The faint old sketch was nothing but lines of carbon on paper, but she needed them. Now that she could not trust her memory to hold him safe, she had to find her drawing. It reminded her of more than Charles; it reminded her of the choices she’d made and how they’d transformed her.
Possibly one of the maids had taken the drawing for some reason, though she could not imagine what. “Millie,” she called, not caring that her voice rang at a very unladylike volume.
The lady’s maid peeped into Frances’s room within seconds, bobbing her head, her eyes wide at the sight of her mistress’s companion sitting on the floor. “Mum? Is everything all right?”
No. “Yes, Millie. I didn’t mean to alarm you. I just need to know if you’ve seen a picture in here. A sketch.”
“A sketch, mum? No, I haven’t. I could check with Pollitt. He’d know if one of the other maids had found something. Ah… what sketch would it be, mum?”
Frances hauled herself into a chair. “It was a drawing of Mr. Whittier. You understand why I wish to locate it.”
“Yes, mum. Right away, mum.” Millie looked sympathetic as she dipped into her curtsy and went to question Caroline’s butler.
So, even the servants pitied her. Millie had a young man who always took her out on her half day off. The butler, Pollitt, who seemed never to feel emotion at all, had won a woman’s lifelong devotion at some point in the unimaginable past, for he was married to Caroline’s cook.
Feeling no emotion at all. That sounded wonderful.
Frances made herself stand, twisting to remove stiffness from her back. Her body felt tired and overfull of old secrets she would have gladly discarded.
She might as well see if there was some way to distract herself. Maybe Caroline needed some letters—some real letters—written. If not, she could find herself a book to read.
She’d tried to face the truth, but it was too much, now that Charles’s face was turning into Henry’s.
On her way to the morning room, she padded down the corridor past the drawing room and heard a low voice inside. A man’s voice. Caroline was not alone.
Frances had a suspicion whom she would find even before she peeked through the doorway.
“Henry.” She slung a sloppy smile across her face. “I thought you had left.”
From his seat next to Caroline on the sofa, he snapped to attention with the speed and grace of a bone-deep soldier. “Only for a short while. Frances, I didn’t realize—”
“You were supposed to go to sleep, Frannie,” Caroline interrupted. “Go away at once, and come back in half an hour.”
Frances could not have gone more numb if she’d been plunged into ice water. “Of course,” she said in a toneless voice, and turned her back on the pair. Half an hour, they wanted. She could easily imagine why.
“Wait, please,” Henry called before she could take a step away. Lower, he said, “Caro, I can show her now. It won’t harm anything.”
Frances turned slowly on the balls of her feet. “Show me what?” Her eyes hunted jewelry, a hand clasp, some sign that Caroline had succumbed to Henry’s scheme for all that he insisted it was not at all improper. Henry wanted to spare Frances a half hour of suspense; he must feel he owed her that much after their interlude in the Blue Room. A half-dozen kisses and a bit of illicit groping won her the right to be told in person that he had chosen another.
Caroline shrugged. “Fine, Henry. It’s your secret plot.” She drew an old-looking piece of paper from behind an embroidered cushion.
Henry began to fidget; he stood, cleared his throat, motioned for Frances to come in and seat herself, then cleared his throat again.
“You’re fidgeting,” Frances noted, feeling no less confused as she perched on a low-back Windsor chair. “The last time I saw you so restless, you, ah, asked me for help.” Help composing a reply to a letter he thought he had received from Caroline.
Henry’s face turned red under its sun-brown. “And you granted it very kindly. But I’m not asking you for help this time. I’ve made you a present.”
“You made me a present.”
Caroline blew a breath out between thinned lips. “In case we haven’t said it often enough, yes, Frannie, he made you a present. Only it’s not really ready yet, but since you wouldn’t sleep and you wouldn’t leave, now you’re going to look at it.” She slapped her hands onto her thighs. “I believe I’ve summarized the essentials of the situation.”
“Oh.” Frances’s mind seemed to have been wiped as blank as the accounting slates Charles and his father used to keep at their inn. “I didn’t realize.”
“Obviously not,” Caroline said crisply. “So. This belongs to you.” She held the old paper out to Frances.
Even before Frances had unfolded it along its worn creases, she knew what it was. “Charles.”
“You once mentioned having a sketch of your late husband.” Henry’s voice was quiet as he sank back onto the sofa next to Caroline. “Your cousin helped me figure out how to abstract it earlier. I hope you do not mind.”
Frances unfolded the paper. There was her missing drawing: Charles Whittier at the age of twenty-one, as lifelike as a pencil and Frances’s limited talent could make him. There was his clean jaw, the cleft in his chin, the twist of his smile. The shape of the mouth she had adored for years, had so often kissed—but had not, only a short while ago, been able to recall.
“Why did you take it?” She sounded peppery as she folded up the paper again, impatient with their teasing little plot. As though she was their pet, to be tricked and played with.
“He made you a present,” Caroline chanted. “Good heavens, Henry, show it to her so she’ll quit asking about it.”
Frances watched, still feeling left behind, as Henry retrieved a leather case from behind another cushion.
“I shall have to remember to look under every one of your cushions, Caroline,” Frances said. “You’ve been hiding things.”
Caroline flapped a hand to shush her. “You’re going to love this, I know.”
Henry stood and handed the folded leather to Frances. When she didn’t open it right away, he retreated again to the sofa and sat by Caroline. The two of them peered at her, eager for her reaction.
Despite herself, she smiled. They obviously meant well, and it was becoming just as obvious that they really hadn’t gotten up to anything improper—beyond sneaking Frances’s possessions, that is.
She unfolded the butter-soft leather and found within an ivory oval. The outline of a young man was drawn on it, his coat tinted a rich blue not much darker than Henry’s eyes. The lines of the man’s face were shaky and vague, but recognizably those of Charles.
Henry cleared his throat. “I colored the coat over the last few days, but I have not had time today to do more than copy his face in pencils. Maybe it’s for the best that you learn of the portrait now, as I need to know his coloring before I can finish.”
“Brown,” Frances said quietly, still staring at the picture. “His hair light, his eyes dark.” She stretched out a finger to touch the ivory surface, then thought better of it. She should not smudge the lines Henry had carefully marked out.
With his left hand, he had done this. It was not a great work of art by any means, but it was almost as clear as the drawing she had made with the living man before her.
She looked up at Henry’s face again, her mind locked. “I don’t understand. Why have you done this?”
His eyes were the painful blue of sapphires worn by a rival. “I wanted to give you a gift. To thank you for your friendship. Caro thought this was something you might like.”
“A new picture of my dead husband that you created by stealing the old from me. That’s what Caroline thought I would like.”