‘‘We’ll change our clothes, then, and go to the breakfast.’’
‘‘I’ve already sent my regrets. And it’s in a garden, under a tent. There will be no place to talk privately.’’
‘‘We could walk with Lady Avonleigh in the garden.’’
‘‘Any number of people might be walking as well and overhear us.’’
‘‘Then we could take her into Lady Hartley’s house.’’
‘‘You cannot go into someone’s house during a garden party, Griffin. It’s not polite to go where you’re not invited.’’
‘‘Juliana went into Lady Hartley’s house during last year’s breakfast,’’ he pointed out.
‘‘And look what happened! It was the scandal of the Season!’’ When it came to the social niceties, men didn’t know anything. She sighed. ‘‘We’ll come back tomorrow. In the
morning
.’’
Chapter Forty
As the clock on the mantel struck ten on Sunday night, Corinna dipped her smallest brush in coffee-colored paint and carefully covered the green irises on her canvas. Over the next quarter hour, she added black pupils, curvature, depth and highlights, glints where the flame of a candle reflected.
Blowing out a breath, she stepped back.
Sean’s eyes were brown now, and the portrait was done.
She’d already changed his dark hair to a streaky blond, made it a little straighter and a little longer, made it positively glow in the candlelight. The rest of the picture remained the same—the shockingly sensual pose; the sculpted, faintly stubbled face; the ridged, toned torso; the heart-stopping, contemplative gaze—but she was sure no one would recognize Sean now.
The painting was going to be a sensation.
Blond or black-haired, brown-eyed or green, his image looked compelling. Captivating. Spellbinding. Seductive. Like the man himself.
She’d never completed such a large painting in only two days before, and she could hardly believe she was finished. The hours had sped by in such a frenzy since late Friday night. But done was done, and there was no sense in fiddling with it any longer. She’d be as likely to ruin it as she was to improve it.
Although she couldn’t show it to Sean, of course—she wasn’t yet ready for anyone, including him, to learn he was her portrait’s inspiration—she couldn’t wait to tell him it was complete. He’d be so surprised to hear she’d finished half a day early. Bursting with happiness and excitement and energy, she hefted the canvas off her easel and started upstairs, holding it at arm’s length, where she could smile at it as she went.
She was hauling it down the corridor toward her bedroom when the door to Griffin’s study opened. She whirled to face him, watched him raise his hands to grip the jamb on either side of his head. Such a casual pose, when she was feeling her heart pound in her throat.
‘‘What are you doing, Corinna?’’
‘‘Bringing this to my room. I’m finished.’’
‘‘Are you?’’ He looked pleased. Probably because he could get back to shoving men at her now. ‘‘Let’s see it,’’ he said, moving into the corridor.
‘‘No!’’ In reaction, she pulled the canvas closer to her body, nearly smearing paint against her apron. She’d have killed him if that had happened, just
killed
him. ‘‘Not yet. It isn’t varnished yet.’’ Artists rarely varnished their paintings before submitting them to the Summer Exhibition. There was a tradition called Varnishing Day, after the selected pictures were hung but before the Exhibition opened, when all the artists came to make last-minute changes and coat their works in varnish. ‘‘I don’t want anyone to see it until after it’s varnished. If it’s accepted, you can see it in the Exhibition.’’
‘‘Well, that’s just silly.’’
She shrugged. ‘‘I’m an artist, temperamental and all that.’’ She started backing down the corridor. ‘‘I’m going to put this in my room now, and you’d better not go looking at it.’’
It was his turn to shrug, as though he couldn’t be bothered to walk that far, anyway. He backed into his study, and she backed into her room and closed the door behind her. After leaning the painting against a wall, facing in, she covered it with a sheet. Then she balanced a hairpin precariously on the top edge, where it would be knocked off if anyone disturbed it.
There, she thought with a grin.
Impatient to see Sean, she ripped off her apron, smoothed her dress, left her room, and poked her head into Griffin’s study. ‘‘I’m going to tell Lord Lincolnshire his portrait is finished,’’ she said, although, of course, it wasn’t.
Scribbling on some paperwork, Griffin didn’t look up. ‘‘Lincolnshire will be sleeping now, Corinna.’’
‘‘Maybe, but maybe not. I won’t wake him. If he’s sleeping, I’ll go back in the morning.’’
‘‘Take a footman with you. I’ll not have you walking alone in Berkeley Square in the middle of the night.’’
Did he really think she’d walk alone in London at night?
That
much of a rebel she wasn’t. A lady could get herself raped or worse, even in Mayfair.
‘‘I’m not the ninnyhammer you seem to think I am,’’ she informed him. ‘‘I won’t be long.’’ Then she all but ran down the stairs and all the way to Lincolnshire House, pausing just long enough to request a footman. Leaving the footman panting at Lincolnshire’s gate, she lifted her skirts, raced up the portico steps, and banged the knocker.
Quincy answered. ‘‘Good evening.’’
‘‘I wish a word with Mr. Hamilton.’’
‘‘I’m sorry, but he’s not at home, milady.’’
‘‘He isn’t? Oh.’’ Disappointment was a sudden ache in her middle.
How many hours must intervene ere she could press him to her throbbing heart, as the sweet partner of her future days?
she recalled reading in
Children of the Abbey
. ‘‘I’ll return tomorrow then, I guess.’’
She had just started to turn away when Deirdre came to the door. ‘‘Lady Corinna?’’
Turning back, she dredged up a smile. ‘‘I was hoping to see your . . . your husband, Mrs. Hamilton. I have something exciting to tell him.’’
‘‘He’s been gone all day. A wee bit of trouble with his, ah . . . his latest painting.’’ Deirdre slanted a glance to Quincy. ‘‘Would you care to come in?’’
‘‘Is Lord Lincolnshire awake?’’
‘‘I fear not.’’ Sean’s sister sighed. ‘‘He spent the morning closeted with his solicitor yet again. Then he complained of some pain—claimed the Regent was sitting on his chest again or some such thing. He passed out for a moment, then woke and fell asleep. He’s been sleeping ever since.’’
‘‘That doesn’t sound good,’’ Corinna observed, the ache of disappointment growing sharper. ‘‘I’ll return tomorrow, when I hope he’ll be better.’’
Deirdre nodded and took a step back to allow Quincy to shut the door.
‘‘Wait,’’ Corinna said, remembering something. ‘‘I’ve a question, if you wouldn’t mind. About a word or a phrase I’m thinking might be Irish.’’
‘‘Is that so?’’ Coming forward again, Deirdre looked curious. ‘‘What is it, then?’’
‘‘Cooshla-macree. Does that mean something? Or is it only a few syllables of nonsense?’’
Sean’s sister frowned a moment before her expression cleared. ‘‘
Cuisle mo chroí
,’’ she repeated, the words sounding a bit different as they rolled off her tongue. ‘‘It means ‘pulse of my heart.’ Or ‘sweetheart,’ I suppose you might say.’’
‘‘Sweetheart,’’ Corinna breathed. ‘‘How about creena?’’
‘‘
Críona
, ‘my heart.’ ’’
‘‘Ahroon?’’
‘‘
A rún
, ‘my love.’ ’’ Sean’s sister cocked her pretty blond head. ‘‘I find myself wondering where you heard these words, I do confess.’’
‘‘I expect you know.’’ Bursting with happiness once more, Corinna gave a startled Deirdre an impulsive hug before she ran back home.
Chapter Forty-one
Sean didn’t slam into the breakfast room Monday morning. He was much too drained, much too discouraged for so much emotion. At half past seven, he simply walked in and slowly sat down, feeling brittle, as though his bones might crack in the process.
Deirdre slid his cup of coffee toward him just as slowly. ‘‘No good news?’’
‘‘No news at all.’’ He reached for the cup but didn’t drink from it, just cradled its warmth between his palms. ‘‘No helpful news, at any rate. Maybe today.’’
She sipped her tea, watching him. ‘‘Lady Corinna came by to see you last night before you returned. Late, but I hadn’t yet gone up to bed. She seemed rather . . . excited. Out of breath. I’m thinking she must have run all the way here from her house. She said she had something to tell you.’’
‘‘Her painting must be finished,’’ he said glumly. She’d completed it half a day early, which meant it must have gone well. But it also meant it was time to explain the facts.
‘‘You don’t sound happy for her. It’s a good thing, isn’t it?’’
‘‘Sure, and it’s excellent.’’ Now he could devastate the love of his life.
They both glanced over as the door opened. ‘‘Mr. Hamilton?’’
A maid entered. The one who’d shown Sean upstairs the first day he arrived, the little bird of a middle-aged woman who’d informed him Lincolnshire was the most wonderful man in all of England.
Today she looked like an old woman, her face drawn in tight lines. ‘‘Nurse Skeffington asked me to fetch you,’’ she said. ‘‘Your uncle is dying.’’
In her family’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields town house, Rachael was going downstairs to have breakfast when her brother started up. ‘‘Oh, there you are,’’ he said. ‘‘I was coming to look for you.’’
‘‘You’re up and about early.’’ Pausing on the steps, she noted he was wearing shoes rather than boots, a double-breasted tailcoat rather than a riding coat. ‘‘And isn’t it Monday morning, Noah?’’
‘‘Of course it is, yes.’’
‘‘I thought all you horse-mad young bucks met at Tattersall’s on Mondays to settle your accounts. Or is Monday an auction day? Either way, you always seem to head for Tattersall’s every Monday, but you’re not dressed for that.’’
‘‘Maybe I’m not horse-mad anymore,’’ he suggested, a challenge in his blue eyes.
Hearing a challenge in his voice, too, she wondered if he could possibly be serious. ‘‘You’re off to your club, then, I expect?’’
‘‘No, I’m not.’’ Noah lifted his square chin. ‘‘I was hoping you’d come with me to Oxford Street. To Robert Gillow and Company, to be more precise, to pick out a desk.’’
‘‘Did you say a desk?’’ She must have heard him wrong. ‘‘What kind of a desk?’’
‘‘An oak one, I’m thinking. Something sturdy, in any case, with many drawers. The one in the study seems to be growing rather rickety.’’
‘‘I imagine it’s a hundred years old, at the very least. But however did you come to notice it’s rickety?’’
He raised his scarred brow. ‘‘I
used
it, Rachael. Is that such a surprise?’’
‘‘Frankly, yes.’’
Surprise
seemed too mild a word—she was positively shocked. First he’d asked for an inventory at Greystone, and now this. Could it be her younger brother was growing up? At twenty-two, he was looking like a man, but was he actually becoming one?
‘‘Well?’’ he asked, still looking like a man, but one who was rather annoyed. ‘‘Will you come with me or not?’’
‘‘Oh, I wish I could.’’ The sight of Noah inspecting desks rather than horseflesh was bound to be a spectacle. But she expected Griffin to arrive in half an hour. ‘‘I’ve other plans for today, I’m afraid, but let me talk to Claire and Elizabeth about going with you to Gillow’s instead.’’
‘‘Lord Lincolnshire! Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton!’’
Corinna hurried toward Lord Lincolnshire’s bedroom, having been told at the front door that Sean and Deirdre were with him. She’d risen at the crack of dawn this morning and come before even eating breakfast, because she couldn’t wait a moment longer to share her news.
‘‘I finished my portrait!’’ she announced, stopping in the doorway. ‘‘I’m going to submit it this . . .’’
The sentence trailed off when she saw James by the bed, leaning over the earl with his stethoscope. All her excitement dissipated along with the words.
‘‘. . . afternoon,’’ she finished in a small voice. ‘‘How is he?’’
Sean rose from where he sat by Deirdre. ‘‘I think Lord Stafford is just about finished and ready to tell us.’’
‘‘I am, yes.’’ James drew the covers up to the earl’s chin and straightened, looking grim. ‘‘I fear the end is imminent. He may last the night, but not any longer. I don’t believe he’ll wake, either. He’ll likely just continue like this until his breathing and his heart simply stop. I’m sorry,’’ he concluded with a sigh. ‘‘We’ll all miss him.’’
Corinna looked back to the huge crimson-draped bed where Lord Lincolnshire slumbered, propped upright against a dozen pillows. When the covers were down, she’d noticed his belly appeared swollen now, along with the rest of him. His skin looked tight and wet, as though it were weeping fluid. Gurgling noises came from his throat.