Lady Jenny's Christmas Portrait (28 page)

Also with His Grace’s portrait, which, now that Jenny considered the image dispassionately, emphasized not only the man’s ducal consequence but also his regard for his duchess. Percival Windham as rendered in oil on canvas was a man capable of humor and sternness, of loving his country fiercely and his duchess gently.

Elijah had caught that
heart
, and caught it wonderfully. He might also have caught a sudden case of lung fever, because the entire family had assembled in anticipation of the open house, while the artist in residence had yet to come downstairs.

“Both portraits are quite good,” Her Grace said. “I am particularly pleased with how my surprise turned out.”

Her surprise being the portrait of her, done for His Grace’s holiday present.

When Elijah dared to venture down the steps, Jenny was going to ask him some pointed questions about that portrait, but for now, her siblings and their spouses were adding their choruses of appreciation for the art they beheld.

“I do think that portrait of Her Grace is better even than the one he did of the children,” Sophie allowed. “Sindal, would you agree?”

Everybody agreed, and in the middle of all this smiling and agreeing, Louisa sidled up to Jenny, bringing a hint of cinnamon and clove with her. “Have you told them yet?”

“You are like the bad fairy, Louisa, insisting on difficult tidings when they’ll easily keep for a day or two. I don’t intend to leave until after the New Year. There’s time yet.”

Louisa’s mouth flattened, but she kept her voice down. “You cannot hare off as if you’re eloping with a disgraceful choice, Jenny. That’s not fair to you. It’s even less fair to Their Graces. They’ll need time to adjust, to strike terms.”

“I am going to move to Paris,” Jenny said, just as firmly. “I do not expect you to understand, Lou, but I do expect you to keep my confidences, within reason.”

Louisa opened her mouth to say something, likely something articulate, insightful, and painful—though not mean—when her expression shifted. “It’s a bit late for that.”

Jenny glanced over her shoulder to find both of her parents hovering only three feet away, the good cheer of the season apparent in the eyes of neither.

***

Elijah hustled as far as the first landing, then paused, took a deep breath, and came down the last set of stairs at a pace that befit a gentleman and a guest in a ducal household.

Though Jenny would likely skewer him for leaving her in the grand parlor alone amid the milling, smiling herd of her family, all decked out in their holiday finery, all blessedly ignorant that Lady Jenny had trysted away an hour of her afternoon.

With him.

As they’d left Lavender Corner, she’d seemed right enough, seemed composed, for all she’d gripped Elijah’s hand the entire distance back to Morelands. And yet, he hadn’t wanted to leave her, not when her undisclosed travel plans hung like the holiday equivalent of the sword of Damocles over the entire family gathering.

He came through the doorway at a pace halfway between dignity and panic—an enthusiastic pace, perhaps. A holiday pace adopted when a man needed a clear shot at the punch bowl—only to stop short.

His Grace was glowering mightily at Jenny, who was resplendent in red velvet and white lace. Beside the duke, Her Grace looked concerned, and Jenny looked… determined. Mulishly determined.

“What is this tripe about moving to Paris?” His Grace asked.

God help them and their chances for a happy Christmas. Elijah sidled through a crowd of Windham lords and ladies, the women’s expressions mirroring concern for their sister, the men’s eyes guarded and their arms around their wives’ waists.

“Mama, Papa, I’m moving to Paris to study art. I trust you’ll wish me well.”

She hadn’t asked; she hadn’t begged or prettied up a request with pleases and perhapses. Elijah had never been more proud of his Genevieve.

“Percival, talk to your daughter.” That from Her Grace, whose tone conveyed bewilderment. “The strain of holiday entertaining has taken a toll on her.”

“You, Genevieve, are distressing your mother,” His Grace began. “I know not what wild start you’re positing, but no daughter of mine is going to waste her youth and beauty getting her fingers dirty in some frozen French garret, when her proper place is here, among the family who loves her. A husband and children—”

“I beg Your Grace’s pardon,” Elijah cut in.

“Elijah,” Jenny muttered. “Keep quiet.”

Oh, of course. She must be a martyr in this too. “I cannot keep quiet, my lady. You will say things you regret to people who love you, but I can speak reason to them.”

Artistic heathen though they might be.

He could wallop them over the head with reason if necessary, or with truth, or with any other blunt object heavy enough to dent the legendary Windham pride, but he would not let Jenny rain down her frustration and ire on her own parents.

That way lay ten years of estrangement, and they would be long, cold years too.

“You are interfering, Bernward,” His Grace spat. “I have no doubt you’ve abetted this rebellion in a girl who used to be the example I held up to her sisters of all that is admirable in a lady.”

“Jenny is no longer a girl.” Her Grace’s soft observation suggested Jenny’s mother was coming to this realization only as the words left her lips. Perhaps some feminine sympathy informed the duchess’s thinking, or maternal prescience.

“Lady Genevieve has artistic talent beyond anything possessed by a mere girl,” Elijah said. “The evidence lies right before your eyes.”

He gestured to the portraits, sitting side by side in temporary frames on their easels. On canvas, the duke and duchess sat facing each other at a quarter angle, each work complete in itself, and yet the two together formed a greater composition. His Grace held a volume of Shakespeare sonnets, as if reading to his wife—which he had been for much of their sittings.

Her Grace worked a bit of embroidery, a peacock and a unicorn full of colors and soft textures.

“Which is the better work?” Elijah asked.

Her Grace’s eyebrows rose, suggesting more of her intuition already grasped the problem.

“The portrait of Her Grace,” said the duke without hesitation. “The subject is more pleasing, of course, but—from the perspective of one who knows nothing of art—the execution is flawless, Her Grace to the very teeth. You’ve outdone yourself, Bernward, and I am most pleased with the result, even if you’ve been fomenting insurrection while you paint.” The portraits dismissed, the duke turned a blue-eyed glower on Jenny. “I am not at all pleased with a daughter who exhibits crackbrained notions about dabbling away her looks and youth when she ought to be about the business of finding a husband and setting up her nursery. What can possibly—?”

Elijah felt Jenny draw herself up, and he let her be the one to wield the only relevant truth.

“
I
painted that portrait of Her Grace, Papa.
I
did. Not the much-lauded associate to the Royal Academy, not the artistic heir apparent to Sir Thomas, not the man with years of training and experience.
I
did that painting of Mama,
and
it
is
beautiful
.”

She’d spent her ammunition, fired off powder she’d been keeping dry for years, and her eyes were painfully bright as a result. Elijah twined his arm through hers, slipped her his handkerchief, and took up her cutlass for her.

“Lady Genevieve outpainted a much-vaunted professional portraitist, and she did it easily, without support from her family, without much training, without anything approximating true encouragement. She kept up with me when I worked hour after hour, then she turned around and endured more hours of hoodman-blind and whist, when all she wanted was to be back up in the studio, creating more beauty. She deserves to go to Paris, and I very much doubt you could stop her, in any case.”

Which was a damned shame, because she needed to be stopped.

Someone cursed, someone else muttered a refrain about prophets and honor. The duke stood glowering for a moment then winged his arm at his duchess. “Genevieve, you will attend your mother and me in her private parlor at once. You, Bernward, come along too.”

The duchess took her husband’s arm. “Percival, the guests will start arriving any moment.”

“Hang the guests. Our children can exert themselves to be charming to the neighbors while we sort through Jenny’s contretemps.”

Her Grace looked like she’d say more, but processed from the room with a dignity that reminded Elijah of his mother.

“You don’t have to do this, Elijah,” Jenny said as he moved her toward the door. “But I love what you did.”

Her love, given in his direction in any sense, was reward enough.

“Blame the cat,” he murmured as her brothers and sisters parted to let them leave the room. “Timothy rolled a paint brush off the mantel—one I’d not collected at the end of a session—and a dab of green splashed into the middle of the fire on my version of Her Grace’s portrait. I could either display a wet canvas of my own or take the wiser course suggested by Providence.”

“Jenny!” Westhaven was the last obstacle Elijah and his lady had to face before gaining the door. The earl stood looking much like his father, until his lips quirked, and his smile showed a resemblance to the duchess. “Well damned done, Sister!”

He slowly clapped his hands together, his countess joined in, and a cascade of sibling applause filled the room.

“Hear, hear,” Sophie echoed as the din died away. Brothers, sisters, and in-laws raised their glasses, the good wishes ringing back and forth now that Their Graces had left the room.

“Don’t back down,” St. Just advised. “Not if painting is what you need to be happy.”

Lord Valentine winked at his sister, looking… proud, unless Elijah missed his guess. “Windhams sometimes have to make their own way, and Ellen’s been after me to take her to Paris.”

“We’ll all visit you,” Lady Maggie added.

Lady Eve was positively beaming. “You won’t be able to stop us. Nothing will stop us from making nuisances of ourselves on your doorstep.”

Elijah wanted to ask where all this great good cheer had been previously, when Jenny had been so lonely for encouragement she had taken stupid risks and made even worse compromises, but he kept his silence and escorted her from the room.

They would visit her in Paris, the lot of them, and bring their children and stay for weeks. They wouldn’t wait ten years to send a few letters, and leave the rest up to her.

Jenny felt as if she were dwelling a short distance from her body, as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders and from her heart. Even Papa saw the quality of her art, and Elijah…

“You aren’t subject to ducal decrees, Elijah. I can manage Mama and Papa.”

He paused where two hallways intersected, one leading to the public rooms, one to the family chambers. “That’s not just a mama and a papa you’re facing, Genevieve, it’s also a duke and duchess. They’re used to ruling by divine right, and quelling insurrection merely by raising an eyebrow. I daresay their daughters don’t defy them, though their sons likely have.”

Jenny went up on her toes and kissed him—the happiness in her compelled it, as did the sadness. “You must not worry, Elijah. Papa himself admitted that I paint as well as you.”

Better than Elijah—and that had been so, so sweet, though one painting did not an impressive body of works create.

“Admitting you paint well will not get you to Paris.” He took her hand and led her down the hallway, his grip firm, his stride determined.

Foreboding edged happiness away. “What are you about, Elijah? Papa himself vouched for my talent.”

Elijah stopped outside the parlor door and dropped her hand. “If you get to Paris, it will be because your family loves you, and only because they love you. I’m counting on it.”

He left her no time to argue or refine on his point—of course her family loved her—before he planted a swift, no-nonsense kiss on her lips, then opened the parlor door and ushered her through.

“Your Grace, if I might have a word with you privately?”

At Elijah’s question, the duke stopped pacing and aimed a glacial stare at his guest. “A
word
? With
you
? Most assuredly.” He bowed to his wife and left the room with Elijah, while Jenny regarded her mother.

“A medicinal tot is in order,” the duchess declared. “For both of us, and, Jenny, you must not let your papa’s temper dismay you. He’s… he blames himself when I’m upset, and he’s surprised.”

Which was exactly what Louisa had warned Jenny against.

Jenny glanced at the door, foreboding expanding in her middle to the proportions of dread. When she accepted a drink from her mother, the duchess’s fingers were cold.

“What can they be discussing?” Jenny asked nobody in particular.

“A marriage proposal?” the duchess suggested.

“I doubt it.”

Her mother gave her a considering look from the sideboard. “If Bernward offered, Genevieve, would you choose Paris over him?”

Her Grace was a pragmatic woman, also a mother who would cheerfully kill for her children or for her dear Percival. Her instincts were not to be discounted, ever.

“I did.”

“Oh, my dear, whatever could be more important than love?”

And now the dread moved up, north of Jenny’s belly, into her throat, because that one question befuddled and hurt and made a hash of Jenny’s ability to think.

The door opened, and His Grace rejoined them, though of Elijah there was no evidence. To Jenny’s eye, the duke’s paternal fire had been snuffed out, and where his blue eyes had held the promise of retribution for anyone fool enough to cross him, now he looked… sad.

“Ah, you’re drinking. My love, might I have a tot as well?”

Something was wrong. When His Grace’s temper was so completely replaced with what looked for all the world like regret, something was dreadfully wrong.

The duchess held her drink out to him. He brought it to his lips but kept his gaze on his wife, as if imbibing courage with the very sight of her.

“Bernward is a canny young man,” the duke said. “Shall we sit?”

Jenny did not want to sit. She wanted to find Elijah and wring from him a recounting of what had aged the Duke of Moreland ten years in less than two minutes. She wanted to take the worry from the duchess’s eyes, and she wanted to go to Paris right that very instant.

Her Grace took one end of a small sofa and Jenny the other. The duke peered around the room as if he’d not spent many and many an hour reading to his wife in the very same location.

“Bernward claims you are not determined on Paris so much because you want to paint,” the duke said. He set his little glass down on the sideboard and turned his back on Jenny and her mother.

That was rude, and His Grace was never intentionally rude to his duchess. Jenny’s heart began to thump a slow, ominous tattoo in her chest.
Please
rant
and
bellow, Papa. Please be in a magnificent temper and hurl a few thunderbolts, then tell me I can go with your blessing.

The duchess’s hand stroked over Jenny’s shoulder, an it-will-be-all-right caress Jenny knew like she knew her own reflection, though it brought no comfort.

“Genevieve, Bernward claims…” The duke’s shoulders heaved up and down, slowly, as if he were sorely fatigued. “Bernward is of the opinion that you seek the Continent not because your talent compels it, or not solely because of your talent, but because you blame yourself”—behind his back, the duke’s hands were laced so tightly his knuckles showed white—“you blame
yourself
for the death of not one, but of both your brothers, Bartholomew and Victor.”

The duchess’s soft gasp sounded over a roaring in Jenny’s ears.

“Bernward claims,” the duke went on softly, “you must exile yourself out of guilt, because you are of the daft notion that only your happiness will atone for the loss of your brothers’ lives, though he suspects you disguise these sentiments even from yourself, or you try to. I cannot credit this. I simply cannot, and yet… you are our daughter. We know you, and Bernward, God
damn
the man, is not wrong.”

An ache grew and grew inside Jenny. An awful, choking, suffocating ache, an ache she thought she’d learned long ago how to manage. She wanted Elijah. She wanted to sprout wings and fly from the little parlor where she’d sat on her mother’s lap and learned to embroider with her sisters. She wanted, in some way, to die rather than contain the pain pressing at her very organs.

When His Grace turned from the cold, dark window, Jenny did not look away quickly enough. Even through the sheen blurring her own eyes, she could see that tears had also gathered in the eyes of His Grace, the Duke of Moreland. She looked down, seeing nothing, while her misery increased without end.

“Oh, my child.” The duchess enveloped Jenny in a ferocious embrace. “Oh, my dear, dear child. How could you think this of yourself? How could you possibly— Percival, more drinks and your handkerchief.
This
instant.
”

***

Fortunate indeed was the man whose wife had the presence of mind to keep him busy when sentiment threatened to render him… heartbroken. His Grace poured himself a shot of whisky, downed it, and poured another. This one he considered, while across the room Her Grace held a quietly lachrymose daughter, a young lady exhausted by her emotional burdens and by a failure of trust in her parents’ love.

And dear Esther… Percival fished out his second handkerchief—Windham menfolk were prepared for the occasional domestic affray, particularly around the holidays—and passed it to his duchess. She pressed it to her eyes while keeping an arm around the girl plastered to her mother’s shoulder, then gestured toward the sideboard.

“Of course, my dear.”

Brandy for the ladies. More brandy. Percival dallied by pouring just so, arranging the glasses just so on a tray, and opening and closing the drawers to the sideboard until he’d found two clean serviettes. When the weeping sounded as if it was subsiding, he brought the tray over to his womenfolk.

“Drink up, young lady, and prepare to explain yourself.”

Over Jenny’s head, Esther’s slight smile indicated he’d gotten it right: brusque and unsentimental, but more papa than commanding officer or duke.

Jenny accepted a drink from her mother, but the poor girl’s hand shook, and the duke had to make a significant inroad on his second whisky. At this rate, he would be drunk before the guests arrived, which was a fine idea all around.

“I think I can guess some of it,” Her Grace said.
She
hadn’t touched her drink. The woman had fortitude beyond description. “You blame yourself for Bart’s joining up, because you had such a very great row with him before I finally relented.”

Jenny stopped folding and unfolding her damp handkerchief to peer at her mother. “Relented?”

Oh, this was difficult. Percival pulled up a rocking chair and sat at his wife’s elbow. “Lest you forget, missy, Windham men have a long and distinguished tradition of serving King and Country. Bart needed to work out the fidgets, so to speak. He was setting a terrible example for the younger boys, wreaking havoc with the domestics, and upsetting your mother. I’d started negotiating for a commission, but your mother could not…”

Could not put her son at risk of death. Percival met his duchess’s gaze, thanking her silently yet again for never once blaming
him
for Bart’s death.

“I could not let him go,” Her Grace said quietly. “He was my firstborn, the child conceived as your father and I fell in love and married, a bright, shining symbol of so much that was good, but your father had the right of it: Bart was becoming spoiled, and if he was ever to make any sort of duke, he needed to grow up.”

Grow up. Such a simple term for a complicated, fraught, difficult process that could challenge dukes well into their prime. His Grace marshaled his fortitude and said a few more simple words. “You were not responsible for Bartholomew’s death. He died in a Portuguese tavern because the damned fool boy propositioned a decent woman with protective family. I’ve blamed myself, I’ve blamed Wellington, I’ve blamed the entire Portuguese nation for being so deucedly full of pretty girls, but in my wildest imaginings I never once blamed you.”

His feeble attempt at levity went right past Jenny, but Her Grace gave him another small smile.

So he soldiered on.

“You are not responsible for Victor’s death either.”

Jenny’s face disappeared into her blasted handkerchief. Her Grace tucked the girl closer, and the pain in the duchess’s eyes…

Two sons buried, and this daughter nearly lost to an abundance of responsibility and a want of parental attention. It was enough to make a man plan the demolition of Paris. Percival served his wife a steadying look, because the woman would soon be blaming herself for the whole of it.

Truly, Genevieve was their daughter.

“V-Victor went with me to the worst p-places. To any poorhouse, any slum, and he stood by me while I drew and drew… And then he was sick, and I promised him I’d keep painting.”

All no doubt true, also quite beside the point. “That, young lady, is complete twaddle. Everywhere your brother escorted you, two stout footmen followed. Her Grace insisted. You did not fall ill, the footmen did not fall ill, and yet Victor did.”

Luckily for a papa’s composure, this pronouncement got Jenny’s attention “You knew?”

Her Grace pushed a lock of Jenny’s hair over the girl’s shoulder, not because Jenny was in any disarray, but because a mother never got over the need to cosset her babies—nor a duke the need to cosset his duchess.

“We knew,” Her Grace said. “Victor made sure we knew, and said we ought to find you a better drawing master, one who’d cultivate your talent, because you couldn’t stop drawing or painting if you wanted to.”

“But he became so ill… He died, and all because I dragged him around with me, just so I could draw all those children and old people. I told Victor if I drew them, then death wouldn’t entirely win. I was a selfish idiot.” She balled up her handkerchief, and His Grace stifled the urge to duck. “Death won.”

So young, and so burdened. So damned unnecessarily burdened. “Death ended Victor’s suffering, but you, my girl, did not cause it. You never knew my brother Peter, a great strapping fellow who would have made a marvelous duke had he not been cursed with a weak constitution. By the age of thirty-five, he was no longer riding out.”

Her Grace picked up the argument for the defense right on cue. “My younger sister, Ruth, succumbed to consumption before she was out of the schoolroom. Consumption is a scourge, and you did not invent it. I daresay Victor was exposed to disease in a number of unsavory locations about which I will not expound upon, lest I disgrace his memory.”

Oh, excellent. A touch of maternal vinegar turned the moment for Jenny to one of thoughtful consideration rather than self-flagellation.

His Grace winked at his wife. Well done, indeed. She took a dainty sip of her drink, lifting the glass an inch in His Grace’s direction. A certain duke was going to find some mistletoe when this dreary business was through, see if he didn’t.

“You are not responsible for your brothers’ deaths, Genevieve. That you could think it breaks my heart, and your dear mother will likely require much comforting as a result of the misperception you’ve labored under. I hope no more need be said on the topic?”

He prayed no more need be said, but any prisoner liberated from guilt needed time to relearn a world of freedom. While he leveled a glower at his daughter—a loving glower—His Grace had the thought that Genevieve would have made a good duke.

She understood responsibility and loyalty instinctively, but like her mother, she was not as comfortable with delegation of her assigned tasks. Perhaps Bernward might help her with that.

“No more need be said right now, Papa.”

If only
that
were true.

“I need to say something.” Her Grace glanced at Percival as she spoke, and he returned the look. Anything she wanted to say, or needed to say, could only add to the discussion and as always, cover the difficult ground her husband—
any
husband—would sprint across hotfoot.

“I need to say—Percival, would you hold my drink?—I need to say that I am proud of you, Genevieve. I am proud of the regard you hold for your siblings, proud of your talent, proud of your determination—you get that from your father—and so very proud of your courage.”