“She’s well,” Elijah said, “and uses a fine vocabulary for somebody who doesn’t yet put up her hair consistently.”
“A bookworm, possibly. Louisa was the same way. I learned many a term from her that impressed our elders.”
He peered at Jenny over his letter. “She and Ruth are both mad for books. I always know what to send them for their birthday and Christmas.”
Twin sisters, then, which was common enough in large families. Two more strawberries disappeared while Elijah finished reading his letter, and Jenny stifled the urge to pace.
She was not ready to have him snatched from her. She needed these days with him, artistically and… otherwise. All too soon Their Graces would return from Town, the children’s portraits would be completed, and Jenny would be heading off for Paris.
If she’d doubted her resolve on that goal before, she didn’t now.
Come fire, flood, or famine, as His Grace would say. Jenny was more determined on her destination than ever, and Elijah Harrison was part of the reason for her conviction.
“Sarah misses me.” He got up and crossed to the window, where bleak winter light did little to brighten the parlor.
Jenny glanced at the epistle long enough to see “Greetings, dear and long lost brother…” in the salutation.
Jenny had two long lost—forever lost—brothers, and would have given her right hand, the hand with which she painted, not to have it so. “You’ll see her at the holidays, won’t you?”
He remained facing away. “She can’t possibly miss me. She hardly knows me.”
Jenny rose and went to him, wanting to see what he saw out that cold window. “She can miss you. I barely recall my grandparents, but because most of my memories of them came from holiday gatherings, I do miss them.”
Missing loved ones at the holidays was always part of the season. How could he not know that?
“I left when Sarah was little more than a toddler. I used to read her stories, her on one knee, Ruth on the other.”
Jenny slipped her hand into his, because he seemed not simply gone away, but lost. “You’ll be with them at Christmas, won’t you?”
He let out a sigh of sufficient depth that the window fogged before him. “After Christmas, and then only if I’m made a member of the Academy.”
“They often don’t announce the results of their votes until the New Year, when the honors list comes out.” And what had membership in the Academy to do with sisters who missed him?
“Then I’ll wait until the vote is cast, but I will not go home until I can do so with sufficient standing that my father will have to admit he was wrong.”
Jenny had been raised with five brothers and four sisters, each sibling a living tribute to their parents’ legendary stubbornness. She recognized foolish pride when confronted with it, and recognized as well that to the person displaying it, it wasn’t foolishness and never would be.
“What was your father wrong about?”
Elijah glanced down at her, then at their joined hands. He kissed Jenny’s knuckles and gave her back her hand. “Very little, as it turns out. He told me I lacked the fortitude necessary to succeed as an artist, told me I was turning my back on my birthright out of laziness and self-indulgence, not because I had an artistic vocation. He told me I wasn’t prepared for what my artistic inclinations could cost me.”
“And you think he was right?” The hound stirred at the sharpness of Jenny’s tone, but Elijah smiled.
“He was spot on about much of it, but not all of it. I’ll admit that when I go home with an Academician’s status. I’ll admit I had no notion of the cost and effort involved in pursuing an artist’s life, that I was a spoiled lordling with no understanding of the greater world—provided my father rescinds his judgment of my character.”
So Jenny could blame this familial drama on honor, the worst of the crotchets male pride was prone to, and not just Elijah’s honor, but the marquess’s honor as well. She linked her arm through Elijah’s and led him around the table, lest they disturb old Jock at his slumbers.
“The regent sings your praises. Sir Thomas sings your praises. Surely you don’t need the Academy’s imprimatur to prove your father wrong?”
“The last thing I said as I tossed my brushes and spare shirts into a traveling bag was that I would come back as an Academician or not at all. I knew I had enough talent, and I was determined he should admit it.”
Jenny wanted to tell him he was an idiot. She wanted to tell him that young men rode off, full of themselves, their talent, and their invincible honor, and they came back in coffins. When they were dead, one couldn’t write them letters, couldn’t apologize, couldn’t explain what had driven one to sharp words and stupid taunts.
“Tell your sister you’ll see her at Christmas,” Jenny said. “Or shortly thereafter. She really does miss you, Elijah.”
Just as Jenny would miss him, even as she boarded her packet for Calais.
Elijah had a reputation for completing commissions quickly. He’d learned the necessity for speed early in his career, when his fees were modest and a gap in work meant a gap in coin.
Though in truth, he wasn’t all that quick. He was organized and disciplined, and work tended to get done when a man rose early and spent time in his studio rather than at the numerous distractions available in London Towne.
Then, too, he’d cultivated the social nap, using fashionable Society’s evening gatherings to catch up on his rest, fill his belly, and remind all and sundry that artistic talent was near to hand.
“My ability has gone begging today,” he said. “I can render the dog down to every wrinkle and hair, but the children are beyond me.”
Jenny glanced up at him from where she was building a house of cards with Kit. Wee William was astride old Jock, who dozed on the hearth rug at Elijah’s feet.
“Come down here, Mr. Harrison. Your perspective from that chair has to be awkward.”
She had a point, and she had a way with children, both on the page and on the thick carpet before the fire. Elijah gave up his seat and stretched out on his side on the floor. William dismounted from his perch on the dog and came careening into Elijah.
“Go for a ride!”
Elijah caught the boy with two hands on his chubby middle. “He is a solid fellow, is William.”
Jenny balanced cards in a carefully inverted V. “He’ll take after his parents and soon be as big as Kit.”
Elijah rolled to his back and lifted William straight up above him.
“Weeee! Ride!”
“Won’t Kit take after his parents too?”
“Kit is a foundling,” Jenny said, helping the older boy to make his own inverted V. “Sophie and Vim took him into their household when he was less than a year old.” She took the card from Kit’s little mitts, where it would soon be bent beyond use. “Like this, my man. Gently and slowly.”
When, all odds to the contrary, Kit managed to lean the two cards against each other, Jenny made a great fuss over her amazing, exceptional, clever nephew.
Elijah blew against the top of William’s head, making a rude sound and feeling not in the least amazing, exceptional, or clever. He couldn’t sketch worth a damn today because of his blasted sister’s note, a bit of familial sand thrown into the gears of a morning that ought to be taken up with professional concerns… and with Genevieve Windham.
“You caught something of William’s solidness in your pastels,” Elijah said, lifting the gigging child up again. “You conveyed that he’s a healthy, substantial young fellow.”