“You’ll need glasses if you keep squinting by candlelight.” She picked up a nearly extinguished candle and set it closer to his work.
“I am young and hale yet.” His low voice seemed to creep along the floorboards.
“Hale, yes,” Elsie said, and her employer glanced over to her, his turquoise eyes sparkling in the light. His dark brows crooked in a mock disapproving manner.
“Fifty-four is not old,” he quipped.
“Fifty-five is.”
Ogden paused, nearly touching his paintbrush to his lips in thought. “I’m not fifty-five, am I?”
“You turned fifty-five in February.”
“I turned fifty-four.”
Elsie sighed and tried to hide the smile on her lips. “Mr. Ogden. You were born in 1840, the same day the queen married Prince Albert. You brag about it to everyone.”
Ogden’s lip quirked. “I’m sure they married in 1841.”
“Now you’re just being difficult.” She stepped up behind him, avoiding a lamp, and surveyed the painting. Ogden had managed to make a gray winter sky look cheery. A heavy wreath with red ribbon on the front door denoted Christmas. Snow at the top of the house, the chimney, the bottom two corners. Ogden had a strange thing about adding details at the edges of the canvas first before moving in toward the center.
“Does it snow often in Manchester?”
Ogden shook his head. “No, but it was the client’s request.”
“Christmas is seven months away yet. Seven and a half.”
“But I will need to put this away and look at it again in a few weeks.” Ogden’s eyes stayed on the painting, squinting and scrutinizing. “And then have you take it to the framer’s. That will take up another month, and then if they request corrections . . . you know how it goes. How was your evening?”
Elsie shrugged. “Uneventful. A long walk and some window browsing.”
Ogden stuck his pinky finger in the white paint on the palette in his off-hand. Elsie felt the spell as it sparked out of him, and the white brightened until it nearly glowed. He was a physical aspector, but not a very strong one. Strength in aspecting varied from person to person, although it seemed to be bestowed at random, not by genetics. The spells Ogden knew were all novice level. Spells that made only slight changes to the physical world around him—like changing the color of paint. Ogden didn’t seem to mind, though. Enough for an artist to get by. He’d told her that himself on more than one occasion.
Elsie watched him dip his brush and touch its fine tip to the eaves of the manor and the leaves of a tree on the grounds. It looked like real snow. With artistic talent such as his, Ogden didn’t need powerful magic.
He worked for a few more minutes before putting the brush down. “Would you help me clean up?”
Elsie picked up one of the candles, shielding its flame with her cupped hand.
“I’m expecting Nash,” he added.
“Is he staying for dinner?” Elsie asked.
Ogden shook his head. “Have Emmeline set a plate aside for me, would you?”
Nodding, Elsie carried the candle to a nearby table, then gathered the lamps and stuck them on the counter. She blew out the remaining candles—no point in wasting them. Ogden rinsed his brush and carefully carried the easel holding his latest work to the corner; Elsie rolled up the stained tarp underfoot. Even as she did so, she knew it was pointless. First thing tomorrow Ogden would be in the same spot, doing the same work, but she strived to make herself useful. Had strived for it these last nine years, ever since she’d advanced from being a scullery maid for a pompous jackanapes.
Elsie brushed off her hands and took the still-lit candle down the hall with her. Movement on the stairs made her gasp and set her heart racing.
“Emmeline!” Her whisper was nearly a hiss. “Why are you skulking about in the shadows?”
The maid, four years younger than Elsie at seventeen, darted her dark eyes over the railing. “Is he here yet?”
“Who?”
She licked her lips. “Nash.”
The name was barely audible.
Elsie rolled her eyes. “Not yet, and don’t worry, he’s not staying for dinner. Ogden said to leave his plate for him.”
Emmeline nodded, but fear tightened her face. She was always uneasy around Ogden’s messenger boy. Why, Elsie didn’t know. He was a tall man, yes, but so slight a strong wind might snap his torso like a twig. That, and he was an abundantly pleasant fellow; he always had a grin on his face and a bounce to his step. He wasn’t crude or cruel—indeed, although he rarely spoke to Elsie and Emmeline, he was unfailingly kind when he did so.
Emmeline shifted, and the stair creaked underfoot. “Would you set the table with me?”
Elsie let out a long breath through her nose. “Really, Emmeline.”
“Why does he always come at night?” she asked, defensive.
“Because he has other clients? Because that’s when Ogden is ready for him? And he doesn’t always.”
“Often,” the maid countered. “Often at night. There’s a look to him, Els. I don’t like it.”
Oh, Elsie knew it well. Emmeline had always been wary of Abel Nash, from her first day in Ogden’s household. It was an odd reaction to a man who was reasonably attractive and had a rather cheery disposition.
Elsie had teased her about it, once, asking if the true reason for her interest in the blond errand boy was a hidden affection, but Emmeline had responded so coldly that Elsie dared not mention it again. Ogden was more likely to court the man than Emmeline was.
Elsie’s shoulders drooped. “Yes, I’ll help you.”
Emmeline looked so relieved she might have fainted. “Thank you. I’ll serve you breakfast first tomorrow.”
Elsie snorted. “We’ll see how Ogden likes that.” Climbing a few steps, she took the girl’s arm in hers and walked her to the kitchen, noting how Emmeline gave the hall to the studio a nervous glance. The action made her feel like something of an older sister. The thought niggled something painful in her gut, however, and she pushed the notion away.
The two set the table and ate together. Emmeline listened intently as Elsie regurgitated the story of the baron from her novel reader, and together they speculated what his fate might be. Ogden still hadn’t come in for his plate when they finished, but that wasn’t unlike him. Like most artists, he could be a little absent at times.
Grabbing a candleholder, Elsie ventured toward the stairs, but voices in the studio caught her attention. Nash was quiet even in motion—she’d never heard the front door open.
She peeked in. Nash looked fragile next to Ogden, who had the broad, stout, muscular build of a stonemason—work he still did on occasion, when commissions from his paintings and sculptures grew sparse. Nash was taller, his hair dandelion yellow, his face young and narrow. He was in his midtwenties, dressed simply. Pale. Completely unthreatening.
Elsie couldn’t overhear their discussion, not that it mattered. Nothing interesting ever passed her employer’s lips, and she’d spied on them enough to know they were strictly business partners and nothing else. No, Elsie had to depend on Emmeline and the local merchants for good gossip. Not that she ever spread it herself. But the vicar didn’t preach against listening to gossip.
And yet, as Elsie turned away to venture to bed, Abel Nash looked over Ogden’s shoulder, his light eyes finding her for only a moment before refocusing on the man before him. In that brief moment, Elsie felt a chill course down her spine.