Chapter Eleven

Eleven

Teddy peered over the top of his sketch pad as Stella entered the room. She was wearing another of her fashionable dresses. The same lush-textured, tight-bodiced variety of garment that had, during their last session, done inexplicable things to his pulse. The dangerous effect of it was tempered somewhat by her appalling black crepe matron’s cap. Just as yesterday, it covered all of her hair, its dull black ribbons trailing about the slender column of her neck.

“Good afternoon,” she said. “I hope you haven’t been waiting for me?”

All my life , he was tempted to say.

It was true, wasn’t it? He’d dreamed of being inspired in this way. And here she was, for but one night longer. Tomorrow she would be gone. Back to Derbyshire and out of his world forever.

He cleared his throat. “No, indeed. I’m early, as usual.” He motioned to the shield-back chair. “If you would?”

“May I see it yet?” she asked, coming closer. It was the same question she’d asked yesterday.

Teddy gave her his same answer. “It isn’t finished.”

“I know that,” she said. “I’d still like to see it. I could offer my opinions on your progress.”

“This isn’t a collaborative process.”

“Naturally, it is. What is posing if not collaborating?”

“You sit in that chair, and you stare at that clock. That’s where your part of the collaboration ends.” He again motioned for her to take a seat. “If you wouldn’t mind?”

“Very well,” Stella said with a disgruntled scrunch of her nose. “If you will insist on being a stickler.”

She crossed the room, the fabric of her skirts rustling softly about her legs. She smelled of lilacs, just as she had on every occasion they’d met. It was a sweet, ephemeral fragrance, too subtle to be perfume. Her soap, very likely, or the scented oil from her bath water.

Whatever it was, it was doing Teddy’s powers of concentration no favors.

She sank down on the chair, fluffing her velvet-ribbon trimmed skirts about her legs.

“Your cap,” he reminded her.

“Oh yes. I’d nearly forgotten.” She swiftly removed the black monstrosity, revealing her neatly coiffed silver hair. It was arranged in a large roll at her neck, secured with a heavy plait. A fashionable style, but not an ostentatious one. Not a seductive one, certainly.

A simmering heat nevertheless pooled low in Teddy’s belly. He ignored it. Picking up his pencil, he returned to his sketch.

Intense artistic inspiration could often be mistaken for another kind of attraction. It wasn’t unusual to feel it. As a consequence, many artists became involved with their female subjects. Emotionally. Physically.

It didn’t necessarily detract from their work. On the contrary, the intimacy of the connection often added additional depth to a portrait. If an artist knew his subject—truly knew her—he could depict her with a sensitivity that was otherwise lacking.

Joanna Hiffernan was currently Whistler’s mistress. Rossetti had wed his primary model, Elizabeth Siddal, after a long and passionate affair. And there was Millais, of course, who had famously married his muse, the former Mrs. Ruskin.

But Stella wasn’t Teddy’s wife. She wasn’t his mistress. She was an unmarried young lady who should be treated with respect. A clergyman’s sister, by God. And one who hadn’t even agreed to let him paint her portrait.

This sketch was merely a consolation prize. It wasn’t the beginning of anything. It was the ending.

Furrowing his brow, he focused his attention on shading in the delicate shell of her ear with his pencil. It was all light and shadow. An impression of her, not an exact duplicate. A sketch that would, when it was finished, evoke the same feelings that Teddy had whenever he looked at her.

He was nearly done with it. A few finishing touches were all that remained. And then this brief, blissful interlude would be over. In the morning, they would go their separate ways—her with his sketch, and he with nothing of her at all.

It wouldn’t do.

He needed to paint her in oils. To depict her standing over a shimmering, twilight sea, her hair unbound, with a glittering gauze shift skimming the curves of her body. The human embodiment of the Pleiades.

But it was never going to happen. Not if she wouldn’t allow it. And not if she was permanently retiring to some remote bloody village in Derbyshire.

“Will you never return to London?” he asked abruptly.

She turned her head, briefly meeting his eyes. “It’s odd you should ask.”

“Why odd?”

“I learned this morning that Lady Anne and Mr. Hartford’s wedding will be in March. They plan to marry in London, at St. George’s Hanover Square, on the first day of spring. I’ll be expected to attend.” She paused. “I want to attend.”

Teddy’s pulse quickened. March was a long way away yet. Still…it was a vast improvement from never. “What’s stopping you?”

“Nothing yet. I’ve only to persuade my brother to bring me.” She resumed her pose. “Where will you go after the house party? The night of the ball, you mentioned us crossing paths again in London. Will you be stopping there before returning to France?”

Teddy’s fingers tightened reflexively on his pencil. He had to force them to loosen. “I’m not returning to France. I mean to find lodgings in town.”

“With your sister and brother-in-law?”

His pencil stopped on his sketch pad, frozen on the shadows he was creating along the length of Stella’s neck. A troubled frown creased his brow.

She again turned to look at him. Her silver-blue gaze was steady and grave. “Forgive me, I seem to have misspoken.”

“Not at all.” He used a stump to blur out his shading, still frowning. “My sister and brother-in-law will be returning to Grasse in the spring. I’ll remain in London.”

“Alone?”

His muscles tensed. Was his independence so outlandish of a proposition? “I’ll naturally have Jennings to assist me.”

“The large man I’ve seen following you about?”

“The very one.” Teddy scowled at his sketch pad, muttering, “For the time being.”

She continued gazing at him, her face possessed of the same tender gravity. It was the exact expression she’d worn when studying the van Dyck drawing in the King’s Gallery so many months ago. The very expression Teddy longed to paint.

Putting aside the stump, he again picked up his pencil.

“London surely can’t be as pleasant a place to live as Paris,” she said. “Not for an artist.”

“Funnily enough, you’re not the first to say so.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it? Why remain in England if you can return to France?”

“Turner painted in England.”

A smile crept into Stella’s voice. “Ah yes. Turner. Your idol.”

“I’m not ashamed to say so.”

“Why should you be? Though…” Her brows notched. “His paintings of the sea are rather volatile. The sky and the clouds are all storming color and light, and the water is a frightening tumult.”

“Exactly,” Teddy said. “It’s why I take inspiration from him. So do many painters of the new age. Turner’s seascapes are unparalleled. Had I a fraction of his talent, I would count myself a lucky man.” He finished shading the curve of her throat, warming to the subject. “He was born in London, you know. He lived above his father’s barbershop in Maiden Lane.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“It’s true.”

“That doesn’t make the subject matter in England any more compelling.”

Teddy glanced up from his work to find her still looking at him. It did odd things to him, that look. Some of the tension in his expression softened. A smile edged his mouth, even as his heart skipped a beat. “The subject matter satisfies me very well at present.”

Stella’s soft, voluptuous mouth ticked up at one corner in reluctant reply. “You’re absurd.”

“What I am is pressed for time.” He pointed his pencil at the mantel clock in an unspoken command for her to return to her pose. “If you would be so good?”

?Stella suppressed a smile as she resumed staring at the clock. He meant her, of course, the rogue. She was, for the moment, more appealing to him than all the beauties of France.

It was utter rubbish. Shameless, self-serving flattery to persuade her to continue posing for him. The sentiment nevertheless provoked a delicious warmth in her veins.

“Who inspires your sketches?” he inquired as he resumed his work. “Any particular artists?”

“I’m fond of Mr. Landseer’s paintings,” she answered. “He portrays horses so beautifully.”

It was a simple answer. Edwin Henry Landseer was one of England’s foremost animal painters and sculptors. Anyone drawing horses would naturally look to him for inspiration. Either that or to the paintings of the late Mr. Stubbs.

“Do you use his work as a guide for proportions?” Teddy asked.

“But rarely. My sketches are from life. And since I have a horse with me at most times, I have no need to look elsewhere to find the harmony of equine proportion. The breadth of Locket’s wither and the length of her hock are written on my soul.”

“A fine way of putting it.”

“It’s what I feel.”

“I’d be honored to see your work sometime,” he said. “Unless, that is, you still consider me too much a stranger.”

She recalled her words to him in the drawing room on the second night of the house party. Then, she’d dismissed his desire to see her sketches as a pedantic masculine impulse. She knew now that she’d been wrong. Teddy’s interest in her work didn’t stem from a need to put her in her place. He was genuinely interested in her talent.

“Must I?” she quizzed him. “I thought you disapproved of collaboration?”

“For works in progress, yes. Have you no finished sketches you could share?”

“A few,” she said.

Her portfolio at home was filled with sketches of Locket, and of Anne’s golden stallion, Saffron; Julia’s black gelding, Cossack; and Evie’s blood bay Andalusian, Hephaestus. Stella had drawn them in every gait and every mood, to the very best of her ability. Indeed, she sketched the way other ladies of her acquaintance practiced the piano or labored over their needlework. It was her only true accomplishment outside of riding.

“Regrettably, I don’t have them with me. I have only the half dozen or so sketches I’ve made of the earl’s horses since I’ve been here in Hampshire.”

“A half dozen? My pieces take rather longer.”

“As I perceive. Are you nearly done yet?”

“Just a bit more shading,” he said.

She sighed. “So much effort. It seems a waste if I’m only to burn it.”

Her statement was met with several seconds of profound silence. It was long enough for her to regret speaking so glibly. She was just opening her mouth to apologize when she heard him set down his pencil.

“It would be a shame if you did.” He tore the page from his sketchbook. “There. It’s finished. It’s yours.”

She turned fully in her chair to find him extending the sketch to her. She eagerly reached for it. Their bare fingers brushed. It was only for an instant. The space of a breath, a heartbeat. But it was long enough.

A jolt of unmistakable heat shot through Stella. Her eyes jerked to Teddy’s. Their gazes locked and held for a moment—hers questioning and his dark with a sudden intensity.

It was the first time they’d touched—ungloved skin to skin. A second’s contact, merely. Yet, Stella had the uneasy sense that it had changed something between them. Indeed, the very air around them crackled with a palpable tension.

She could think of nothing else to do but take the sketch and resume her seat. She focused her full attention on it, doing her best to ignore the quickening of her pulse.

Had she not just experienced a cataclysmic physical response to the touch of a gentleman’s hand, she might have experienced one from viewing the way that gentleman saw her.

He’d reproduced her image in subtle pencil lines and artful shading that softened the contours of her face and lent an otherworldly luminosity to her countenance. He’d made her beautiful. Serene. A grave-eyed creature of stillness and shadow, gazing at the mysteries of some distant horizon.

A lump formed in Stella’s throat. This wasn’t what she saw when she looked in the glass of her dressing table. This youthful, dignified, alluring creature who was somehow equal parts Athena, Artemis, and Aphrodite herself.

She lifted her eyes to Teddy’s in cautious wonder. “Is this how you see me?”

“I see you as you are,” he said. “It’s what I’ve tried to convey, limited by the abilities of my pencil.”

“It’s…” She swallowed hard. “Goodness.”

His brows lowered. “You don’t approve?”

“I do,” she assured him. “Oh, but I do. It’s only that…you’ve managed to surprise me.”

“You presumed I’d present you with something amateurish?”

She shook her head. “No. I knew it would be good. What I didn’t know was that it would be—”

“What?”

“Extraordinary.”

His mouth curved slowly. “I’m glad you like it.” He paused. His voice deepened. “Please don’t burn it.”

Stella held the sketch to her bosom. She couldn’t believe she’d ever considered destroying it. Not even to guard her reputation. “I shan’t burn it,” she promised him. “I shall treasure it always.”

His smile turned wry. He closed his sketchbook. “Well, I suppose that’s something.”

Stella knew he was disappointed that he couldn’t do a formal portrait of her. Given the quality of his sketch, she was disappointed, too. “I’m astonished you’re not tempted to keep it yourself,” she said.

He flashed her an unreadable glance as he put away his pencils.

Stella belatedly realized how vain she must sound. “Not because it’s of my face, obviously,” she added, “but because it’s such a fine example of your work.”

“Your face is the only reason I’d consider keeping it,” he said frankly. “But I don’t need to.” He tapped his forefinger to his temple. “You’re etched up here, more indelibly than a pencil drawing. I won’t easily forget you.”

Her heart beat hard. She couldn’t think how to respond.

Teddy saved her the trouble. “I have something for you, by the way.” Reaching into his supply case, he withdrew a small, tissue-wrapped bundle. He extended it to her.

Stella took it with an uncertain frown. An unmarried young lady wasn’t supposed to accept gifts from a gentleman. Not unless that gentleman was courting her. And then, the gifts could be only something small and transitory, such as flowers or candy. Anything more would be unseemly.

“What—?”

“It’s not a gift,” Teddy said, seeming to read her mind. “It’s only something I borrowed from my sister.”

Stella cautiously opened the rose-colored, tissue-paper wrappings. A scrap of finely wrought blonde lace lay within. It was, she realized in some surprise, an elegantly crafted matron’s cap. Possibly the most fashionable one she’d ever beheld.

She lifted her gaze to Teddy’s. “I don’t understand.”

He resumed putting away his supplies. “You’ve been absent from dinner nearly every night this week because of your hair. I thought, if you had something better to wear than that dreadful black cap, you might come down this evening. It seems a shame for you to spend the last night of the house party alone.”

A sudden prickle of moisture stung at Stella’s eyes. “How thoughtful of you.”

“It wasn’t thoughtfulness. It was artistic revulsion. I’ve taken an aversion to that cap of Lady Arundell’s. My sister’s cap will be a marked improvement.”

“It’s beautiful.” Stella fingered the delicate lace. It was entirely opaque, and in combination with the elaborate ribbon ties, might very well succeed in covering her hair as thoroughly as Lady Arundell’s black crepe monstrosity. “Surely your sister will mind my borrowing it?”

“She won’t,” he said. “Laura has dozens of the things, all of them made in Paris. My brother-in-law keeps her outfitted in splendid style. She was happy to spare it for you.”

Stella’s stomach sank. “Do you mean that she knows about—”

“She knows that your hair is gray. I told her about you after you and I met at the British Museum. But no. She doesn’t realize it’s gone gray again. I wouldn’t betray your confidence.” He glanced at her. “Can you use it this evening?”

“I believe so,” Stella said. “Thank you. You’re…That was excessively kind.” She gathered her courage. “Teddy…”

He stilled.

It was the first time she’d used his given name unprompted. He must have registered it in the same moment that she did. Must have known that it preceded a new level of intimacy between them. An intimacy that had nothing to do with art.

A dull red flush appeared high on his neck, just above the line of his collar. It was the only thing that betrayed the imperviousness of his manner. That, and the unexpected scrape of gruffness in his voice. “Yes, Stella?”

“We’re all going sleighing tonight, if the snow will support it.”

It was plainly not what Teddy had been expecting her to say.

He returned to putting away his supplies. “Oh?”

“Will you come with us?”

“No, thank you.”

“Because you don’t like the out of doors?” she asked. “Or because you’d rather paint?”

He didn’t reply.

She pressed on, despite the tickle of warning in her brain that told her to hold her tongue. “Or is it because you don’t want people making a fuss over your chair?”

His lips compressed in a hard line as he put the last pencil back into his case. “All of the above.”

“I think you should come.”

“Do you.” It wasn’t a question.

She answered it anyway. “Yes. I know why you’re reluctant. I understand better than anyone. But—”

“You don’t understand.”

“I do. My hair has often caused undue awkwardness for me. It’s why I resorted to that dye. I—”

“It isn’t at all the same.”

“I know that . All I meant was that I can comprehend how—”

“You altered your hair to make yourself ordinary. While I—”

“Not ordinary. I wanted to be beautiful, if only for a—”

“You are beautiful. If people discount it because of your hair, that’s their problem.” He thrust his remaining supplies into his art case. “Whatever their issue, it can’t compare with the bother my chair creates for everyone when I go out of doors. It’s trying even among friends. Among strangers, it’s something else. And with the weather, and the amount of effort—”

“What does a little commotion matter in the grand scheme of things? It’s a winter wonderland outside—all frosty and white. And there’s a full moon tonight. You could see the beauties of Sutton Park firsthand, instead of from the window. Not to mention…”

“What?”

Warmth crept into her cheeks. “It’s our last night here. Wouldn’t it be jolly to spend it having a sleigh ride under the stars?”

He gave her another of his unreadable glances. “With you?”

Stella’s heart beat heavily in her chest. “With me.”

His jaw tightened. For a moment, it seemed he would refuse. And then: “Very well,” he said brusquely, snapping shut his case. “I’ll come.”