Chapter Five

Five

Teddy added a box of chalk to the growing pile of art supplies on the guest room’s damask-draped four-poster bed. He’d already gathered a leather-bound sketchbook, soft lead pencils, Indian rubber for erasing pencil lines, and stumps—made of tightly rolled wash leather—for shading them. When combined with his drawing board and easel, it would be more than he could easily carry. But no matter. That was what Jennings was for.

The balding manservant bustled about the room. Part valet and part ham-fisted nurse, he was a hulking figure, well made for his work. Alex had hired him several years ago, in an act of kindness, not long after marrying Laura. Before Jennings, Teddy had been reduced to relying on a teetering old footman with scarcely the strength to lift him.

It was a grim reality that, in certain situations, Teddy must be carried. Though not entirely without feeling, his legs had long lost the strength to fully support his weight. He required assistance to climb up and down the stairs, and to attend to some of the essentials of life.

There wasn’t anything dignified in it. Not so far as Teddy was concerned. In the beginning, he’d preferred to remain confined to his bed than submit to the humiliation. But for a man without use of his legs, life contained a series of unavoidable indignities. His chair was a necessary appliance, as was Jennings. Teddy endeavored to think of them in the same light. To do otherwise was to venture down a dark and miserable road. He knew that from experience.

It was especially dangerous thinking on a day like today—Christmas Eve Day—when the rain had stopped, and the sky was crisp with the promise of snow. A day when every other member of the house party had promptly dropped what they were doing in favor of venturing out of doors to gather Christmas greenery and mistletoe. Miss Hobhouse was no doubt among them.

Teddy, meanwhile, was confined to remaining indoors.

But he wouldn’t allow himself to indulge in self-pity. Never mind that it was another lost opportunity with his muse. Just as the day before had been.

Miss Hobhouse had spent most of yesterday avoiding him. She hadn’t been at breakfast, nor at afternoon tea. And when she’d at last appeared at dinner, looking stunning in a gown of pale violet silk, she hadn’t addressed him at all.

The latter had, admittedly, been a disappointment. However, they hadn’t been seated near each other at table. And afterward, amid the clamor that had followed the announcement of Mr. Hartford’s engagement to Lady Anne, there’d been little opportunity for Teddy to get Miss Hobhouse alone. On the heels of their brief—and all-too-public—exchange in the drawing room, they’d separated off into smaller groups, with the rest of the guests, for an evening of cards.

Miss Hobhouse had made up a foursome with Lady Anne, Mr. Hartford, and Lady Anne’s formidable, black-clad mother, the Countess of Arundell, while Teddy had been relegated to the opposite corner of the room, where he sat with Alex, Laura, and one of the other tradesmen in attendance—a rival lavender grower from Dorset, who hadn’t the sense to beg off any card game where Alex was concerned.

The nurturing of business relationships between the earl and his botanical acquaintances may be the house party’s raison d’être, but to everyone else in attendance, it was a party of pleasure. Especially now that there was a betrothal to celebrate. Games had taken up the whole of the evening. Not only card games, but games of charades, snapdragon, and blind man’s bluff. It appeared that similar amusements would be enlivening the remainder of their stay at Sutton Park, punctuated by regular outdoor excursions.

It was dashed awkward for a man in Teddy’s position.

One of his many leather traveling trunks sat on a silk upholstered bench at the end of the bed. He riffled through it with increasing irritation. “Where is my drawing board? I’m sure I brought it with me.”

“You brought two of ’em, sir,” Jennings said. “I put ’em in the dressing room with your canvases.”

“Fetch the smaller one,” Teddy said. “And I’ll want my easel as well.”

“Another day at the easel?” Alex’s voice sounded from the doorway.

Teddy cast his brother-in-law a distracted glance. “As you see.”

Alex strolled into the room, dressed in the same gray wool sack coat and trousers he’d been wearing at breakfast. He was a tall, athletically built man, with dark hair and a vaguely piratical countenance. A rogue, some might say. And many did, once they learned of his former career as a sharper. But he was a good-humored sort. Good-hearted, too, as Teddy and his sister could attest.

After breakfast, Alex and Laura had departed the table, along with several other of the more business- and botanical-minded guests, for a visit to the Earl of March’s greenhouses. Teddy hadn’t seen either of them since.

“Sometimes,” Alex remarked, “it seems that Jennings spends more time hauling your art supplies about than he does hauling you.”

It wasn’t the first time Teddy’s brother-in-law had made the droll observation. Teddy gave his usual reply: “He’s paid well enough to do both.”

Alex crossed to the bed. His gaze flicked over the chalk and pencils that lay atop the embroidered coverlet. “No paints?”

“Not today. I’m sketching something.”

“Something? Or some one ?”

Teddy stilled for an instant before resuming the search through his trunk for any other supplies he might require. “Laura told you.” It wasn’t a question.

“About your missing muse? She did. Why? Was it meant to be a secret?”

“Are you and my sister capable of keeping secrets from each other?”

Alex’s mouth ticked up at one corner. “I like to think not.”

“There you are, then.” Teddy felt no rancor about it. It was merely the reality of life now his sister was married.

Laura and Alex had wed for love, but they’d been friends first, and were rather modern in their thinking when it came to the terms of their union. They ran the perfumery together, consulting each other on business matters both large and small. They were equally forthcoming with each other on personal matters.

“I’m not sketching Miss Hobhouse, by the way,” Teddy added.

“Not yet,” Alex returned. He had a flattering level of confidence in Teddy’s abilities.

Teddy usually shared that confidence. But not today. He’d awakened with cramps in his legs—an unfortunate result of the change in weather. His lower limbs may not be strong enough to bear his weight, but the muscles still retained enough strength to cause him pain. They often contracted and twitched in the cold and the damp, sending a bone-deep ache through him that he had no power to alleviate.

Jennings had had to spend half an hour massaging Teddy’s legs with the paralytic liniment that one of Teddy’s doctors had prescribed in France. It was a mixture of beeswax, lard, turpentine, oil of lavender, and herbs, sometimes formulated with ether and laudanum. Teddy had responded well to the treatment, despite Jennings’s excessively rough handling. His cramps had eased within the hour. The pain had nevertheless served to sour his mood.

His precarious spirits had sunk even further when he’d spied from his window several of the guests tramping out across the grounds.

But of course, a Christmas party would devolve into outdoor pursuits. They always did, whether in London, Devon, or France. Why should Hampshire be any different?

“Not ever, the way things are going,” Teddy said. “I made a poor first impression on her.” He examined the nub of an old lead pencil, his brows notching in a frown. “I was too eager.”

“You don’t say,” Alex remarked dryly.

Teddy scowled. “It isn’t a laughing matter. I scared her off. And there’s been no chance to repair the damage. Not when she’s avoiding me. And not when everyone’s out picking blasted mistletoe, and I’m stuck up here.” He threw his pencil onto the bed in a burst of frustration. “I’ll have to wait until the dance tonight. She won’t miss that, I wager.”

“You should have come with us to talk with the earl. He has more to offer than just that strain of tea roses he promised. Had you accompanied us—”

“To discover that the aisles of the greenhouse were too narrow to accommodate my chair? Or to find my wheels stuck in the mud while attempting to cross the grounds to get there?” Teddy uttered a derisive snort. “No, thank you.”

“We would have made it possible for you.”

“No. What you would have done is make me conspicuous.”

It was always the case with outdoor pursuits. The ground was unsuited to Teddy’s wheeled chair. Too uneven at the best times, and too perilous at the worst, with mud, snow, and clumps of grass and weeds barring his way, and no possibility of him rolling over them himself.

Instead, extra servants had to be employed to carry Teddy and his chair, or a special cart engaged to convey him. And all the while, the others would have to stand and wait, watching him with varying levels of pity and impatience as he was lifted here and carried there like a sentient sack of grain, his inability to walk delaying their pleasure.

It was a mortifying experience. One that Teddy had endured too many times before, both in England and while studying in Paris, when he’d made the mistake of joining some of his fellow artists at Atelier Gleyre on a jaunt to the French countryside to paint in the open air.

Teddy was unwilling to suffer the indignity again.

Alex’s expression became unusually stern. “May I remind you that the perfumery is half yours? It would do you good to be more involved, even if you must occasionally draw attention to yourself to do so.”

“I have no interest in the perfumery,” Teddy said. “I never have, except as a source of income.”

Alex picked up the sketchbook from the bed. He idly flipped through the first few pages. “Granted, it can’t compete with art, but now that your time in Paris has come to an end—”

“By my choice.”

“Yes. Because you’re ready to take on more of the business.”

Teddy flashed his brother-in-law a mystified look. “What the devil gave you that idea?”

“Laura mentioned you might have had a change of heart.”

“If she did, it was nothing more than wishful thinking.” Teddy returned to searching the trunk with a sardonic chuckle. “I? Take up an active role in Hayes’s Perfumes? You know me better than that, and so does my sister.”

Alex frowned. “You want to continue to paint, of course.” Closing the sketchbook, he placed it back on the bed. “I gathered you would.”

“Then why would you think—”

“Because you said you were done with Gleyre.”

Teddy had spent the better part of two years at Atelier Gleyre. It had been a large studio, with more than thirty aspiring painters in attendance at any given time. Teddy had worked diligently alongside them. Had shared both his triumphs and disappointments. It had been his first experience with artists of greater skill. A humbling episode in his life, but a necessary one. His own skill had been challenged. Refined. Perfected.

“I’m done with Paris,” he said.

Alex gave a humorless laugh. “What artist in his right mind can ever be done with Paris?”

“This one is. I’m ready to live in England again. It’s time I came home.” Finding a small box of oil pastels in the trunk, Teddy tossed it onto the pile. He doubted he would require it, but it never hurt to have alternatives to hand. The sketch he produced today would form the basis for his painting tomorrow. He intended to get it right.

“What about your sister?” Alex asked with deceptive calm.

Teddy’s shoulders tensed. He recognized his brother-in-law’s tone. Alex was generally a reasonable fellow, but when his wife’s tender feelings were at stake, he could be as ruthlessly protective as a feral wolf.

It didn’t prevent Teddy from answering with his usual frankness. “Laura may live where she likes.”

“We have no intention of removing from France. I can’t imagine we will, not in the near future. Not when the perfumery is doing so well.”

“I’m not asking you to come with me,” Teddy said.

Alex’s gaze bore into him. “What do you intend? To live alone somewhere? Without family close enough to come to your aid should something happen to you?”

“I lived alone in Paris.”

“And we kept an apartment nearby.”

Teddy’s jaw set. He didn’t like to be reminded. “Not for the whole of the duration. You returned to Grasse in the end.”

“We were still in France. A rail journey would have brought us to you.”

“A lengthy rail journey.”

“That’s beside the point,” Alex said. “Were you to remain in England, it would take us twice as long to get to you. Not to mention you’d be divided from us, not only by land, but by the entire width of the English Channel.”

“Which takes only a few hours to cross by steamer ship.” Teddy wheeled closer to the bed. He gathered his supplies into a neat pile. The orderly action helped to calm the surge of indignation that threatened to ignite his temper. By God, he wasn’t a child! He was a man of four-and-twenty. He shouldn’t have to argue for his freedom like a barrister in a court of law.

“You make it sound as though you and Laura never leave France,” he said, “when, in fact, you’ve visited England every year since your marriage.”

“ Every year?” Alex repeated in exasperation. “We married but two years ago, Teddy. At the beginning of which, must I remind you, your health was something of a concern.”

Teddy dismissed his brother-in-law’s words. “I was thin, that was all.”

“You’d all but wasted away up in your room. Your sister feared—”

Teddy sharply wheeled around in his chair. The muscles in his arms and back bunched hard with the effort. He’d spent a long while in building them. Hours each day expended in performing push-ups and pull-ups to strengthen his upper body, and stretching exercises to work the paralyzed muscles in his legs.

“Must you bring up all this ancient history?” he demanded. “I’m better, that’s all that matters.”

“Yes, you are. But—”

“Besides, most of that was melancholy. I have a purpose now—one you’ve so far encouraged. So long as that purpose remains, my health will continue to improve.”

Alex’s mouth set in a doubtful line. It was he who had first suggested that Teddy find an art teacher in France—one who could instruct him in the new styles that were emerging. Before then, Teddy had to content himself with his own imagination. He’d spent most of the time in his bedroom in Surrey, laid low by his illness, drawing the birds he spied through the window. Alex had prompted him to go out. To visit the seaside. To paint the tumultuous waves at Margate like Teddy’s idol, the late artist William Turner, had.

That Alex was trying to constrain Teddy now rankled him in no small measure. But it was for Laura’s sake. Teddy understood that. And he would no more hurt his sister than Alex would.

“You needn’t mention it to Laura,” Teddy said. “Not yet. I’ll talk to her in my own time.”

“When?”

“When we return from visiting Thornhill and Lady Helena.”

“You still plan to accompany us to Devon after Christmas?”

“Naturally.” The painting opportunities at the Thornhills’ remote cliffside abbey were too plentiful to miss. Teddy intended to devote the entirety of the visit to working on his seascapes.

Afterward, he, Laura, and Alex were slated to travel back to London together, where they would spend the next several weeks visiting Tom and Jenny Finchley before boarding a steamer to Calais.

“I’ll stay with you in Half Moon Street while I make my arrangements,” he said. “I’ll speak to Laura then, before the two of you return to France.”

Alex’s expression was dubious. “After which you expect she’ll be content to just…leave you here alone?”

Teddy forced a smile. “I won’t be alone. I’ll have Jennings.”

The manservant chose that moment to emerge from the dressing room. He had Teddy’s easel in hand. “Here it is.”

“Splendid,” Teddy said. “You may carry it down, along with the rest of these supplies. Then you may come back for my chair.”

“And then for you, sir?”

Teddy repressed a burst of impatience. By God, how he’d come to loathe his dependence! The fact that his body couldn’t keep pace with the vigorousness of his mind. The fact that, absent his chair, he was wholly reliant on those around him. On Jennings. On Alex. On any servant strong enough to convey Teddy’s uncooperative body from one place to another.

Try as he might, yearn as he did, freedom seemed to be forever just out of his reach. Freedom of movement. Freedom to make his own decisions. Freedom to paint the lady he longed to paint.

But no longer.

Henceforth, he was determined to take hold of the helm and steer his own course.

“Yes, Jennings,” he said levelly. “And then for me.”

?Stella sat on the tufted velvet bench in front of the carved mahogany dressing table in her room as Anne’s French lady’s maid, Jeanette, combed out her hair. Anne had been generous enough to lend Jeanette’s services to Stella before the Christmas Eve dance tonight, just as she had before the ball two nights before. Unlike Anne, Stella didn’t have a maid of her own. When at home with her brother, she relied on one of the housemaids to assist her with her toilette.

“ Mon dieu ,” Jeanette muttered as she attempted to get a blunt-toothed tortoiseshell comb through Stella’s unusually sticky locks.

Unbound, Stella’s hair reached nearly to her waist. It was normally thick and glossy, and shining with good health. If not for its natural gray color, it would have been considered her crowning glory. But not today. Not even with its new golden auburn hue.

Stella met the maid’s frustrated eyes in the dressing table mirror. “Is it dreadfully tangled?”

“It’s the bandoline, miss,” Jeanette said. The maid had used the clear liquid gum solution to set Stella’s coiffure on the night of the opening ball. It had left an unfortunate residue behind that had only worsened over the passing days.

There was but one way to be rid of it.

“Have we time to wash my hair before dinner?” Stella asked. “And, more importantly, to dry it?”

Jeanette looked at the mantel clock with a frown, appearing to perform a swift mental calculation. She nodded. “Yes, miss. Shall I call for hot water?”

“If you please,” Stella said.

In the ordinary course of events, she washed her hair but rarely. It wasn’t often necessary. Neither was it convenient. Washing one’s hair in a basin was a tedious business that took more time than a young lady could spare during the season. Indeed, it had been many weeks since Stella’s hair had last seen soap and water. But not ten minutes later, she stood in front of the wash basin, head bent over the bowl, while the maid lathered her wet hair with a bar of lilac perfumed toilet soap.

When Jeanette was finished, she rinsed the suds with warm water from the pitcher.

Stella raised a hand to her head. Her hair was still sticky. “Another good soaping, I think,” she suggested.

“Yes, miss.” Jeanette added another liberal application of toilet soap. This time she scrubbed twice as long.

Stella squeezed her eyes shut to protect them from the stinging lather. She was relieved when she felt the next deluge of warm water cascade over her hair. Until she heard Jeanette’s gasp of horror.

“Oh, miss! I didn’t mean to!” the maid cried, backing away. “I was only doing what you told me!”

Stella jerked her head up in swift alarm. “What is it? What’s happened?”

But Jeanette would only stare, one hand covering her mouth.

Stella rushed across the room to the dressing table mirror, wet hair clinging to her face and neck. What she saw in the glass made her legs go weak beneath her. She sank unsteadily onto the padded bench.

“What shall I do, miss?” Jeanette asked, hovering about Stella in distress.

There was only one thing to do.

“Fetch Anne,” Stella said tremulously. “Tell her she must come at once!”