Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
To Lucy’s surprise, Jack looked furious, staring hard at Mr Thornton. In the coldest voice she’d ever heard him use, he said, “I’d like a word with you, sir, tomorrow morning. I have quite a lot I’d like to say. But not now. My only concern is to take Miss Fanshaw away from this…situation.”
Lucy frowned, all her anxiety replaced by a dawning unease. “Jack…”
“You’d do better to speak to Miss Fanshaw than me,” said Thornton, amiable but cool. “All I have to say to you, my lord, is that you’re making a mistake.”
“Mistake! By protecting one of my dearest friends from the danger and damage that you have subjected her to?”
Lucy grew hot, her fears realised. Thornton smiled thinly. “In this, I assure you I’m being a better friend to Miss Fanshaw than you are. I hope, for her sake, you realise it soon.”
Jack only retorted, “Tomorrow, sir,” then, taking Lucy’s belongings from Thornton’s hands, he once more took her by the arm and steered her out of the house.
“For goodness’ sake, Min,” he hissed as they hurried down the stone steps and into the dark street.
“What the devil were you thinking?” He tucked her sketchbook under his elbow then threw her cloak around her shoulders.
He was fastening it under her chin when he looked up and met her eyes, his fingers stumbling at her expression.
She was so angry her voice shook. “How dare you!”
“Min, you have no idea of the repercussions of—”
“Not Min. Lucy. And I have every idea of the repercussions. What you do not understand is that I do not care. It is my choice to be there, Jack! My choice! And I have fought so hard to even get that choice at all. How dare you turn up like that, embarrass me, frighten me with some story about an emergency, then march me out as though I am nothing but a common prisoner! How dare you, Jack!”
The last part was a shout. Jack stood, stunned. She didn’t think she’d ever shouted in her life. Certainly not at him.
Snatching her sketchbook from under his arm, she turned, striding rapidly away down the lamp-lit street. Jack hurried after her, but she shook off his attempt to take her arm and make her stop.
“Wait, Lucy, wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”
“You never do!”
“Please… I know I could have handled it more tactfully—”
“You humiliated me! And in front of Mr Thornton too, when he has been so generous, so encouraging…”
“Lucy,” he implored, but she hated the soft, self-righteous note in his voice. Just as she hated the way her true name on his lips always skated right down her spine.
It was a mistake to make him call her Lucy.
“How could I let you harm your reputation?” he continued, but she wouldn’t look at the coaxing pity in his eyes either.
She made a study of the light and shadow on the dark cobbles.
“You understand the impropriety of attending such a place, I know you do. You might not care what society thinks of you, but I do, and I won’t have you snubbed and cut, subjected to hurtful comment, made easy prey for every man who thinks your virtue unprotected…
For God’s sake”—he dragged off his hat to hook agitated fingers through his hair—“I care about you! I wouldn’t see my sisters, my friends, any woman of my acquaintance ruined. ”
“It is worth the sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice! Your reputation in tatters, your name in the mud!”
“You forget, Jack, I have already made an excellent match.”
Something in his face shuttered—she looked up in time to catch that, already regretting it.
So much for honesty! He looked away, jaw tight, silent for once, and her heart wrenched.
But she was goaded past endurance, hurt to her core, because this was Jack, Jack, who’d once defended her art and now couldn’t see how much this meant to her.
The yellow lamp lights did nothing but pick out the angles of his face, the ridiculous beauty of his jaw and the line of his lashes. She could watch him while he looked away and see the way he swallowed, the way he moved his jaw as though to speak, then swallowed whatever those words had been too.
“I’m not stopping you drawing or painting,” he said quietly. “You can do as much of that as you like. At home.”
Lucy gave a bitter laugh. “And how am I supposed to get access to a model? You don’t understand any of it.”
“There are a hundred things you can draw without needing…needing to draw that.”
She coloured, his prudishness making everything seem more sordid than it was.
“Oh, you are just as bad as the rest of them. I am so…so disappointed in you.” Her voice cracked, but she steadied herself, certain, for once, that she was right and he was wrong.
“You are judging and condemning me for doing what every male artist has always been allowed to do. For men it is not even worthy of comment; it is as small a thing as sharpening a pencil or mixing a colour. But for women…!”
His eyes met hers for a moment, his brow lowered, mouth frowning. But he was listening.
“Why does it have to be so different for us?” she pressed, giving voice to everything she’d stored inside for so long.
“Do we not have bodies too? Do I not have a body, Jack? Flesh and blood and bone. What is the shame in that, in these parts of us that move and carry us around, these parts of us that are the visible expression of ourself in this world—or is that what you men hate so much? That women be allowed to exist at all, to take up space with our bodies, or even our minds and voices? Should we be silent and invisible and our bodies only there for the use of men?”
“Hate?” repeated Jack faintly. “I’ve never hated any part of you. I never could.”
“But you would stop me doing what I love! You would stop me doing what I need to do. I’d go mad, Jack. If I can’t create the things I want to… You can’t ever understand it, but I’d go mad.”
She whispered the last part, the sting of tears in her eyes, and that pain, that heartbreak pain, squeezed her throat. He would never understand.
Jack shook his head as though dazed. “You’re putting thoughts in my head that have never been there. I’ve never thought about any of this in that way before. I only thought about your safety, about keeping you safe…”
“And what about my happiness? What of that?”
He shook his head again, as though to clear it.
“I…” It was a long pause. He stared up the street.
“You are right.” More firmly, he repeated it.
“You’re right. I didn’t think about it that way.
I didn’t think what it means to you, or what I was asking you to give up.
Again—again—I only thought of my own wants: to keep you safe, to protect you.
But that is what I want, isn’t it? It’s what I want because to me you are…
you are precious.” Another small pause, whisper soft. “But it is not my choice to make.”
He looked at her, but it felt like a conversation he was having with himself.
An old argument that had been gone over before.
And one that he always lost. He stayed looking at her for a long time, grey eyes dark in the shadows.
The rattle of a passing carriage came from the end of the street, and somewhere a watchman cried the hour.
“Does George know?” he asked quietly. “Does he approve?”
A jolt went through her, and she fought back a blush. “No. He does not know.”
“And…” he began tentatively, “and hiding it from him doesn’t give you pause for thought?”
“I am not hiding it! It has never…never come up.”
Jack gave her a strange look. “You don’t discuss such things?”
“George trusts me.” Her voice was prim and awkward from the lie.
“You should tell him,” Jack said. “Your husband…your husband should know of something like this. George is far more fastidious than I am in matters of propriety, Lucy. I really think it might be wise to…to discuss something of this with him, before… Well. You know what I mean. I want you to be happy.”
Before they were married was what he meant. Before it was too late.
Lucy looked down, fiddling with the frayed corner of her sketchbook. There was a long pause. She couldn’t look at him, not with this particular sting of tears in her eyes. Her guilt was too loud.
“You can go back,” Jack said softly. “Now or next week. I won’t stop you.”
The words, so gently spoken, sent a quiver through her.
They stung that torn, heartbroken part of her.
But her gratitude felt like weakness, and she stiffened against it.
“I do not need your permission.” She spoke without anger, but firmly.
“I am going to go, whatever you say or do. That is, if Mr Thornton will allow it after tonight’s disruption. ”
“No one has come out yet. They’re still all there. I can escort you to the door.”
But she shook her head, feeling weak again, though she knew it was the truth as she admitted, “I can’t tonight. I can’t face them after…” After her embarrassment. After this—this conversation in the street. She had no bravery left. “It’s pointless going back tonight anyway.”
“Why?”
“I was trying to get enough sketches to complete a piece—only pastels, there is no time for oils. But there is a meeting of the Royal Academy in a few days’ time.
Mr Thornton was going to sponsor my submission.
It might have led to something—even getting my piece chosen for exhibition or at least beginning to get my name noticed.
But there is no time to complete it, not really.
And…and anyway, the model was not…not quite what I needed. ”
“How so?”
She had to press her lips against an awkward smile. “He was…a little lacking in stature.”
“Ah.” Jack cleared his throat and looked away. After a short pause, his voice brisker, he said, “It’s very late. Will you let me take you home, Lucy?”
She nodded.
“Let’s give that cab man something to do, eh?” he said, a smile in his voice, but it was strained and false. “He’s had entertainment enough watching us these last few minutes.”
If the hackney driver was wary about admitting an argumentative couple into his cab—one a lady out at night having a publicly heated conversation and therefore clearly of dubious quality—Jack’s authoritative shout to hail him seemed to reassure him.
Lucy eyed him as he strode to the cab’s door.
Tall, handsome, confident, and well dressed, he was obviously a gentleman of good ton.
But who knew what the little creature was that followed him inside, her cloak subdued, a sketchbook in her arms. She could’ve been a seamstress with a portfolio of designs.
She could’ve been a brothel madam with a book of available wares.
Society, she thought bitterly, would always take the most spurious path. And the lowest.
The house was quiet and sleeping when she returned home.
Or perhaps Caroline was still out somewhere.
Jack watched her to the door, leaving her with a promise to call tomorrow—with his mother, she learnt with surprise.
She went to her bedroom, unsure whether she dreaded the visit or not.
A long hour staring at the ugly pencil mark his shocking appearance had scored across her work left her undecided.