Chapter Two

Two

Stella had thought herself beyond shock. However, at the gentleman’s outlandish request, she was scandalized anew. “Paint me ?” She stared at him. “In a portrait, do you mean?”

“Yes, exactly that.” He sat across from her in his wheeled chair, just as strikingly handsome as she recalled him being during their brief encounter at the museum.

More striking now, owing to the elegance of his dress.

His eveningwear was impeccably cut. And his gleaming black hair, formerly rumpled, was combed and pomaded into perfect order. It framed a lean face, characterized by high cheekbones, a firmly chiseled jaw, and clever blue-gray eyes set beneath a pair of uncompromisingly straight ebony brows. An austere face, softened only a fraction by a disturbingly sensual mouth.

Mr. Hayes, or Teddy Hayes as he’d so boldly introduced himself, was without a doubt the most singular man Stella had ever encountered. And it wasn’t because he was in a wheeled chair—though that was rare enough in fashionable society. Most people had a fear of illness and infirmity. Invalids were meant to hide themselves away, to be coddled and cared for, their physical frailties kept firmly out of sight of able-bodied strangers. Unless, of course, the invalid was taking the waters in Bath or Harrogate, or out for an airing in the park.

No. Mr. Hayes’s singularity wasn’t on account of his chair. It was entirely owing to his manner.

He was both unrepentantly cheerful and remorselessly direct. It was a quality she’d first observed when they’d met in the King’s Gallery. That earnest demeanor. That blunt way of speaking. One would think he saw nothing at all wrong in cornering an unmarried young lady in a darkened room and shamelessly propositioning her.

Had he no scruples? No decorum?

Stella’s older brother, Daniel, would be outraged by the man’s impertinence. So would Anne, come to that. Stella herself was somewhat less offended. Stunned, yes, but not at all inclined to swoon.

Mr. Hayes wasn’t, after all, a complete stranger anymore. And not only because he’d introduced himself, but because he’d admitted to being part owner of Hayes’s Lavender Water. The famous British brand was one of the most respectable scents a lady could wear. In her younger days, when her meager funds had stretched to affording her the little luxuries of life, it was the very fragrance Stella had often used to splash her unclothed body after a bath.

Good gracious. The very thought!

It was that which made her cheeks heat with uncontrollable warmth.

As for his suggestion that he paint her…

“On no account,” she said. “I’m no artist’s model.”

Mr. Hayes was undeterred. “All the better. I’ve no use for an experienced model to pose for me. I require a particular look. A certain unique quality. Until I saw you at the museum, I despaired of finding it.”

In other words, he wanted an oddity.

A knot twisted in Stella’s stomach. No lady enjoyed being thought unique because of her most damning flaw.

“You wish to paint a lady with gray hair,” she said flatly. “There are hundreds about. Thousands, even. You can take your pick.”

“There are none like you.” His keen gaze swept over her, from the spun-glass aigrette she wore in her hair to the hem of her white silk-and-crepe skirts. “None that I’ve seen.”

She made a scornful sound. “That I can well believe. It isn’t often a lady of my age—” She stopped herself.

What in heaven was she doing engaging with him on the topic of her hair ? She should have left the instant he first remarked on it, not lingered to indulge his prurient interest! Not even an artist could be forgiven for discussing a lady’s person in such candid terms.

“It isn’t your youth.” He rolled his chair another turn of the wheels toward her. “It’s not even the color of your hair, though it is stunning.”

Stunning .

The word reverberated in the shadowed anteroom. It echoed back at Stella, both in her ears and in her heart, a balm to her injured pride. She knew she shouldn’t encourage him, but…

“What, then?” she asked.

“Why, you’re a shining star, Stella,” he said. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you so before? It’s that quality I need to paint.”

Stella’s breath caught at the compliment. She’d been praised so rarely in her life, and never for her beauty. And to be called a shining star, of all things!

Mr. Hayes had uttered the words effortlessly, but not at all frivolously. There was a seriousness behind his eyes at odds with his easy demeanor. Need to paint, he’d said. Not want. This endeavor meant something to him. A great deal, unless she was mistaken.

He rolled closer to her. “I have a fascination with light, you see. There’s an art to translating it to canvas. It’s present in the works of Turner and Constable. And in modern pieces, like Whistler’s. I can show you, if you like, when we return to London.”

Her heart quivered in unwilling anticipation. “You presume we’ll see each other again.”

“Naturally.” He smiled, revealing a brief flash of even white teeth. “It’s taken me three months to find you. I’m not likely to let you go.”

Heat crept up her throat. She should be offended. But it was difficult to summon outrage when Mr. Hayes was so earnest.

She couldn’t stop herself from blurting out the first thought in her head: “How peculiar you are.”

His smile spread into a fleeting grin. “I shall take that as a compliment.”

“You may take it how you like. But I shan’t agree to your painting me, sir. My brother is a clergyman.”

This time, Mr. Hayes’s eyes smiled, too. “That’s an odd non sequitur.”

“It isn’t. Not if you knew my brother. And if he knew of this—”

“Need he know of it?”

Her spine went rigid with reflexive indignation. “Do you suppose I go about deceiving the people I love?”

His smile faded, his expression becoming unsettlingly serious as he studied her face. “No. I don’t suppose you do,” he mused. “I expect you’re loyal to a fault. Another reason you shine so very brightly.”

She ducked her head, refusing to tolerate any more of his flattery. “Really, sir, this is all too much. You shouldn’t opportune me so.”

“I haven’t a choice. You eluded me once. I can’t risk you doing so again.”

“This isn’t the British Museum. This is a winter house party. We’re both of us stuck indoors for the duration. I couldn’t elude you if I wanted to.”

“I’ll wager you’re capable of anything you set your mind to,” he said. “I only ask that—”

“No,” she repeated. “I could never.”

He wheeled toward her. “But I must paint you. I shall run mad if I don’t.”

Stella couldn’t suppress a flare of guilt. What could it really hurt to sit for a portrait?

But no.

She may be rebellious enough to color her hair, but that rebellion had to stop somewhere. Circassian dye was temporary. A painting would be forever.

“I am very sorry for it,” she said. And before she could give in to temptation, before she could ask him anything else about his work (or worse, himself), she caught up her skirts and darted from the room.

?This time, Teddy made no move to follow her. He remained in the shadowy anteroom, privately cursing himself for being so bloody eager.

Of all the offensive masculine qualities that ladies detested, eagerness was one of the worst. That’s what Alex said. A gentleman was never supposed to reveal his hand. Never supposed to admit to wanting a lady’s company more than a lady desired his. To do so was to put oneself in an immediate position of weakness. And ladies loathed weakness in a man, almost as much as they abhorred eagerness.

Teddy scrubbed his jaw in frustration. Unlike his brother-in-law, who had spent his early years earning his bread as a European sharper, Teddy was no cardplayer. He’d thought he could persuade Miss Hobhouse by conveying to her the simple truth. He’d dealt with her openly and honestly. He hadn’t minced words about her loveliness or about his desperation to commit that loveliness to canvas. He’d laid himself bare.

Which was precisely why he was sitting here alone.

“Damn it all to hell,” he muttered.

He wasn’t accustomed to persuading gently bred ladies to sit for him. In the past, his portraits had been confined to his sister and aunt, and then, in time, to the wives of his friends. He’d painted other women, too. Though, not ladies, precisely.

During his years studying in Paris, an earnest young student at the renowned Montparnasse atelier of artist and teacher Charles Gleyre, many a prostitute had been willing to pose for a few sous. Teddy’s portfolio was bursting with sketches of them. His fellow students could boast the same. Indeed, the professions of prostitute and artist’s model were often interchangeable.

Such women were generally relegated to French brothels, but one could find them elsewhere on occasion, lingering in the streets or strolling through one of the newly completed public parks. Teddy had spent countless hours seated alongside the fashionable walks of the Bois de Boulogne, waiting for his muse to appear.

But when she finally had, it hadn’t been in some Parisian park or brothel. It had been in London, in a stuffy gallery at the British Museum. A meeting that had arisen entirely by chance, when Teddy had least expected it.

And this time, the muse who had sparked his attention had been a true one. Not a passing fancy, sufficient to stimulate a sketch or two, but an out-and-out, flesh-and-blood Calliope, Clio, or Erato. A muse to inspire a masterwork.

He’d spent the past three months convinced that he’d never find her again.

“Teddy?” His sister’s voice drifted from the hall. “Are you there?”

He sighed. Of course Laura would come after him. No doubt she thought he’d fallen victim to some mischief or other. “In here!” he called back.

Seconds later, Laura appeared in the doorway. She wore a ball gown of celestial blue figured silk, trimmed with goffered ribbons and blonde lace. A scrap of similarly trimmed blonde, in the guise of a matron’s evening cap, was pinned atop her plaited coil of ebony hair.

At seven-and-twenty, she was only three years older than him. A negligible number, silently multiplied by the weight of Teddy’s disability—and her own. Laura had contracted scarlet fever at the same time as he had. It had affected her lungs and had, initially, made breathing a struggle whenever she’d overexerted herself. She’d nursed Teddy through his illness, nonetheless. Indeed, she’d looked after him for so long, she couldn’t help but think of herself as more akin to a mother than a sister.

Teddy loved her for it, even as he bridled under her concern. “I’m fine, before you ask,” he said. “I was talking to a young lady.”

Laura smiled as she came to join him. Her skirts rustled softly in a whisper of expensive French silk over sensibly starched petticoats. Years spent living on the continent had improved the quality of the fashions she wore, but her essential, no-nonsense British nature remained unaltered. “The auburn-haired girl I just saw racing down the corridor?”

“Yes.” He scowled. “That is, no. She isn’t auburn haired. She’s the lady from the King’s Gallery.”

Laura’s brows flew up. She’d listened to Teddy lament losing his muse for the past three months. She, of all people, knew what it had meant to him. “You found her! Oh, Teddy—”

“Yes, I found her, only to lose her again.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, wreaking havoc with his carefully pomaded locks. “I’ve frightened her away.”

His sister perched on the edge of a nearby chair. Her manner was immediately consoling. “You couldn’t frighten anyone.”

“I’ve scandalized her, then.”

“She can hardly be scandalized easily if she’s taken to dying her hair,” Laura pointed out.

Teddy couldn’t deny the truth in the statement. He knew enough of ladies—and of respectable society—to understand that dying one’s hair was considered as unseemly as painting one’s face. But Miss Hobhouse was surely an exception to the rule. She wasn’t using cosmetics to gild the proverbial lily. Rather, the reverse. In coloring her hair, she was attempting to make herself ordinary. He recognized the fact, even if he couldn’t entirely wrap his mind around it.

“I don’t imagine she expected to see anyone here that she knew,” he said.

“She must know someone,” Laura replied. “How else could she have been invited?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Did you at least catch her name?”

“Miss Hobhouse,” he said.

He didn’t share her first name. Stella, for star. It was too intimate. Too perfect. He wanted to hold it close, if only for a short while longer. It was a foolish, romantic impulse, and all of a piece with the rest of this infernal business. He’d been romanticizing his silver-haired stranger since the moment he’d first clapped eyes on her.

“She’s the sister of a clergyman, apparently,” he added.

“I see.” A lengthy pause. “She’s very pretty.”

“She is,” he agreed sullenly. “Much good that does me.”

Again, Laura smiled. “Don’t be so downhearted. She’s here at Sutton Park, isn’t she? You’ll have ample opportunity to take her likeness over Christmas.”

“ Take being the operative word. She’s not given her permission.”

“There are ways to make allowances for that.”

“Such as?”

“You could alter her face before you commit your preliminary sketch to canvas. That would be a way of respecting—”

“I want all of her,” Teddy interrupted impatiently. “Her face. Her figure. Her silver hair. That’s my star. It must be all or nothing.”

Laura’s forehead etched with concern. “What can I do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nonsense. I can easily make her acquaintance. Once I do—”

“You can what? Facilitate a friendship between us?” Teddy scoffed. “No, thank you.”

He may not be as independent as he’d like, but he was still a man. He wouldn’t have his older sister acting as an intermediary with a young lady. Not this young lady, anyway.

“I shall simply have to try again on my own,” he said. “I’ll exercise more tact in future. Try not to scare her.”

“You have an entire week to implement your strategy.”

His mouth twitched. He knew when his sister was quizzing him. “Strategy, is it? You’ve been married to Alex too long. Where is he, by the way?”

“When last I saw him, he was talking with one of the gentlemen naturalists about soil acidity.”

“A riveting subject.”

“He seemed to be enjoying himself.”

“I’ll bet he is.” Teddy’s brother-in-law was in his element when he was gaining people’s confidence. By the end of the evening, he’d no doubt possess all the botanical secrets of the realm. “What about you?” Teddy scanned his sister’s face. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

Unlike her husband, Laura was accustomed to a quieter life. Before her marriage, she and Teddy had lived together in a smallish cottage in Surrey, all but isolated, under the questionable care of their aged aunt Charlotte. Even now, at their perfumery in Grasse, Laura and Alex kept much to themselves, enjoying their own company far better than they enjoyed the glamour and excitement of their regular jaunts to Paris and London.

Teddy was the one who craved excitement, to his constant frustration. Every adventure was an obstacle. And not all of the obstacles arose from the greater world around him. Some were created by his family—the people who loved him best. He felt their constraints as much as he felt the limitations of his chair. Worse, even, for those constraints had lately been more difficult to overcome.

“I’m longing for home,” Laura said frankly. “Which is foolish, really. We’ll be back soon enough, in the spring, when everything is blooming.”

“You could return early,” he suggested.

“And cut short our visit with Tom and Jenny in London? Or our trip to Devon after Christmas to see Justin and Helena, and Neville and Clara? Not to mention, this business with the roses for the perfumery.” She shook her head. “No. We must remain in England through March. I’m resolved to be happy about it.”

Teddy was acquainted with all his brother-in-law’s childhood friends and their wives. Tom and Jenny Finchley, Justin and Helena Thornhill, and Neville and Clara Cross were as good as family to Alex and Laura. As good as family to Teddy, too. He’d been accepted into their ranks as easily as Laura had. It was a fact that Teddy meant to use to his advantage when the time came for Alex and Laura to return to France.

His sister didn’t know it yet, but Teddy had no intention of returning home with them.

“You make it sound as though it takes an effort,” he said.

“Not at all. I love dancing with Alex wherever we are.”

“Dancing, yes.” Teddy pulled a face. “A bit awkward with my chair.”

His sister’s blue-gray eyes lit with ready sympathy. She didn’t pity him, but she comprehended the difficulties he experienced in making his way in the world. “You needn’t have come to the ball. Lord March wouldn’t have minded.”

“ I would have minded. I may not be equipped to dance, but they can very well make space for me in the ballroom. And if anyone is unsettled by the sight of me—”

“Indeed, they aren’t,” Laura protested, appalled by the suggestion.

Teddy suppressed a stab of irritation. His sister may want to sugarcoat his situation, but he saw no point in fooling himself. It was better to view his disability as pragmatically as possible. That meant acknowledging how others perceived him.

His chair was obtrusive, both physically and visually. Custom built for him in France, it sat upon a carriage axel, boasting a high-backed seat of well-padded wood, with two large, spoked wheels on either side, and a smaller wheel at the rear, which aided in turning. It was a decided improvement on the traditional Bath chair, which could only be pulled by a horse or pushed by an attendant, but there was no mistaking it for anything other than what it was: an invalid’s chair. A cumbersome appliance for a man without the use of his lower limbs.

“Some are,” he said. “People don’t appreciate being reminded of their own mortality. It makes them uncomfortable.”

“Silly of them.”

“Yes. Quite.” He forced a smile. “Fortunately, I don’t exist to make anyone comfortable, excepting myself. And I like hearing the music and seeing the dancers. Besides, Miss Hobhouse has likely returned to the ballroom. She’ll be dancing, too.”

Laura gave him a doubtful frown. “You’ll be content to watch her?”

Teddy shrugged. “It’s enough,” he said. “For now.”

It would have to be.