Chapter 18 #2
But no, because the evil aunt deserved every minute of every headache for not treating Min like an absolute princess.
Just think, if she’d bothered, she could’ve brought Min out years ago, given her a London season, and they would have been reunited maybe only two years after they were parted and then… and then…
Then he wouldn’t have forgotten about her for seven years like the idiot, good-for-nothing wretch he was.
Jack scowled at an entirely innocent painting of a Dutch landscape, another peal of laughter reaching his ears. But it was closer, softer. It was Min laughing at something Mr Thorton had said.
If it hadn’t been for George, Jack might have wondered if it was the portrait painter who’d captured her interest, even if he was too old for her.
She’d spent the whole visit so far hanging on his every word, and was now speaking to him avidly, blushing, her voice low, Cotton having left the two of them alone.
But what little snippets of conversation Jack managed to overhear as he sidled a few paintings closer were innocently focused on art and only art.
Until he distinctly heard Min utter the word nude.
His head whipped round so sharply he cricked his neck.
Thornton looked up, catching his eye. Smiling, he came over with Min and nodded toward the canvas before Jack. “You seem very taken with this work of Howard’s. Venus and Cupid. A very popular subject, of course.”
Jack took another look at the painting and was startled to find himself looking at a semi-nude goddess, the globe of one full white breast barely concealed. He glanced from the painting to Min, found himself blushing, and looked away.
“Makes a difference from the horses,” he said, wishing Thornton wasn’t observing him with quite such a knowing smile.
“Ah, yes, one must marvel at the way the Royal Academy arranges its exhibitions.” Thornton chuckled.
“A dozen portraits of young ladies, a dozen more of landscapes and horses, and then a dash of the classical, just to wake us all up again. Rather like one of Haydn’s symphonies.
” He chuckled again, looking back at the painting.
Min moved closer to examine it too, her eyes running over the semi-nude figures in dispassionate, intelligent study and with no trace of embarrassment at all—until she happened to glance up at him and, finding his eyes upon her, turned away.
“You’re a lover of the romantic, Lord Orton?” enquired Thornton.
“Ah… I… I suppose as much as any man.”
Thornton laughed as though this was a great witticism. “Diplomatically put! Then perhaps this painting appeals to you more as a lover of the classics?”
“Calling myself a survivor of the classics would be more accurate.”
“Yes, they do rather force them on us at school, do they not, no matter our aptitude or appetite for them. I, fortunately, did happen to appreciate them. And I confess I’ve always enjoyed the story of Cupid.
The son of both war and love. It’s apt for the god of desire, don’t you think?
His arrows cause as much pain as pleasure. ”
Noting the uncomfortable glance Jack gave Min—who had turned her back and appeared deep in contemplation of a field of cows, Thornton smiled.
“Not a fit subject for ladies, I suppose you’re about to warn me.
Don’t worry, us artists are in general an open-minded, unshockable species.
One must be, you understand, to truly view the world.
For example, Miss Fanshaw and I have just been having a most interesting conversation about the iniquities of artistic censorship, have we not, my dear? ”
Min, cheeks now very red, turned back, startled. “Oh! Y-yes… But I—”
“Never fear, I’ll not bore Lord Orton with a repetition of it. I only mention it to reassure our very proper friend here that there are few ladies who could object to Cupid’s appearance, and that Miss Fanshaw is unlikely to be one of them.”
As the groups once more separated outside Somerset House, Jack discovered that George was expected at Miss Sedgewick’s for dinner that evening. A small, informal party of the most intimate friends, Caroline informed him with a significant smile.
“And am I not?” Jack returned, offended.
“You must know you are! And if you return home this very instant, you’ll find that the note of invitation I sent to you this morning will have preceded you.”
But Jack didn’t return home, nor did he accept Warde’s invitation to ride out, or keep an only informally made agreement to call on an acquaintance that afternoon.
Instead, he accompanied the ladies on foot from Somerset House, escorting them on the little errands of shopping they had, then on a visit to drink tea with an old, shabby-genteel school friend of Caroline’s—who lived in an unfashionable street he’d never set foot in his whole life—before escorting them all the way back to their house.
He finally bid them adieu on their doorstep, priding himself on having been exactly the proxy George would undoubtedly have wished and on having only accidentally called Lucy Min once.
Out loud, at least. The inside of his own head was slower to make the change.
But he arrived back at Caroline’s later that evening for dinner with a degree of anxious trepidation.
It was the first time he’d rung her bell pull with anything other than the expectation of flirtation and idle enjoyment.
Now he felt oddly tight, as though all his insides had been spun around a cotton reel, one of those new machine-powered devices, whirling dizzyingly fast. His heart was going fast too, and his hands were burning and sweating uncomfortably in his gloves.
But it was only curiosity, this jittery feeling. The strangeness of seeing Min and George together for the first time. Though he’d seen George smitten before—the man had been in calf love a half dozen times. But Min… How would she look at a lover?
The idea of Min as amour, as beloved… The idea that George looked at her and saw a wife…
It would be real then. Written into the air between them. Secret looks and touches that told a story old as time.
He broke out in a new sweat, wishing he was out of his greatcoat, out of his tails, clawing the cravat from his neck.
Jack had surely spent too much time around art and artists today—around Thornton and Cotton with all their talk of seeing truly.
Was this odd, dislocating sense of the world having changed what they meant by shifts in perspective?
Was this the disorientating sensation Cotton sought via brandy and opium?
The familiar made strange? The man could keep it. Jack didn’t like it one bit.
William took his hat and gloves in the hallway, and Jack, a frequent friend of the house, made his way to the parlour without introduction. He walked in to find Min and Caroline sitting side by side on the small sofa and George standing at the window. All three of them gave a guilty start.
“Why the shock?” he asked, half smiling, as he walked into the room with a raised brow. “I’m expected, am I not?”
“Yes! Yes, of course,” agreed George hastily. “Didn’t hear your carriage, that’s all.”
“I walked.”
“It’s only that we were just talking about you,” Caroline said, smiling now and with no trace of discomposure. She stood up and held out her hand.
“It can’t have been anything good, judging from George’s face,” said Jack, giving her fingers a brief squeeze.
“Of course it wasn’t! Friends never speak politely about each other. We know too much for that.”
“Hm. And there’s someone here who knows me better than anyone. Hello, M—Lucy.”
She’d stood too, and he now gave her fingers a warm press, accompanied by a smile. “What horror stories have you been telling them?”
She was dressed in a green satin evening gown—he spotted Caroline’s influence again.
It was a colour he couldn’t remember seeing her in before, and it worked well to bring out the warm, chestnut undertones of her abundant curls, just as the low neckline worked well to… Well. He shouldn’t be looking at that.
A pink flush spread among her freckles, and Jack reluctantly let go her fingers, adding, “Though I should warn you to speak wisely, old friend, lest I share a few horror stories of your own youth.”
She narrowed her eyes in a look he remembered well—it was often a prelude to horrible boy.
But George intervened, coming to her side and tucking the fingers Jack had just relinquished under the protection of his arm.
Red in the cheek but with gallant firmness, he protested, “No, Jack! That will not do. A fiancé outranks an old friend, you know. I won’t let you bully and tease my wife-to-be.
Admit it now, before us all as witness, that you haven’t a single story to threaten Lucy with.
She was as perfect and blameless a child as she is a woman. I stake my life on it.”
Jack gave a tight chuckle and found himself heading towards the decanters clustered on the cherrywood table at the side of the room. The man was clearly smitten. If it had been aimed at anyone but Min, it would’ve been nauseating. Jack’s stomach twisted, regardless.
“You’re right, of course.” He poured something amber into a glass, not caring what it was. “I’ve never found a fault in Miss Fanshaw.”
“What n-nonsense you both speak!” protested Min.
“Nonsense?” He sipped his drink, lingering on her blush, red as cherries.
The neckline of that dress was absurd, however glorious she looked.
George should say something. Any man could just stand there ogling.
He lifted his eyes and found her blush hadn’t lessened at all.
“True. You do have one fault—a lifelong one. Which is your unfortunate taste in friends. But here”—he raised his glass as though in a toast towards the couple—“here is George to appreciate you as you deserve. And Miss Sedgewick too. You are finally among people good enough for you.”