Chapter 21 A Secret Revealed #2
So the next day, he was at his studio early, and had made good progress with his current project when the door opened, and his landlady showed in Lily and maid. The maid looked around her superciliously, her lips twisted into a sneer, but Lily — oh, Lily understood, just as he had known she would!
“Oh, I see!” was all she said, crossing the room to stand behind him, so that she had a view of the canvas.
“The young lady is Patty Glover, a scullery maid at a house in Berkeley Square. Today is her afternoon off. The other lady is her mother. Ladies, this is Her Grace the Duchess of Brinshire. No, Patty, pray do not move. Thank you.”
Mrs Glover, who had been leafing through a journal Lance had brought for her, jumped to her feet, a look of alarm on her face.
She dipped into a deep curtsy, dropping the journal in the process.
Lily’s maid retrieved the journal, and sat down beside her, engaging her in quiet conversation.
Lily, meanwhile, maintained her silence, simply watching as he daubed the canvas with swift strokes.
For some half an hour, he painted, acutely aware of her standing just behind him.
Had he always been so conscious of her presence?
He rather thought he had. Certainly, he missed her when she was not there.
Somehow, it felt right to have her there, and perhaps she felt that way, too.
She watched him when he sparred with Denny in the Marble Hall, too, their regular bouts to entertain the duke.
She was one of the first to arrive and the last to leave.
It was as if she were drawn to him, just as he was drawn to her.
Oh, such madness to think that way! Yet it was almost irresistible.
Eventually, Patty had to get back to work and she and her mother left.
Lance spent perhaps the most enjoyable hour of his life to that point showing Lily his previous works.
Crossing sweepers, cobblers’ apprentices, kitchen boys, under-grooms, milkmaids and endless street urchins — all had passed through his studio for a few coins and, sometimes, a meal or two, to be immortalised in oil paints in all their grime and rags.
There were old men and women, too, huddled in shawls, the weariness of hard lives etched on their faces.
Just as he had hoped, Lily asked no foolish questions. If she had ever said, “But why, Lance? Why do you paint such people?” she would have sunk in his estimation, but she did not.
“Such eyes!” she said, as she moved from one to another, propped against the wall for her to see. “Such knowing eyes. And how old is this one, would you say?”
“Seven… eight, perhaps. They grow up quickly on the streets.”
“He is probably a pickpocket.”
“Very likely.”
“Poor child!” she said. “And this woman? She looks about sixty.”
“Barely above forty,” he said. “She was a famous beauty in her day, she told me. Mistress to a viscount, for a while, but reduced to a less comfortable life latterly. Glad of a hot meal when she came to me.”
“How dreadful. Where is she now? Is there anything I might do to relieve her poverty?”
“She is beyond earthly aid,” he said. “I paid for her burial.”
Lily turned to him, her lovely face solemn.
“You are a good man, Lance Chamberlain. Thank you for showing me your secret. I am very honoured. You need not fear that I will betray you, and I will vouch for Allen’s discretion, too, but I do not know why you keep these wonderful portraits hidden away.
You should exhibit them, so that the world may admire your talent in full. ”
“No one wants to look at pickpockets, Lily,” he said quietly.
“Except you and me.”
She gave him her hand, and he lifted it to his lips without a word. Then, the maid still glowering at him, they left him to his own thoughts, which were both uplifting and yet filled with despair.
He knew now that this afternoon had been a test, for both of them. He had needed to know, and he had his answer.
But she was still the wife of the duke, and he understood what he must do.
***
Jamie knew that something had happened, but he could not guess what it might be.
His father, who had been so talkative in the carriage all the way from Staineybank, was now unusually silent, and Georgie looked pale and ill.
Her eyes were red as if she had been crying, and as soon as she had eaten dinner, she made an excuse and went upstairs to bed.
Jamie said nothing, waiting for his father to tell him what had transpired between them.
For a long time, he waited in vain. The table had been cleared of all but the cheese, nuts and port, and then a bottle of brandy was sent for.
It was not until the second glass that his father said, “Is it true? That you just… got drunk? And seduced her? You got her with child and were forced to marry? I had expected better of you, Jamie.”
Jamie removed his spectacles and laid them on the table.
“The getting drunk I will admit to, and certainly she was got with child, but as to what happened in between, neither of us can remember. Whether I seduced her or she seduced me or the seduction is to be laid at both our doors we shall never know.”
“Good heavens, Jamie! What a coil! I thought you had more respect for women than to take advantage in that way.”
“Take advantage?” Jamie said, astonished. “Is that how you interpret this?”
“How else might it be interpreted?” his father said coldly.
“We were equally drunk and therefore, one might argue, equally to blame for what happened after. Georgie certainly made light of it, and would quite happily have forgotten the whole incident, had there not been a child in the case. As to the cause of it, there is no need to speak of taking advantage! It was no such thing.”
His father rubbed his face tiredly. “I beg your pardon. I know that you would never ever do anything so reprehensible. Even a whole bottle of brandy could not induce you to forget yourself so far as to force yourself on a woman.”
“I certainly hope not,” Jamie said, although a corner of his mind would forever wonder if he had indeed done just that. If only he could remember!
“An awkward business,” his father said, refilling his brandy glass.
“Naturally, you had to marry, but why rush off for a licence at Oxford? You could have been married in just as much haste at Staineybank, with your own friends about you, and with your father by your side, as I should have been. Who gave Georgie away?”
“A neighbour.”
“You see, I could have fulfilled that office for her, or any of the Staineybank men. Richard Merrington, perhaps, or even the duke. But to sneak away like that… and then pretending to an affection neither of you felt… It is deceitful, Jamie, very deceitful, yet we all believed it… even I was convinced! You could surely have confided in me — your own father! It is a shade disappointing that you did not trust me with your secret.”
“It seemed best at the time,” Jamie said neutrally, too weary to go into all the reasons for the decision.
His father chuckled. “Aye, I suppose you wanted it hushed up as far as possible. No one likes to admit that marriage was forced upon him by a drunken night of pleasure. And now she has lost the child… or so she says. Can you even be sure there was a child?”
Jamie slammed down his brandy glass and rose to his feet, towering over his father.
“Certainly there was a child, and if you ever, ever suggest the contrary to me again, then all amity between us will be at an end, Father. Georgie is a good woman who would not deceive me. She was with child, she was thrilled to be so and is devastated now. I will not hear a word spoken against her, do you understand?”
His father leaned back in his chair, eyebrows raised but with a gleam of interest in his eye.
“I understand very well. I was not mistaken, then, when I told her you are fond of her, but you have not told her so yourself, have you?”
“What has that to say to anything?”
“Jamie, she thinks you resent her.”
“Why on earth—? Oh, because we had to marry on account of the baby, and now there is no baby, is that it? But I do not— Surely she must know—?”
“No one knows anything, not for sure, unless the words are spoken, son. Just talk to her, openly. Tell her how you feel. That is all.”