Lord Sidley's Last Season (24 page)

She could not have heard him aright. “My for-”

“I do wonder at your reticence now, though, Marian.
I think I must have come to rely upon your candor,
however unsettling to my peace. I’ve had great hopes
for your eagerness to share some news with me. Perhaps you attempt to spare my feelings? Or do you believe I have none worth informing?”

“I will not stay so that you might sharpen your wits-”

“I’m gratified that you grant me any, given the way in
which you confound them.”

“Surely for you to require frankness from me is outside of enough! You have no call to be angry.”

“Angry? My dear Marian, this afternoon, at your cousins’, I was disappointed, wholly frustrated, and at
the moment I am certainly impatient. But not angry. I
am rarely angry. And when I am, I do not sit and discuss it. Is your Lieutenant Reeves often angry?”

“William? Why, he-” She caught his look and
stopped abruptly. “You know.”

“Yes.”

“Katie?”

Sidley smiled. “Lady Katherine is most forthcoming.
Unlike her cousin.”

“I would have told you.”

“When?”

“As soon as I had arranged my future” She thought
his eyes looked very blue. She had not painted them
blue enough.

“Do you know, I have been regretting my artifice,” he
said easily, though the intensity in his gaze remained.
“Regretting it only with respect to you, my dear-until
today, when it became clear that your own surpassed
mine.”

“My artifice?”

“Certainly. Which exceeds mine, because yours is rehearsed. You would have me believe you do not care for
me at all, when you know that is simply not the case”

“Not care for-Why, what abominable pride!” Again
she popped to her feet. “Must Lord Sidley command
everyone’s affections, as well as all their attention?”

He obligingly stood as well. “Not everyone’s, Marian. Just yours.” As she gazed at him, he moved closer, to the fireside between them, and placed one hand upon
the mantel. “That is, of course, only possible if your affections are not still engaged elsewhere? I find I must
fight the impulse to call the lieutenant out-he has not
behaved at all well. And if he has hurt you, his actions
are doubly reprehensible. Still, though you find yourself temporarily at a loss, I cannot help but recognize
the man has done me a monumental favor.”

“It would not be your place, my lord, to call Lieutenant Reeves out…

“Not yet, certainly,” he inserted, leading her to
glance at him warily.

“And as for hurting me, I was astonished. I should
have wondered at myself had I not been. His marriage
was most unexpected. But my feelings were … that is,
I think that perhaps he must have performed a favor for
me as well”

“How so, my dear?”

“Why, if he did not care for me enough to be true,
then I am better unwed. And he has left me free to pursue my painting. With the payment you have made me,
if I am careful, I needn’t consider marriage at all”

He sighed. “There was that risk, of course”

“What risk, my lord?”

“Had you been alone, and poor, you might have been
receptive to another offer.”

“Lady Adeline mentioned the same. I have not been
in the marriage mart. And I am not so calculating.”

“Not calculating, Marian. Merely practical.”

“Why must you call me Marian? You should not…:’

“You must call me Sidley. Or better yet, Lee. Or perhaps something of your own devising, since I am to be
your patron.”

“My patron! My lord, I have finished with you.”

His gaze narrowed. “And now you are much too
blunt, my dear. Need I remind you that you are contracted to paint Jenny Knox?”

“I meant-I misspoke, my lord. I meant that I am not
your obligation.”

“Indeed? Yet I feel I have an obligation, one of sensibility if nothing else. I owe much to our understanding,
which I believe is considerable. You have not lived long
enough, my dearest Marian, to realize that such understanding is too rare to be dismissed.”

“But I do not need a patron”

She thought he smiled, though his lips did not move.

“Given your confidence, perhaps you never will. But
is some aid not preferable to employment as a copyist,
or retiring to quaint little Brinford to paint ladies’ fans?”
As her lips set stubbornly, he smiled openly. “Come,
sweet, what is your objection? That your pride confuses
patronage with pity? That as a woman and-pardon
me-a spinster, any help from a gentleman must appear unseemly? Or do you object because I am in love
with you?” As she stared at him, he repeated, “I am in
love with you, yes. I have been courting you, in my
fashion, since I first saw you.”

“In … your fashion! Whilst you have been openly wooing several others! Others much more eligible than
myself to serve as respectable consort to Lord Sidley!”

He shrugged but retained his smile. “I should never
have described them so. You did have a most inconvenient fiance. And I did not woo them, Marian. I reviewed
them. I chose to please my aunt”

“Lady Adeline! What must she think of such an
arrangement?”

“Do sit, Marian. Please.” As she backed to the chair
and collapsed into it, he asked, “Can you truly be so surprised? Have I not made my preference all too clear? I
thought myself as obvious as the weather.”

“I thought I-I thought I must have imagined much.”

He smiled. “I confess I also imagined much. Shall I
tell you what I imagined as you painted-all those hours
at Aldersham? I had to focus my thoughts as well as my
gaze upon the poetry books behind you, else I should
have gone mad with wanting to leap up and kiss you”

As she straightened, he placed one finger lightly
against his lips. “Pray bear with me, dearest, and permit me to do this properly. Tradition requires your patience for just one minute more. So”-he cleared his
throat “Green’s lines must serve me. `Oh, glorious
sun’-meaning you, of course, with your pride and talent
and, yes, apparent tendency to temper-‘imagine me the
west”’ He tapped his chest. “‘Shine in my arms”’ He
generously opened both palms to her. “‘And set thou in
my breast.’ Rather a wish than a command, you see,
and-as to the location of the heart-self-explanatory.”

That was enough. At the look on her face he instantly took the two steps to her chair and carefully
knelt on one knee before her. He could not have done
so as easily, she realized, had his coat been properly
buttoned.

“Dearest Marian, I need only have you come home to
me” He reached to cradle her limp hands. “You’ve
lovely, capable hands… ” He raised them to the warmth
of his lips, then pressed her unresisting fingers to his
chest. “… and a prodigious talent. But so have I-for
appreciating it. I shall never impede you. I’ve a persistent
belief we shall get on well together. Will you do me the
great honor, the inestimable honor, of becoming my
wife?”

“To marry you? You intend that I should be-”

“Lady Sidley. Yes. Shall you mind very much?”

“But you cannot want this! Your family-”

“As I am the last of it, I am free to set its course. My
aunt dotes upon you in any event. And, Marian .. ” His
gaze was very bright. Indeed, he was so close that she
could read her own reflection in his eyes. “Why should
I not want your passion and purpose? They speak well
of your capacity. In time, you might even come to love
me.”

“But I love you now! I quite adore you, as I suspect
you well know. I have been sick at heart, because you
must look higher. You are an earl! I am not right for you.
We cannot do this.” A gentle tug drew her protesting lips
to his. “There will be talk,” she whispered weakly.

“My love,” he said, moving to kiss her. “We do not
care. We shall not be here to listen.”

True to his word, Lord Sidley missed the greater part
of the following year in London, having taken his bride
on an extended tour of the Continent’s neglected treasures. The two returned in the spring, to a triumphant
viewing of Lady Sidley’s paintings in the next Royal
Academy exhibition. But the much-discussed likeness
of the earl was not among them. For, despite rumors
that the portrait hung privately at Sidley House, the
countess continued to claim that her meager talent
could never do her husband justice.