Chapter Fourteen
‘You look nervous,’ said John brightly as the carriage rattled.
Montague swallowed. He was nervous. He had just hoped John would not have noticed. ‘I’m not nervous.’
‘My father said boys don’t get nervous,’ John said, looking from his guardian to the window. ‘So I don’t. Not any more.’
Montague’s stomach twisted.
He had himself been forced to endure a similar lecture from his uncle, who had never been an understanding gentleman at the best of times. What his uncle viewed as weakness was not comforted, but punished.
And here beside Montague sat a…child. A child who was learning what the world was and what it was to be.
And the line ended here.
‘John,’ Montague said gruffly.
The child turned back to him, just a hint of fear in the corners of his eyes. But he had not flinched.
For some reason, that gave Montague heart. ‘John, being nervous…there is nothing to be ashamed of. It is just…a type of excitement. Of anticipation.’
John’s brow furrowed. ‘But you just said—’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Montague heavily. Hell’s bells, but it took a lifetime to unlearn this damned rubbish. ‘But I was wrong. I am nervous.’
The boy perked up. ‘Of Miss Oliver?’
Well, he was not entirely wrong. ‘A little. I…we have a competition.’
‘Yes, Aunt Louise told me,’ said John nodded sagely as the carriage rattled around a corner. ‘And you are nervous you are going to lose?’
I’m a little nervous I might win, was not what Montague said aloud. Instead, he grinned. ‘Yes. Or win. There is a win and lose in every situation, John. Nothing is wholly good, or wholly bad. That is what life is.’
Before he knew it, he was teaching a damned lesson.
Parenting.
Dear God.
‘I think coming to live with you has been all good,’ the little boy said seriously, his eyes wide as he looked up at Montague. ‘I… I haven’t thanked you.’
Montague’s throat closed up. ‘Oh—oh, you don’t have to—’
‘Thank you,’ said John, his voice low as he slipped his small hand into Montague’s much larger one. ‘For loving me.’
Hell on a horse, he was not going to cry. Or maybe he was. Maybe just as boys could be nervous, boys could cry.
Montague blinked back tears as the carriage drew to a halt. ‘Thank…thank you for letting me.’
The carriage was motionless and yet in this moment, he knew great strides had been taken. For both the little boys sat in this carriage.
And then John squeezed his hand. ‘Shall we see who won?’
Calliope stood in front of the large gold gilt frame and swallowed. Hard.
Oh… Botheration.
There had to be a better curse than that.
Hell. Hell, hell, hell.
It was good.
‘…such a striking choice of colour,’ an elderly woman was saying to the young gentleman who had her arm. ‘That blue.’
Calliope snorted, but flushed when the pair looked over at her. ‘I do apologise. A small head cold.’
She was not surprised they stepped back from her and then onwards to her own painting. Her own, potentially inferior painting.
All this time, and she had never expected Montague to do anything like this. It was…a marvel.
It was beautiful. The landscape scene was indeed taken from the cliff where she had asked the coach to set her down, but somehow he had captured something in his painting not even present in reality.
There was a softness to the light, a joy to the soaring sky, a drama in the rocks in the ocean below she had barely noticed when she had been there.
Of course, that might have been because Calliope was too busy arguing with Montague, falling into his arms and then storming away.
But still. Loathe as she was to admit it, Montague’s painting had serious merit. Far more merit than she had expected, in truth, and it was galling to discover such a thing.
Calliope shifted on her feet, hoping the movement would dislodge the sparking distress that had nestled in her chest the moment she had stepped into the Royal Art Gallery and seen… Well… That.
It did not work—as she had known it would not.
Montague Donovan, Marquess of Laidley, was going to come through that door, crow over her and demand her hand in marriage, and Calliope was finding with great disquiet in her soul that she both disliked the idea and yet rather relished it.
The idea of being proven the inferior artist was anathema to her.
The idea of being Montague’s wife…
Calliope swallowed as her aunt approached, her own sketchbook in hand.
‘A fascinating run of things so far,’ Aunt Louise said with a knowing smile. ‘Not that I can reveal the current scoring, you understand.’
Trying her best not to roll her eyes for her aunt was enjoying this far too much, Calliope replied stiffly, ‘You will have to buy a new hat.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t give up so easily,’ said her aunt, her smile genial. ‘Your painting has gained a great deal of interest, after all.’
A painting of hers on an art gallery wall.
For years—for perhaps her entire life, for Calliope could not recall a time when she had not, she had wanted to see her own art on a gallery wall. Not in their lodgings, where Ditty and Thalia could admire it, but in public, in the wild, as it were.
Her breath caught, again, as her gaze took in the crowd in the art gallery. They were not here due to family feeling, but to admire her art as an equal amongst all the other painters.
It was a moment she would never forget.
But Calliope barely gave her own contribution to the art competition a second glance. It had been foolish indeed to try and do something different to her typical fare. She had challenged herself, yes, and in a way she had enjoyed pushing her craft in a new direction.
But it would have dire consequences.
‘What do you think of his lordship’s piece?’ Aunt Louise peered at the painting as though she had never seen it before. ‘He certainly used your cerulean blue.’
That, at least, drew a smile from Calliope’s stiff lips. ‘Yes. I suppose he was not solely purchasing it to irritate me.’
Her aunt’s eyebrows rose. ‘You believed that was why he did so?’
Well, yes. Was not everything Montague did intended to infuriate her?
Calliope was saved from having to answer by the applause that was for some reason ringing out around the art gallery, though as she turned to look at the cause of such nonsense, she sighed.
She should have known.
Montague was raising a hand in genteel and humble acceptance of the praise ringing out around him. ‘Please, please—’
‘Such a splendid painting, I had no idea you—’
‘—never seen the like, I am indeed most impressed—’
‘If you would ever deign to consider selling, I would very much like to discuss—’
Calliope heaved a sigh and tried not to smile at the gracious way Montague was shaking hands with gentlemen and beaming at the ladies.
He was a charmer, that was for certain. The trouble was, he truly was talented. Perhaps being a marquess was wasted on him. Perhaps he should have gone into painting, made a living from his brush. Something she would never be able to do.
Who wanted to purchase art from a lady?
As a trio of simpering ladies stepped aside, Calliope caught sight of another person who seemed equally unimpressed with all the noise—little John, who was clutching Montague’s hand tightly.
Calliope’s heart softened. It was warming indeed to see the change in the child, though his nerves would perhaps take a little longer to fade away.
He had undergone much in his short life, but now he was with Montague.
And she could not help but feel that anyone living with Montague would spend a great deal of it happy.
Which was why it was more galling that she would soon be doing the same, all because his painting was superior to her own.
‘Miss Oliver,’ Montague said formally, bowing low as he and his ward reached Calliope and her aunt.
‘My lord,’ Calliope said graciously, curtseying low and wishing to goodness there was not an audience to their conversation. ‘I must congratulate you.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ he replied with a charming grin, his magnanimous answer all the more annoying. ‘The tally is not yet complete, is it, Mrs Gower?’
‘I will keep accepting votes until the top of the hour,’ said Calliope’s aunt, raising her voice slightly over the hubbub. ‘And if anyone wishes to register their vote, I will be over here, by the door. John, will you do me the honour of escorting me?’
It was cleverly done, as it always was with her aunt. Calliope smiled as the boy happily released his uncle’s hand and scampered over to Aunt Louise.
‘I’ve been reading about persplective and the use of triangles in art—did you know there are triangles everywhere?’
‘I did not! I think I need you to tell me all about it…’
‘She is a kind woman, your aunt.’
Calliope inhaled deeply, told her face it was not allowed to blush, even if all she could think of was the fact that the last time she had stood here she had been kissing the gentleman in question, and turned to him.
Montague was nauseatingly handsome and surprisingly close. The gaggle of people around them appeared to have lost interest, and they had gone back to their private conversations, most of them meandering off into other parts of the gallery.
‘She is kind, yes,’ Calliope forced herself to say. ‘And you no longer have to be. Go on. Tell me you have won.’
‘We do not know who has won, not yet,’ Montague said with a lopsided grin. ‘And besides, I have not seen your contribution yet.’
What the—
Calliope attempted not to let her shock show, but it was more than difficult. ‘You—you haven’t? I thought—’
‘I have only just arrived, as you can see,’ pointed out the infuriating man who made her want to take all her clothes off. Not here, obviously. ‘Please, it would be an honour to view it with you. The artist in hiding, as it were.’
Precisely what he meant by ‘the artist in hiding’, Calliope had no idea—and she had not actually intended to be present when Montague first saw what she had done.
It was increasingly feeling like a bad idea.
‘Oh, I’ll go over and see if my aunt needs—’