Lady Jenny's Christmas Portrait

Two

As Elijah accompanied his hostess through the chilly, dimly lit house, fatigue hit him like a runaway freight wagon. This was what came of trying to make a winter’s journey when sane people were holed up with one another, tippling brandy and making gingerbread.

No, not sane people. Sentimental people.

“Your room is here,” Lady Jenny said, opening a door. She led him into a blessedly, gloriously cozy space, into a bit of heaven for a man who’d considered he might end both the day and his life shivering in a snowy ditch.

“Lady Kesmore takes her hospitality seriously,” he said. The appointments were in a cheery blue and cream with green accents—again, not quite the green of Lady Jenny’s eyes—giving the chamber a feminine air even by candlelight. A fat, black cat kitted out as if in formal evening attire—black fur tailcoat and knee breeches; white fur cravat, boots, and gloves—rose from the bed and strolled for the door, tail held high.

When a room was truly clean, light filled it easily. A beam of sunshine or flicker of candlelight could bounce from a sparkling mirror, to a gleaming hardwood floor, to a polished lamp chimney or sconce mirror.

The room was very clean, and in the hearth, a wood fire crackled merrily.

“I have never regarded the scent of wood smoke as a fragrance,” he said, “though tonight, I certainly do.”

“You were quite cold, weren’t you?” she asked, lighting the candles by his bedside tables. “I forgot to get you a book.”

“I would not read a single paragraph before succumbing to the charms of Morpheus.” Where, if God were merciful, Elijah would dream of Lady Jenny illuminated by candlelight.

Another scent came to him as she moved around the room, a light, spicy perfume that started off with jasmine and ended with feminine mysteries.

“I’ll have one of Lord Kesmore’s dressing gowns brought to you,” she said, peering into the pitcher on the hearth. “A footman remains on duty at the end of the hall until midnight, and then we rely on the porter through the night.”

“I’m sure I won’t waken in the night, and I might have to be roused to break my fast as well.”

Small talk. She ought not to be in this room with him, though for present purposes, she was his hostess and had left the door a few inches ajar as a nod to propriety.

“I’ll bid you pleasant dreams, then.” She bobbed a curtsy and withdrew, leaving Elijah alone in his heaven.

Somebody had brought his things in from the stable and set his bag on the chest at the foot of the bed. Lest his worldly goods rot by morning, Elijah took out each damp, wrinkled article of clothing and draped it over the furniture, making sure at least a clean shirt and cravat were in proximity to the fire. As he saw to his wardrobe, he munched on one of the three pieces of gingerbread he’d filched from his supper.

The last order of business on this difficult and interesting day was to wash off before climbing into the fluffy blue-and cream-wonder that was his bed. He peeled his damp shirt and waistcoat from his body, hung them from the open doors of the wardrobe, and set about using the water left considerately near the hearth.

The water was scented with something bracing—lavender and rosemary?—and was small compensation for the lack of a steaming hot bath. Elijah had just finished with his ablutions when a knock sounded on his door.

That would be the footman with a nice, cozy dressing gown, no doubt, courtesy of the absent Lord Kesmore. “Come in.”

“I’ve brought—”

Lady Jenny closed the door behind her and stood across the room, clutching a green velvet dressing robe that would probably wrap around her three times.

“My dressing gown.”

He’d long since grown comfortable sporting about in the altogether for inspection by others, provided the surrounds were comfortably warm. Around Genevieve Windham, his state of partial undress slammed into him like two freight wagons galloping at each other from opposite directions.

The practical part of him spoke up: She’s seen you in less than this. You’re exhausted. Take the bloody dressing gown and bid her good night.

But that sensible, familiar voice could barely be heard for the greater din created by what he saw in her gaze.

She was visually consuming him, taking in every muscle and sinew, cataloguing joints and textures even as she clutched the dressing gown to her like a shield.

“Were I modeling,” he said as he approached her, “my exposed skin would probably be oiled, or, when needs must, coated with butter, the better to catch the light, particularly if the scene depicted is dark. I apologize for the lack of attire, my lady.”

He tugged on the dressing gown. She didn’t give it up.

“What kind of oil?”

“I prefer…” His brain became befogged with… her. Yes, he wanted to sketch her, wanted to unearth all the artistic and female confidences she’d denied him, but he also wanted her to sketch him.

Though he’d have to keep his breeches on.

Bid her good night.

“What kind of oil?” she asked again.

“Fragrant, soothing scents.” Jasmine appealed strongly. “When one must hold the same position for a length of time, the more relaxed one is, the more successful the exercise.”

She ought to tell him she hadn’t known he modeled—small talk relied heavily on polite untruths—and then he could tell her he hadn’t provided that service to anybody for years, which was not an untruth. He no longer needed the money, and he no longer had the time.

More to the point, the woman ought to be running from the room in high dudgeon or at least sporting a furious blush.

Lady Jenny handed over the dressing gown and watched him shrug into it with something like grief in her eyes.

“My lady, I bid you good night, and my compliments to Kesmore on the quality of his wardrobe.” The garment was lined with silk, and yet, Elijah wanted to drop it to the floor so Lady Jenny might continue to regard him so ravenously.

“Will you model for me, Mr. Harrison?”

She might have challenged him to a duel, so fiercely had she thrown down the question. He’d once had the same kind of determination, willing to travel through war zones to see an obscure Caravaggio.

“My lady, you flatter me, but my journey will take me away…” No true gentleman would have obliged her request. No true artist who understood the limitations of her station and the relentless clamoring of her artistic inclination would refuse her. Among all the dilettantes and dabblers to pass through old Antoine’s studios, Lady Jenny was one of few students to possess a germ of real talent.

“You said you had only a few more miles to go, Mr. Harrison. Give me half an hour in the morning—the nursery has excellent light, being at the top of the house.”

“I cannot be private with you when I am en dishabille.” He should not be private with her when in a coma, and they both knew it.

“I did not expect that you would be. Fleur and Amanda would find it most curious were you to appear unclothed. After breakfast, then?”

The prospect of traveling even a few more miles in miserable weather had no appeal, and she’d taken him in when he might have perished for his stubbornness. Then, too, given how fiercely she’d regarded Kesmore’s daughters, Lady Jenny wouldn’t be focusing for long on a sketch when the children were underfoot.

“A half hour then. My thanks for the dressing gown.”

She left, and this time didn’t bother with a curtsy, nor he with a bow. He ran the warmer over the sheets then hung the sumptuous dressing gown in the wardrobe, where the scent of jasmine was even stronger.

When he laid down on the lovely warm sheets, the same fragrance assailed him.

Elijah’s last waking thought was that Lady Genevieve had given up her bed for him and taken a colder, more humble chamber elsewhere in the house. This eased his last, lingering hesitance about giving her a half hour of his time in the nursery.

A half hour lounging about in the morning sun was small recompense to the lady who’d provided a virtual stranger food, clothing, shelter, and a night surrounded by her fragrance.

While tossing and turning in a strange bed, Jenny had given considerable thought to which part of Elijah Harrison she’d capture for her own on paper. His hands appealed—his big, elegant, so talented hands. With those hands, he’d done a portrait of the regent even Prinny himself was said to like. She considered those hands as Fleur and Amanda galloped around the hearth rug in the nursery.

“And where shall you pose me, my lady?” Mr. Harrison asked.

Jenny glanced at the eight-day clock in the corner of the nursery. He’d be leaving soon…

“Will you pose me too?” Amanda asked.

“And me,” Fleur chorused. The girls turned big, beseeching eyes on Jenny, eyes that promised best behavior for at least five entire—though not consecutive—minutes. The nursery maids had decamped for a spot of tea, which Jenny suspected would be chased with a headache powder or two.

“In the light,” Jenny said, taking Mr. Harrison by the arm and directing him to a rocking chair by the windows. “Amanda, can you fetch your sketch pad, and, Fleur, yours too?”

They thundered off, while Jenny regarded her subject. “I’m going to focus on your hands, Mr. Harrison. Hands can be complicated.”

He smiled as if she’d just explained to the Archbishop of Canterbury that Christmas often fell on the twenty-fifth of December.

“I like hands,” he said, taking his seat. “They can be windows to the soul too. What shall I do with these hands you intend to immortalize?”

She hadn’t thought that far ahead, it being sufficient challenge to choose a single aspect of him to sketch. Fleur and Amanda came skipping back into the room, each clutching a sketch pad.

“You will sketch the girls, and I will sketch you, while the girls sketch whomever they please.” The plan was brilliant; everybody had an assigned task.

Amanda’s little brows drew down. “I want to watch Mr. Harrison. Fleur can sketch you, Aunt Jen. You have to sit very still, though.”

“An unbroken chain of artistic indulgence,” Mr. Harrison said, accepting a sketch pad and pencil from Fleur. “Miss Fleur, please seat yourself on the hearth, though you might want a pillow to make the ordeal more comfortable.”

Amanda grabbed two burgundy brocade pillows off the settee, tossed one at Fleur, and dropped the other beside Elijah’s rocker. Jenny took the second rocking chair and flipped open her sketch pad.

Her subject sat with the morning sun slanting over his shoulder, one knee crossed over the other, the sketch pad on his lap. Amanda watched from where she knelt at his elbow, and Fleur…

Fleur crossed one knee over the other—an unladylike pose, but effective for balancing a sketch pad—and glowered at Jenny as if to will Jenny’s image onto the page by visual imperative.

“Your sister has beautiful eyebrows,” Mr. Harrison said to his audience. “They have the most graceful curve. It’s a family trait, I believe.”

Amanda crouched closer. “Does that mean I have them too?”

He glanced over at her, his expression utterly serious. “You do, though yours are a touch more dramatic. When you make your bows, gentlemen will write sonnets to the Carrington sisters’ eyebrows.”

“Papa’s horse is Sonnet. Tell me some more.”

While he spoke, his pencil moved over the page in short, light bursts of activity. “Notice the way Miss Fleur’s eyes, as beautiful as they are, aren’t pitched at exactly the same angle. Nobody’s face is perfectly symmetrical, not if you study them closely.”

“What’s symmet—that word you said?”

While Jenny sketched, and Fleur sat a little taller on her burgundy pillow, Mr. Harrison provided Amanda a concise, understandable explanation for symmetry, then went on and described the ways asymmetry made an image interesting.

“Have you ever drawn a crow?” Amanda asked. “Or a pitcher?”

“I’m sure I have. Crows are a challenge because they want you to think they’re black, but in the sun, they’re many colors.”

From across the room, Jenny saw her nieces consider crows in a whole new manner, not as rough-voiced avian nuisances, but as peacocks in disguise.

“So what do you do when you want to draw a crow?” Amanda’s nose was less than an inch from Mr. Harrison’s sleeve.

His pencil did not stop moving, though Fleur was beginning to fidget now that her soon-to-be-legendary eyebrows were no longer under discussion.

“I try to draw the crow as he sees himself. They’re curious fellows, flying about as if the entire world were available as their perch. I’ve seen a crow light on the back of a cow, for example, and the cow had nothing to say to it.”

Amanda grinned, a child who might like to fly through the clouds and light on the back of a cow.

“I’m curious too,” Fleur said. “I don’t want to sit on a cow. I want to sit on a pony.”

“What would you name your pony?” Mr. Harrison asked.

Jenny listened with half an ear to the earnest and protracted discussion that ensued. Naming a pony was apparently a holy undertaking in the opinion of her nieces, but then, their father was a former cavalry officer.

As Jenny’s father was. Her pencil stopped moving, as her mind started a roll call of family members who’d served in the cavalry:

His Grace; her uncle Tony; her oldest brother, Devlin St. Just; her brothers-by-marriage, Kesmore and Deene; her late brother, Bartholomew… Thoughts of Bart brought both grief and anger.

And, of course, guilt.

The clock chimed the quarter hour, prodding Jenny out of her reverie. Across the room, Elijah Harrison had made two conquests by virtue of simply talking with Fleur and Amanda. He’d glanced over at Jenny occasionally, his gaze amused and patient.

While she had only fourteen more minutes to give vent to years of artistic frustration.

And yet, when she looked down at the page twenty minutes later—Fleur would remain still no longer, not even with a book on her lap—Jenny had not sketched Mr. Harrison’s talented hands, or not just his hands.

“Shall we have a critique session?” he asked as he rose. “I’m sure the young ladies would be happy to assist us.”

His hand settled on Fleur’s dark curls, and the little girl went still beneath his touch—even Kesmore didn’t have that effect on his daughter—while Jenny felt her insides take flight. A critique session with Elijah Harrison?

“I have used up my half hour and then some, Mr. Harrison. I would not impose further.”

“Nonsense. My model has been very patient, as has my assistant, and I’m sure they’d be fascinated to see what we’ve created.”

“I can show you my sketch,” Fleur volunteered.

“What’s a critique session?” Amanda asked.

A critique session was when you put your heart in the middle of a busy thoroughfare and hoped at least some of the passing traffic didn’t roll directly over it.

Mr. Harrison smiled down at Amanda. “A critique session is when people who share a similar passion try to help each other improve their work. Like when you read your papa’s poetry and suggest a better rhyme to him.”

“Mama does that,” Fleur said. “She makes Papa smile. I know a lot of rhymes. Do you want to see my sketch?”

He held out a hand. “Of course.”

In one gesture and two words, he’d given Fleur a gift of confidence no one would take from her. Jenny envied her niece and understood now why people enjoyed sitting to Elijah Harrison.

He was quiet; he was reserved. He was not the most cheerful individual, and he could be brusque, but he was kind. She had not appreciated this about him when he’d joined in the critique sessions at Antoine’s, though her recollection was of a man who’d offered suggestions and observations, not criticisms.

He appropriated the brocade pillows and arranged them on the hearth, then held out a hand to her. “Come, Lady Jenny. Let us assemble the jury.”

His hand was warm, and he seated her as graciously as if they were at one of the Duchess of Moreland’s entertainments. Fleur and Amanda each tucked themselves against an adult, and Jenny tried to quiet her nerves.

He would not laugh at her work in front of the children, would he?

“Miss Fleur, your work comes first, lest you burst with excitement and rain feathers all over the room.” He took Fleur’s proffered sketch pad and regarded her efforts in silence for some moments.

“You are an honest artist,” he remarked. “You have chosen to present your aunt without even a hint of a smile. That was brave of you, but also accurate, given how hard Lady Jenny concentrates on her art. Lady Jenny, what can you add?”

Jenny took the little sketch, prepared to wax enthusiastic about some lines and squiggles, only to be brought up short.

“Fleur, you have a good eye.” On the page, a lady sat hunched in a rocking chair, the composition a heap of dress, chin, and severe bun, as if crabbed with age. No particular features were evident, and proportion was a lost cause, as was perspective, and yet, the child had managed to catch something of an unhappy intensity about Jenny’s posture. “I’m very impressed.”

“Let me see,” Amanda demanded. She plucked the sketch from Jenny’s hands. “That’s Aunt Jen. She loves to draw.”

Jenny wanted to study Fleur’s childish rendering at greater length, she wanted to draw Mr. Harrison forever, and she wanted him gone from the house.

“Lady Jenny, your turn.”

She passed her sketch pad over to him, feeling a pang of sympathy for accused criminals as they stood in the dock. And yet, she’d asked for this. Gotten together all of her courage to ask for this one moment of artistic communion.

“Well,” Mr. Harrison said, “isn’t he a handsome fellow? What do you think, ladies?”

“You look like a papa,” Fleur observed. “Though our papa doesn’t sketch. He reads stories.”

“And hates his ledgers,” Amanda added. “Is my hair that long in back?”

“Yes,” Jenny said, because she’d drawn not only Elijah Harrison’s hands, but all of him, looking relaxed, elegant, and handsome, with Amanda crouched at his side, fascinated with what he created on the page.

“I look…” He regarded the sketch in silence, while Jenny heard a coach-and-four rumbling toward her vulnerable heart. “I look… a bit tired, slightly rumpled, but quite at home. You are very quick, Lady Genevieve, and quite good.”

Quite good. Like saying a baby was adorable, a young gentleman well-mannered.

“The pose was simple,” Jenny said, “the lighting uncomplicated, and the subject…”

“Yes?”

He was one of those men built in perfect proportion. Antoine had spent an entire class wielding a tailor’s measure on Mr. Harrison’s body, comparing his proportions to the Apollo Belvedere, and scoffing at the “mistakes” inherent in Michelangelo’s David.

Jenny wanted to snatch her drawing from his hand. “The subject is conducive to a pleasing image.”

He passed the sketch pad back, but Jenny had the sense that in some way, some not entirely artistic way, she’d displeased him. The disappointment was survivable. Her art had been displeasing men since she’d first neglected her Bible verses to sketch her brothers.

“You next, Mr. Harrison.”

“Of course.” He passed her a charming little study of Fleur perched on the hearth, the tip of her tongue peeking from her lips as she concentrated on sketching Jenny. Something in his portrait reminded Jenny of Fleur’s sketch of her aunt.

“You made her hair tidier,” Amanda noted. “Fleur hardly ever looks that serious, though.”

“One takes a few liberties in the name of diplomacy,” Mr. Harrison said. He aimed a look at Jenny, likely intended to give the words deeper meaning.

He was tired, and he was rumpled. Where was the harm in showing those things?

“He means,” Jenny said in anticipation of Amanda’s question, “that one needn’t show every unflattering detail when trying to render a person’s essence on the page.”

“Like if the crow had some tattered feathers, you’d still try to show how shiny they were?”

“Yes, Amanda,” Mr. Harrison said, though he was looking at Jenny as he spoke.

The nursery maids returned, looking somewhat restored, and Jenny’s half hour—an hour in truth—with Polite Society’s most in-demand portraitist was over.

And in that hour, she had not earned his respect for her art. This should be a relief, should give her ammunition to aim at the part of her that wanted nothing but to disgrace herself with an artistic life, and damn the consequences.

As he escorted her down through the house, Mr. Harrison stopped on the first landing. “Why so quiet, my lady?”

The daughter of a duchess was capable of great feats of diplomacy, also great feats of courage. Jenny would never have an opportunity to work with an instructor of Elijah Harrison’s caliber again, or at least not for many years.

“You did not like my sketch.”

The servants had been busy. In the foyer below, wreaths hung in the windows, cloved oranges in the middle of the wreaths. The scents were lovely and the light cheerful, but the space, being high ceilinged and windowed, was cold.

“I liked your sketch quite well.”

“What did you like about it?” Because in five minutes, he’d be on his horse and disappearing into the winter landscape, and Jenny had to know what he’d seen in her work, even if he’d seen only trite, unprepossessing efforts.

“You are good, Lady Genevieve. Your accuracy is effortless, you’re quick, and your technique very proficient for one who has likely had little professional instruction.”

Those compliments would have distracted her, had she not been watching his eyes. His soul was not in those terse compliments, and he’d be gone in four minutes.

“But?”

He captured her hand and placed it on his arm, moving with her down the last flight of stairs. “But you rendered me tired and rumpled, when I was quite sure the fellow in that nursery was the most charming exponent of English artistry ever to aspire to membership in the Royal Academy. You also made me look…” He glanced around as they gained the empty foyer. “Lonely.”

“Amanda said you looked like a papa. I tried to convey the affection with which you—”

“I miss…” He frowned, unwound his arm from Jenny’s, and stepped back. “I have many younger siblings. It’s natural I should miss them from time to time. That you saw in me something I’d ignored in myself confirms your talent rather than denies it.”

Somewhere in that grudging admission was a true compliment, though likely one he hadn’t intended.

“Thank you.”

Which left nothing more to say. The footmen being derelict or preoccupied with decorating some other part of the house, Jenny took Mr. Harrison’s greatcoat down from the hook and held it up to him. Next she passed him his scarf, then held his hat and gloves while he buttoned up.

And then their time together was over, and Jenny heard the sound of many heavy coaches rumbling, not toward her artistic inclinations, but more in the direction of her heart. “Safe journey, Mr. Harrison.”

“My thanks for your hospitality.” He tapped his hat onto his head and pulled on his gloves. “Have you considered corresponding with old Monsieur Antoine? He’s very generous with his guidance, and not at all opposed to encouraging the talented amateur, regardless of gender.”

His suggestion cut in several ways, though it was intended as another compliment—to a talented amateur of the inconvenient feminine persuasion. “Monsieur is, as you say, very generous, but his eyes are failing.”

Mr. Harrison tossed the ends of his scarf over his shoulders in a gesture more Continental than English. “I didn’t know that.”

“Few people do. He has been helpful, though now when I call at his gallery, we spend our conversations on his reminiscences. He’s very proud of you.”

Mr. Harrison glanced up, as if entreating the heavens, then grimaced. “The Yuletide season has officially started.” He pointed to the crossbeam over the antechamber, where a swag of mistletoe had been hung.

“Louisa and Joseph are quite enamored of all things—”

Whatever nonsense Jenny had intended to spout one minute before Elijah Harrison trotted out of her life, she forgot as he put a gloved hand on her shoulder. “It’s a harmless tradition,” he said. “One I’ve had occasion to appreciate.”

With that, he kissed her, and not on the cheek as a proper gentleman ought. He touched his mouth to hers softly, a lingering, gentle kiss that conveyed… something. Regret perhaps, at having to face the miserable winter day.

Before he drew back, he whispered, “You’ll want to look at the sketchbook I used, and, Genevieve?”

He bore the scent of rosemary and lavender, and he was leaving.

“Mr. Harrison?”

“You draw wonderfully. Be proud of yourself.” He gave her cheek a quick buss and passed through the door.

Jenny held his compliment close to her heart—the real compliment, the one he’d whispered. She held his kisses closer.