Laurie's Painter (sweet Regency romance) (14 page)

"Do come in if you
grow fatigued. There's no hurry with the painting."

She smiled her agreement. "Thank
you. I know there isn't, but I'd like to get something done today. You have been
so kind to us, and all we've done to repay you is eat your food."

Laurie opened his mouth as
if to protest, then shut it again, a strange light in his eye. He blinked once.
"You are very welcome here, you know that."

Jenny smiled at him. "Thank
you. You are the kindest of men."

He bowed again, but she
thought she saw a troubled look in his eye for an instant. He turned away and
left her to her paints. As she worked on the picture, she tried to puzzle it
out. It may have been her imagination, but for an instant she'd thought he didn't
want to go, that he wanted her to ask him to stay. But surely he had better
things to do than stand and watch a painter work, especially when he had
already agreed not to look at the work until she asked him to.

Soon the painting consumed
her, and she worked in a happy trance, setting out the colours and designs of
the painting as lovingly as she'd ever painted anything. Not until the light
had changed, the shadows grown long did she emerge from her artistic endeavours
to realise how late it had grown. Sitting in one position had made her muscles ache
and her arm fatigued from holding the brush. She looked up and noticed a
servant standing respectfully silent nearby, waiting to help her.

She apologised for keeping
him waiting, and began to pack up the paints, thinking how much she'd enjoy
working on this again tomorrow when the light was the same as when she'd
started.

Even as she walked toward
the large building through the shadows, she felt the comforting, absorbed
distance of her focus on painting fall away and real world worries intrude
again.

This idyll couldn't last
forever. Even here, the real world and darkness and dangers intruded.

Henry.

He wasn't recovering from
his winter exertions and the trip as well as he should have been, or as
quickly. He spent a lot of time in bed and obviously struggled not to be foul-tempered.
Even though he had rest, good food, and clean air, he was in pain. His face was
pinched.

Before he had been ill,
and any time he was feeling mostly healthy, Henry generally had the sweetest of
tempers. He was quick to laugh and slow to anger. But when in pain, his was a
different story. She always bore his bad humours well, and in Laurie she saw
much the same understanding. But understanding was not what was needed; it was
for her brother to get well.

And he was not getting
well.

~*~

"Miss Wilkenson,"
said Laurie, standing in the doorway, feeling oddly shy to enter his own
library. She made such a pretty picture there, sitting on one of his chairs and
reading one of the largest of the voyage books. He couldn't help thinking she
looked like a beautiful, rare, exotic butterfly that had alighted for a moment.
He didn't want to frighten her away. He wanted his Jenny to stay forever.

She looked up, smiled when
she saw him, and closed the book. "Hello." Wearing her lace gloves and
robin's-egg blue dress, she looked ravishing. Her face was clear and innocent,
free from care. Her hair hadn't even escaped its styling yet today. He loved to
see her thus, looking fully at peace and absorbed in a book. But he liked her friendly
smile of recognition more.

"I brought you
something." He stepped into the room and held out a paper-wrapped package.

"A gift? You shouldn't
have." She looked excited and consternated at once. But she reached forward
with alacrity to accept it. She looked up at him, eyes shining. "Thank
you, even though you shouldn't have."

She tore into the paper. "Oh!
Watercolours. Thank you. These will make such beautiful—" She stopped, an
expression of consternation entering her gaze. She looked up at him hesitantly.
"I—haven't any paper," she admitted. "We only brought canvases
and Henry's oil paints."

He saw in her eyes more:
she couldn't afford paper merely for her own enjoyment. Their work needed to be
serious, and every farthing saved for coal and bread and debts and everything
that so wearied Jenny and Henry. Even though he had paid off most of their
debts, he knew they would never rest until they were truly free of the last of
them. It hurt him to realise it.

"But I shall enjoy
using them a great deal when we go home," she added, lying solemnly and
smiling bravely at him. He could see the thought of leaving depressed her a
great deal. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her.

For once, he decided not
to resist this impulse. He stepped forward and took her carefully into his arms.

Jenny wore no scent. She
smelled clean, faintly of soap and fresh air. He tilted her face and kissed her
mouth carefully. Her lips were even softer than they looked. When he drew back,
her eyes were closed and she was leaning against him, her face upturned as if
imagining or remembering something rapturous.

"Jenny."

She opened her eyes and
looked up at him with a warm, sleepy desire and affection.
She enjoyed the
kiss as much as I did!
It warmed him clear through to recognise this, and
to see that she didn't feel the need to hide it from him. She... trusted him.

His smile was broad with
joy he had no adequate words to express. "Jenny, I bought you paper too."

"Oh." She drew
back and straightened her dress, smiling a little self-consciously but mostly
with pleasure and appreciation. "Th-thank you."

He was not certain which
she was thanking him for—the paints, the paper, or the kiss. Perhaps all three.
He wished she didn't feel the need to thank him at all, that she wouldn't
become formal again.

He opened his mouth to try
to express some of his thoughts and feelings to her, to try to get out the
words he most wished to say. His humour seemed to have abandoned him and he had
no idea how to proceed. But he had to try. Could he manage to fumble out serious
words that would convince her?

Just then, a servant
entered the room and announced it was tea time.

"Thank you,"
said Laurie curtly.

Jenny dropped her head and
blushed.

"Will you accompany
me to tea?" asked Laurie, wishing he knew when to be circumspect and when
to be bold with her. It was so difficult to be light-hearted about what had
come to matter to him most: Jenny.

"Thank you." She
accepted his arm. They walk from the room formally, with much still unsaid
between them—but perhaps with a small understanding growing. At least now she'd
know he didn't think of her merely as a friend. That had to be a start. He
would find the words; he would. It would be all right. Someday, she would truly
belong here on his arm. 

I'll make it work. I'll show
her I mean it, I'll earn her love, and when I ask, she won't possibly be able
to say no.

~*~

Jenny sat at a table with
her new watercolours and paper. Light spilled out over the picture she was
creating, and out the window the landscape stretched in front of her,
everything so green and alive. Spring, and this place, and watercolours, and
Laurie's kiss—what could make a more perfect day?

She hesitated, and then
added another daub of green to the tree's leafy top. It had been a long time
since she'd used watercolours, but it was just as enjoyable as she remembered.
Watercolours encouraged whimsy and demanded flexibility from the artist and a
light hand, because the medium itself lacked flexibility. One could not paint
over a mistake and start fresh, as with oil paints.

She preferred a light,
washed-out look so another layer could later be added on top of the first. That
was the effect she hoped to achieve for the tree. It was an oak of splendid
character, upright and strong and interesting-looking, as if it knew a great
deal of life and the human lives that had swirled around it so far.

A faint rustle of skirts
drew her attention, and she looked up to see Mrs. Joysey approaching. Laurie's
mother was still a beautiful woman, even though no one would mistake her for a
young one. Jenny thought her much prettier than Jenny ever could hope to be,
even with the advantage of youth.

She smiled at Mrs. Joysey.
"I'm sorry, am I needed for something? I wanted to test out your son's
lovely present."

Mrs. Joysey glanced at the
paper and the painting in progress. "Please continue. I just happened by
and wanted to see the artist at work."

Jenny tilted the paper so
she could see it more easily. "It's hard to tell much about a painting
before it's done, but you're welcome to look. I haven't used watercolours for
years."

Mrs. Joysey looked closely
at the half-painted tree. "Despite a lack of practice, your governess
clearly taught you well."

"Thank you."

She suddenly fixed Jenny
with a shrewd look and a faint smile. "I have never known my son to care
in the least about art before. I'm glad to see him taking an interest."

Jenny found herself
flushing. She looked down at the paper.

"Don't misunderstand
me, young lady." Elegantly gloved fingers reached out, rested lightly on
Jenny's arm with a faint pressure, and were gone again just as quickly. "I
do not disapprove."

And she was gone again,
just as quickly as she had come, with a quiet swish of skirts, leaving Jenny to
stare after her, trying not to gape.
She does not disapprove.
That could
mean so many things—and yet it had sounded like it meant one thing in
particular.

Jenny flushed a little
harder and bent over her painting, trying to concentrate on it. That proved
difficult.

Her lips still tingled. Even
now, hours later. She thought of his kiss, and pressed her fingers against her
lips. It had been a soft, friendly kiss, warming and stoking passions she hadn't
known she held.

A surprise, her first real
kiss. She'd decided it didn't count, being caught behind a fruit stand and
manhandled by one of the rough young men who carried crates. That, she had
hated. It made her feel dirty and ashamed and like crying.

But Laurie's touch was
gentle, cherishing. She couldn't help but trust him, and for a moment, she'd lost
herself completely to the safe feeling of being so close to him, and kissed. She'd
stayed there for a moment, eyes closed, relishing and living in this moment.

One thing she did wonder
about. If it was always so wonderful, how did married people ever get anything
else done?

I would think they would
be tempted to just stay indoors all day and never do anything else.

It hadn't occurred to her
until later that it was perhaps rather fast and forward of her to allow herself
to be kissed and revel in it.

But Laurie was her friend;
he might not mean anything serious by it. He'd given no indication he did. Perhaps
he was, after all, some sort of rake, even if she couldn't believe he would be
a really bad rake.

But whatever it had meant
to him, it had been the most beautiful gift for her. It had made her feel, for
one beautiful, blossoming moment, fully alive and beautifully womanly. That she
could be desirable, and enjoy this: he'd taken her deliciously by surprise, helping
her discover a feeling she hadn't known she'd ever have, or that it even
existed.

It was the best gift he
could've given her, better than all the paints and paper in the world. She
would cherish this forever, her first (and perhaps only) proper, real, loving
kiss.

~*~

Carrying two books, Jenny
walked out to the stone bench in the garden where Henry sat. It was later in
the day, and while she still thought about Laurie's kiss, it no longer consumed
her.

She breathed deeply of the
clean, green-smelling air and looked around with real pleasure at the plants
and the trees that were beginning to bloom. Her hands itched to get out her new
paints and try to capture this scene. Henry's oils weren't for play; they were
for work. Now, with Laurie's thoughtful and beautiful present she could play
with colour and light all she wished. He'd given her the time and freedom, too.

But right now her brother
was most important. "Do you feel like reading?" She held out two
volumes about painting and smiled at Henry hopefully.

He glanced at them
listlessly, and didn't raise a hand to take one. "No thanks." He
stared out over the gardens.

"Shall I sit with
you?" she offered, trying to hide her disappointment. Only when he felt
quite poorly did Henry grow disinterested in books.

"I'd rather be alone."
He didn't meet her gaze, and his tone was short and snappish.

"Of course. I hope
you feel better this afternoon." She retreated. Before she'd even moved
out of earshot, his coughing had started up again: hacking, terrible sounds he
couldn't conceal.

It made the estate and all
its books, grounds, and other wonders pale. Jenny hurried away and into her
room, unable to keep back the tears.

When Henry wasn't well
enough to go down to the evening meal that day, Jenny felt a sour fear replace
her hunger. Laurie also took note of Henry's absence.