A Fresh Perspective, A Regency Romance (5 page)

She was quick to guess the source of his concern. With an explosive laugh she said, “There is more than one of these, isn’t there?”

He nodded, wishing above anything he might honestly tell her otherwise.

“Not dozens?” She sank down on the rock, amusement completely uncontrolled. She stifled the noise of it only long enough to say. “Please tell me not dozens.”

“Not dozens.” He patted her hand, hoping against hope she would stop the hysterical laughter

“How many?” She stifled her amusement for the moment. He took a deep breath and blurted, “There were seven, but before you become too alarmed . . .”

“Seven!” Laughter rocked her so uncontrollably she wept.

Concerned, he gave her hand a squeeze. “Four have been accounted for.”

“Four?” She wiped her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Yes, Four. Two never left the artist’s workshop, one I purchased from a gallery and this one I chased halfway across Europe and bullied out of the hands of a Dutchman for an exorbitant sum of money.”

“Reed!” Her voice was still amused--also forgiving. The sound of it closed his eyes with relief for a blessed instant. “Is that why you extended your trip?” She was chuckling now, her histrionics well in hand.

“Precisely.”

“How very gallant.” Her every word was a blessing and yet he still felt guilt ridden.

“Least I could do, Nutmeg. I am only sorry I was unable to confiscate the three that sold before my arrival.”

 Her choked back giggle concerned him. She was the one to pat his hand now with a shuddering sigh that bordered dangerously on an outbreak of more laughter. “Well, it is terrifying to think there are so many likenesses of me wandering about out there, but far less terrifying than the prospect of seven.”

She seemed determined to put him at ease. “What are the chances that any one of those three should fall into the hands of someone I know?” She asked the question rhetorically and immediately answered herself with an emphatic, “Incredibly slim I should think.”

Chapter Five

“D
id you really race across half of Europe to recover this thing?” The idea impressed her more than the bronze.

“Yes.” He did not laugh.

She wanted him to laugh. The whole dilemma would seem less frightening if only he would.

“A dreadful chase.” His voice sounded so serious she wanted to shake him. “We kept just missing the man. Mollit was no help and complaining all the way.”

The very idea of Mollit in such a situation brought laughter bubbling to the back of her throat again.

“How I would like to have been with you.”

“How I would have liked to have had you there.”

“Did you miss me then?” she teased, hoping to provoke a smile, anything but the sad and serious line into which his mouth was pressed.

He shrugged, the gesture new to him. To Megan it was one more sign of the unexpected changes Reed had, this day, revealed to her. That he had penciled such drawings as had been since been formed into bronzes--that he should in any way express so much understanding of passions she had never dreamed him capable of feeling--astonished her. That he had so completely hidden a part of himself away from her was intensely intriguing--unsettlingly dangerous.

“Of course I missed you,” he said. “So like are our tastes, so in tune our sensibilities, the whole thing would have seemed a grand lark if only you had been there.”

But were they like? Were their sensibilities in tune? They should be having a grand lark now, given the situation’s humor. She took up another of his sketchbooks to hide her reaction, strangely saddened by his assessment and serious tone. They should both be giggling like children perched on the rock as they had so often in the past--hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, his hands touching hers as the pages of his sketchbooks turned from wonder to wonder. They did not laugh. She could not dismiss from her mind the sobering image of herself, cast in bronze, fighting off a satyr. She would never reveal the depth of her concern to poor Reed, who kept looking at her in the most pained manner. More than the bronzes, the feeling troubled her that she was losing him, and that she no longer knew who he was.

To hide her worries, Megan asked a stream of unending questions, drowning troubled feeling in normal, average words that did not really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Reed answered every question in detail.

Heads bent, one by one they examined his tight, accurate pencil, charcoal or conte sketches. There were written notes in most of the borders and an occasional watercolor like a splash of light and color, where Reed had taken the time to record his subject in the more time-consuming medium. Through the sketches they relived his Grand Tour--Paris, Lyons, Calais, Venice, Rome, Florence, Naples, Geneva and Brussels.

When they came to the last page, Megan leaned her shoulder against Reed’s with a sigh. “What an excellent guide you are! I feel as if I am just returned from a trip, not about to embark. Please tell me you mean to come to the Lakes. I cannot bear it that we should have no more than one day together before I go.”

“You forgive me then, for unintentionally turning you into a lover?”

His words caught her by surprise. For a moment she could not fathom his meaning. She turned to gaze at his profile, hope flaring briefly, like a fizzling Roman candle, before she connected his comment to the bronzes.

“Oh! Yes. I even forgive you the satyr.”

He smiled. Lord, help her, she really must learn to control the lunging of her heart whenever his dimples flashed.

“Will you come? Please say yes. It has occurred to me that this may be our last opportunity for a painting tour together.”

“Last opportunity? Don’t be silly,” he scoffed. “Life does not stop just because you are to have a summer at the Lakes and a Season in London.”

She was frustrated that he did not see what she so clearly feared, even mourned. “Life as we know it is likely to change,” she protested. “Augustus spent a single Season in London and returned to us engaged, with nothing but Tom and marriage plans on her mind. In a way, she never did come back to us.”

“And do you think to find yourself a husband with equal alacrity?” He seemed amused, even skeptical of the notion.

Her chin rose in defiance. “If I should find a likely lad, or if I decide after all to accept Harold’s offer, I would not at all mind being a married woman. I am not so talented a creature that I may scoff at marriage and make my living with my watercolors or gardening. I have few other skills to recommend me to spinsterhood. I am fully aware of the burden my continued presence may be to my father’s purse. As I am very good at managing a household on meager means, I think I will make some gentleman a useful wife.”

“Dear God, Nutmeg! I never thought to hear you so coldly discuss housekeeping and gardening as your only reason to consider marriage. What of the tenderer emotions? What of love?”

She regarded him too keenly, perhaps. He had trouble meeting her eyes. Why was it, she wondered, that their friendship in itself was not enough to satisfy her? Was she too selfish? She had thought about her feelings for Reed for a year now. She had resigned herself to putting a close to foolish excesses of emotion. And yet, cutting off love was far more difficult than expected. The gentleness of Reed’s manner and expression drew her as they always had. The sun, touching the strands of his hair, seemed more fortunate than she.

She shook her head, to shake away foolish thoughts and desires that would lead her into trouble. She must stick with her plan to fall in love with someone sympathetic to her love of beauty, someone tolerant of her painting. She meant to fall in love at the Lakes, or in London. The idea of marriage appealed. Megan had always pictured herself a wife and mother with home and family of her own. That the husband she had invariably imagined was Reed was the only part of the picture that had to change.

“Love?” she said. “Of course I want love, but I cannot go on expecting it to seek me out. I have decided to go in search of it.”

She waited, hoping he would contradict her.

He did not.

“Sounds a compromise to me.” He sounded not at all concerned and she wanted his concern. She needed it.

She could not respond in kind. Words burst from her lips without control, welling up from the heart of her, shaking with emotion. “Life is full of compromise. Every day we must make choices, many based not so much on what we want or pictured, but on what makes sense. Priorities must be set. We choose what is worthy of our time and energy, our efforts and love. We turn our backs on that which does not fall into one of those categories. We turn our backs and go on.”

“You would turn your back on love?”

“Love?” she exploded. “Again, you speak to me of love, when you have not the slightest notion what you refer to. Have you ever been in love, Reed? Will you ever let down the walls of invulnerability with which you surround yourself? How can you speak to me of love when you do not know the first thing about it?” She stopped the words that might have tumbled out--words that hung between them unsaid.
I love you!
she wanted to shout, to whisper, to cry
. I have loved you, adored you, cherished our every moment since the first moment I laid eyes on you. Do you know I lie awake at night thinking of you, longing for you to be near enough to touch?

Of course he did not know her feelings. He was completely blind to them, and she had never dared open his eyes. She bit her tongue and longed for recognition, awareness, compatibility of feeling. I cannot go on this way, she thought. Hoping, wishing and dreaming of miracles was a futile and frustrating existence.

“Do not speak to me of love,” she said tersely. “You know it not! You know me not!

She strode away, leaving him open-mouthed and speechless.

He ran after her, of course, baffled by her show of temper. He was entirely unwilling to have the day end in so unsatisfactory a manner when she had taken the whole blasted bronze business so very well. Gathering up his sketchbooks he tore after her.

“Nutmeg!” he called. “Wait. Please wait.”

He caught up to her because she turned in her tracks, expression drawn, mouth ready with something to say, something so important she could not continue to walk away. He found himself almost afraid of this young woman he thought he knew in every way, who had proven herself and her feelings complete strangers.

“Megan,” he took both her hands in his and blurted before she could devastate him with more truth. “You are quite right, of course. I don’t know love at all well. Never did, until I met you.”

Lips parting in surprise, her eyes lit from within, as if his words pleased her.

“Surely you know how dear you are to me? Why do you think I am always underfoot at Blythe Corners?”

She regarded him intently. He would have sworn she held her breath.

“Mine is not a loving home.” He cleared his throat. Such a thing was not easy to admit. “I feel more love among the members of your family than my own. It should come as no surprise to you that I have yet to succumb to a grand passion.”

Her lashes fluttered down to hide her eyes. Her mouth looked for an instant disappointed, but so fleeting was the impression he thought he must be mistaken. After all, he had said nothing to disappoint, surely. To the contrary.

“But you, Nutmeg. I am surprised at you. You grew up surrounded by love and affection. How can you speak so flippantly of marriage? I confess, it shocks and troubles me. I would not have you disregard so blithely something precious.”

Her gaze rose to meet his again, eyes shining unusually brightly. “I do not disregard it,” she protested. “I have, in fact, given the matter a great deal of thought. Far more than you will ever know.”

“Because of Harold Burnham?” He dropped her hands. There passed over her features, like a cloud passing over the face of the sun, the shadow of an emotion he could not read. She looked down. All he saw was the crown of her head as she asked him, voice low and serious, “I know you do not think Burnham is right for me, Reed. Tell me, who and what is right? What manner of man must I look for in marriage?”

Uncomfortable with the question, he tried to shrug it away. She would not let him escape so easily.

“Please!” She looked up, dark eyes serious. “I can think of no one whose opinion I might value more.”

“What manner of man?” He circled her, regarding her from all sides in a way it had never occurred to him to look upon her in the past. “Under whose care would I see you spend the rest of your life? Hmm.” He began with the obvious. “A kind fellow.”

“Kind?” She nodded.

He ticked a list off on his fingers. “Personable, intelligent and easy to talk to. He should be someone of common interests with an understanding and appreciation of your many talents. Preferably someone not given to vices like smoking, drinking to excess, gambling or whoring.”

Her brows rose.

He refused to be anything but completely frank. “I would hope him to be a man of some substance and means so that you need not worry about money. Most important, he must be a gentleman bent on maintaining your own happiness as much as his own.” He paused, a little unsure how to word his last recommendation.

“Sounds a splendid fellow.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Almost as if you have described yourself.”

He laughed. How ridiculous. How typically Megan to cast such a suggestion in his lap. “I am a splendid fellow. You’ll get no argument from me there, but I should like to think the man you marry will make your pulse race with anticipation whenever he is near.”

“What makes you think my pulse does not race even now?” Her smile was enigmatic.

Used to her teasing ways, he made a move to grab up her wrist. “Shall we give it the test?”

She turned from him, scoffing, “You would not recognize a rapid pulse if you had it beneath your thumb.”

Unwilling to be bested, he stepped in behind her, trapping her waist in the crook of his arm as if they were again children engaged in rough romps and placed his thumb firmly against the pulse point in her neck. She struggled against his hold, gasped at his touch against her neck and protested his manhandling physically by elbowing him smartly in the ribs. He let go, but not before the rapid beat beneath his thumb bespoke her agitation.