggs explained. "He asked the staff to let you know, and to tell you that you should expect him back within a few hours."

"Very well," Cressida said. "To tell you the truth, this provides me with a perfect opportunity."

"Oh—Lady Feverton, please tell me that you aren't going to ask me to help you move things around again," Mrs. Boggs said fretfully."

Cressida laughed. "I'm not," she said. "Although—I was right, wasn't I? You didn't get into trouble for it last time."

"No, I didn't," Mrs. Boggs agreed. "And I do appreciate you keeping to your word and letting Lord Feverton know that the whole thing was your idea. But I must say, if something like that were to happen for a second time, I think he would be that much angrier—not at me, but at you. And I would hate to see you suffer. The truth is, Lady Feverton, I've grown rather fond of you. We all have."

Cressida smiled. "That means the world to me," she assured her housekeeper. "And I can promise you that the feeling is entirely mutual—I have no idea what I would do without all the help you've provided me since I came to live here. Today's enterprise is nothing you need to worry about causing any trouble. It's just that I've purchased a gift for my husband, and I'll need some help moving it into his study for him. It's rather large, you see."

"I don't understand," Mrs. Boggs admitted. "How did you have this large gift brought into the house without any of the staff knowing about it?"

"It wasn't like that," Cressida said. "I gave the money tone of the footmen and sent him to town to buy it for me. He delivered it to my room, and I've been keeping it there for the past two days, waiting for the right moment. I don't want Lord Feverton to see me moving it, you see. I want him to walk into his study and find it there."

"What is this gift?"

"Come with me to my room and I'll show you," Cressida said.

Mrs. Boggs followed her. "Will the two of us be able to move this thing?" she asked. "Will we need to ask some of the men to help us?"

"Oh, no, we can do it," Cressida assured her. "It isn't very heavy. It's just rather large and cumbersome, so it will be easier with two people, that's all."

They reached the door to her room. Cressida opened it and stood back to allow Mrs. Boggs to enter first.

Of course, the housekeeper saw right away what it was they had come for. "It's a canvas," she said, approaching it.

Cressida had suspected that it might not be a good idea for the canvas to be exposed to direct sunlight, so she had stored it away from her window, leaning up against her wardrobe in a place the light never touched. "This is massive."

"Yes," Cressida agreed. "I thought he might like to paint something. Will you help me carry it to the study?"

Mrs. Boggs gave her a warm smile. "I think you've hit upon something that I would be more than happy to help you move," she said. She moved to one side of the canvas and lifted it carefully. "And you're right. It's not very heavy at all."

They picked up the canvas between them and made their way to the study, where they carefully set it down upright against the desk. "Thank you," Cressida said warmly. "I'm going to stay in here for a while, I think. I appreciate your help with this, Mrs. Boggs."

"I think Lord Feverton will be very grateful for this gift," Mrs. Boggs said. "And I must say, it was very thoughtful of you to select it for him. You've made a wonderful addition to the household, Lady Feverton. You're very good for him. I hope you know that we all think so."

She smiled again and turned to leave the room.

Cressida went to Matthew's desk and sat down. She'd noticed when she had come in that he had left his sketchbook on the desk, and she found herself longing to see the drawing he had done of her once more.

For a moment, she hesitated. Was it right to look without him? It was true that he had shown her the book once before. But just because he had been all right with her seeing it while they were together, did it follow that she should feel free to look while on her own?

Perhaps not—and yet, he had left it out, hadn't he? Surely that meant it was all right. How many conversations had the two of them had about her tendency to wander the house and look at anything that was left out in the open? She had promised him that she wouldn't go poking around, but looking at things that were in plain sight didn't count as poking around. He couldn't object. If he hadn't wanted her to see it, he would have put it away.

She nodded to herself as she flipped the book open to the first page.

This time, without him sitting beside her, she found herself less self-conscious about what she was doing, and she lingered over each drawing, taking in his wonderful talent. Here was a picture of Lavinia and Edwina that she hadn't noticed before. He had so perfectly captured each of their personalities—Edwina's mischievous grin, Lavinia's warm smile. It occurred to Cressida that there was no one else she would have wanted working on her portrait. There was no one else so talented, no one she would have entrusted with the job. And the fact that he knew her better than anyone only made her feel more certain.

She turned again to the picture of her. Studying her features provided a clue, she thought, to the way he saw her. He had softened her somehow, made her lovelier, as if she was a storybook heroine instead of a lady he had met in the course of his real life. Was this the picture of her that lived in his mind? If it was, it was deeply flattering to see it.

She turned more pages.

Now she was looking at pictures she hadn't seen before, pictures that hadn't been in the book the last time he had shown it to her. He must have drawn them since then. There was another of Cressida, this time in the gown she had worn to the ball recently. It was also lovely, but the focus wasn't as closely on Cressida's face, and she found she didn't care for this one quite as much.

She moved on.

Now, here was something different. It was a sketch of a mother and son. The mother was holding the boy on her lap, looking down at him lovingly, and he gazed up at her with eyes that were filled with adoration.

When had Matthew drawn this? And why?

She didn't recognize the woman at all. It was no one she had seen before. And the boy…

She squinted, bending closer to the page.

The boy looked just like him. Like Matthew. The same dark hair and eyes, the same freckle at the side of his mouth, even the same gentle curve to his smile that she had gotten used to seeing. What was more, she recognized him from the portrait she'd seen at Edwina's home, in the library. This version of Matthew, like all his drawings, had subtle differences from what Edwina assumed was the more true-to-life version she had seen in the family portrait, but it was still unmistakably the same child.

But the woman…

This wasn't the lady she had seen in the portrait. There could be no mistake about that. This woman was willow-thin, where the lady in the portrait had been curvy, almost plump. She shared Matthew's dark curls, but the lady in the portrait had been fair-haired.

The mother in the drawing had a freckle at the side of her mouth, just as Matthew did.

And the way they were looking at one another in the picture, with such adoration in their expressions…

This was a mother and child. There was no mistaking that fact. It couldn't be anything else.

And the boy was certainly Matthew.

She shook her head, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Because it couldn't mean what she thought it did…and yet, how could it possibly mean anything else?

The lady she had seen in the portrait…was it possible that she wasn't Matthew's mother?

But if that was true, why hadn't he ever said anything? Why hadn't he ever told her that he had a different mother from his sisters? It wasn't such a shocking revelation, surely—nothing that needed to be kept a secret.

Unless there was something shocking about it for some reason.

But what?

Cressida didn't know, but what she did know was that she had certainly stumbled onto something Matthew had not intended her to see. She hadn't been supposed to find this drawing, and now that she had…what was she going to do about it? Would she ask him, see if he was willing to talk about whatever this meant? Or would she pretend that she had never seen anything at all and allow him to keep whatever this secret was to himself.

She didn't know. But she was going to have to figure it out.

As she was turning this thought over in her mind, though, the decision was wrested from her grasp. The door to the study opened, and Cressida's head jerked up in shock.

Matthew stood in the doorway, a look of shock on his face as he took in the scene—Cressida sitting at his desk, the book open before her, and the page it was turned to.

Her heart sank slowly as she watched him realize exactly what picture she was looking at.

For better or for worse, they were going to have to have this discussion right here and now.