"It's the artistic vision, Rosie," Clarissa said in vigorous championship of her knight "Artists paint what they see."
"Well, you must have very strange eyes, Mr. Lacey," Rosie observed, taking an apple from a fruit bowl on the table and scrunching into it "Even worse than mine."
"Don't comment on things you don't understand," Emily said, coming to the support of her sister and the now beleaguered-looking artist "It's very beautiful, Jonathan, and I know you'll have a host of commissions when people see it What do you think, Stoneridge?"
"Undoubtedly," the earl agreed smoothly, increasing the pressure of his fingers as Theo quivered again. "It's a most accomplished piece of work, Mr. Lacey. Don't you agree, Edward?"
"Oh, uh, certainly," Edward said hastily, trying very hard not to look at Theo.
"Why, thank you." Jonathan looked gratified at these endorsements from those who surely knew better than an impertinent child.
"Oh, I forgot to say that Dennis says nuncheon is ready. There are cheese tarts," Rosie announced through a mouthful of apple.
"Oh, good," Theo said. "I haven't had cheese tarts in ages."
"I hate to disappoint you," Sylvester said. "But we have some obligations at Curzon Street."
"Oh, yes, for a glorious minute I'd forgotten," Theo said with a groan. "We must go, Mama."
"Of course, dear," Elinor said promptly. "Do you accompany us to the Vanbrughs' rout party tonight. I'm certain Lady Gilbraith and Mary would be most welcome to join us."
Theo looked up at her husband. Sylvester smiled. "It's a longstanding engagement, my love, of course you must go. I'm certain my mother won't wish to accompany you; she doesn't go about in Society much these days, and Mary is clearly in no fit condition to be gallivanting. I'm sure they'll both be glad of a quiet evening."
"Or you could entertain them?" Theo suggested.
"Unfortunately, I'm engaged elsewhere," he responded without the blink of an eye.
Theo grinned. "How surprising." She turned to Edward. "Edward, you could come for me. You wouldn't mind, would you?" She smiled at him, and he had little difficulty reading the imperative message in her eyes. Theo wanted more than his escort. Instinct told him to make some excuse, but the habits of long friendship and the knowledge that someone needed to know what she was up to had him agreeing.
"I'll come for you at nine."
Theo nodded her thanks, and Sylvester ushered her out of the house. Instructing Billy to walk Zeus back to Curzon Street, he handed Theo into her curricle and took the reins himself.
Only then did Theo give in to her laughter. "Of all the absurd fantasies," she declared. "Jonathan's made Clarry look like some simpering dryad on a chocolate box. It's the most ghastly piece of stylized pretension. He'll never make a living out of portrait painting, so we'll have to do something for them."
"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure about that," Sylvester said. "Those romantic backgrounds and classical allusions are becoming very fashionable. It wouldn't surprise me if young Mr. Lacey didn't find himself all the rage in a month or two."
"You're not serious?" Theo stared at him in mock horror. "People will pay for that rubbish?"
"Most certainly. I wonder how he'd choose to depict you," he mused with a wicked gleam in his eye. "Some wood sprite, I'd lay odds. All dark curls and mystery, with a hart or some such pretty woodland creature in the background."
"Over my dead body," Theo exclaimed, revolted. "I was toying with the idea of suggesting you commission a portrait of me, just to start him off, you understand, but not even for Clarry would I let him come within a mile of me with a paintbrush."
"Has he proposed to Clarissa, yet?"
"No, but he's spoken most sensibly to Mama," Theo said in accents remarkably like those of the Honorable Mrs. Lacey. "He explained how he didn't feel able to make a formal offer for Clarry until he'd sold one painting. Then he'd feel his career was really taking off." She pulled a face. "But that's never going to happen, so Clarry will have to do the proposing herself."
"Somehow I don't see Clarissa taking such a thing into her own hands," Sylvester said. "Rosie, perhaps. You, certainly. But Emily and Clarissa…?" He shook his head. "Definitely not."
"Now, that's where you're mistaken," Theo asserted. "Clarry's found her knight, and it'll be snowing in hell before she lets him slip away from her."
Sylvester contemplated this in the light of what he knew of the Belmonts and was forced to conclude that, unlikely though it seemed, Theo was probably right.
They turned onto Curzon Street, and Sylvester was suddenly silent. Theo glanced at his face. His mouth was grave, his eyes cool and serious.
She waited uneasily, but Sylvester didn't say anything until he drew rein outside the house.
"Look up at the house, Theo."
Startled, she looked at the redbrick double-fronted facade of the elegant mansion. It looked no different from always.
"Look up" he emphasized. "There are two balconied windows up there."
Theo raised her eyes and looked at her unorthodox route to her husband's bedside. From the ground it looked utterly terrifying, even more so than when she'd been negotiating it. She cast him a rueful grimace.
"Do you have any ideas as to what we should do about you?" he inquired with mild curiosity. "I confess I've run out of inspiration."
"It looks a lot worse from down here," she said. "But I needed to get to you. I didn't really think about anything. I just needed to come to you, and so I did."
"Yes, you did." Sylvester agreed with this simple truth. Suddenly there was a warm light in the gray eyes bent upon her upturned countenance. "So you did, gypsy." He placed his hand against the curve of her cheek. "And you brought me much comfort."
Theo didn't answer, but she nestled her cheek into his cupped palm.
"That said," he continued, flicking the tip of her nose with his forefinger, "I can't help feeling I'd be failing you and neglecting my marital duty if I didn't express some legitimate husbandly wrath."
"No," Theo agreed. "Shall we agree that you have done so, and I've taken it to heart?"
"Incorrigible," he said, sighing. "Utterly incorrigible."
They must have been seen from the house, because the bootboy came running down the steps. "Shall I take the curricle to the mews, m'lord?"
Sylvester regarded the lad, who didn't look more than ten, with a surprised frown. "Can you manage them?"
"Oh, yes, m'lord. I can, can't I, Lady Theo?"
"Yes, you need have no fear, Sylvester. Timmy's dad's the head groom at the vicarage in Lulworth, but his mother wanted him to be an inside servant, so he's languishing among the boots instead of with the horses. Which is where he'd rather be, isn't that so, Timmy?" She smiled at the lad as she jumped to the pavement.
"Oh, yes, ma'am," Timmy said with a heartfelt sigh. "But it'd break me mam's heart. Leastways, that's what me dad says."
"Of course, she wouldn't need to know what you do in London," Theo said thoughtfully. "What do you think, sir?"
"I think young Timmy should take himself to the stables and ask Don to put him to work," Sylvester pronounced, resigned to a role of simple reinforcement when it came to Theo's household decisions and dispositions.
"But what of Mr. Foster, sir?" The lad's eyes grew wide with the prospect of a dream fulfilled.
"I'm sure he can find another bootboy." He ushered Theo up the steps as Timmy, crowing with delight, led the horses away.
"A messenger brought you a letter, Lady Theo." Foster's jaw dropped at her ladyship's altered appearance.
"Oh, thank you, Foster." Theo smiled at him as she took the wafer-sealed paper.
"You'll forgive the personal comment, but…" Foster indicated her coiffure. "Most pleasing, Lady Theo."